War Path (20 page)

To them, there was only one man who fit the size and cut of this stranger who so boldly marched through the settlement. It was rumored the Abenaki had a name for him, that they frightened their children with his exploits and that the French had a price on his head. But here in the colonies he was simply trouble on the prowl and a bad moon rising. He was John Stark, man and legend rolled into one.

His audience quickly retreated inside as if unwilling to attract attention to themselves. Everyone in Cowslip knew why he had come. The Ranger and Cassius Fargo had crossed one another back in Fort Edward.

Cowslip wasn't much. But the Fargo clan was well represented hereabouts, much to the chagrin of most honest, God-fearing folks. Fargo and his cousins and distant relatives weren't exactly held in high esteem. But they were a mean bunch to cross. And Cassius was the worst. But whatever their sympathies the townsmen wanted no part of the drama that was about to unfold.

John Stark paused in the middle of the settlement to catch his bearings. There really wasn't much to the place, a cluster of farm cabins, a crudely built blockhouse in which the locals might take refuge during a raid, a blacksmith's forge and a long, low-roofed meetinghouse, and there beneath the spreading limbs of a towering oak, the Hound and Hare Tavern that offered lodging, food and drink for the wayfarer.

Stark had come this far but he'd need help from here on out. The way to Fargo's farm began at the tavern. Someone was bound to know the whereabouts of Fargo's homestead. There must be someone in the settlement who wasn't related by blood or marriage. On the other hand the likes of Cassius Fargo and his cousin folk might have the locals intimidated into silence. Stark had the unsettling impression he was placing one foot in a trap and following it with the other.

The pack of mongrels was becoming a nuisance. It was a struggle for the Ranger to ignore the dogs yipping at his heels, but he managed to hold to his course and head straight for the tavern. By the time he reached the low-roofed stone house he'd had enough. He slowed his pace beneath the shadow of the tavern's signboard, a cracked and knotted plank of wood decorated with an artist's rendering of a hound about to pounce on a hapless hare as it attempted to scamper off through a few strokes of hastily-etched reeds.

Without warning, Stark stopped dead in his tracks and whirled about to confront the dogs. The big man's features crinkled into a war map of unabashed menace. He growled low and deep in his throat. The strays stared wide-eyed for a moment then slunk away, whimpering and yipping as they went. Stark nodded, satisfied, and ducked through the doorway into the shadowy interior.

A hunter knows his prey, studies the terrain. Is there a way out? Is the animal cornered and more likely to turn with his back to the wall and confront his pursuer? And is this the den or a cold trail and a blind lead?

The tavern was smaller than the Kit Fox in Fort Edward, a few long board tables filled the center of the room. Another five smaller tables were made from upturned barrels fitted with a round wooden top. Stark paused to allow his eyes to adjust to the smoky interior. The chimney was not drawing properly and evidently, every time someone entered, tendrils of soot-gray smoke were drawn into the tavern to collect near the bark-bristled rafters.

Stark's intrusion ended the conversation among the patrons. The long tables in the center of the room were occupied by a gathering of farmers and wayfarers who fell silent at the sight of the Ranger looming in the doorway. Stark took in the scene, scrutinizing his surroundings with the caution of a man who had just entered a wolf den and wasn't sure whether or not it was still occupied by a pack of feral beasts.

He glanced in the direction of a balding, heavyset individual standing behind a hand-hewn maplewood bar. By his placement and the air of authority in the man's bearing Stark could only assume this was the proprietor. The tavern keeper, framed by two enormous barrels of ale, looked to be twenty years Stark's senior. He frowned at the newcomer and then set his bung hammer and starter aside on the bar top and folded his arms across his thickly-muscled chest.

The patrons looked to be farmers, tradesmen, or freight haulers dressed in nankeen shirts and woolen trousers. Three men at a table toward the rear of the room caught the Ranger's attention. The three were clearly younger than Stark and bore a certain resemblance to Cassius Fargo. Judging by the slope of their shoulders and their close-set eyes and square, flat faces, Stark was certain the three had Fargo blood flowing through their veins.

One of the three, the more nervous of the lot, remained at his table nursing a tankard of ale while his two companions bestirred themselves from bowls of venison stew and torn crusts of bread. They stood and exchanged a few softly spoken words of wisdom to their agitated companion who nodded and gulped his ale in hopes perhaps of finding his courage in the bottom of the pewter cup.

The other two nonchalantly followed Stark as he approached the sour-faced tavern keeper. One had pock-marked ugly features, the other had fairer features but also the mean, confident eyes of a bully. There was a swagger to their walk, an air befitting some figures of importance. Stark guessed a man like Cassius Fargo and his kin were accustomed to the deference of other men, a quality they'd find lacking in John Stark.

If the two were put off by his size, though, they did not show it, taking comfort in the fact that they were among their own. “Pockmark” took the right side, “Bully” leaned his elbows on the bar about six feet from Stark's left, both stared toward the kegs of ale, taking care not to even glance in the direction of the man they had just flanked.

The tavern keeper chewed the inside of his lip, in thought, then scratched his grizzled jaw and addressed the Ranger, as Stark placed Old Abraham upon the bar and rested both hands on the rifle barrel.

“We have no rooms today. What we have are taken.”

“Not looking for a room,” Stark said.

“There's ale and the mistress has a venison stew over the fire yonder. Take you a wooden bowl here and help yourself. No man can say Irish McQuade ever turned a man back into the wilderness with an empty belly.” The tavern keeper turned toward one of the barrels to his right. Stark reached over and caught him by the shoulder.

“Neither drink or meat, Innkeeper, but a simple word or two to point me in the right direction from your doorstep.”

“Indeed? How so then?”

“I have come for Cassius Fargo.” There, it was said. If the room was quiet before, it was positively tomblike now.

Bully, the man to Stark's left, spoke up. “Our cousin said to keep a look out for the likes of you. We know you, John Stark. But the only weight that name carries is what's tucked in your boots.”

“The same boots that better carry you out of here and out of Cowslip,” said Pockmark. And to make a point he allowed his coat to part to reveal the curled walnut grip of a pistol tucked in the broad leather belt circling his waist.

Stark glanced to either side and then focused on McQuade. The tavern keeper shrugged and grinned. “No one will help you. You see how it is,” he flatly stated.

“I have come for Cassius Fargo …
that's—how—it—is.”

“Just who do you think you are?” Pockmark blurted out, his hand drifting toward the pistol.

Stark fixed him with a stare. “Justice.”

Bully made his move, grabbing for his pistol. Stark, with his hands on the rifle, jammed the tip of the barrel into the younger man's throat. Bully staggered back, gasping for breath. In the same motion Stark stepped back and caught Pockmark right between the eyes with the brass butt plate. Pockmark dropped hard, bounced his head off the floor and lay still. Stark let momentum pull him in a complete circle and swinging the rifle slapped the barrel up alongside McQuade's head as the tavern keeper reached for a blunderbuss he kept beneath the bar. The weapon discharged with a thunderous roar, blowing a hole in the top of the maplewood bar. The tavern keeper groaned and slumped forward onto his knees.

Stark snatched the bung hammer from the countertop and descended on Bully like some wrathful Norse god. As the choking man tried to bring the flintlock into play, Stark batted the weapon from the cousin's grasp. Bones snapped. The gun dropped. Bully yelped and collapsed in agony, cradling his broken hand.

Stark whirled to confront the rest of the room. He brandished the rifle in his powerful right hand, and in his left, a lethal-looking twin barreled flintlock pistol, cocked and ready to fire. Silence … broken by the sobbing cousin at his feet. Stark was tense, primed as his weapons, ready to take on one or all.

But no one moved.

The locals averted their eyes, stared at the bowls of food or tankards of ale or the blank boards of the tabletops before them. Stark slowly turned and advanced on the last of the cousins, the nervous one who had not stirred from the back of the tavern.

Step … Step … Step.

And then, nothing.

Looking up into the face of this berserker looming over him, Cassius' cousin only had one thing to say.

“I can draw you a map.…”

26

C
assius Fargo hoisted the carcass of the white-tailed buck into the air and tied off the rope around the tree trunk. The buck hung suspended with its hind legs a foot off the ground. Earlier that day, just before noon, Cassius shot the animal while it grazed on the dried corn Fargo had scattered over a hillside just over a ridge behind his cabin.

The animal's glazed stare beheld its killer with mute wonderment. A few handfuls of seed corn had lured the graceful creature to its death. Cassius indulged himself with a silent moment of congratulations. It had been a splendid shot. But then all his kin had a way with a smoke pole. Still, Cassius liked to think himself the cleverest of the lot and boasted about his marksmanship.

With the buck swaying from the oak limb like some unfortunate miscreant dangling from a gallows, Fargo set to work. He sliced the carcass from groin to throat, took care to avoid dulling his blade on the breastbone, then sawed clear through to the left of the sternum and had to reach up inside for the lungs and heart.

He sliced through muscles and fibrous white tendons, then scooped the organs out with his hand. Before long the hunter had a pile of steaming entrails at his feet. Dark blood stained the patch of snow here where the shade lingered longest. The heat of the organs melted the ice crystals and their pink runoff soaked into the hard-packed earth.

A breeze stirred.

“What's that?” Cassius said, glancing over his shoulder toward the side of the log house and the uneven ground where he and Ford and their father had started their first well, the one that had buried Pa alive.

“Just you stay put, you old devil. Ford ain't coming back. You know that by now. Look about yourself, there amongst the brimstone, he ought to be dancing with the devil right alongside you.” Cassius Fargo shook his head, some vague protest seeping through his skull like an afterthought. “Damn you, I said look about. You'll see him. Why bother me? I got to cut up this buck before the meat spoils.”

Fargo scowled and surveyed the family farm, the fallow fields, the empty barn with a loft, a cold smokehouse with its naked beams that should have been groaning beneath the weight of wild game and slaughtered hogs. There was a lot of work to do if he planned to last out the rest of the winter at this homestead. And stocking the smoke-house was a high priority. His belly was already rumbling.

These late winter preparations were too much for one man alone. But he had kin here and that made all the difference. He could count on his cousins. They'd stand by him. That was the way of things in Cowslip, the Fargos ran together like a pack, cross one and you crossed them all. The folks in the settlement knew it and didn't get out of line.

“We served them well,” Cassius said aloud considering Cowslip and those who had come to make a life for themselves in the valley. “When injuns showed, it was always Pa and Uncle Jesse who were the first to fight. And the rest of us marched right along with 'em as soon as we could hold a smoke pole of our own. By heaven, it was Fargos who stood their ground when others turned tail and ran, Fargos who fought and bled and drove off the heathens, every mother's son and made these woods safe for Christian folk.”

Standing ankle-deep in gore, Cassius continued to plead his case to the uncaring sunlight while he continued to skin the carcass. The voices in his head were as real to him as the warm red flesh beneath his hands. “I'll
brain
tan
this. Yeah, I know, Pa, I'll make sure the brains are smoked first. I learned it, not like Ford who always rushed his way through. I can soak the hide in the rain barrel till I'm ready to brain tan it good and proper.”

Cassius paused to survey the homestead, wiped the sweat from his brow and inadvertently smeared his features with the blood of his kill. The three-roomed log house dominated the center of a broad open clearing dotted by the stumps of trees like so many flattened tables in the field. A ramshackle barn built of stone and weathered timber stood off to the side, about twenty yards from the cabin. It was empty now for the most part, home to the mice and squirrels, but in better days the barn had stored winter grass and sheltered a pair of stout oxen from the elements.

It would again, Cassius resolved.

A twig snapped behind him. The hunter dropped his knife and reached for one of the pistols tucked in the wide leather belt circling his thick waist. His gaze narrowed. The pistol barrel slid from the belt. Then a calico cat leaped from the shadows into the sunlight, broke from cover and chased a field mouse out of the shadows and into the sunlit field.

Fargo relaxed his grip on the weapon and took comfort in the broad open pasture surrounding the homestead. It had been necessary to force the forest back from the house so that a man could watch the approach to the farm. Except for a cluster of oak trees alongside the cabin, Cassius was surrounded by nothing but about two hundred feet of weed-grown field and a clear field of fire in every direction all the way to the forest's edge. Anyone emerging from the woods with its stands of maple, pine, and white oak would present an inviting target as they approached. There was no way Cassius Fargo was going to be surprised by an unwelcome visitor.