Fargo knew he was a gone gosling if he stayed horsed. He vaulted out of the saddle and loosed a piercing whistle. The well-trained Ovaro folded low to the ground and Fargo leaped behind him, steadying his rifle across the bow of his saddle.
Dave had managed to wriggle behind a small boulder that afforded some protection. Arrows still streaked in, fletched with the brightly dyed red feathers favored by the Mountain Utes.
“Where’s Steve?” Dave cried out desperately to Fargo above the yipping racket.
“Pitfall. Never mind him. Can you spot any braves?”
“Not a one, Skye! But they’re building up steam for a charge!”
Fargo knew better. Dave had fought in some minor skirmishes as a soldier, but not enough to learn that Indians rarely charged. That was a white man’s tactic. Redskins were eager for individual laurels and depended on isolated acts of courage by the most reckless braves to turn a fight. So far none had tried to count coup.
Fargo now counted on another fact he’d learned about Indians: They were loath to take heavy casualties. It was not cowardice but a strong reverence for life and the fear of taboo—every member of the tribe was responsible for any battle death, and a warrior trapped in the Forest of Tears could haunt a tribe forever.
All this looped through Fargo’s mind in mere moments. “Never mind targets!” he hollered at Dave. “Pick a sector of fire and pepper it good. Don’t let up, old son. Only a lead bath will save us now!”
Fargo’s Henry began cracking. He fired as fast as he could lever, relying on the sixteen-shot magazine to take the vinegar out of those warpath Utes. Dave opened up with his Spencer, too, although the seven-shot magazine soon forced him to his short gun. Fargo emptied his rifle and dropped it, shucking out his Colt.
Fewer arrows rained in now as Fargo’s take-it-by-the-horns strategy seemed to be working. He emptied his Colt and popped in the spare cylinder just as Dave finished thumbing in reloads. By now black-powder smoke hazed the area and smudged both men’s faces. By the time they’d emptied their revolvers, all was silent within the jack pines.
“Think they’re gone?” Dave asked.
“I sure’s hell hope so,” Fargo replied as he sprang to his feet. “If that wagon ain’t smashed to splinters by now, I’m gonna try to stop it. Tend to your brother.”
Fargo whistled the Ovaro to his feet, swung up onto the hurricane deck, and thumped the stallion in the ribs with his boot heels. The game pinto tore off at a two-twenty clip, rear hooves throwing up divots of dirt. Below, Fargo could see the wagon bouncing around like a wind-tossed tumbleweed, scattering melons and tomatoes and squash. But so far the valuable cargo of ice was still secure in its wrapping of cheesecloth.
“Hi-ya!” Fargo shouted to his steed. “Hii-ya!”
The trail was steep and strewn with rocks, and Fargo wouldn’t have trusted any other horse in creation to gallop as the Ovaro was doing now. But that freight wagon was the key to the survival of the Holmans’ ice business. Conveyances of any kind were rare in these parts, as were dray animals to haul them.
It was a miracle that the wagon and team had not been dashed to perdition by now. Only the Mormon brakes were preventing them from plunging headlong to ruination. As the Ovaro drew ever closer, ears laid back flat, Fargo stood up in the stirrups and readied himself.
When they were within six feet of the leaping and swaying tailgate, Fargo tugged the left rein and guided the Ovaro up along the near side. The four team horses were still panicked, their eyes showing nearly all white. Fargo gathered himself, timing it just right, and leaped onto the board seat.
He had misjudged the springs under the seat. He bounced up off the board, arms windmilling as he fought for balance, and nearly toppled forward under the wheels of the heavy wagon. But he managed to land in a wobbly crouch and then plunked himself down, taking up the reins. He hauled back hard, but it was the devil’s own work to slow the team leaders.
A sharp bend approached up ahead, and Fargo despaired of slowing the conveyance in time. Resigning himself to failure, he prepared to leap over the side.
Just then, however, the Ovaro pitched into the game.
Fargo watched, jaw slack with astonishment, when his pinto surged forward and shouldered the front nearside leader hard, forcing it to break stride. The offside leader was then forced to follow suit. The exhausted team quickly flagged and Fargo stopped them only ten yards from the hard bend.
He let out a long sigh, watching the Ovaro blow with the rest of the horses.
“Well, old campaigner, I’m clemmed. Do you write poetry, too?”
Fargo had never seen the like. A stallion had just saved the Rocky Mountain Ice Company. He’d once read that a horse had a brain the size of a walnut, but this one had big enough nuts, all right, where it counted.
It was too narrow here to turn the team around, so Fargo lit down and found four good-sized rocks, chocking the wheels. The Ovaro was still lathered and blowing, so he led the stallion back up the trail. Steve stood beside his brother, looking pale and shaken.
“Good work, Skye,” Dave said. “I never thought you’d catch that team before it tumbled off the mountain.”
“The ice is safe as sassafras,” Fargo said. “But the spun truck is scattered to hell an’ gone. We might salvage some of it.”
“It’s piddlin’,” Dave assured him. “Inez and Susan planted a big garden.”
“You in one piece, Steve?” Fargo asked. The kid nodded, looking like somebody had just kicked his dog.
“Pitfall trap, all right,” a grim-faced Dave told Fargo. “And deep. If Steve hadn’t had his horse to stand on, I never coulda pulled him out. It was covered over with a mat of grass. That albino is a goner.”
Fargo glanced in. The horse was crying in pain, and he could see white bone poking through the hide on its front left leg. Without a word he slid Steve’s Colt from the holster and shot the animal in the head.
“I raised that horse from a spindly-legged colt,” Steve said bitterly. “Called him Comet. I never seen a horse with blue eyes.”
“Just some advice,” Fargo said, not unkindly. “Out West it ain’t a good idea to name a horse. Take good care of it, but don’t be letting it lip sugar from your hand. Most of ’em don’t last too long.”
“Don’t fret, brother,” Dave consoled him as he whistled in his own horse. “We got more in the corral. You can have that California sorrel you like so much. That son of a bitch has no end of bottom.”
Steve perked up at this. “Say, that one ain’t lady broke!”
Dave and Fargo reloaded and the trio headed downslope toward the wagon, keeping a constant eye on their left flank.
“Think they’ll hit us again?” Steve asked Fargo, his voice tight with nervousness.
Fargo lifted a shoulder. “It’s one of their tricks to fake a retreat. But if some were killed or wounded, they’ll likely take them back to their camp. Besides, I’m not sure they even meant to kill us.”
Both the Holman boys stared at Fargo. “You chewing peyote?” Dave demanded.
“Dave, you were a soldier. You locked horns with some sunburned warriors. Did you get the impression that they can’t aim an arrow? Especially as close as that bunch was to us? Hell, they coulda spit on us.”
Dave mulled that, rubbing his chin. “No, most tribes are some pumpkins with a bow and arrow.”
“The way you say. Hell, with the number they tossed at us, we’d ought to all look like porcupines.”
“Then what the consarn are they up to?” Steve asked.
“Son, you might’s well ask where all lost years go. The Indian measures corn by his own bushel. Could be they wanted to find out how we can fight. Or maybe that trap was meant to capture one of us so they can find out what the hell we’re up to. They don’t like a mystery.”
“Hell, they’re savages,” Steve insisted. “Course they meant to kill us.”
Fargo waved this aside. “You read too many of those nickel novels. Most western tribes are no more bloodthirsty than your typical paleface. Hell, it was Desoto and that garlic crowd that taught them to scalp and mutilate. I’ve seen young Sioux braves puke trying to take a scalp. Sure, these Utes will cut us open from neck to nuts if they decide we’re mortal enemies. But if we don’t rile them, we stand a good chance.”
“They’ve sure riled me,” Steve muttered. But his youthful curiosity got the better of him and he asked, “Mr. Fargo? Them red Arabs ain’t got shovels and such, have they? How did they dig that pitfall so deep?”
“They head down to the flats now and then to hunt buffalo, and they don’t waste any part of the carcass. The shoulder blades make a handy shovel.”
“They steal tools from the army, too,” Dave added. “They watch soldiers on work details and learn how to use ’em.”
“Well, we need to handle this deal real careful,” Fargo said. “It’s not that hard to stay on the good side of Indians. There’s not enough of us to whip ’em in a real battle, so let’s try the peace road.”
“Hell, that was my first scrape out West,” Steve said proudly. “Course, I didn’t get no chance to pop any over.”
The older men laughed. “Young pups is quick to say they’re full-growed dogs,” Dave said. “Hell, all you done was fall into a hole.”
“Still, he was under attack,” Fargo pointed out. “I’d call it a notch on his coup stick.”
“Yeah, but what’s Inez gonna call it?” Steve said. “She ain’t so hot on derring-do.”
Dave and Fargo exchanged a long glance. The kid had struck a home truth.
“She’ll shit strawberries,” Dave opined. “Boys, I say we sew up our lips about it. Susan wouldn’t fret much—she’s a Holman. But Inez will start harping about pulling up stakes.”
Fargo approved this decision with a nod. “Let sleeping dogs lie.”
Dave removed his hat and ran his fingers through his curly red hair. “Damn. You don’t think those red sons will attack the house, do you, Skye?”
“Nah. If they weren’t looking for a bloodletting just now, they won’t attack that fortress. Steve is a good shot with—”
“Jess,” Dave corrected him. “This is Steve.”
Fargo swore. “Well, Jess is a good shot with a rifle, too. And Dunk Langdon may be long in the teeth and stove up in his back, but he’s an Indian fighter from the Blackfoot War days. And Inez and Susan both know how to unlimber a rifle. The tribes out here ain’t too keen on attacking white man’s lodges.”
They reached the wagon and Steve and Dave climbed up onto the seat while Fargo removed the chocks. For a moment he glanced back over his shoulder toward the peak of Yellow Grizz Mountain, his weathered face thoughtful. He’d meant everything he said to the Holman brothers just now. But he also meant what he had warned them earlier.
The red man is notional.