Thunderhead Trail (12 page)

The others were firing warning shots.

Thunderhead must be returning.

Whirling, Fargo ran. He was only halfway when more shots boomed. It must be Dirk's way of letting them know the bull was close and they'd better get the hell out of there.

Rafer Crown had turned his bay and was staring down the canyon. “About time,” he grumbled.

Without breaking stride, Fargo vaulted up. A rake of his spurs and they raced to the bend and around it into the wider part of the canyon.

Below, just entering, was Thunderhead. The bull stopped at seeing them and raised its head.

Fargo and Crown both drew rein.

“Wonderful,” the bounty hunter said. “He has us trapped.”

Fargo sat perfectly still. He was trying not to do anything that would provoke the longhorn. Thunderhead stared and they stared back and then Thunderhead snorted and stomped a front hoof.

“Oh, hell,” Crown said. “From now on I stick to two-legged bounties.”

With a bellow that shook the canyon walls, Thunderhead charged. Dirt and stones flew out from under his driving hooves and he raised a cloud of dust in his wake.

Crown raised his reins but Fargo said, “Not yet. Wait until I say. You go right and I'll go left.”

“I don't much like letting that critter get close,” Crown said.

Fargo didn't like the idea, either. He was hoping Thunderhead was more concerned with the cow and the calf than with wanting to kill them. If not, either or both of them would pay for his hunch with their lives.

The bull had his head low, his horns and thick brow thrust forward. His nostrils flared with every breath and his eyes were pits of rage.

“Not yet,” Fargo said when Crown went to rein aside.

“I hope you know what we're doing.”

Fargo barely heard him. The pounding of Thunderhead's hooves nearly drowned him out. By now the bull was close enough that Fargo could see dried blood from the Blackfeet it had killed on the tips of its horns.

Thirty feet separated them and then twenty feet and Fargo bawled, “Now!”

He yanked on the reins and the Ovaro turned and for an awful moment Fargo thought he had been too slow. Then Thunderhead swept past, the tip of his horn not an inch from the Ovaro.

Fargo didn't waste another second. He raked his spurs and didn't slow until the canyon was behind them.

“What was in that thicket, anyhow?” Crown asked.

Fargo told him.

“This might make it easier.”

“It might,” Fargo agreed.

“Or it might make some of us dead.”

“That too.”

Dirk and Aramone were anxiously waiting. Glyn, on the other hand, looked disappointed that they were alive.

“I shot as soon as I saw him,” Dirk said.

“You did good,” Fargo said as he dismounted.

“I was so worried,” Aramone said. “The bull didn't try to kill you?”

“He did,” Fargo replied. “But he had something else on his mind and we were able to get away.”

“What else?” Glyn Richmond asked.

Fargo told them about the cow and the calf.

Dirk Peters let out a cackle. “It must be true love.” He laughed and slapped his legs. “This puts us in the saddle if we do it right.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Glyn Richmond asked.

“You Easterners,” Dirk said with ill-disguised scorn, “don't know diddly.”

“I know I don't like you looking down your nose at me,” Glyn said.

“Brother, please,” Aramone said.

“He treats us like we're simpletons,” Glyn said. “You heard him while they were gone.”

Fargo looked at Dirk.

“All I said was that they'd have been smart to stay east of the Mississippi. They are fish out of water out here.”

“You didn't call us fish,” Glyn said. “You called us jackasses.”

“I was thinking fish,” Dirk said.

“I've had enough of you,” Glyn Richmond said and punched Dirk Peters in the mouth.

Dirk Peters unleashed a left cross to the jaw that rocked Glyn back a step.

“Stop it!” Aramone cried, but neither man paid attention.

Suddenly they were slugging toe to toe.

Fargo didn't intervene. The pair had been prickly toward each other since they met. This was bound to happen sooner or later.

Rafer Crown made no move to separate them, either. All he did was say, “This should be interesting.”

They were evenly matched. Glyn appeared to have some skill at boxing but Dirk had faster reflexes and his punches, when they landed, were solid. Glyn caught him with a body blow and he retaliated with a loop to the temple that knocked Glyn's bowler off.

“Someone stop them,” Aramone pleaded. “Please.”

“They're grown men,” Crown said. “Or they're supposed to be.”

Aramone looked at Fargo. “For me.”

“If either pulls a gun I will.”

“I'd let them shoot each other,” Crown said.

The pair went at it in grim earnest. Circling, feinting, jabbing, swinging, each scored but did little real harm.

“I've seen girls who fought better,” Rafer Crown remarked.

“Go to hell,” Aramone said. “My brother is doing fine.”

“They might as well be dancing,” Crown said.

“I'd like to see you do half as good.”

“I don't fight with my fists.”

“What then? Knives?”

Crown placed his hands on his pistols. “What do you think?”

The next moment Glyn clipped Dirk on the cheek and Dirk nailed him in the gut. Glyn doubled over, putting his jaw in easy reach, and Dirk drew back his fist to end it.

Suddenly Dirk jerked as if from an invisible punch and clutched at his shoulder. Far off, a rifle cracked.

“Everyone down!” Fargo hollered and flung himself at Aramone, pulling her with him.

Crown flattened, too, but Dirk was standing with a hand pressed to his shoulder, looking bewildered.

Glyn Richmond was confused, too. Gazing about, he blurted, “What? What is it?”

Fargo dived at both men. They were close enough that he got an arm around the legs of each and upended them with a twist of his shoulders.

Glyn cursed and Dirk squawked and then they were on the ground and Fargo yelled, “Someone is shooting at us, you idiots.”

Glyn forgot all about Dirk. His hand whipped under his jacket and reappeared holding his pocket pistol. “Where?” he said.

“They're too far off.”

Fargo saw blood trickling from between Dirk's fingers and asked, “How bad?”

“Can't tell yet,” Dirk answered, grimacing. “But it hurts like hell.”

“Stay down,” Fargo commanded. “All of you.” He snaked to the Ovaro, crabbed around to the other side, and quickly slid his Henry from the saddle scabbard.

Judging by the sound of the shot, it had come from hundreds of yards off. Fargo focused on a bluff as the likely spot. From up top, whoever it was had a clear view of them and their fire. He trained the Henry but saw no movement.

“We're too exposed,” Crown said. Like Fargo, he was staring at the bluff.

Swinging onto the Ovaro, Fargo pointed his Henry at a belt of firs. “Get into those trees and see to Peters.”

“What will you be doing?” Glyn Richmond asked.

“What the hell do you think?” Fargo replied, and tapped his spurs. He'd gain them the time they needed to hunt cover by making a target of himself.

Hunching low, he crisscrossed back and forth, expecting at any second to hear the crack of another shot. He reached the bluff and drew rein. It was too sheer on this side for a man to climb. The shooter had to have found another way up. Keeping watch on the rim, he rode around to the far side. An incline brought him to the crest.

No one was there. A few boulders, several small scrub brush, and that was it.

Fargo scoured the terrain beyond. Again, there was no sign of anyone. No riders. No retreating figures. Nothing.

He moved to where he was sure the shooter must have been but there were no footprints, no evidence a body had lain there, not so much as a scrape mark. He searched to either side, but once again, nothing.

Shaking his head, Fargo expressed his puzzlement with, “What the hell?”

Rafer Crown had kindled a fire and put water on to boil. Aramone was tending to Dirk Peters while Glyn stood guard with a rifle. Their horses and the pack animals were tied to nearby trees.

“I didn't hear shots,” Crown commented as Fargo swung down.

“There was no sign of the shooter.”

“Did you follow their tracks?” Crown asked.

“No tracks, either.”

“That's not possible,” the bounty hunter said. “Everyone leaves sign.”

“Apaches don't.”

“This ain't Apache country.” Crown stared toward the bluff. “If it was anyone else, I'd figure they couldn't track worth beans. But you're one of the best scouts alive, or so folks say.”

“A clever shooter could do it,” Fargo said. “Wrap, say, rabbit fur around their feet.”

“Then use another piece to wipe away any trace?” Crown nodded. “I've seen it done before. The rub marks usually give it away.”

“There weren't any.” Fargo thought of Humphries and Esther and the other bodies. “This killer isn't stupid.”

Dirk Peters had peeled his buckskin shirt from his shoulder and was lying propped against a log. He had overheard and said, “Stupid or smart, as soon as I'm able to hunt him, he's dead. No one shoots me and gets away with it.”

“You won't be going anywhere for a while,” Aramone said as she carefully probed at the entry hole. “I have to dig this slug out.”

“I can do it,” Fargo offered.

“I know how,” Aramone said. “I've done it before, and I'm not squeamish.”

“You shouldn't be helping him,” her brother said. “He took a swing at me, remember?”

“The fight is over,” Aramone said. “And you swung first, as I recall.”

“You're my sister,” Glyn said. “You're supposed to side with me.”

“I will when you're in the right but I'm helping him and that's final.”

Rafer Crown hooked his thumbs in his gun belt. “Enough of this damn bickering.”

“No one asked you,” Glyn said. “I'll thank you to keep your nose out of our business.”

“When I have to listen to it, you make it my business, too. And it stops, now.”

“I'm warning you,” Glyn said.

“I told your sister and now I'll tell you,” Crown said. “I'm not Peters. Treat me like you treat him and she can bury you.”

Glyn Richmond started to level his rifle.

With a lightning flick, Crown's Remington Navy was in his hand, pointed at Glyn's belly.

Richmond froze.

“You try that again and you're dead,” Crown said flatly.

“Glyn, please,” Aramone said. “You're not helping matters.”

“My own sister,” Glyn said angrily. Jerking his rifle down, he marched off into the trees.

“Damned yak,” Crown growled.

“We're sure a friendly bunch,” Dirk Peters said, and laughed.

Fargo didn't find it nearly as hilarious. They had enough to worry about without clawing at each other. “What will you use to dig out the slug?”

“I hadn't thought that far ahead,” Aramone said.

Tucking at the waist, Fargo palmed his Arkansas toothpick. “Use this.”

Aramone tested its edges with a finger and nodded in satisfaction. “It's as sharp as anything.”

“A dull knife isn't much use.”

Soon the water was hot. Aramone cleaned the wound using a cloth from her packhorse, then delicately probed with the toothpick.

To his credit, Dirk didn't let out a peep. He grit his teeth and bore the pain, only squirming once when she must have hit a nerve.

Aramone inserted the blade a third of the way before she found the slug. By twisting and prying, she succeeded in forcing it far enough out that she used the tips of two fingers to work it the rest of the way. She held the blood-wet lead to the sunlight and said, “Here you go.”

“Give it to me,” Dirk said, holding out his other hand.

“What do you want it for?”

“As a keepsake. I have an arrowhead in my saddle bags from the time a Lakota warrior put an arrow in my leg.”

“You might get another arrow in you before this is done,” Rafer Crown said.

“Why say a thing like that?” Aramone asked.

Crown gestured at a point out past the firs. “The Blackfeet are back.”

Fargo had already seen them.

Five warriors had appeared to the south. The one in the lead was tracking, and they were heading toward the mouth of the canyon.

“They're out for revenge for the ones the bull killed,” Rafer Crown guessed.

Aramone rose for a better look. “How can you possibly know that?”

“It's what I'd do if I was in their moccasins,” Crown said.

Fargo agreed with the bounty hunter. The Blackfeet didn't raise cattle. The only use they had for a cow or bull was to eat it, and even then they preferred buffalo. Buffs were everything to them: food, shelter, weapons, tools. Cow meat tasted strange and the hides weren't nearly as useful.

“If they kill Thunderhead,” Dirk Peters said, “there goes the five thousand dollars.”

“I reckon I can't allow that,” Crown said.

“For once I'm with you,” Glyn Richmond said. “Let's go deal with them.”

“Skye?” Crown said.

Fargo had no quarrel with the Blackfeet. He didn't want them killing the longhorn, either. “We drive them off without killing them if we can.”

“Why go to that much trouble?” Glyn said. “We have rifles. We can pick them off from a distance and that will be the end of it.”

“No killing,” Fargo said.

Glyn shook his head in disgust. “You frontier types aren't anything like I expected. Just the fact they're Indians should be enough excuse for us to kill them.”

“Not all of us out here are like you,” Dirk said.

“And how am I?” Glyn responded.

“You're— What's the word?” Dirk pretended to think a moment. “A damned bigot.”

“I despise their kind. I admit it,” Glyn said. “How many whites have they slaughtered and scalped over the years?”

“They scalp anyone you know?” Dirk asked.

“What's that have to do with anything?”

Fargo moved to the Ovaro and climbed on. Reining over to Aramone he said, “Stay here and look after Peters. Dirk, keep your guns handy. Any trouble, fire three shots into the air.”

“Will do, general,” Peters said, smirking.

“My sister goes with me,” Glyn said.

“I can't,” Aramone said. “I'm not done bandaging Mr. Peters.”

“I don't like it,” Glyn said.

“What can he do, hurt as he is?” Aramone said. “Besides, he's been a perfect gentleman all this time.”

“Wait,” Dirk said. “Are you saying what I think you're saying?”

Fargo sighed and gigged the Ovaro. Crown had mounted, too, and quickly caught up.

“Are you as tired of it as I am?”

“I could do without,” Fargo said.

“For two bits I'd goad the brother into going for his six-shooter but it would likely upset the sister.”

“You think?” Fargo said.

They rode out of the firs and made straight for the warriors. They hadn't gone far when Glyn Richmond trotted up on Fargo's left.

“You should have waited for me.”

Fargo didn't say anything.

“How do you want to do this?”

“I'm going to ask them to leave,” Fargo said.

Glyn looked at him, incredulous. “They'll put an arrow or a bullet into you before you can get close enough. I refuse to be so foolish.”

“Go back then,” Fargo said, hoping he would.

They rode a little farther and Glyn said, “No. My sister will never forgive me if you come to harm and I didn't try to help you.”

The Blackfeet hadn't noticed them yet but would soon. The tracker was reading sign and the others were watching him. Then one glanced up, thrust his arm out, and said something that caused the rest to turn and hold their weapons ready for use.

“They've seen us,” Glyn declared.

“Easterners don't miss much,” Crown said.

“Don't you start on me, too,” Glyn said. “I've had enough of it from Peters.”

“Quiet,” Fargo said.

The tracker had climbed back on his warhorse and the five Blackfeet were looking at one another as if unsure what to do.

“We could drop them easy,” Glyn said. “You're making a mistake.”

“Crown?” Fargo said.

The bounty hunter looked at him.

“If he tries anything, shoot him.”

“Gladly,” Crown said.

Glyn opened his mouth but thought better of it and stayed silent.

“This is as far as you two go,” Fargo said. They slowed and stopped and he rode on, but slowly. When he was close enough for the Blackfeet to plainly see, he held his right hand up to his neck, palm out, with his first two fingers pointed at the sky, and raised his hand until his fingers were level with his nose. It was sign language for “friend.”

None of the warriors responded.

Fargo did it again. He was encouraged by the fact that the two warriors with single-shot rifles weren't pointing them at him, and a warrior with a bow had an arrow nocked but hadn't drawn back the string.

Fargo drew rein about twenty feet out. He made the sign for friend again and waited for them to show their intentions.

Then the tracker pointed at him and held two fingers to the right of his mouth and moved his hand to the left.

It was sign language for “You lie.”