The Trailsman #388 (14 page)

“He gets
my
money,” Ulrick agreed. “But one of these days that cocky Parker is going to lose control of him, and I sure-god hope I ain't around when he does.”

“First,” Perry said, ignoring this remark, “you two are going to lure Valdez into a trap by letting him follow you here. Only after he's killed will we turn Mankiller loose on Fargo.”

•   •   •

Skye Fargo patrolled quietly along the American side of the Rio Grande, keeping the riding thong off the hammer of his Colt.

The moon was in full phase and would remain so for two more days. That was a twin-edged sword: It made it easier to scout his surroundings after dark, but also made him an easier target.

At the point where the Rio twisted closest to the dry channel behind it, Fargo dismounted and inspected the riverbank for signs of human activity. He found neither human nor horse tracks, only those of smaller animals. So far, at least, it appeared that no blast preparations had been made.

Unless, he reminded himself, some other spot had been picked. But in the case of the first blast, Winslowe's criminals had rerouted the river at its closest point to the secondary channel. Fargo was no engineer, but logic told him that location not only provided a greater chance of success; it would also appear more like an act of nature, not man.

Would the telegram he sent today to Colonel Evans do any good? Trying to second-guess the army was like trying to identify faces in the clouds. Even if Fargo's report was taken seriously, he was certain no action would be taken in time to prevent the second explosion he was convinced was imminent.

Which placed the unwelcome responsibility for stopping it squarely on Fargo's shoulders.

He mounted again and reined the Ovaro around to gauge how close this point was to the long building used by the Phalanx. Less than the distance he could throw a stone, and easily within the blast radius . . .

But again a grin tugged at his lips as he gazed out across the moon-burnished fields. Evidently his “lecture” earlier had taken some effect: Several large fires burned on the far side of the fields, and he could spot human figures moving in and out of the light.

Still others, however, moved about inside the building. It seemed that he had succeeded only in dividing the utopians into two factions, the cautious and the defiant.

The grin quickly melted away, though, when he reminded himself of the daunting reality he faced. An Apache assassin who Valdez assured him was the best on the frontier was likely on his spoor even now. And because Fargo felt obligated to monitor the river closely, he was making the killer's job of finding him easier.

The readiness is all, Fargo reminded himself. And readiness was all he really had.

He rode in a slow circle around the settlement. By now he was familiar with the color and markings of most of the horses in Tierra Seca as well as the mounts of the two mercenaries working for Winslowe. He spotted neither horse at the cantina or at Rosario's house.

Fargo still had a piece of unfinished business. He had done his best to warn the residents of the Phalanx about the potentially devastating blast coming up. But a chunk of Tierra Seca itself, including the busy cantina, was also in harm's way.

Fargo tied off at the snorting post out front and stepped through the archway of the cantina, his eyes darting quickly around the stuffy, smoke-filled interior. The usual lidded, hostile eyes sized him up before sliding away. A few friendlier types recognized him and nodded. A Mexican in a sombrero dozed over his accordion, a victim of too much pulque.

Fargo paused to watch a version of arm wrestling popular in
la
frontera
. Two scorpions, their legs tied with thread but stingers intact, had been placed atop a table on both sides of the competing men so that the hand of whoever lost, or was forced too low, would be trapped against the scorpion. One of the men, his strength about to give out, wisely relaxed his arm all at once so the winner drove his hand down hard onto the scorpion, crushing it before it could sting.

Fargo bellied up to the crude plank bar.

“
Muy
buenas
noches,
Senor Fargo,” Antonio Two Moons greeted him.
“Una
copa?”

Fargo nodded and planked his two bits. Two Moons poured the cactus liquor into a wooden cup. As he placed it in front of Fargo he leaned closer to be heard above the drunken din.

“Senor, I have a—what is the word in your tongue?—a
mensaje
for you.”

“A message?”

“Yes. From Santiago Valdez. It is a leetle, how you say, strange.”

“He was in here today?”

“
Anoche.
But this first time I see you. Valdez say to tell you, if you find him dead, look in”—Two Moons lost the words and switched to Spanish—
“en
el
bolsillo
de
su
camisa.”

Fargo's brow wrinkled in puzzlement. “If I find him dead, look in his shirt pocket? Are you sure that's what he said?”

“I think so maybe.”

Fargo suspected something had been fractured in the translation. He downed his pulque and said, “Well, I have something to tell you, too.”

Keeping his wording simple, Fargo gave Antonio the same warning he had delivered to the Phalanx earlier. Two Moons listened politely as one might do to humor a likable madman.

“Senor Fargo,” he said with a shrug when the Trailsman fell silent, “our fate is in the hands of God, not men.”

Fargo had expected a reaction of this type. The deeply held fatalism of the Mexican people was not surprising. Theirs was a violent, turbulent, corrupt country where despotic governments were overthrown every few years by the latest “general” capable of raising a drunken army. In these chaotic and lawless conditions men felt no sense of control over their own destiny and left their fate in the hands of God and the beloved saints, the only things—besides suffering—left for them to believe in.

Fargo gave up and left the cantina. Weariness was starting to make his limbs feel heavy and he knew he'd have to soon find a place to bed down. But he decided to take one last look near the river.

This time, to lower his profile against that big, full moon, Fargo led the Ovaro. The Rio purled gently on his left as he walked along the bank, listening carefully.

In the distance a coyote raised its mournful, ululating howl. Only moments after the sound began, Fargo heard a quick scuttling sound behind him. He drew his Colt and thumb-cocked it even as he tucked and rolled, coming up on one knee searching for a target.

He was just in time to spot the distinctive white band of a javelina, small wild hogs found in the deep Southwest and throughout Mexico. It tore off into the night even as the howl of the coyote trailed off in a series of sharp, yipping barks.

“Steady on, Fargo,” he warned himself in a whisper. “The worst is yet to come.”

Once again Fargo rode out into the open desert to catch a few hours of “waking sleep.” As he lay under the star-shot sky, grateful for the cool night breeze, he wondered about the strange message from Valdez.

If Two Moons had understood it correctly, it sounded to Fargo like Valdez was anticipating some kind of dangerous confrontation—one he wasn't sure he would survive. Had he finally located the man who raped and killed his wife? Just as puzzling, why did he think Fargo would find his body? Nor could Fargo even guess what might be found in his pocket.

The Ovaro, ground tethered near at hand, was quiet. But the stallion was not infallible, and twice Fargo pushed to his feet and walked, crouching low, in circles around his simple cold camp, Colt in hand. He had picked a barren spot atop a rise, affording him a good view in all directions. Even the most skilled Apache would play hell sneaking up on him here.

Fargo saw nothing but the pale glow of moonlit sand, heard nothing but the wind sighing. But he couldn't forget the old warning about Apaches:
Worry
when
you
see
them.
Worry
more
when
you
don't
.

As Fargo lay with his head against his saddle, half-asleep, half-awake, the fingers of his mind turned his problems over carefully, studying every aspect. So far he had mostly been letting others force his hand—reacting rather than taking charge. Yes, he had gotten the drop on archer Johnny Jackson and he had confronted and surprised Winslowe.

But what had come of his visit to Winslowe? And earlier today, when he took the bull by the horns and attacked Winslowe's hired shit-jobbers—what was the good of it? Even his attempts to warn the residents of Tierra Seca had shown limited success.

Fargo had to face it: So far he was running hard just to stand still. He was up against a criminal cabal with money and privilege at the top and savvy thugs at the bottom as well as a feared assassin perhaps closing in on him right now.

He couldn't attack at the top, Fargo reasoned, without dancing on air or becoming a fugitive. But the bottom was, after all, the foundation, and without the foundation a structure must fall.

The assassin was the greatest threat to his life, but Fargo was forced to face that threat when it came. The thugs, however, were the real key. It was almost certainly they who had executed the first river blast and they who would execute the next one.

Which forced Fargo to an unpleasant but necessary conclusion: Valdez be damned, he must return to Scorpion Town before sunrise and gun both of them down in their room. It might technically be murder, in the myopic eyes of the law, but they had attempted to kill him several times and they would probably kill many innocents if they successfully blasted the Rio Grande again at Tierra Seca.

He had given his word to Valdez, but it was taking too long. The pistolero had a strong personal grudge, and Fargo respected that. But if that blast went forward and Fargo didn't do his utmost to stop it, he would be worse than a man who broke his word.

And if this mysterious Apache succeeded in his mission of killing Fargo, there went the last hope of stopping—or at least delaying—Winslowe's nefarious scheme. Valdez was too wrapped up in his personal vendetta to worry about others, and besides, he might already be dead for all Fargo knew.

The fat is in the fire, Fargo resolved. Earlier he had told the Phalanx he was a majority of one. Now it was time for that majority to act before it was too late.

•   •   •

Early in the morning of his eighth day in the borderland, Skye Fargo roused himself well before sunup.

False dawn glowed pale in the eastern sky. In the open desert, with its clear, transparent air, this glow provided surprising illumination. The Ovaro was quiet as Fargo tacked him, but appeared nervous. The stallion kept arching his neck to stare toward the west, nose constantly sampling the air.

“'S'matter, old campaigner?” Fargo said softly. “You caught a scent?”

Expecting to find nothing, but playing it cautious, Fargo crouched low and began walking west, eyes intently studying the ground.

Fewer than ten feet from where he had lain dozing he suddenly drew up short, his face draining cold.

He had discovered a double line of half-circle depressions that his experienced eye recognized immediately. They had been made by someone wearing soft moccasins and walking on his heels, Indian fashion, to minimize his tracks.

Fargo followed them for perhaps fifty yards until he discovered the likely scent troubling the Ovaro: a fresh pile of horse droppings. Unshod hooves led up to the spot and then away.

The overlapping prints were two-and-a-half to three feet apart, meaning the rider had walked the horse in and away. Sweat formed on Fargo's scalp.

The Apache. And evidently Valdez hadn't exaggerated his skill. It would take an exceptional man to get that close to the Ovaro without alarming the horse.

But if he was an assassin, Fargo asked himself, why didn't he kill me? He was close enough to have done it easily.

Indians, he reminded himself as he returned to his horse, were extremely notional. They didn't think like white men, and their logic was completely different. Perhaps he was toying with his prey—a form of counting coup in which a brave spares his enemy's life, first time around, to let him know he was up against a better man.

Except that Apaches didn't normally count coup or take scalps. They were brutally practical.

Fargo forked leather and gazed all around him in the pale, ghostly light, his confidence shaken. All his precautions had been for naught. He was alive only because of an enemy's whim, and that boded ill for Fargo's future survival.

•   •   •

The Ovaro wanted to run in the cool of early morning and Fargo gave him his head, arriving on the eastern outskirts of El Paso a full hour before sunrise. He stalled the Ovaro, paying the
mozo
extra for grain and a rubdown, and hoofed it across Paisano Street into Scorpion Town.

It was still too early for most of the denizens of the criminal hellhole to be out and about, and the worst Fargo had to contend with was the foul stench. He relied on his mind map to negotiate the warren of alleys. He noticed, when he arrived at the door of the thugs' rented room, that someone had hauled off the two corpses he'd left last time he was here.

Fargo took his bar key and slid the correct bit into the slot. He glanced behind him to make sure the alley was clear of predators, then stood with his ear to the door for a full two minutes. He heard nothing from within and hoped he had caught the two asleep.

Fargo remembered how loudly the door had creaked open last time, and he didn't bother with finesse. He slid his Colt out and drew the hammer back to full cock. The moment the lock snapped open he flung the door wide and dove inside, coming up on his heels with his short iron aimed toward the crude shakedowns.

There was enough light by now to show him the room was empty. The clothes that had been scattered around like discarded banana peels were gone; there were no blankets on the shuck mattresses; even the pile of tin cans and empty bottles was gone.

Fargo tasted the bitter acid of disappointment. They had moved. Again they were one step ahead of him. Obviously everyone on Stanley Winslowe's payroll played it safe.

But it was still early, Fargo reminded himself. If they were still using the livery stable run by Benito Gonzalez, on the western flank of Scorpion Town, he might be able to spot them when they came for their horses. It was more public, and thus more risky, but Fargo intended to air them out from ambush and be done with it.

He walked back across Paisano Street and searched for a good vantage point. The best spot was that pile of empty hogsheads in front of the warehouse where he had hidden when he watched the livery a few days ago. But he had only been spying then. Today he planned to be shooting, and there was a worker there who kept a close eye on things. That meant a potential witness.

Fargo settled for the recessed doorway of a burned-out harness shop kitty-cornered to the livery. The angle was tricky, but traffic was light and it was an easy range for the Henry. However, two agonizingly slow hours ticked by and neither man showed.

The Trailsman lost patience and crossed the street, entering the hoof-packed yard of the livery. He walked through the open front doors of the barn and waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. Then he started to move farther inside.

A menacing click to his left stopped Fargo in his tracks.

“Mister,” said a gravelly voice in good, barely accented English, “I been watching you spy on this place for the past couple hours. You ain't got no horse, and you're loaded for bear. The last two cockroaches who tried to steal a horse from here ended up sucking wind.”

Fargo glanced in the direction of the voice. A Mexican who looked to be at least sixty, with a sere, weather-grooved face and a hard stare that would back down a charging grizzly, sat on a wagon tongue aiming a hogleg pistol at him.

“I take it you're Benito Gonzalez,” Fargo said.

“Names don't mean shit around here. What are you after?”

“Just information, not a horse.”

“Then buy yourself some books. I don't give out information.”

Fargo remembered Valdez telling him the old hostler was crooked as cat shit.

“All right,” Fargo said, “do you sell it?”

“Nope. Half the hombres who board their horses here got their faces on wanted dodgers. Unless you want to know the difference between a burro and a donkey, I got no information to sell.”

“What if I leave you out of it?” Fargo persisted. “What if I just walk past the stalls real quick and glance into them?”

“Way I see it, if I let a man fuck me in the ass, I expect a reach-around.”

“I'm not looking for anything quite that personal,” Fargo said drily. “I just want a quick look at the horses.”

“How much is it worth to you?”

“Two dollars.”

Gonzalez spat into the dirty straw at his feet. “Ten dollars.”

“Four.”

Gonzalez wagged the huge-bore pistol. “How 'bout I just take
all
your money?”

“Big mistake,” Fargo said.

Quicker than eyesight the Colt appeared in his hand. A shot echoed in the huge barn, and a few horses whickered. Sparks flew and the hogleg jumped out of the old man's hand.

Fargo's face hardened as gray-white smoke curled from the Colt's muzzle. He cocked it again.

“You're lucky, pepper gut. I shot so many holes into the last jasper who tried to rob me that the flies got in and buzzed him to death.”

A grin cracked the Mexican's face. “I said
how
'bout I just take all your money. I didn't demand it.”

“I noticed,” Fargo said. “That's why you're still alive.”

“I like your style. That line about the flies—that's good. All right, two dollars.”

Fargo dug two Liberty silver dollars out of his dwindling cash reserve and handed them over. Then he quickly walked the length of the barn checking each stall. As he had feared, Winslow's jobbers had also switched livery stables or acquired new horses.

Unless, he told himself, they've left the region. That meant he'd never settle his personal blood score with them. But that was a welcome tradeoff if it also meant there would be no second blast.

“Any luck?” Gonzalez called to him as Fargo headed back out of the barn.

“No soap,
viejo
.”

“Somebody's going to die, uh?”

“Somebody,” Fargo agreed. “But I'm damned if I can tell you who.”

•   •   •

Fargo felt his stomach pinching with hunger. He had ridden out that morning without eating, and his meals lately had been sparse. He remembered the delicious hot breakfast he'd enjoyed at the Early Bird Café and began to salivate like a starving man at a banquet. He cut over several blocks to Alameda Street.

Fargo ordered a plate of eggs, spiced chorizo and hot biscuits, paid up at the counter, and turned to find a table. The first person he spotted was Deputy Jim West scowling at him over a mug of coffee. Fargo crossed to his table.

“Mind if I sit here?”

“Knock yourself out. I don't mind associating with known criminals.”

Fargo maneuvered his long legs under the table and tied into his food.

“Known criminals?” he repeated around a mouthful of egg. “Bit of a stretch, ain't it?”

“Not the way I see it. I could slap the bracelets on you right now, Fargo. That running gun battle you started yesterday within city limits—two witnesses described a tall man in buckskins riding a black-and-white stallion. That's probable cause, chumley.”

“You know how unreliable witnesses can be, Deputy. They hear a few gunshots and they get all exfluctuated.”

West snorted. “Fargo, I'm stupid enough to think that you're
trying
to work on the right side of the law, at least as you see it. That's why I haven't jugged you . . . yet.”

Fargo chewed, swallowed, nodded. “ 'Preciate that, Deputy. I truly do.”

“Damn it, Fargo, wipe that smirk off your dial! This ain't some wide-open territory where vigilantes can stand in for sworn officers. If you got some knowledge of a crime, report it. Matter fact, vigilantism is a prison offense in Texas.”

“I know that. But there's crimes and then there's
crimes.
And I also know that a fish rots from the top.”

Winslowe narrowed his eyes, watching Fargo speculatively. “You're talking about Winslowe, right?”

“I am—him and his well-paid bootlicks. The very same man you and your fellow deputies are protecting night and day. Sure, I can go to the sheriff. And he'll slam my ass right into the pokey. You're only taking honest wages from Wins-lowe, but I'll guarandamntee you there's others above you who've been bought off with dirty money.”