High Plains Massacre (14 page)

Jacques Grevy was a tornado before; now he was a hurricane. He rained blows. He stabbed and slashed and used every ploy in a knife fighter's bag of tricks.

Fargo was hard-pressed to stay alive. He was cut on the arm, on the shoulder. He lost skin on his neck. He tripped and would have died when Grevy thrust at his heart only his flailing arm struck Grevy's and knocked the knife aside.

Fargo had been in knife fights but never like this, never a fight so quick and so intense. Never, ever, had he gone up against someone as deadly as Jacques Grevy. He lost all sense of time, of self. There were the flashing blades and nothing else.

Then Grevy stabbed and kicked at the same time. Fargo dodged the knife but not the kick. His knee exploded in pain and his leg buckled. He braced his full weight on his other leg, and that was when Grevy pounced.

Fargo managed to grab Grevy's wrist. Grevy grabbed his. In their struggle they stumbled over the bank and suddenly empty space was below.

The shock of hitting the water, the splashing and the wet, disoriented Fargo, if only for a few seconds. He swiped at his eyes with his sleeve and as his vision cleared he saw Grevy lancing the knife at his throat. He parried with the toothpick.

The little man with the eye patch was tireless, a killer who didn't know the meaning of quit.

Grevy swung and Fargo countered but he was slowing. He could feel it and he knew that Grevy knew. Grevy was as confident as ever, his sneer never gone from his scarred face. And Grevy hadn't slowed a whit.

Pain seared Fargo's side, seared his thigh. He had been cut twice in the blink of an eye.

Fargo tried a last gambit. Blood oozing from his leg, he sagged and let his leg start to buckle.

Grevy took the bait. He sprang in, his knife poised, triumph lighting his dark eye.

With the speed of a striking rattler, Fargo drove the tip of the double-edged toothpick up and in, spearing it to the hilt under Grevy's jaw. Twisting, he wrenched, then sprang out of Grevy's reach.

It was well he did.

Grevy gurgled and growled, and with scarlet spewing from between his lips, he threw himself forward in a death stroke.

Fargo skipped back out of reach.

Grevy came down with a splash and didn't move. First one arm and then the other rose and then one leg and the other, and he floated facedown.

Backpedaling, Fargo gained the other bank. He fell onto his back and gasped. He was cut and nicked in a dozen places. Many were bleeding. Despite the cold, he was also covered with sweat. And his arms were leaden. He breathed in deep and willed the tension to drain from his body.

Jacques Grevy had been formidable. He'd come as close as anyone to sending Fargo into the hereafter.

Fargo lay and gazed at the sky and winced at the pain. When he heard splashing, he sat bolt upright, thinking that somehow Grevy was still alive and coming for him.

Private Davenport, holding the Colt, was wading across. He skirted Jacques Grevy's body, saying, “You did it, by God.”

“Barely,” Fargo said. “And you don't listen worth a damn.”

“I had to come try and help,” Davenport said. “I couldn't stay there and do nothing.”

“The more I know you, the more you take after your old man,” Fargo remarked. The general was well known for being a scrapper, and for always putting the welfare of his men before all else.

“I suppose I do, at that,” Davenport said thoughtfully. “More than I imagined.” He sat and touched his side, and grimaced. “It hurts like hell.”

“You'll live.”

“And so will your friend Tom,” Davenport said. “But now there's just you and him and me, and all three of us are hurt.”

“I'm hurt the least,” Fargo said, “which is why the two of you are heading for Fort Laramie before the day is out.”

“What will you do?”

“Do you even have to ask?”

Davenport shook his head. “You can't take them all on alone. There are too many.”

“It's not as bad as you think. Some of his own people are against him.”

“Even so. Consider the odds.”

“If I did that all the time,” Fargo said, “I'd have given up scouting and become a store clerk years ago.”

“I should go with you.”

“No.”

“I can help.”

“No, damn it.” Fargo looked at him. “Listen to me. That tit-crazed lunkhead in the cabin is a friend. I don't have any I can spare, so I want you to look after him and see that he makes it to the fort and get him to the doc.”

“I don't like leaving you to tangle with them by your lonesome.”

“You want some of the glory, is that it?” Fargo asked sarcastically.

“Hell, no,” young Davenport said. He gestured at Grevy. “There's no glory in that. No glory in violence at all. It's ugly. It's brutal.”

“You're learning,” Fargo said.

Davenport looked at his side. “The hard way. It's made me think. I see my father in a whole new light.” He paused. “He was right and I was wrong. He doesn't lord it over his men just because he's an officer.”

“I could have told you that.”

“I always saw him barking commands. Having his men do this and do that. All that training he made them go through. He did it to keep them alive when they run up against something like this.”

“Good officers do what they can.”

“He didn't go to West Point just to bark orders. He went to become the best officer he could be and keep those under him alive.”

Fargo was thinking of all the stitching his buckskins would need. He hated spending hours with a needle and sinew.

“Why didn't I see that before?” Private Davenport asked.

“Sometimes life has to kick us in the head to get our attention.”

Davenport grimaced. “The lieutenant, dead. All the other troopers, dead. Your friend, badly wounded. Me hurt and you cut up. This was some kick.”

“It sure was,” Fargo agreed.

Fargo had a feeling. A bad feeling. Call it gut instinct or call it intuition. He about rode the Ovaro into the ground.

Buzzards were the first sign his gut was right.

Over a score of the big, black, ugly scavengers were pinwheeling in the sky.

The Metis
had broken camp. The fires had been put out, the tents taken down, the wagons and the carts were gone.

All that was left were the bodies. The settlers lay sprawled in the throes of their violent ends. Every last man, woman and child had been massacred and left to rot.

Fargo sat his saddle and watched the vultures peck and pick and a great fury seized him. A wrath so great, he shook from head to toe.

There were too many for him to bury. Nature would have to take its grisly course. The buzzards would feast, and the coyotes and others would come out at night to feed, and inside of a week there would be little but torn clothes and picked-clean bones.

Laguerre's band had headed north toward far-distant Canada and home.

“You'll get there over my dead body,” Fargo vowed.

Intent on following the trail and still boiling mad over the slaughter, he didn't pay as much attention as he should to the surrounding slopes. Not until the Ovaro raised its head and whinnied.

He wasn't the only one to see the vultures. So had a Sioux war party. Seven warriors swept out of the far timber and raced toward him with whoops and yells.

“Damn.” Fargo hauled on the reins. This was the last thing he needed. He had no wish to tangle with the Lakotas. They were only defending their territory. But he doubted they'd listen to reason. He was white. That was enough for them to count coup on him.

Using his spurs, he reached the forest before the warriors were in bow range. He had to lose them but once the Sioux were on a scent they were like bloodhounds. They might chase him for days. He couldn't afford that. Nothing must keep him from catching up to the Laguerres.

Fargo climbed, the steep slopes slowing the stallion.

But the slopes would also slow the Sioux.

He considered an easy way to stop them. Stop and dismount and as soon as they were close enough, open up with the Henry. He didn't need to shoot the warriors. All he had to do was bring down their mounts.

The thing was, he had an aversion to killing horses. He only ever did it as a last resort.

So he climbed and sought a way to stop them without killing them or their animals, and had about resigned himself to doing what he didn't want to when, lo and behold, a deadfall appeared.

As deadfalls went, it was small. Heavy rain or strong winds or both had uprooted twenty or thirty middling-sized trees and now they were in a jumble, many of their limbs broken and missing.

Quickly, he reined around and up until he was above the fall. Vaulting from the saddle, he did what no one with any common sense would do. He clambered out onto the trees.

He came to a fir perched precariously on top of the others. Putting his back to it, he pushed. It moved. Not much, but it moved.

The Sioux were howling like wolves. And like wolves, they were hard after him, making for the deadfall. As yet, none of them had spotted him on top of it.

Fargo gauged the distance and how fast they were climbing, and when the moment was right, he pushed again, his body as taut as a wire. The fir slid a little ways and stopped. He strained until he was fit to bust a gut but it wouldn't move any farther. Then he saw why. A stub of a branch was caught. To climb over and try to break it or chop it with the toothpick would take too long. The war party would reach him before he could dislodge it.

So Fargo pushed harder. He grit his teeth and thrust with his legs and after a few seconds the tree slid but nowhere near enough.

Fargo had time for one more try. He hooked his hands underneath the tree, bent, and heaved.

Below the deadfall, the bloodthirsty banshees rapidly closed.

The tree canted. The stub cracked and shattered and the tree was loose.

Fargo went on pushing. The fir lifted and tumbled over those under it, gaining momentum as it went. Like a rolling snowball that became an avalanche or a dislodged rock that created a talus slide, the fir dislodged others.

The lead warrior drew rein, startled. He looked back at the others and pointed and shouted. To a man, they came to a stop. And then, with trees crashing and clattering toward them, they wheeled their horses and fled.

Fargo did some fleeing of his own. He was well up on the mountain before the din from below faded. On reaching a ridge he checked his back trail.

The Sioux were a quarter of a mile or more lower down and not climbing nearly as swiftly as before. They recognized a lost cause.

Fargo rode on. He was over the crest before nightfall and made cold camp midway down. From his vantage he could see for miles across the prairie and nowhere was there so much as a point of light.

That was all right. Wagons and carts could go only so fast. Especially laden with gold and spoils.

Fargo sharpened the toothpick and thought of what he would do when he overtook them.

One way or the other, Anton and Marie would pay. One way or the other, there would be a reckoning.

And by God—and his Colt and his Henry—it would be written in their blood.

From far off the campfires gave the illusion of being so many fireflies.

Fargo slowed the Ovaro to a walk. He had ridden since dawn, stopping only twice to rest the stallion.

Caution was called for. Their dogs or their horses might catch his scent. He made sure that he was downwind as he drew closer.

Their wagons and carts were in a circle. Women hovered over supper pots. Children helped or played. The men were huddled around the fires or in small groups, talking.

Fargo came to a stop. Something wasn't right. He studied the camp and finally it came to him.

“What the hell?” he said out loud.

Puzzled, he circled the circle. He counted the wagons and carts to be sure and counted the Metis to be doubly sure.

For half an hour he sat and watched. Finally he raised his reins and clucked to the Ovaro and boldly made for the wagons. It wasn't until the flickering firelight played over his hat that a boy spotted him and shouted an alarm. Drawing rein, he leaned on his saddle horn.

Men were grabbing rifles and rushing to the barrier while the women gathered their children and moved toward the middle.

Muzzles were trained on him but lowered at a command from a figure who shouldered through to the tongue of a wagon and placed his foot on it. “You,” he said simply.

“Claude,” Fargo replied.

“We were expecting soldiers,” Claude said.

“I saw the bodies.”

“Things are not as they were,” Claude informed him.

“I can see that.”

“Would you care for some coffee? Or something to eat? I assure you that you are in no danger. Not from us, anyway.”

“I should be pushing on,” Fargo said.

“We have a few questions we would ask,” Claude said. “You need not worry you will lose them. They are not that far ahead.”

Anxiety was stamped on every face, men and women and even the children.

“I reckon some coffee would do me right fine,” Fargo allowed.

Claude had several men lift the tongue so the Ovaro could ride through. He led Fargo to a fire and Fargo climbed down and put a hand to the small of his back.

“You have spent many hours in the saddle,
oui
?”

“Been riding like hell,” Fargo said.

Claude motioned at a woman and spoke in French and she came over and filled a tin cup with steaming coffee and timidly passed it to Fargo. “We do not have cream but we do have sugar.”

“Black is fine.” Fargo was aware that the others had surrounded him and were anxiously observing his every movement. “Your friends seem a mite nervous.”

“They are worried for themselves and their families,” Claude said, and gestured. “Please, make yourself comfortable.” He sat cross-legged with his elbows on his knees.

Fargo hunkered. He made it a point to hold the tin cup in his left hand and keep his right near his holster.

“I spoke the truth when I said things are different,” Claude said.

“I'm listening,” Fargo said.

Those Metis
who could speak English were translating for those who couldn't.

“It was, as you Americans would say, the last straw,” Claude said, and a haunted look came over him.

Fargo sipped and waited.

“It started when you escaped. Marie was furious. You had humiliated her, and she was out for your blood.”

“Anton?”

“He was worried. He said that Jacques Grevy should have been back, that something must have happened to him. That it could well be that the soldiers had sent for rein- forcements.”

“What did Marie say to that?”

“She became worried. Over her gold, not anything else. She wouldn't risk losing it. So she gave the order to pack up and prepare to depart.”

“And the settlers?”

Claude's face clouded with misery. “She said that they would speak against us in your courts. That we could not take them with us because they would slow us down. That only left one thing.”

“Killing them.”

Claude swallowed and nodded. “Some of us spoke against it. We said there were women and children, and no Metis would do such a thing.”

“She had them killed anyway.”

“Not right away. She was clever about it. She told us that she would think it over and make up her mind in the morning. So most of us went to sleep.” Claude raised a hand to his eyes as if to hide the sight he'd beheld. “It was about midnight when the first shots woke us. The shots and the screams. We scrambled from our blankets and ran to where the settlers were tied but it was too late.”

“Marie had them gunned down.”

“
Oui
. Those who blindly follow Marie and Anton, what is asked of them, they do. Some of us were outraged and told her what she had done was terrible beyond belief. Can you guess what she did? She laughed in our faces. When some of our women broke into tears, she laughed at them, as well.”

“And Anton?”

“He was eager to leave. To be honest, with all those bodies, so were we. But we were mad, many of us. Madder than we had ever been. And this afternoon, when we reached this very spot, we marched up to them and told them enough was enough.”

“About damn time.”

Claude nodded. “The shame, it is almost more than we can bear.”

Fargo saw it on every face, in every eye.

“We told Marie and Anton that we wanted nothing more to do with them. Anton drew his pistol and threatened to kill anyone who defied them. To our surprise, Marie told him to leave us alone, that if we thought it best to go our separate ways, she would go along with our wishes.”

Fargo could guess her real reason. The gold. Most likely she'd return to Canada and disappear. Maybe assume a new name. If they were careful and smart, no one would ever connect them with the massacre.

“So we split up,” Claude was saying. “Only seven men went with Marie and Anton, the same seven who helped them slaughter the captives. Three are married with families.”

Fargo frowned. “Women and sprouts.” That complicated things.

“Three wives, eight children. I know for a fact that two of the wives do not agree with what their husbands are doing.”

“I'm obliged for the information.”

“I am happy to help.” Claude looked earnestly at him. “Now we need information from you. Will your army come after us? Will they punish us for what the others have done?”

“No.”

“You are sure?”

“When I get back to Fort Laramie, I'll tell Colonel Jennings how things were.”

“Begging your pardon, what if you don't make it back? Marie and Anton are accomplished killers, the pair of them.”

“The soldiers fight shy of the Black Hills. Even if they find the bodies, they won't come this far after you. The rest of you should have nothing to fear.”

Translations brought more than a few smiles of relief.

“We are most happy to hear this,” Claude said. “I am just sorry we didn't stand up to Marie and Anton sooner.”

“I bet those settlers were sorry, too.”

Claude winced as if he had been struck. “We will have nightmares about them for the rest of our lives.”

“Good,” Fargo said.

“You are a hard man,
monsieur
.”

“Not hard enough.” Fargo regretted not killing Marie when he had the chance. If he had, the settlers might be alive. Draining the last of his coffee, he stood. “I have riding to do.”

“One last thing, if you please.”

Fargo had turned but stopped.

“Marie expects you to come after them. I heard her say they must be ready.”

“Us Americans have another saying,” Fargo said. “Ready or not, here I come.”