California Carnage (3 page)

A man hurried up, swinging a lantern in one hand. In the other he carried a shotgun. Fargo got to his feet and holstered the Colt, not wanting the fellow with the Greener to get trigger-happy.

‘‘Hold it right there!’’ the man shouted at Fargo. ‘‘Don’t move, damn it!’’

‘‘I don’t intend to, Sheriff,’’ Fargo said as he stood with his hands in plain sight.

‘‘It’s Marshal,’’ the heavyset man said as he puffed to a halt in front of Fargo. The light from the hotel reflected off the badge pinned to his vest. Fargo had seen that reflection and guessed the man was the local law. ‘‘What the hell’s goin’ on here? Are those bodies in the street?’’

‘‘Bushwhackers,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘They laid for me over there in that alley and opened fire as I stood on the hotel porch.’’

The marshal stared at him. ‘‘And you downed all three of them?’’ He sounded as if he had a hard time believing that.

‘‘There were four of them. One got away.’’

The lawman rubbed at his jaw as he thought about that. After a moment he said, ‘‘Better give me your gun.’’

‘‘I’d just as soon I didn’t,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘Like I told you, one of those bushwhackers got away. He might come back.’’

‘‘Not with me here,’’ the marshal blustered. ‘‘Now gimme that gun.’’

Fargo wasn’t prepared to fight the lawman over it. He shrugged, slid the Colt from leather, and extended it butt-first to the marshal, who took it and stuck it behind the belt that encircled his ample waist.

‘‘Now we’ll take a look at them hombres,’’ the marshal declared. He glanced at the men who had gathered in the street. ‘‘Ed, Tom, I’m deputizin’ you. You’ll help me in case any more trouble breaks out.’’

The two townsmen didn’t look too happy about having that responsibility thrust upon them, but they nodded.

‘‘Larch, you go fetch the undertaker,’’ the sheriff went on to another man. ‘‘Tell him he’ll have plenty o’ work to do this evenin’.’’

‘‘How do you know those gents are dead, Marshal?’’ the man he had just spoken to wanted to know.

The lawman looked at Fargo and narrowed his eyes. ‘‘Because I recognize this hombre who shot ’em,’’ he said.

The marshal carried the lantern over to the nearest of the bodies and raised it so that the yellow glow washed over the corpse. Sightless eyes stared upward. The face was familiar to Fargo. He wasn’t surprised that he recognized the man.

‘‘You know him?’’ the marshal asked.

‘‘Yeah. I don’t know his name, but I was told that he works for an hombre named Stoddard. I had a run-in with him and three other men just a little while ago.’’

‘‘You reckon them other two are part of the same bunch?’’

‘‘I’d bet on it,’’ Fargo said.

His hunch turned out to be correct. He recognized the other bodies when the marshal checked on them. They were just as dead as the first one.

The only one missing was the man called Elam. Fargo was confident that he had wounded Elam, too, but not badly enough to keep him from running off.

‘‘Wait just a minute,’’ the lawman told him, then walked over to talk to some of the men who had come out of the hotel. Fargo waited, suppressing a feeling of impatience as he did so. A few moments later, the marshal came back to join him.

‘‘Here you go, Fargo,’’ the marshal said as he held out the Colt. ‘‘Since there’s three bodies, and since those fellas who were in the hotel lobby said there was a bunch of shots from across the street first, it’s pretty obvious you’re tellin’ the truth about bein’ ambushed. Clear-cut case o’ self-defense if you ask me, but there’ll have to be an inquest anyway so a judge can say so.’’

Fargo took the gun and slipped it into its holster. ‘‘When?’’

‘‘The inquest, you mean? Tomorrow, I reckon. Have to get things squared away in a hurry in heat like this, so the carcasses can be planted as soon as possible. You weren’t plannin’ on leavin’ town tonight, were you?’’

Fargo glanced at the hotel. Somewhere in there were Hiram Stoddard, Arthur Grayson, and Grayson’s daughter, Belinda. He had questions for all of them.

Getting shot at always made him curious.

He shook his head and told the marshal, ‘‘No, I’m not going anywhere.’’

Pablo looked relieved when Fargo walked into the cantina a short time later.

‘‘I heard all the shooting up the street and knew you must have been in the middle of it, amigo,’’ he said. ‘‘Anytime there is trouble, it seems to find you.’’

‘‘On a pretty regular basis,’’ Fargo agreed. ‘‘But I came out of this fracas without a scratch.’’

Pablo made the sign of the cross. ‘‘I thank the Blessed Virgin for that. I had a room made up for you. You are ready to turn in?’’

Fargo shook his head. ‘‘No, I still have things to do. I put my horse out back in the stable. Thought I’d get a drink before I headed over to the hotel again.’’

‘‘Another cup of coffee?’’

Fargo smiled and shook his head. ‘‘Tequila.’’

The blind guitar player in the corner heard him, tapped his fingers on the instrument in a fast, catchy rhythm, tipped his head back, and drawing out the word said, ‘‘Tequila.’’ A smile wreathed his seamed face.

Fargo slid a coin across the bar and tipped his head toward the old man. ‘‘Give him what he wants, on me,’’ he told Pablo.

‘‘I never charge the old one, anyway,’’ Pablo replied. ‘‘He tells me it would be bad luck to do so, and who am I to argue with one who has lived so many years without sight? He must know what he is talking about, no?’’

Pablo poured the drinks and took one of them over to the blind man. Fargo tossed back the fiery liquor and felt it fortify him. Pablo returned and asked, ‘‘Another?’’

Fargo shook his head. ‘‘No, I have to get to that business I mentioned.’’

‘‘If the cantina is closed when you return, come in the back. You have your usual room.’’

‘‘Sofia won’t be there waiting for me, will she?’’ Fargo asked with a slight frown.

‘‘Ah, this I cannot answer for certain, amigo. You know that one. She has a mind of her own.’’

Fargo knew Sofia, all right. She sometimes worked as a serving girl for Pablo, and had taken a shine to Fargo when she was fourteen. She had been throwing herself at him since then, every time he came to Los Angeles and paid a visit to the cantina.

He hadn’t seen her tonight, and when he counted up the years in his head and realized that she was nineteen now, he hoped that she had forgotten all about her crush on him.

But judging by what Pablo had just said, that wasn’t the case. ‘‘She’s still around, eh?’’ Fargo said.

‘‘Very much so. And still very much in love with you, Skye. Young men pursue her, but she will have nothing to do with them.’’

Fargo’s frown deepened. ‘‘Don’t tell her I’m here, all right?’’

‘‘Of course. Whatever you wish, amigo. But if I know that one, she has already heard that you are in Los Angeles.’’

Fargo left the cantina and told himself to worry about Sofia later. Right now he had to deal with Hiram Stoddard and settle things with the man.

The street was quiet as Fargo approached the hotel. The guests who had been drawn out by the shooting had all gone back inside, and the townspeople had returned to their homes.

He kept a watchful eye out anyway. He didn’t think Elam would make another try for him tonight, since he was sure the man was wounded, but Fargo hadn’t lived as long as he had by giving too much weight to unfounded assumptions.

No one bothered him. He went inside and crossed the lobby to approach the desk.

‘‘Hiram Stoddard,’’ he said to the clerk on the other side of the counter.

‘‘Is Mr. Stoddard expecting you, sir?’’

Fargo nodded. ‘‘He is.’’

‘‘In that case, you can go right on up. Mr. Stoddard is in room seven. Top of the stairs and down the hall to the left.’’ The clerk added, ‘‘It’s our best room, you know.’’

Fargo didn’t care about that. He climbed the stairs and found room seven. When he knocked on the door, a voice from inside the room asked, ‘‘Who is it?’’

‘‘Skye Fargo.’’

Footsteps approached the door quickly, then stopped and paused as if the man didn’t want to appear too eager. When the door swung back a few seconds later, the man inside greeted Fargo in a solemn voice.

‘‘Please, come in, sir. I’ve been expecting you, but I didn’t know exactly when you would arrive in Los Angeles.’’

‘‘Just rode in this evening,’’ Fargo said as he stepped into the room. He took his hat off and held it in his left hand, keeping his right free in case he needed to reach for his gun. Like being careful, that was another habit of his.

Hiram Stoddard closed the door. He was a tall man, a few inches taller than Fargo, with the beginnings of a paunch and a hairline that had receded nearly all the way to the back of his head. Side-whiskers bushed out on his cheeks as if trying to make up for the lack of hair on top of his head. Gold-framed spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose.

Stoddard wore a swallowtail coat and a fancy vest over a white shirt. A diamond stickpin held his cravat in place. His clothes were brushed free of dust and his boots had been shined. Despite the expensive clothes he had a certain seedy air about him, as if he would have been at home in the finest drawing rooms in New York or San Francisco, but the other people there would have looked down on him a little.

And that would annoy the hell out of him.

‘‘Would you like a drink, Mr. Fargo?’’ Stoddard asked as he moved toward a sideboard. As the clerk had said, the room was large and well furnished, with a four-poster bed, a nice rug on the floor, and not one but two brass spittoons in opposite corners, so nobody staying here would ever have to go very far to spit. Stoddard went on. ‘‘I have some excellent brandy.’’

‘‘No, thanks,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘I think we should get on with our business.’’

‘‘A man who gets right to the point, eh? I like that. And I would have expected as much, given the reputation you have, Mr. Fargo. What is it they call you? The Trailsman?’’

Fargo nodded. ‘‘Some do.’’

‘‘Because there’s no one better at tracking, scouting, or laying out a new trail, or at least so I’m told. That’s exactly the sort of man I need to help me in my latest venture.’’

‘‘Which is?’’ Fargo asked, even though he had guessed the answer while he was talking to Belinda Grayson.

‘‘A stagecoach line that will run from here in Los Angeles all the way up to San Francisco, Mr. Fargo. California needs transportation. It’s growing by leaps and bounds, and it’s only going to continue to do so. I’m not talking about the sort of riffraff that flocked out here when gold was discovered, either. I’m talking about solid citizens, businessmen, and entrepreneurs, the sort of men who will make California the greatest state in the nation!’’

Stoddard sounded like he was running for office. That didn’t make Fargo like him any better.

‘‘What do you want me to do?’’

Stoddard raised his eyebrows. ‘‘I should have thought that was obvious. I want to hire you to lay out the route for this stage line, Mr. Fargo. I intend for it to follow the general route of the Old Mission Trail, but of course there’ll be some variations, some places where it would be better to deviate from the old path. I know that with you in charge of determining the route, it will be the fastest, easiest way to get from here to San Francisco.’’

‘‘You know a man named Elam?’’

The blunt question appeared to take Stoddard by surprise, but he answered it after only a second’s hesitation. ‘‘Yes, a man named Elam works for me.’’

‘‘Doing what?’’

‘‘Bodyguard, driver, general assistant.’’ Stoddard shrugged. ‘‘Whatever I need him to do, really.’’

‘‘Does that include trying to kill me?’’

Stoddard opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, but no sound came out. He reminded Fargo of a fish. If he was putting on an act, he was mighty good at it.

‘‘I assure you, Mr. Fargo,’’ he said at last, ‘‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’’

‘‘Elam have some friends? Three hombres of the same sort he is?’’

‘‘Yes, their names are Dawlish, Barnes, and Whitney. They work for me, too.’’

‘‘They did,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘They’re dead now, and I reckon Elam’s got at least one bullet hole in him.’’

Stoddard stared at him, clearly at a loss for words.

‘‘What about Arthur Grayson and his daughter, Belinda?’’ Fargo said. ‘‘You know them, too?’’

Stoddard did, and the angry flush that appeared on his face told Fargo he didn’t like them. ‘‘I don’t know who you’ve been talking to,’’ he said, ‘‘but I can assure you that anything you were told by Arthur Grayson is a lie. The man is a thief, and his hatred for me knows no bounds.’’

‘‘Maybe so, but it was
your
men who tried to grab Miss Grayson off the street a little while ago.’’

Stoddard gave a vehement shake of his head. ‘‘I know nothing about that, sir. Nothing!’’

He was a little
too
vehement about his denial this time, Fargo decided. He didn’t believe Stoddard now. The man might not have known about Fargo’s shoot-out with Elam and the others—he must have heard the shots but hadn’t been out of his room to see what they were about—but he knew about what had almost happened to Belinda.

She had been right. Stoddard had sent Elam and the others after her, hoping to use her to put pressure on her father.

‘‘Mr. Fargo, I’m confused,’’ Stoddard went on when Fargo didn’t say anything. ‘‘I don’t know what’s happened tonight, but I assure you I had nothing to do with it. If any of the men working for me have done anything improper, I give you my word I’ll deal with them.’’

‘‘A mite late for Dawlish, Barnes, and Whitney. Like I said, they’re dead. But I’m sure the undertaker would be happy to let you pay for their funerals.’’

Stoddard wasn’t very tanned to start with, and he went paler at Fargo’s words. In a voice tight with suppressed anger, he asked, ‘‘Are you going to work for me or not?’’