Skye Fargo had learned a long time ago that a man had to not only study his enemy, but try to think like him. For a full hour he sat doing just that at his peaceful lakeside camp, watching silver-white moonlight turn the water to glittering diamonds. He knew Powell the way a war veteran knows the feel of an old battle scar, and when that hour was up he rose resolutely to his feet and headed around the lake toward the house.
First he whistled in Injin Slim, who was on sentry duty about fifty yards down the face of Yellow Grizz.
“Go join Dunk in the corral,” he said. “I’ll be right there with the Holman brothers. You need to know what’s going on.”
“It’ll be the first time in my life,” the mixed-breed carped, grunting as he stood up. “You don’t mind, I’ll wait outside the corral. That trigger-happy old relic would like an excuse to plug me.”
Fargo went to the house and thumped the door with the side of his fist. “It’s Fargo. I need to talk to all the brothers.”
The door latch clicked and an apron of soft yellow light flooded Fargo as Dave opened the door. “C’mon in, Trailsman. You’re part of the family.”
Fargo found that hard to believe when he glimpsed Inez, who was darning socks in a horsehair chair. The sour look on her face, at his arrival, was hardly welcoming. Susan and Rosita, however, playing dominoes at the table, both gave him warm smiles that reminded him he was definitely not family.
“Thanks, Dave, but I was wondering if you and your brothers could come out to the corral for a parley.”
“Parley,” Inez repeated, scorn poison-tipping the word. “This is your next invitation to get killed uselessly fighting someone else’s battle.”
“Shut your damn mouth,” Dave told his wife firmly, and she was so shocked that she did.
All three Holman men trooped outside. At the corral, Dunk and Injin Slim were at daggers drawn.
“That ain’t no damn piece of the Holy Cross,” Dunk fumed. “Happens it was, what would a heathen like you be doin’ with it?”
“It’s straight goods,” Injin Slim insisted, holding a small piece of wood up in the generous moon-wash. “See there? Each piece is numbered and signed by the pope. I’ll sacrifice it for five dollars.”
Dave grabbed it, examined it, and burst into sputtering laughter. “Jesus, Slim, you signed it Mr. Pope. That ain’t his real name.”
“Put that foolish thing away,” Fargo cut in. “Boys, I been running it through my think-piece—or actually, pretending to run it through Jackson Powell’s think-piece. I’d lay good odds he means to attack Buckskin Joe at sunrise.”
This announcement met with silence except for the soughing of wind in the nearby trees and the snuffling of horses.
“I can see that,” Dave Holman finally said. “Hell, he’s already a mite short on ‘mining surveyors’—only Latimer’s left. Why just wait around and suffer the death of a thousand cuts?”
“The way you say. And don’t forget,” Fargo added, “those five or six riders we spotted when we were halfway up the mountain today, riding hell for leather toward the Arkansas. That wasn’t a horse race.”
“Maybe,” said one of the twins (Fargo didn’t even try to guess which one), “it was couriers going to get more men.”
“Nix on that,” Fargo said. “Dave, when you were an N.C.O. in the field, did you send a half dozen riders as couriers?”
“Are you grazing loco weed? That was usually half my force. I sent one or maybe two, with the second taking a different route.”
“Right. That bunch we saw today,” Fargo continued, “got chicken guts when we took Billy Brassfield for a drink. Counting the three we’ve killed—four counting the one called Ace who died in that first raid on the house—we’ve pared ’em down to size. Powell either has to strike while the iron’s hot or give up his plan for wealth. I say he’ll strike, and most likely tomorrow at first light.”
“Lemme have your Bible,” Injin Slim demanded of Dunk, pulling out his tobacco pouch.
“Kiss my white ass, you damn zebra,” Dunk retorted, although he did hand over his packet of cigarette papers.
Fargo sighed wearily. Why was he always trying to cobble together a fighting force out of misfits and malcontents?
“Tomorrow,” he repeated. “And Buckskin Joe won’t be ready. So all five of us—Dunk can’t ride with his stove-up back—are going to ride down there now and get that camp ready to do battle.”
“The hell you want this worthless flea-bit savage for?” Dunk demanded, hooking a thumb toward Slim. “He admits he ain’t never fired a barking iron, and all he’s got is that damn black-glass knife. He won’t be worth a fart in a hurricane.”
“This time the old gasbag is right,” Injin Slim said. “This is a paleface fight, not mine. I work for gold, not glory.”
“We need you as a sentry,” Fargo said. “You’re the best I’ve seen. As for the gold—have you forgotten who I intend to kill tomorrow and what we’ll likely find in what’s left of his tent?”
Injin Slim suddenly threw off his slouch and stood up ramrod straight. “Say . . . now, that’s my anthem. Pick me out a horse, old codger, and don’t give me one that hates the Indian smell.”
“Oh, I’ll give you a li’l honey,” Dunk promised, turning his face away to hide an evil grin.
“All right,” Fargo said. “You Holman boys fetch your gear from the house—Dave, bring those last two grenades. As soon as you return, we’ll water the horses. Then we cinch up.”
“Speaking of Latimer,” Dave spoke up, looking at Fargo, “several times now he’s made his brag that he means to cut you down. Then he also claims how he likes and admires you and doesn’t want to kill you. The hell’s he up to, Skye?”
“I can’t cut sign on his thinking, old son. Could be he really does like me—I’ve killed a few men who did. The man’s a mite touched, but he’s as cold-blooded a killer as they come.”
“Can you beat him in a draw-shoot?” Injin Slim asked.
“Not likely. He’s one of these professional gunmen who spend hours practicing the draw. He’s killed plenty of men who thought they were faster.”
“You don’t go around toutin’ yourself as a draw-shoot artist,” Dave said. “That means you got no obligation to walk and draw against him. Once this battle commences, any way we kill him is fair game.”
“I agree,” Fargo said. “The man is careful to avoid insulting me, so I’ve no personal score to settle. He’s anybody’s target—if he gets in front of a bullet tomorrow, I won’t cry about it. But I don’t think he will. He ain’t right in his upper story, and a killer like that sees the world in different colors from the rest of us. Talk won’t help—with him, it’s only the doing that matters.”
* * *
Prospectors turned in early and woke up early, and they didn’t appreciate the eagle-bone war whistle that Injin Slim used to rouse them from slumber in the middle of night. But rouse they did, and Chicken Pete soon had them all, grumbling and cussing, assembled in the center of camp.
“Boys,” he told them, “Fargo here says an attack’s coming at first light. Powell and his Pukes. And Fargo don’t think they’ll be allowin’ nobody to escape or surrender. It’ll be slaughter till the last man, just like Powell’s done in Old Mex when he don’t want no witnesses.”
“Did you overhear ’em laying plans, Fargo?” Corey Webster demanded.
“Is it mebbe an informer?” Pete Helzer chimed in.
“No, boys, it’s just a gut hunch,” Fargo admitted. “I know how Powell operates.”
“Well, hell, no offense, Trailsman,” spoke up a man from the shadows. “But a hunch is a mighty thin vein to mine.”
“Not when Fargo has one,” Big Dick McQuady insisted. “I was sifting through ore tailings out near Placerville in the Sierra when Fargo had a hunch that Mexer bandit Juan Murrietta was coming with a big gang. We shot half them chili peps right off the mountain thanks to the early warning.”
This generated a buzz of conversation among the men.
“Fargo ain’t the skeery type,” Pete Helzer piped up. “I say he’s right. Should we attack them now?”
“I’d say it’s best to meet them right here at sunrise,” Fargo said. “You boys know every inch of this ground. Besides, driving them out of Last Stand Gulch would be damn near impossible without more men. They have superior weapons and field tactics.”
“If we have to,” shouted an anonymous man, “we’ll follow ’em into hell with empty rifles!”
This triggered brave cheers, but Fargo wasn’t impressed. He had seen men like this get hot to join a frolic. Then they’d go beat around the berry patch and get tired of it.
“Boys, this is no time for saloon cheers,” Fargo said, his tone deadly serious. “Lead will fly thick and furious. Are you up to fettle for a hard fight? I need to know off the reel—right damn now. Tomorrow will be too late to debate it.”
No cheers this time. But Fargo construed the solemn, determined faces as a yes vote. He glanced in the direction of Frenchman’s Creek.
“There’s only two ways to attack Buckskin Joe from the gulch. One is down the Kellyville trail, the other along the grassy banks of the creek. Powell favors the pincers, so I’d say he’ll send his men along both routes and squeeze the camp from two sides. I recommend dividing your men in two battle groups, one hiding in the trees near the trail, the other along the creek. If I’m wrong it won’t matter since the two groups can quickly fold into one.”
Injin Slim sat his saddle nearby, having a mort of trouble with the spirited dun old Dunk had given him to ride. It suddenly chinned the moon, tossing the hapless half-breed into a muddy swale. Despite the somber occasion the prospectors exploded with laughter.
“The Ute horseman over there,” Fargo said in an ironic tone, “is going to be our sentry. He’ll be west of here in a high tree, and he’ll signal when the attack is coming. You boys tend to your weapons, then turn in for a few hours’ sleep. Jacob and Dave Holman are army veterans and will take charge of the two battle groups. Hide yourselves good after you’re roused, and nobody cracks a cap until I give the signal.”
Fargo found bed ground near the creek and rolled into his blanket. But Dave Holman’s voice pestered him to the threshold of sleep: “Speaking of Latimer, the hell’s he up to, Skye?”