Fargo rode slowly around Lake Bridger to his camp and dismounted, tossing the reins forward while he checked his trotline. He pulled off three plump trout and an even plumper bass, throwing them into a fiber sack and riding back up to the house with his catch.
Fargo skipped the usual invitation to supper. He wanted to get back to his camp while there was still light and check for sign. First he stripped the leather from the Ovaro and led him to the lake to drink. Then he inspected the stallion’s hooves for cracks or stone bruises before rubbing him down good and tethering him in good graze beside the water.
Fargo began by itemizing his possessions. His bedroll, coffee and coffeepot, sugar and canvas groundsheet—all highly prized by most tribes—hadn’t been stolen. Neither had a burlap sack filled with strips of jerked buffalo. All this troubled Fargo. Theft of these goods would have been petty compared to the other possibility: that someone was watching his camp and reporting to Jackson Powell.
Next he began the painstaking work of studying the ground closely. The grass was thick and ankle-high, so he studied it carefully for any indentations made by feet, animal or human. Only by lying flat on the ground did he finally detect one possible print. The grass was still springing up within it, and Fargo estimated it was only hours old. The flat evenness of it, with no heel depression, suggested it had been made by a moccasin. However, he could detect no other prints.
Meaning the interloper possessed excellent trail craft. The scum buckets siding Jackson Powell were board walkers, so this was likely an Indian. But why, Fargo wondered, would an Indian leave his goods alone—especially the highly prized and hard-to-come-by sugar? A red man generally saw unprotected goods as “there for the taking,” but this one evidently didn’t want Fargo to know he was around.
Was he just a spy for the local Utes? Or were his skills for hire to Jackson Powell? Most important, Fargo wondered, was he only a spy or was he also an assassin?
After dark Fargo skipped his usual fire and brought the Ovaro in close. No matter how good this intruder was, he’d catch a weasel asleep before he got past the Ovaro. Fargo rolled out his blankets and grounded his Henry close to hand. He stretched out without unbuckling his gun belt, lying on his back and gazing up at the star-shot sky through a break in the trees.
He watched a falling star streak in a bright arc across the black velvet sky. The singsong cadence of insects lulled Fargo, as did the soft splashes of fish from the lake only thirty feet away. Far away a wolf howled, the mournful sound slowly dying out as it reverberated across the mountain. The Ovaro, busy taking off the grass, lifted his head now and then and snuffled before sampling the air.
Fargo’s eyelids began to feel weighted down with coins. They were just beginning to tremble shut when the Ovaro snorted. Fargo was instantly alert, his right hand wrapping the walnut grips of his Colt.
That single, soft snort did not mean certain trouble. The stallion might have heard a rabbit in the brush or a snake slithering past. Fargo began to feign the slow, regular breathing of sleep, listening intently to the woods around him.
The very faint whisper of bushes brushing against someone or something, coming from behind Fargo in the thickets, made him ease the Colt out and thumb-cock it. If this was indeed a human intruder, he told himself, he was damn good—even the Ovaro had not yet alerted.
The faint whisper edged closer, but the intruder was downwind of the Ovaro and gave no telltale scent. Fargo waited another thirty seconds, his scalp sweating. He was not facing the danger, and waiting too long might send him under. Fargo planted one elbow to rise when a feminine voice startled him from the shore of the lake.
“Skye? Skye, are you awake? It’s Susan.”
Fargo cursed as he heard footsteps fleeing behind him. He shot to his knees, spinning, and opened up with his Colt, sending all six slugs after the fleeing man. Susan, thinking she was the target, screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Hang it, girl!” Fargo grumbled. “Pipe down with the caterwauling! I was shooting at somebody else.”
She joined him in the moonlit clearing. “Thank goodness. But who was it?”
“I can’t say right now, but he’s been watching me. Could be a Ute spy or somebody working for Powell. I thought I told you it’s too dangerous around here now for you to be traipsing around after dark. Powell likely knows where my camp is by now, and you could get caught in some nasty cross fire.”
“All right. But I better warn you that Inez is on the warpath. She overheard Steve telling Jess all that happened today down in Buckskin Joe. She blames it all square on you—calls you a rough, untutored bachelor of the forest and a cold-blooded killer. Says you’re corrupting Dave and the boys, turning them into outlaws.”
Fargo grinned in the darkness. “Untutored bachelor, huh? What did Dave say to all this?”
“Now, that’s the surprise. He told her to shut her mouth because you were right about how the cow doesn’t bellow to the bull. He said if she didn’t ‘sew up her lips,’ he was going to take her over his knee.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Fargo gave a loud bark of laughter. “Did she shoot him?”
“No, she ran into the bedroom crying. Took that little box of hers with her—I think she was going through it when I left.”
“Damn,” Fargo mused, “I’d give a purty to know what’s inside that thing.”
“Can we . . . lie down for a bit before I go back?”
Fargo felt an instant stirring of arousal, but fought off the flaring of loin heat. “If I was ever tempted . . . but we can’t. That intruder could be anywhere out there and there’s no better time to kill a man than when he’s having fun with a woman. C’mon, I’ll walk you back to the house.”
Susan stood on tiptoes and whispered in his ear, “Why don’t we stop in the shadows halfway around the lake and I’ll do something quick for you—something wicked girls back in Iowa call bobbing for apples?”
Fargo had a rigid sense of duty, but suddenly something else was rigid, and the way her hot, moist breath felt in his ear weakened his resolve. Sensing that he was wavering, she added in a hot, airy murmur, “Ever since I first saw your hard pecker, I been wanting it in my mouth. Please? The possible danger only makes it more exciting.”
“C’mon, pretty lady,” he said, taking her hand. “You’re a mite unusual, but I confess I like that.”
Both of them strode quickly in their eagerness. Halfway around the eastern shore of the lake, Susan announced, “I can’t wait any longer” and curtseyed in front of Fargo, untying his fly. His manhood came ejecting out, a curved saber that jumped hungrily.
“That’s plenty but I want everything you got,” she said in a lust-deepened voice. She fumbled his gun belt off and unfastened his trouser belt, letting them drop. She cupped his sack and made an excited little murmur.
Susan nudged him into a white birch just behind him.
“You’ll need support,” she assured him in a husky voice, “when I make you go off.”
A hot, wet, tight envelope slipped over his man gland as she took the first half of it into her mouth. Her right hand wrapped the part that she couldn’t tuck away and worked him in a tight fist while she kissed, licked, nibbled, and sucked the rest. Her left hand stroked his sac. Fargo never bothered to tell women that fondling a man’s balls was a waste of time for the man—he felt nothing. Just then, however, a tailing wind gathered her loose blond hair and blew it around his pouch in a silken tickle that was surprisingly pleasant.
She had been right when she promised it would be quick. She felt his staff growing rock hard and knew what was coming, furiously pumping her head on him faster and faster. The pleasure built to a throbbing, tickling heat, and then Fargo exploded so hard he would have collapsed if not for the tree behind him.
Fargo, breath heaving, slid slowly down the tree and sat in a dazed silence for a full minute or so.
“Nice?” Susan asked him.
Before he could answer her, Inez’s voice shouted from the darkness ahead. “Susan! You, Susan, are you out there? Get up to the house right now!”
“I’m coming!” Susan shouted back as Fargo helped her to her feet. Then, to Fargo, she added in a whisper, “I wish I was,” before she scampered off.
Fargo grinned, watching the white-clad shape disappear like a wraith. “The danger only makes it more exciting, huh?” he muttered. “Well, then, dumpling, it’s gonna get mighty exciting.”
* * *
Long into the night, Jackson Powell met with his three surviving lieutenants in Last Stand Gulch.
“It’s true I gave you the nod on killing Otis Scully,” he berated his men, “but I also warned you how not to try killing Fargo. He’s filled entire rooms in hell with fools who tried to confront him head-on.”
“We didn’t plan on it, boss,” Brassfield said. “It was Phil’s foolish call when he went for his hideout gun.”
Powell paced beside a small fire in front of his tent. Now and then he glanced up toward both lips of the gulch, where sentries were now posted night and day. “Christ, I’m going broke just paying guards. And if this thing drags on, lads, those chickenshit prospectors will form a security force. Granted, they’re poor shakes as fighters, but Fargo could motivate a beaver to attack a grizzly.”
Gus Latimer said, “I think it’s already happening, Mr. Powell. I saw Chicken Pete and a bunch more near his claim. Don’t seem likely they was discussing the causes of the wind.”
“You can carve that in granite. That’s why it’s imperative that we rub out Fargo as soon as possible. I’ve actually considered sending that thousand dollars back to the Holmans just to placate Fargo. But it won’t make a damn bit of difference—he’s on a blood vendetta against me.”
“Hell,” Latimer said, “why’n’t I just force his hand in a draw-shoot? You yourself said he ain’t as fast as me.”
“Yes, and you admitted he’s killed draw-shoot artists that were faster than he is. Something about his eyes, you said. Does all that not apply to you?”
“I admit I ain’t too keen on the idea,” Latimer allowed. “I been to school on him, and it’s a hard lesson. There’s something about that son of a bitch that can make a man wonder if he really owns a pair. He always goes for the head shot, though, and it would be a quick way to die if a man wanted to.”
Latimer’s tone had altered as he spoke, almost as if he were musing to himself. When he realized the other men were staring at him—hard—he suddenly became all business.
“But he’s startin’ to bite at me, boss, bite real hard. I ain’t never backed down from any man, and if old Long Shanks decides to jerk it back, I’ll smoke him like Cincinnati chicken.”
Powell tugged at his spade beard. “That’s what rankles at me. I have been tempted to sic you on him, but if he burns you down I lose a top hand. And if he turns you into a gone-up case, it unnerves the rest of the men.”
“Maybe the notion of killing Fargo is too rich for everybody’s belly,” Brassfield said sarcastically, “but if we don’t, we’re just washing bricks around here. That’s the long and short of it, so why all this female whining over it?”
“Come down off your hind legs, Billy,” Powell said evenly. “Of course we’re going to kill him. But remember my earlier warning: It has to be from ambush. Preferably when he’s distracted—in the rut, for example. Injin Slim reported to me today. He’s done a good job of spying on Fargo, learning his habits, when he comes and goes from that camp of his. After dark he’s staying on him like ugly on a buzzard. As a matter of fact, Slim and I have cooked up a nasty little surprise for Fargo—something that will unstring the nerves of that cocksure bastard.”
“What?” demanded Latimer.
“We’ll discuss that later, Gus.”
Powell paused to pull a burning stick from the fire, lighting his slim black Mexican cigar. The red-orange glow outlined his hatchet profile.
“On another note, Slim reports that Dave Holman’s sister comes out to Fargo’s camp. Or perhaps it’s even Holman’s wife, he’s not sure. Knowing Fargo, I’d wager he’s bulling both of them. In any event, I’m sending a volunteer up there to work with the half-breed—a volunteer who’s a dead aim. With luck we’ll catch Fargo unaware and sink him six feet closer to hell.”
“It might could work,” spoke up Franklin “Strangler” Perley. “But with Fargo in the mix, it’s paring the cheese mighty close to the rind.”
“It better work,” threw in Latimer, “or that volunteer’s life won’t be worth a plugged peso.”
“Philander is worm fodder now,” Brassfield said, “but we’ve got his double-ten. I could try it with my rifle, but it’d likely be after dark. With the sawed-off a man has to get in closer, but he don’t have to worry about aiming. Course, it would kill the woman, too, and I hate to waste pussy.”
The men laughed.
“I like the double-ten,” Powell said, nodding. “But Billy hit the nail on the head—a man has to get in close. And that’s a tall order with Fargo. Any volunteers?”
“What about Injin Slim?” Latimer suggested. “Looks like he’s able to sneak around the camp without getting caught. Maybe if you offer him enough gold cartwheels—”
“Not a chance.” Powell cut him off. “I tried. He’s convinced Fargo is heap big medicine, and that if he kills him his poor red spirit will wander all alone in the Forest of Tears. Again—any volunteers?”
Ozark Bill Brassfield stewed in the darkness. He considered Rosita Morales his night woman, and he hadn’t missed the smoldering glances she was shooting at Fargo. Nor had that randy son of a bitch ignored those glances. They were building up a head of steam, all right, and if it went on much longer Brassfield knew he would be wearing the horns.
But neither could he get the image of Philander Brace out of his mind—swinging in the breeze like a slab of raw meat. Brassfield said nothing.
“Fair enough,” Powell finally said. “I don’t have the stones to go up there alone, either, so I can’t blame you men. But we know where his camp is and there’s safety in numbers. I’ve got my belly full of that smirking son of a bitch, and it’s high time we put him with his ancestors.”