Six-Gun Gallows (12 page)

“Jesus.” Fargo felt his scalp tighten at the perversity of it. “This Belloch must only have one oar in the water.”

“Yes, thankfully. And after he buttoned my dress back up, he whispered in my ear, ‘Life is a disease, and the only cure is death.' ”

“
No
oars in the water,” Fargo amended. “I don't mind going up against a run-of-the-mill murderer, but these sick-brain types give me the fantods. You can't predict them.”

“Well anyway, you came in the nick of time, Skye. He said one more day and my bruise would fade. After he sated his filthy lust, one of his lackeys was to kill me after he, too, ‘had a whack at me,' as Belloch put it.”

“Don't worry,” Fargo assured her. “He'll get his comeuppance real soon now.”

But secretly her words troubled Fargo. He meant what he had told her: He had dealt with all manner of enemies on the wild frontier, and none were more formidable than the criminally insane.

The Ovaro was keeping a good canter now, still holding up well and showing no signs of lathering. But the creek had taken a sharp jog to the south, leaving them on the open plains. With no reference points on the ground, they could have ridden in circles all night. But Fargo was adept at star navigating and kept them on course, due west, toward the Cimarron.

The problem was, they still weren't all that far outside of Sublette—and clear of any roving sentries. Fargo felt a cold fist grip his heart when a voice boomed out, “Halt!”

Cindy's embrace on him tightened with fear. But since Fargo couldn't see their enemy, he relied on the near-total darkness as he thumped the Ovaro's ribs, opening him out to a dead run.

A six-gun spoke its piece, and when the bullet snapped just overhead, he realized his mistake: Cindy's dress, though filthy, still showed plenty of white.

“Halt, you son of a bitch!” the voice roared.

“Lean forward with me, Cindy!” Fargo called out, bending down over the horn. He was in no position to go toe-to-toe with his attacker.

A third shot rang out, the bullet kicking the stirrup out from under Fargo's left foot. He could hear the rataplan of hooves behind them. This time, however, Fargo spotted a streak of muzzle flash, and now he had a target area.

He jerked back his short gun. But Fargo had a life depending on him, and he took no chances. In these inky fathoms of darkness, a horse was a much more likely target, and that's what he aimed for, snapping off three quick rounds.

The hoofbeats behind them suddenly grew erratic, turned into skidding noises, then stopped completely.

“I stopped him,” Fargo said. “Lucky shot, but it worked.”

But the sentry was still alive, so Fargo hadn't stopped the danger. Only a heart skip after Fargo's remark, a shrill blast from a tin horn disrupted the silence of the plains.

The Ovaro shuddered at the ear-piercing sound.

“Is he signaling to the men in the woods?” Cindy asked, fear spiking her voice up an octave.

“Nah, they're too far away. He's calling all the roving sentries into this area.”

“What will we do?”

“The only thing we can do—outrun them until we lose them.”

“If we don't,” Cindy said close to his ear, for it was hard to hear above the Ovaro's galloping hooves, “Skye, I'm begging you—kill me before you let those filthy murderers capture me again.”

 

Fargo had trusted his life to the Ovaro in many daunting circumstances, and this night he did so again. But it was a dangerous roll of the dice. He had heard at least two pursuers behind them, and more lead had whiffed past them, but his redoubtable steed eventually exhausted the pursuers' horses. Unfortunately, in eluding them Fargo had to veer off course from the path he and the McCallister boys had followed in their ride to Sublette.

Farther west than he wanted to be, the Cimarron behind them, Fargo was riding in near-total darkness. For starters, he loathed riding in unscouted country even in daylight. Despite the lack of trees, they cropped up now and then, and a few years back Fargo and the Ovaro had once ridden smack into one, both sustaining injuries. And a low-hanging branch could sweep him and Cindy right out of the saddle, or knock Fargo senseless.

The real danger, however, was the ground. A horse's most vulnerable piece of anatomy was its thin legs. A jagged stone in the wrong place could make the Ovaro pull up lame; a prairie dog hole could snap a leg completely and force Fargo to shoot him. There was also danger from sudden sand wallows. The Trailsman held his now tiring stallion to a trot and struggled to read the darkness all around them.

Cindy was near “foundering,” too. Horsebacking at a hard pace was hard even for a man used to it. The fragile girl, however, had probably moved about only in conveyances before this. The fast clip and jarring motion, in her exhausted condition, had induced a delirious half sleep.

“Tom?” she called out. “Tom, will you take me to the cider party next week at the Hupenbecker barn?”

“With pleasure,” Fargo replied, figuring Tom must be the young widow's newly murdered husband.

“Then here's a big hug for you.”

Fargo felt a sudden surge of blood into his manhood and had to shift in the saddle when she pressed herself hard against him. He wished he had met this delicate beauty under happier circumstances—Belloch had cut away all of her underclothing, and it was easy to feel every swelling and curve under that thin dress. Especially with her right hand bumping against the tent in his buckskins . . .

Put it out of your mind, Fargo,
he told himself.
The way she's feeling right now, she just might do it with you. Then, after, she'll think of her husband, who never even got a grave, and hate herself.

“Tom?” she mumbled. “Since we're engaged to be married, why shouldn't we see each other naked? I've never seen a grown man's . . . you know. Ma says they get real big when a man's excited. Tom?”

“We best not, Cindy,” Fargo said reluctantly, cursing his confounded luck. “We might go too far.”

“Then let's go too far! Even if I catch a baby, we're getting married in a month.”

“Cindy,” Fargo said, “let's talk about that cider party again, all right?”

Fortunately for a randy-in-the-saddle Fargo, she began rambling about her wedding dress. For the past hour heat lightning had been shimmering on the horizon. The air still felt soft as the breath of a young girl, but Fargo knew that hazy ring around the moon meant hard wind and rain before morning.

He had hoped to outrun it, but all at once a huge clap of thunder rocked the plains, startling Cindy awake.

“Dig my slicker out from behind you,” he told her, raising his voice above the sound of the sudden wind. “Wrap yourself up in it and get set for a hell-buster.”

She had just finished protecting herself in his oilskin poncho when the first sheets of rain began slanting down. Soon, sudden wind gusts drove the rain almost horizontally, stinging Fargo's face like buckshot. He pulled the brim of his hat down and tucked his face toward his left shoulder.

“Skye,” she shouted behind him, “can you even see?”

“No,” he admitted. “But I wasn't seeing much before this, either. We'll have to trust my stallion now. Just be glad a horse's eyes are on the sides of his head.”

“Shouldn't we stop until it lets up? You're getting soaked.”

“Nah. These are big raindrops, and that usually means a quick rain. There's no shelter, anyway. Besides, I don't want those two boys alone after sunup.”

“I caused all this trouble. I'm sorry.”

“Not you,” Fargo corrected her. “The pond scum who abducted you caused all this. I'm honored to help you.”

“You're a wonderful man, Skye Fargo.”

“You've noticed that?” Fargo joked, eliciting a weak laugh from the exhausted girl.

But she might not think he was so wonderful, Fargo thought, if the azimuth he was following was inaccurate. Until the storm blew over, he couldn't even check the stars. Everything now was guesswork, and finding one small farm, on the Great Plains, was like looking for a sliver in an elephant's ass.

Hard storms that came quickly often stopped quickly, and this one blew over in thirty minutes. Fargo swiped water from his eyes and spotted a slightly darker mass against the night sky—a mass about the size of the McCallister barn.

“Something's up ahead,” Fargo told Cindy. “Cross your fingers.”

By now the Ovaro was so tired that Fargo could feel flecks of lather blowing back on him. But the game stallion kept up the strut. There was a sudden eruption of barking, and Fargo grinned—Dan'l Boone was at his post.

“Hallo, McCallisters!” he called out. “It's Skye Fargo riding in.”

As the Ovaro trotted into the bare-dirt yard, Lorena McCallister emerged from the barn with a lantern in one hand, her long Jennings rifle in the other. Krissy followed wearing a long nightshirt, her hair a wild black profusion.

“Trouble, Skye?” Lorena asked, watching Fargo help a pretty, sore-used blonde from the saddle.

“Plenty for this young lady, Lorena. Her name is Cindy Henning. Border ruffians killed her husband and abducted her. Any chance she can stay here for a while until she recovers her strength?”

“Any chance? We'd be pleased to have her stay as long as she cares to, poor thing.”

The “poor thing” in question had held up for this hard ride, but now she had reached the limits of endurance. As Fargo was tugging the slicker off Cindy, her knees abruptly buckled and she passed out. He caught her in the nick of time.

“Bring her inside,” Lorena said, hurrying on ahead. “Plenty of empty beds.”

Krissy followed Fargo in, flashing him that come-hither smile that he remembered well from his first visit.

“She's mighty pretty,” Krissy whispered. “Or hadn't you noticed?”

“No shortage of pretty ladies around here, either,” Fargo whispered back. “Not to mention shapely.”

“But around here it's just going to waste, don't you agree?”

“No misdoubting that,” Fargo agreed.

Lorena led him to the living quarters at the end of the barn. “Put her on Dub's bed, right there. It's only a corn-husk mattress, but I doubt she'll mind that for right now, poor thing.”

“Right now she could sleep on a rock pile,” Fargo said. “Says she hasn't slept in days.”

“She'll come sassy with some rest and hot broth. Then we'll feed her up on some of those provisions you sent back. Skye, are the boys all right?”

“They're fine, but I won't lie to you, Lorena—all three of us are up against it near Sublette. Or soon will be.”

“Jayhawkers?”

He nodded.

Lorena and Krissy exchanged a troubled glance. Word about them, and the pukes of Missouri, had reached all of the far-flung settlers.

“Well,” Lorena finally said, “I'm scared for 'em—they're so young. But their pa was fighting Indians at their age. Boys have to grow into men fast in these parts.”

Fargo agreed. No star men, few soldiers, no hemp committees, even—who else was going to stop this butchering trash? As Cindy and those Quakers proved, somebody had to, or the entire West would become one giant criminal empire.

“Have they been a thorn in your side?” Lorena asked.

“Nothing you wouldn't expect from two frisky colts. They're good lads. As soon as I feed and rest my horse, I'm returning to them.”

Lorena clucked her tongue. “Skye Fargo, you look almost as worn out as this girl! The creek out back is permanently dry, but there's a seep spring nearby we use for bathing. Krissy, get some soap and a towel and show Skye where it is.”

“But my horse—”

“Never you mind. I'll take good care of him. We've got some oats, and after I dry him off and rub him down, I'll take a currycomb to him and get those witch's bridles out of his coat. When you finish, Skye, I'll give you a hot meal.”

Krissy took Fargo's hand and gave it a promissory squeeze. “Come along, Skye.”

They went out the south door of the barn, Fargo studying Krissy in the moonlight. She wasn't as delicate as Cindy, but like the blonde she was right out of the top drawer.

“Must have been rough, huh?” she said.

“What?”

“Having that pretty, nearly naked girl pressed up against you the whole way from Sublette.”

“Oh, I was a trouper and endured it.”

“I wish it could have been me. When a girl rides straddle, you know, it gets her, well . . . all het up. All that up-and-down rubbing.”

Fargo slanted a glance at her. “You are a little firecracker, are'n'cha?”

“I have a very short fuse, if that's what you mean.”

“In case you notice me walking funny,” Fargo informed her, “it's all your fault.”

“Oh?” she said with exaggerated innocence.

“And why bother with a horse?” he added. “Won't a man do?”

She tossed back her pretty head and laughed. The moonlight was brighter now, after the storm, and Fargo saw even little teeth white as pearls. “Men are just fine if a gal can find any. Here's the bathing pool, Skye.”

The pool alongside the creek glimmered in the moonlight.

“Well,” Fargo said reluctantly, “I guess you'll be heading back? Lorena might not take kindly to—”

Krissy laughed again. “Don't be foolish, Skye. Ma's as man-starved as I am. She didn't send me back to hold the soap.”

“I've done my duty,” Fargo surrendered.