Trailsman #377 : Bounty Hunt (9781101604007) (14 page)

LOOKING FORWARD!

The following is the opening

section of the next novel in the exciting

Trailsman series from Signet:

 

TRAILSMAN #378

WYOMING WINTERKILL

The Rocky Mountains in the winter, 1861—where the cold and snow . . . and hot lead . . . made for an early grave.

Wyoming in the winter wasn't for the faint of heart.

Once it turned cold it stayed cold. Not the kind of cold back east, where a man could throw on a heavy coat and forget about it. This was a biting cold that froze the marrow. The wind made it worse. The temperature might be ten degrees; the wind made it seem like it was fifty below.

Skye Fargo supposed he should be used to it. He'd been through Wyoming enough times. But even bundled as he was in a heavy bearskin coat over his buckskins, he was cold as hell.

He'd tied his bandanna over his hat and knotted it under his chin so the wind couldn't whip it from his head. He could see his breath, and the Ovaro's. Each inhale seared his lungs with ice so that the simple act of breathing hurt.

Given his druthers, Fargo would rather be anywhere than where he was. But he'd signed on to scout for the army for a spell and the army wanted him to go to Fort Laramie. By his best reckoning he was five days out.

The sky was an ominous gray. Thick clouds pregnant with the promise of snow had yet to unleash their burden.

A winter storm was brewing, and if Fargo was any judge, it would be a bitch.

He hadn't stuck to the main trail. He wanted to get to the fort as quickly as he could so he was cutting overland.

He came to a tributary of the Platte and a crossing he remembered, and drew rein in surprise. He didn't remember a trading post being there. Yet one was on the other side, a long, low building with a crude sign that proclaimed it was run by one George Wilbur and he paid top prices for prime plews. At the bottom, in small letters, it mentioned simply W
HISKEY
.

Fargo had no great hankering to stop. But half a bottle would warm his innards and ward off the cold for a while when he resumed his ride.

Three horses were at the hitch rail. They looked miserable and he didn't blame them. Only a poor excuse for a human being would leave their animals out in the cold. Especially when around to the side was a lean-to. He dismounted and led the stallion in out of the worst of the wind.

Rubbing his hands, Fargo breathed on his fingers to warm them. When he had some feeling, he shucked his Henry from the saddle scabbard, cradled it in the crook of his left elbow, and walked around to the front door. Before he entered he opened his bearskin coat and slid his right hand underneath and rested it on his Colt.

The rawhide hinges protested with loud creaks.

Welcome warmth washed over him. A fire blazed in a stone fireplace, a pile of wood heaped high beside it.

At the moment a woman of thirty or so was bent over, adding some. She looked around.

So did everyone else.

The place was about what Fargo expected. Log walls, the chinks filled with clay. Rafters overhead. A bar and four tables.

Three men were playing cards; the owners of the horses at the hitch rail, Fargo guessed.

Behind the bar a man in an apron was wiping glasses. He had thick sideburns and a bristly mustache and dark eyes that glittered.

For Fargo, it was distrust at first sight.

The three men didn't inspire brotherly love, either. They were unkempt, their clothes shabby, their coats not much better. Their eyes glittered, too, like wolves sizing up prey.

Fargo wanted that drink. He crossed to the bar and set the Henry down with a loud thunk and swept his coat clear of his holster.

“How do, mister,” the barman said. “Cold, ain't it?”

“A bottle,” Fargo said. “Monongahela.”

“Sure thing.” The man turned to a shelf lined with bottles and picked one that hadn't been opened. “I'm George Wilbur, by the way.”

“Good for you.”

Wilbur opened the bottle and set it down.

As Fargo reached for it he caught his reflection in a dusty mirror. His beard needed a trim and his blue eyes had a piercing intensity that he was told made some uncomfortable. He raised the bottle, admired the amber liquor, and took a long swallow that burned warmth clear to his toes.

“I sell good drinking whiskey,” Wilbur boasted.

Fargo grunted. He undid his bandanna and retied it around his neck. The bottle in one hand and his Henry in the other, he walked over near the fireplace and pulled a chair away from a table. He sat so he was partly facing the fire and could keep an eye on the rest of the room's occupants. Leaning his rifle against the chair, he placed the bottle in his lap and held his hands out to the flames.

The woman added another log. She had brown hair and a pear-shaped face that wouldn't be so plain if she gussied up. Her homespun dress couldn't hide her ample bosom and long legs. She gave him a nice smile and turned away.

George Wilbur came over. “Don't say much, do you, friend?”

“Not in this life or any other,” Fargo said.

“Eh?”

“Are we friends?”

“Oh,” Wilbur said. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “I'm just making small talk.”

Fargo looked at him.

Wilbur gestured. “We don't get many folks stopping by, is all.”

“Makes this a damn stupid spot to build a trading post.”

“I make enough to get by and that's what counts,” Wilbur said.

Fargo treated himself to another swallow.

“We've got eats if you're hungry,” Wilbur said. “The woman here will cook for you. Fifty cents, and all you can eat.”

When Fargo didn't say anything, Wilbur coughed and turned and went back behind the bar.

The woman was poking through the wood box. Without looking at him she said quietly, “I'm not a bad cook if I say so myself.”

Fargo took another chug.

“My husband, Clyde, got knifed by an Injun when he went out to use the privy and I sort of got stuck here.”

“A war party attacked the trading post?” Fargo asked out of mild interest.

“No,” the woman said. “There was just the one redskin.”

“Only one?”

The woman nodded at the three men playing cards. “That's what they said. One of them is a tracker. He showed me a few scrape marks and told me they were moccasin tracks.”

About to take another swallow, Fargo paused with the bottle half tilted. “When was this?”

“Oh, it must have been three weeks ago, or better. About the time the weather turned cold.”

“Hell,” Fargo said.

The woman turned. “Something the matter?”

“What's your handle?”

“My what?”

“Your name,” Fargo said. “And where are you from?”

“Oh. My name is Margaret. Margaret Atwood. I'm from Ohio. My husband and I were on our way to Oregon Country and we got separated from the wagon train and were pretty much lost when we found this place, thank goodness.”

“I didn't see a wagon when I rode up.”

“Oh. Mr. Wilbur sold it. Seeing as how Clyde was dead, I didn't want to go on to Oregon by my lonesome. So he was kind enough to find a buyer and give me half the money.”

“Half?”

“Well, he had to go to a lot of bother. His friends there had to ride to the Oregon Trail and wait for the next wagon train to come along and ask if anyone wanted to buy ours and when no one did they had to wait around for the next.”

“Mr. Wilbur was damned generous.”

“That's what he said.” Margaret grew sad and bowed her head. “I didn't much care, to tell you the truth. With Clyde gone life didn't hardly seem worth living.”

Fargo glanced at Wilbur, polishing glasses again, and at the three wolves playing cards. “Son of a bitch.”

“Is it me or do you cuss a lot?”

“How many others have stopped here since you came?” Fargo asked.

Margaret knit her brow. “Let me see. There was that traveling parson on his mule. And a drummer. And another wagon with an older couple. They were lost, and Mr. Fletcher”—she pointed at the tallest of the card players—“he's the tracker, he offered to guide them to Fort Laramie. He and his friends were gone about two days.”

“Hell,” Fargo said again. He told himself it was none of his affair. He didn't know the old couple and he didn't know her.

“Their granddaughter was the sweetest little girl,” Margaret remarked.

“How's that again?”

“The old couple. They had their granddaughter with them. Sally, her name was. Her folks got killed in a fire and her grandparents were taking her to live with an uncle who'd settled in the Willamette Valley.”

“How old?”

“Sally? She was ten.”

The whiskey in Fargo's gut turned bitter.

“Why do you look as if you want to bite someone's head off?”

“Did I hear something about food?”

“Venison,” Margaret said with a bob of her chin. “Fletcher shot a buck this morning so the meat is as fresh as can be. I'll whip up potatoes and there are carrots in the root cellar. Would that do?”

“Throw in coffee and you have a deal.”

Margaret brightened and stood. “That's fine. And you help me in the bargain.”

“I do?”

“Wilbur gives me five cents for every meal I cook for him.”

“That much?”

“He's a generous man.”

“It's good you're happy,” Fargo said.

“I'm lucky to have the work,” Margaret replied. “Now you stay put. It shouldn't take me more than twenty minutes or so.”

“No hurry,” Fargo said. He had some prodding to do first, and it might end in gunplay.