Arizona Renegades (22 page)

“You make these?” he asked.

Fargo smiled as he nodded. “Figured they’d give you something to wonder about,” he said.

“They did. I’d have spent hours trying to figure them out. Why didn’t you go on?” the youth asked.

“Curiosity,” Fargo said. “You’ve been following me.”

“Been following tracks, hoping,” the young man said.

“Hoping what?” Fargo queried.

“That you’d be Skye Fargo,” the youth said.

“What made you figure I might be?” Fargo asked.

“Heard you were staying at Abbey Carson’s. I stopped there. She told me you’d gone on due south. I followed. Yours were the only single rider tracks I came onto.”

“If I was Skye Fargo, what then?”

“There’s somebody wants to see you. I was sent to find you,” the young man said.

“Who, why, and what for?” Fargo asked.

The youth started to answer but he had only opened his lips when the shot rang out, the heavy crack of a rifle. Fargo saw the young man’s unruly black hair bounce in all directions as the bullet smashed into him. Clutching his side with a groan, he fell as another shot rang out, followed by more. Fargo dived and hit the ground as he saw the riders racing into sight. Six, he counted automatically. They were still concentrating their fire on the young man stretched out on the ground but Fargo rolled and flung himself into the trees as bullets began to kick up dirt inches from him. The brush closing over him, he yanked the Colt from its holster as he saw the attackers start to come after him. Two led the charge and Fargo aimed and fired, and the two men dropped from their horses as if they’d both been pulled off by one invisible rope. The other four immediately swerved into tree cover and Fargo took the moment to retreat behind the trunk of a big cottonwood.

He heard the young man on the ground moan and heard the four riders dismount and start to come after him on foot, staying in the trees. They were overeager hired guns, he saw, and they stayed too close together as they moved toward him. He raised the Colt, steadied the gun against the tree trunk, and let one of the figures move into sight, another at his heels. Both were in a half crouch but moving too quickly, again their overeager amateurism obvious. The Colt barked twice, the second shot only a half-inch away from the first, and both figures went down at once. Fargo waited and heard the other two halt and crouch. They were suddenly uncertain, fear gripping them in its paralyzing hold. His ears picked up the sound of their feet sliding backward, and then suddenly turning to run. He shifted position to the other side of the tree trunk, his gaze fixed on the spot where they had ridden into the trees.

He had only seconds to wait when the two horses burst from the trees, racing over the open ground to reach the thick tree cover from which they’d appeared. Fargo had time for only one shot, chose the rider at the right, and fired. The man fell forward, hit the saddle horn, and the motion of the galloping horse did the rest, tossing him into the air to hit the ground with a resounding thud and lie still. The last rider raced on, vanishing into the trees. Fargo listened to the sound of his horse as it fled. Holstering the Colt, Fargo ran forward to the young man and knelt down beside the red-stained figure. He was still breathing. Grimacing, Fargo took in the extent of the wounds that soaked the youth’s clothes, at least four bullets, he saw. The youth managed to lift his head a few inches from the ground. “Easy, take it easy,” Fargo murmured.

“Tillman ... Darlene Tillman ... waiting for you,” the young man managed to gasp. “Important . . . go see her.” The effort took the last of his strength, words ending with a final gasp and Fargo leaned back as he softly cursed. He rose after a moment and walked to where the other figures littered the ground. He examined each one and found nothing to help him. But someone had sent them to find the young man and stop him before he could deliver his message. They had almost succeeded, Fargo grunted angrily. Almost. His eyes went to the young, slender figure. The youth had given his life in his assignment. Somebody better have
a
good explanation, Fargo thought as he went to the youth’s horse, drew a blanket from the saddlebag, and wrapped it around the silent, stained figure.

He lifted the youth, laid him across his saddle, and walked to the Ovaro. Holding the reins of the brown gelding in one hand, Fargo slowly started to ride on south. He’d no way of knowing if south was the way to go and hoped he’d find somebody who might help. As he rode, he tried to piece together the few bits and pieces of information he had. The young man had visited Abbey looking for him. That meant he had to have first visited Ed Stanford up near Ninepipe. Ed was the only one who knew he was going to visit Abbey, Fargo recalled. They’d spent a few days talking after he’d broken the trail from Idaho Territory for Ed. But Ed wasn’t the only one who knew about his coming to Montana. Ed had told enough others that he’d hired Skye Fargo to break a trail for him.

So finding he had visited Abbey was explainable. Then the youth had followed south, picked up the trail, and met his death because of it. A Darlene Tillman had hired him, he’d muttered with his last breath. Not much to go on but it would be enough. Fargo had found trails with slimmer leads. He felt a bitterness inside him, first at what he’d witnessed, and then at being plunged into something he knew absolutely nothing about. The young man had been a total stranger and yet now he was suddenly no stranger at all. He was suddenly someone with whom Fargo had become involved. That imposition angered him, Fargo realized. He certainly had no responsibility for the youth’s death, yet a kind of oblique responsibility had been thrust upon him.

Damn, Fargo swore as he found himself thinking about coming events that cast their shadows before them. If he had not stayed the glorious week with Abbey, he would have been long gone from this north Montana country. If he hadn’t told Ed Stanford he was going to visit Abbey, the man wouldn’t have been able to tell the youth. There’d have been no one to trail him, to pursue him with still undelivered messages. Coming events did cast their shadows, but you could only understand them after they’d been cast.

What shadows was he riding into now, Fargo wondered as he moved past a lake half filled with logs, a big splash dam holding back hundreds of other logs. Perhaps he’d be wise to let the brown gelding behind him find its own way, he pondered. But he wouldn‘t, he knew. The young man wrapped in the blanket behind him deserved to have his message delivered. Everybody deserved some kind of obituary.