Hangtown Hellcat (11 page)

They grained and watered the horses. As an extra precaution, they dug a shallow hole and lined it with Fargo’s oilskin slicker before pouring water into it from the goatskin bag.

“In case we run into trouble,” Fargo said, “they’ll hold out all right for a few days, especially if it rains. We’ll ground tether ’em loose so’s they can pull out the pickets if they get desperate. Let’s face it—if we’re not back by that point, we’ll likely be swinging from that gallows.”

“Ain’t
you
the sunny son of a bitch,” Buckshot groused. “What about our long guns?”

“Let’s leave them here. We might need them for a hot retreat. It’ll be easier to move around in the gulch without them, and if we get into a shooting fray it’ll likely be at close quarters. We’ve got plenty of ammo for our short guns. Besides, we’ll have Patsy to persuade any pushy crowds.”

“Yep. She likes to get her own way.”

By now the lazy hard tails in the gulch were convinced they had run the two intruders off for good, and no sentries had been posted at the rim of the gulch. The two men were quickly in place at the western end overlooking the limestone house.

“Bathtub’s been put up,” Buckshot said, disappointment keen in his tone as he peered through the brush.

“Never mind. You expect a peep show every night? We’ll scramble down and go in through that back door if we can.
Don’t forget those two hombres armed like payroll guards. We want to avoid chucking lead if we can—the noise will bring the rest down on us like all wrath.”

Both men found enough hand- and footholds to climb quickly down to the floor of the gulch in the generous light of a full moon. They shucked out their six-shooters. Fargo found the latchstring out and cautiously pushed the slab door open. The house had a narrow center hallway running its length with candles burning in brass wall sconces. Curtained archways opened off both sides. They could hear feminine voices conversing from the central room on the right.

Fargo nodded at Buckshot and they advanced on cat feet, Fargo wincing each time one of the floorboards creaked. They paused in front of the expensive damask curtains. Fargo recognized the musical lilt of the woman who had tantalized them during her erotic bath.

“I’ve assured you repeatedly, Jasmine, that the prisoners are not being abused. And certainly you are not. You’re young and pretty, and I brought you to live with me for your protection, not so I’d have a servant. Your husband would still be alive if he had not foolishly resisted. Trying to pull a gun on a gang of armed men was certainly not the brightest decision of his life, was it? All of my men are under strict orders to avoid killing whenever possible.”

“I’ve heard you give that order, Miss Lavoy, but I was there! Butch McDade is a liar! Jimmy had a gun, yes, but he never drew it. The moment Butch found it on him, he murdered him in cold blood.”

“Well, I won’t defend Butch. He’d shoot a nun for her gold tooth. He is mean and low and spiteful, the brooding kind that holds a grudge until it hollers for its mama. And I admit that most of the men in this gulch have oozed out of ‘the pitch that defileth.’ I am truly sorry about Jimmy. But right now the vermin in Hangtown are useful tools for me.”

For me.
Fargo glanced at Buckshot, who nodded to show he had heard. So that was the gait—everybody in the gulch was feeding at the same trough, and this was their linchpin, all right. Nor had either man missed the fateful word “Hangtown.”

Fargo inserted the muzzle of his Colt between the overlapping curtains and began to nudge one aside. Suddenly he felt a blow like a mule kick to his head, saw a bright orange starburst, and his world shut down to black oblivion.

*   *   *

Fargo drifted in and out of patchy fog trying to claw his way back to the surface of awareness. He could hear voices, but not words. Finally his quivering eyelids twitched open.

His head throbbed like a Pawnee war drum, and when he tried to move, pain jolted through him. He was seated in a comfortable chair, his short gun, ammo belt, and Arkansas toothpick missing. The first thing he registered was a pleasant room featuring red plush furniture with fancy knotted fringes.

And then four sets of eyes watching him as if he were a piece of curiosa in a museum.

“Well,” the brunette beauty greeted him, “Skye Fargo—a prince among knaves. Poor as Job’s turkey but so utterly handsome.”

There was a groan to his left as Buckshot began to regain awareness.

“You’re both quite lucky,” the brunette told Fargo in her musical voice. “El Burro and Norton are quite protective of me, and normally they would have decapitated you on the spot with their machetes. But I suspected you might be…visiting soon. So I gave them orders to simply incapacitate you so we might visit.”

Wincing, Fargo sat up a little straighter. The pain in his head far surpassed his worst cheap-whiskey hangover.

“I do appreciate that, Miss Lavoy.”

“So you know my name? May I inquire how you learned it?”

Fargo was still groggy, but not stupid enough to admit he had spied on her while she bathed. “Well, I heard this blond lass here call you Miss Lavoy. I don’t know your front name.”

“It’s Jennifer although I prefer Jenny. The denizens of Hangtown have dubbed me Little Britches, a name I detest but tolerate. ‘The Trailsman,’ however, is a very fine nickname.”

Fargo took her pleasing measure from the white columbine petals in her hair to the fancy side-lacing silk shoes.

“You look sweet as a scrubbed angel,” he told her. “But I’d wager your halo is a bit tarnished.”

“Be careful,” she warned him. “You may have noticed the power balance is against you.”

Buckshot groaned again and opened his eyes. The doe-eyed blonde named Jasmine watched Fargo with compassion and concern; in sharp contrast, El Burro and Norton seemed on the verge of eating his warm liver.

The pedestal table beside Fargo’s chair held a big pottery bowl of water with rose petals floating in it. Jenny saw him staring at it.

“I like nice things,” she informed him. “This furniture was stolen from a freight caravan. Sadly, some disappointed customer in Santa Fe will never receive his special order.”

“We can’t always get what we want,” Fargo said philosophically.

“Oh, I plan to. This situation in Hangtown is merely a stepping-stone for me. You, however, seem to be in quite a pickle. Indeed, this may well turn out to be the end of the trail for a man who has travelled many.”

“You might say fortune hasn’t kissed me lately,” he agreed, evoking a laugh from her.

“No one can fault your stoicism,” she approved.

“I’m just curious,” Fargo said. “Why did you expect me to be visiting?”

“Because most men run to type. Mr. Fargo, I know what manner of man you are said to be—and your celebrated skill at tracking. So when I learned that my unholy trinity, as I call my three uncouth lieutenants, had attacked your work crew and killed a man, it seemed a logical assumption that you would eventually find our little spa here in the gulch.”

She paused before adding in a tone of naughty innuendo, “I knew that you would try to stick your oar in my boat, so to speak.”

Fargo almost replied that he couldn’t think of a nicer place to stick it. But El Burro had both hands on the butts of his Colt Navy revolvers and seemed to be praying for the slightest excuse to unlimber.

“You’re right,” Fargo said. “It was the attack that brought us down here.”

“Who the hell took Patsy?” Buckshot interjected.

Jenny shifted her bewitching brown eyes to the speaker. “And who is your half-breed companion?”

“Buckshot Brady, ma’am,” Buckshot replied. “Fargo likes to take me along so he won’t die alone.”

She studied him for a long moment. “Well, you’re getting a bit long in the tooth. But you look well knit, and there’s strong character in your face. If the famous Skye Fargo trusts you for dangerous work, that’s a high recommendation indeed.”

“Yeah, he’s a pip,” Buckshot said drily, shooting a murderous look at Fargo.

Jenny smiled at that, still watching him. “I heard all about the stand the two of you made, two days ago, against daunting odds. Yes indeed, I think both of you just might do…”

Buckshot brightened, jumping to conclusions. “Hell
yes
, we’ll do! You and Jasmine both won’t have no regrets.”

She laughed again. “My stars! You’re younger than you look.”

“Just might do for what?” Fargo asked.

“Good help is extremely hard to find in an operation like mine, Mr. Fargo. You’ll see what I mean in a few minutes. Norton, please go and fetch Butch McDade and his two companions.”

The silent, unequivocally ugly bodyguard, the smaller of the two, nodded and left.

“You two are going to meet the three men who attacked you,” Jenny Lavoy explained. “Their leader, and the second in command of this den of iniquity, is a raging bull named Butch McDade. He’s a muscular, cruelly handsome bully of limited intellect, but very dangerous nonetheless. He’s what is commonly called a gunslick—he has a lightning gun hand.”

“And he’s a common murderer!” Jasmine erupted. “He killed my husband in cold blood!”

Jenny ignored the emotional outburst. “There’s also Waldo Tate, the human rodent. He’s a cowardly back-shooter and spends much of his time in opium dreams. But he’s quite cunning and provides the brain that McDade is missing.
The third man, and the most dangerous in my estimation, is Lupe Cruz.”

“Lupe Cruz?” Fargo interrupted. “I heard he was in these parts.”

“So you know him?”

“I know of him. He’s a blade-runner and rumored to be the best knife man that ever came out of Mexico. He hates
Tejanos
and he’ll kill any man from the Panhandle without cause. After he kills them he cuts off their ears and wears them around his neck. He used to raid the old San Antonio Trail into Chihuahua until Texas Rangers ran him off.”

“All true. He claims his sire was a grandee of Spain. But I happen to know that his scurvy-ridden father led a scalper army down in Sonora before he became a Comanchero slave trader in New Mexico Territory.”

“Sounds to me,” Fargo said, “like you keep some mighty unsavory company.”

Jenny’s dark eyes flashed indignation. “The phrase ‘keeping company,’ Mr. Fargo, is drifting close to an insult. Perhaps you’d like to revise that suggestive comment?”

She wore a dark calico skirt with a spanking-clean white shirtwaist. One hand dipped into a pocket of the skirt and emerged holding an over-and-under muff gun. It was aimed, Fargo noticed, at a spot he particularly cherished.

Sweat beaded on his scalp. “I misspoke, ma’am. I meant only that these men are on your payroll.”

“That’s better.”

She raised her aim and Fargo flinched violently when the derringer barked, sending his hat spinning off his head.

“I hope that will teach you,” she said demurely, “to remove your hat in the presence of a lady.”

Buckshot quickly snatched off his cavalry hat.

Jenny nodded toward the massive mestizo. “This eternally silent gentleman is El Burro. He and Norton are my palace guard, and very effective at it. You see, they were both captured by Comanches. Their tongues were cut out and they were castrated. I rescued them in the desert and now they are intensely loyal—even Butch McDade and Lupe Cruz fear them. Not that either thug has anything to complain about—I
throw plenty of scraps to them. Their interest in me is more…carnal.”

“I can understand that,” Fargo said politely, picking up his hat and examining the new hole in it.

“It is a rare man,” Jenny added, taking Fargo’s measure with approving eyes, “who enjoys my favors.”

“And a fortunate one, I’m sure,” Fargo encouraged her.

She met his remark with a mysterious smile. “Sanctuary mucho, as they say in Spanglish. But don’t presume on your good looks, Fargo. I’m a woman of…unconventional predilections.”

She lost Fargo on that last word, but he decided to let it go. He could still feel the warm crease where her bullet had parted his hair, and her apparent fondness for “alterated” men had turned him cautious.

“Still,” she added after studying him some more, “you just might come up to scratch. I certainly approve of what I’ve seen so far.”

Fargo heard scuffing footsteps in the hallway.

“Here come my trusty retainers,” Jenny said, her tone laced with sarcasm. “Don’t believe what you hear me tell them about my plans for you two—I’ll just be throwing a bone to the dogs.”

“Why do you want me and Buckshot to meet them?” Fargo hurried to ask.

“Because soon,” she replied, “I’m hoping you will kill them.”

*   *   *

The curtains parted and Fargo got his first look at the trio that had set events in motion four days ago with their attack on the work crew.

Jenny had done a good job of describing them: Butch McDade with his trouble-seeking eyes and scornful twist of mouth; Waldo Tate with the pointy face of a rat and the bright, burning eyes of a consumptive; and Lupe Cruz with his disgusting human-ear necklace and dead, soulless eyes like two bone chips.

“What the…?”

McDade’s voice trailed off and his eyes went smoky with rage when he recognized the two men in the chairs.

“I’m not too impressed with your competence, Butch,” Jenny teased him. “El Burro and Norton managed to do what you and half your men could not.”

“The hell is this, Little Britches?” he demanded as if he had a right to know. “They here for tea and biscuits?”

McDade was the blustering type, Fargo realized, who had to work himself up to the kill. It was Cruz, more taciturn and calculating, he watched the closest. He wore leather
chivarra
trousers, a low shako hat, and a rawhide vest. But Fargo was most interested in the Spanish dag with a cord-wrapped hilt and a wide blade—spade shaped and perfectly balanced for the quick toss—that protruded from his boot.

“No need to rise on your hind legs, Butch,” Jenny said in the soothing tone one uses with a dangerous horse. “I have a fertile mind when it comes to profiteering, and I assure you the situation is under control.”

“Then why ain’t these two cold as a wagon wheel? Them geldings of yours shoulda lopped off their heads by now.”