New Mexico Madman (9781101612644) (4 page)

“We seem to be one passenger short,” Ashton remarked. “Certainly we cannot leave without our important personage?”

Fargo eyed the coolly confident man speculatively. But as if Ashton were a herald, Ambrose Jenkins stepped into the depot with a stunningly beautiful woman on his arm—one so stunning that the depot went as silent as a classroom after a hard question. Even Booger McTeague was struck speechless, a rare event.

It was Ashton who broke the silence. “As I live and breathe—that fairest flower of all the fields, ladies and gentlemen, is Kathleen Barton, America's Sweetheart.”

* * *

About one hundred yards north of the Overland Stage line's El Paso depot, Cleo Hastings knelt before a fourth-story window in the Frontier Hotel. The notch sight of his Sharps carbine was centered on Skye Fargo's back.

“God-
damn
it, Russ! I'm telling you, man, I can pop Fargo over right
now
!
Now
, buddy, before he even climbs up onto that box. That's our job, ain't it? Just one twitch, Russ, and he's bucked out.”

Russ Alcott and Spider Winslowe sat at a table cutting cards for a dime a go. Alcott glanced toward the window and shook his head in disgust.

“Cleo, you dumb cockchafer, you ain't got the brains God gave a pissant. Pull that smoke pole in before somebody spots it.”

“But why, damn it!” Cleo looked back over his right shoulder, his face imploring. He was a thickset man with a huge soup-strainer mustache and a pockmarked face. “You think I can't make the shot, hanh?”

Alcott kept his voice level only with an effort. “Now see, this here is why I'm the wheel and you're just a pip-squeak cog. Sure, my damn grandmother could make that shot. But I told you to pull that rifle back inside, and I don't chew my cabbage twice.”

“Like hell I will! We kill him now and it's did. Lomax pays us the rest of our money, and we ain't gotta lock horns with Fargo up the trail. I'm popping that son of a bitch over
now
.”

Cleo was still curling his finger around the trigger when two menacing, metallic clicks behind him raised the fine hairs on his nape. He looked around and stared into the unblinking eyes of Russ' and Spider's six-guns.

“Go ahead and pull that trigger,” Alcott said in a voice dry as husks scraping in an old cornfield. “Pull it, and you'll buck out a second after Fargo.”

Cleo, looking as if he'd been drained by leeches, slowly pulled his carbine inside and laid it on the plank floor.

“Cleo,” Russ said as if talking to a child, “a man don't wade into the water until he knows how deep it is. Now you tell me—what happens as soon as you kill Fargo in that wagon yard? What happens to the bitch before you can get another cap on that nib and get back on bead?”

“She . . . why, I reckon they'd hustle her back inside, huh?”

“Atta boy, now you're whistling. And after she sees Fargo's guts fly out all over her pretty dress, you think she'll hop on that coach and just head north, pretty as you please?”

Hastings thought about it, then shook his head. “Nah. She might never go to Santa Fe at all. And then Lomax don't pay us.”

“That ain't all, jughead,” Spider cut in. He had thinning red hair and a crooked nose broken in two places. “You see that wooden barracks just past the feed store? Texas Ranger headquarters. You got any idea how them old boys feel about Skye Fargo?”

“And the New Mexico Territory,” Alcott added, flipping over an ace of spades, “allows hot pursuit for crimes committed in Texas. No matter which way we run, they'll be pouring hot lead up our bung holes.”

By now Cleo was thoroughly chastised. “Yeah. I didn't think about none a that shit.”

“You don't need to think, Cleo,” Alcott assured him, quickly building a smoke and expertly curling the ends. “You got enough guts to fill a smokehouse, and you can shoot the eyes out of a crow at two hundred yards. You're a damn good man to take along, and that's why you're here. As for Skye Fargo and Lomax's silky-satin bitch”—Alcott's cruelly handsome face set itself hard—“I got a real nice plan worked out for them. Fargo ain't never seen me, so I'll be waiting for them at the Vado station. I want to get a good size-up of this galoot and see if I can puzzle out which passenger is on Lomax's payroll.”

“I don't like that shit,” Cleo declared. “I mean, Lomax not telling us who he hired.”

“It don't set good with me, neither. But this deal has got to be done right—from what I hear about Fargo, one mistake can be our epitaph.”

“My pap was a coffin maker,” Spider put in. “Every time I cut a board for him, he told me to measure it twice and cut it once.”

Alcott tossed his head back and blew three perfect smoke rings toward the ceiling. Then he trained his pale-ice eyes on Spider and nodded.

“Your pap was a smart man, and that's how we're gonna work this deal. Just remember this: If we want the top money,
we
got to kill Fargo and not let it fall to whoever Lomax has hired to ride the stage. His main job is to keep the actress on the coach until Lomax douses her glims farther north. But we have to do for Fargo first or that ain't never gonna happen.”

4

Fargo, Booger and the
mozo
made short work of securing Kathleen Barton's trunks to the flat top of the Concord. Fargo was just tying the last hitch knot when Addison Steele led the boarding party out into the yard.

“Ha-ho, ha-ho,” Booger said, eyeing the actress. “
There's
one petticoat you won't get under, Tumbledown Dick. You seen that look she give you when Steele innerduced you to her? Christmas crackers! Like you ain't good 'nuff to lick her silk boots.”

“I'm generally better at unlacing than lacing,” Fargo assured the shaggy giant.

“Pah!
That
one pisses icicles. You can't jump a four-rail fence, Trailsman.”

“The cat sits patiently by the gopher hole,” Fargo said as he began clambering down.

Fargo had heard and read about Kathleen Barton's famed beauty but had never seen a likeness of her. Watching her approach now, proudly holding separate from the rest of the chattering passengers, he understood the widespread claim that she was the most beautiful woman in America. Her wing-shaped, amber-brown eyes and regal, arching eyebrows set off a beautifully symmetrical face. The thick, coffee-colored hair was swept back tight under a jewel-encrusted tiara. Her complexion was like creamy lotion, and the delicate, disdainful lips matched her icy hauteur.

But Fargo realized the “wide-eyed vivacity” theater critics claimed she projected on stage was nowhere evident now—just a cool disdain for all the lesser mortals around her. But great jumping Judas, he told himself, that woman makes Venus look like a dishrag.

Her melodic but stern voice slapped him out of his reverie. “You do realize, Mr. Fargo, that men can also grope with their eyes?”

Booger sniggered and whispered, “Looks like gopher hole is
all
you'll get, chappie.”

Fargo touched his hat. “It was more in the way of admiring a great painting, Miss Barton, not groping. You're mighty easy on the eyes, and you can't hang a man for his thoughts.”

She ignored that. “No offense to your
manly
pride
, Mr. Fargo, but I consider your presence on this journey superfluous.”

“Now, now, Kathleen,” Ambrose Jenkins tried to soothe his client, “you yourself showed me the anonymous letter. You also told me you believe it was sent by Zack Lomax, whom you believe is still alive.”

“All that is true and the man's very name is gall and wormwood to me. But you see”—here she turned to Fargo again—“I believe strongly in Fate. Whatever may happen, Mr. Fargo, is out of your no-doubt roughly callused hands.”

“I believe in Fate, too,” Fargo said. “Fate is the hand you are dealt, the cards you can't choose yourself. But Fate also allows for discards and the skill of the player.”

For a moment she looked surprised, even perhaps a bit impressed. “My stars, a buckskin-clad philosopher? What's next—the sun rising in the west?”

“I agree with Fargo, Miss Barton,” Lansford Ashton put in politely. “And all due respect, but I would never judge a man of his capabilities superfluous. As the Latin phrase goes,
vestis
virum
reddit
—‘the clothes make the man.' And buckskin is very tough indeed.”

Hearing his perfect Latin, she glanced at Ashton with some interest. But Malachi Feldman now spoke up eagerly. “You are certainly correct, Miss Barton—our fate is predetermined and in the stars and planets, not the hands of Fargo. If you will kindly tell me which astrological sign you were born under, I—”

“Pitch it to hell, pip-squeak,” Booger cut in impatiently. “It's time to cut dirt, not listen to your swamp gas. All aboard!”

Steele and Jenkins handed the ladies in. Booger stared eagerly at the ivory swell of Trixie Belle's boldly exposed bosoms.

“Her Nibs and Her Nips,” he whispered in the Trailsman's ear. “Fargo, lad, our cornucopia runneth over.
Both
them little bits of frippet put a pup tent in my britches. And I know exactly where and how we are going to view both them gals buck naked.”

Fargo started to ask for details, but Booger waved him off. “You will see, lad. Old Booger has his little tricks.”

The come-hither glance Trixie sent Fargo, as she stepped into the coach, convinced him he'd be seeing at least this woman naked—assuming a load of blue whistlers didn't cancel his plans.

The sturdy coach listed to one side as Booger heaved himself up on the box. He slid on the buckskin gauntlets that no true knight of the ribbons would be caught without. Then he pulled a six-horse whip from its socket: the buckskin lash was twenty feet long and able to reach the leaders of a three-team rig. Fargo ducked behind the coach to check on the Ovaro. The stallion's lazy tail was swishing at flies, and he had evidently accepted the close proximity of the gentle bays.

“Fargo!” Booger hollered. “Sling your hook or you'll be eating dust! I've no patience with a malt worm who puts water after his whiskey.”

Fargo, the double-ten in one hand, barely had his foot on the steel rung before Booger cracked his blacksnake and the coach lurched into motion with a jangle of trace chains.

“Gerlong there, boys! G'long!
Whoop!
”

Something in the tail of his eye made Fargo glance toward the five-story hotel on his right. A man's face stared out a fourth-floor window at him but quickly ducked out of sight.

“Interesting,” Fargo muttered, making sure his brass-framed Henry was conveniently to hand behind him. An express gun was formidable indeed, at close range, but Fargo suspected his sixteen-shot Henry might soon prove more useful.

Booger was in high spirits at seeing his old battle companion again.

“Ahh, the morning-crisp glory of the sun, eh, Fargo? Watch this.”

Booger stared into the bright yellow ball of sun until he sneezed so violently the wheel team pricked up their ears.

“Works every time! If I aim my ass at old Sol, might be I'll cut a fart, hey?”

“Let's just go on wondering,” Fargo suggested as they rolled through the northern outskirts of El Paso, his eyes constantly scanning to all sides. “Booger, did anything I told you back at the depot sink in?”

“What? About this Lomax wanting to kill the Ice Queen? Faugh! Can you blame him?
That
calico is all horns and rattles.”

“Tell the truth and shame the devil. But don't forget—it's likely
we'll
be the first targets. And I'd wager we're being watched already. I think maybe I spotted one of the killers as we pulled out of the depot. It's also highly likely they'll wait until we're deeper into New Mexico.”

Booger snorted. “Ahh, go crap in your hat, malt worm. Why, this run will be like money for old rope. I've survived Comanches, Apaches, Kiowas, the French Pox and two years of bloody war down in Old Mex.”

He gnawed off a corner of his plug, got it juicing good, then cheeked his cud and let out a dramatic sigh.

“Yes, lad, the war. Blood, guts, senseless slaughter, terrible suffering and treachery, unmitigated human misery—oh, Skye, I do miss it! Life has gone to hell for old Booger, it has. Where the grapeshot is pouring in, that's where I long to be. Hee-
yah
, you spavined whores!” he added, cracking his whip over the leaders.

“
Please
, Mr. McTeague!” the preacher shouted through one of the windows. “The ladies can hear you!”

Booger grinned malevolently. “That prissy holy man wears cologne in them droopy side whiskers. You get within four feet of that rake handle and your eyeballs mist.”

“Never mind him. Wha'd'ya think about Lansford Ashton?”

The mirth bled from Booger's moon face. “Aye, there's a weasel dick and an oily tongue. He spoke up for you to the actress, but it was only lip deep. Bad medicine. Are you thinking he's hired by Lomax—that Lomax knows the very rig Her Nibs is riding?”

“That's two good questions,” Fargo pointed out, “but I've got no good answers. I think it's smart to assume Lomax knows which coach and that he's planted somebody on it. But consider all those passengers potential killers, not just Ashton.”

“Even Trixie? She of the giant jahoobies?”

“Even her.”

Booger nodded and loosed a brown streamer that splatted on the withers of the offside wheeler. “All right, catfish. But if it's her, let's make damn sure we screw her before we kill her.”

* * *

The first stage of the journey into New Mexico Territory went off without a hitch. The stage rolled through the narrow but fertile Rio Grande Valley, green with well-cultivated fields of beans, squash and chili peppers.

Fargo could see the river on his left, a wide, meandering brown ribbon still high with spring runoff from the northern mountains. On his right, the fertile fields gave way like a knife edge to yellow-brown desert. Beyond this desolate vista, the Organ Mountains cut dark silhouettes against a cloudless sky of bottomless blue. Mountains seldom seemed close in New Mexico, yet they always saw-toothed the horizons.

The day heated up quickly as the morning advanced, and Fargo was soon mopping his forehead with his sleeve. They changed teams at the Berino swing station. When Fargo hopped down and glanced into the coach, he had to stifle a grin—Kathleen Barton alone occupied the leather-padded seat at the rear, cut off from the other four passengers.

“Mr. Fargo,” Pastor Brandenburg complained out the window, “you really
must
speak to that driver! Those filthy songs he bellows out, and his coarse language—why, the ladies are positively scandalized!”

“I think he's funny,” Trixie contradicted, pouring out a smile for Fargo. “I liked that ditty about granny swinging on the outhouse door without her nightgown.”

“Tell you what, Preacher,” Fargo said from a deadpan, pointing to the other side of the coach. “There's Booger now—speak to him yourself.”

The man of God followed Fargo's finger, his face contorting into a horrified mask: Booger McTeague stood in open view, pissing into the sand.

“God preserve us,” the preacher muttered.

Booger saw the rest staring. “Why, a man must drain his snake, hey? It's two more hours before we reach the station at Vado. If anyone needs to piss, best let 'er rip now!”

Lansford Ashton met Fargo's gaze. “Earthy fellow, isn't he?”

Kathleen Barton deigned to break her demure silence, those bewitching amber-brown eyes staring at Fargo as she spoke. “You mustn't confuse earth with dirt, Mr. Lansford.”

Fargo grinned, touched his hat, then lent the stock-tender a hand with the new relay before they rolled on again. The open, cultivated terrain so far set Fargo somewhat at ease. Occasionally they encountered serape-draped
indios
and Mexicans, afoot, on burros or riding in carts pulled by donkeys, and Fargo kept a wary eye on them until they were out of sight.

“Money for old rope,” Booger insisted again after tipping his flask and passing it to Fargo. “The Ice Queen is safe as sassafras. We may have to kill a few stray road agents or Apaches is all.”

Booger's North & Savage rifle protruded from a leather boot at the corner of the box, and his old cap-and-ball dragoon pistol from the Mexican War was tucked behind his red sash. Fargo knew firsthand that he was a dead shot with both weapons.

“Like I said,” Fargo reminded him, “the trouble is likely to come farther north where it's good ambush country.”

“Fargo, you've become a reg'lar calamity howler. You eat too much pussy—such a diet renders a man feminine. Say, here's a lulu! There's this jasper riding a train from Cincinnati to Chicago, you see, and all of a sudden like he's got to take him a powerful shit. Just then the train whooshes into a tunnel, and in the dark he drops his britches and hangs his ass out a window.

“Well, sir, there's these two bummers camped in the tunnel beside the tracks. One of 'em looks up, all excited like: ‘Look-a-there, Pete, see that? Quick, man! You slap his face and I'll grab the cigar!'”

Booger found his own joke so amusing he laughed himself into a coughing fit, shaking the entire coach. “Ain't that the berries, Skye? See, he thought—”

“Yeah, I
grasp
it,” Fargo punned, and when Booger got his play on words he almost rolled off the box in new paroxysms of mirth.

“But if it was dark inside the tunnel,” Trixie's voice called up to them, “how could they see the—”

“Ignore them, young lady,” the preacher's voice snapped, raised for Booger's enlightenment. “You must resist corrupting influences, not encourage them.”

Booger winked at Fargo. “The game's afoot, lad. The witch doctor is my favorite boy now. Oh, great larks ahead!”

Early in the afternoon they rolled into the Overland station house at Vado, a low cottonwood structure chinked with mud. A fresh relay team waited in the hoof-packed side yard.

Many way stations also sold food and liquor to passersby. Fargo spotted a lone roan gelding, still saddled, hitched to the snorting post out front.

“That's fine horseflesh,” he remarked as Booger kicked the brake handle. “But sore-used. See the scars where it's been spurred in the shoulders? Spurred hard.”

“Outlaw horse,” Booger said. “Sure as cats fighting.”

Fargo nodded. “Hold the passengers out here a minute while I talk to the
mozo
. I want me and you stepping inside first.”

Fargo instructed the yard boy to untie the three horses from the back of the Concord and let them tank up at the stone water trough.

“Any trouble inside?” he asked the Mexican kid.

The lad shrugged and removed his straw Chihuahua hat in a mark of respect.
“No hable ingles,
senor
.”

“Hay un hombre malo dentro de la casa?”

“There is one stranger,” the kid replied in Spanish. “He ate a bowl of pozole and now he is drinking whiskey. He has been very quiet. There has been no trouble.”