Missouri Manhunt Read online

  HAMMER TIME

  Out of the corner of his eye, Fargo glimpsed movement and instinctively sidestepped as Koons slashed at his leg. The knife missed by a mere whisker’s width.

  Fury gripped Fargo. Sheer, pounding fury. He had tried to go easy on the lunkhead, but now his Colt leaped into his hand and he brought the barrel smashing down once, twice, three times. After the third blow, Koons’s nose and cheek were blood-spattered pulp. Uttering a low groan, Harve Koons pitched onto his face, twitched a bit, and was still.

  None of the onlookers or passersby was disposed to come to his aid. In fact, one man commented, “About time that jackass got what he deserved.”

  THE TRAILSMAN #315

  MISSOURI MANHUNT

  by

  Jon Sharpe

  A SIGNET BOOK

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-1982-9

  The first chapter of this book previously appeared in North Country Cutthroats, the three hundred fourteenth volume in this series.

  Copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2008

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  The Trailsman

  Beginnings…they bend the tree and they mark the man. Skye Fargo was born when he was eighteen. Terror was his midwife, vengeance his first cry. Killing spawned Skye Fargo, ruthless, cold-blooded murder. Out of the acrid smoke of gunpowder still hanging in the air, he rose, cried out a promise never forgotten.

  The Trailsman they began to call him all across the West: searcher, scout, hunter, the man who could see where others only looked, his skills for hire but not his soul, the man who lived each day to the fullest, yet trailed each tomorrow. Skye Fargo, the Trailsman, the seeker who could take the wildness of a land and the wanting of a woman and make them his own.

  The lush, green state of Missouri, 1861—

  where the deep woods hid the dark heart of evil,

  and death awaited the unwary.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  1

  If there was anything worse than a drunk spoiling for a fight, it was a drunk with a knife spoiling for a fight.

  Skye Fargo coldly regarded the angry man in front of him. Fargo had been about to enter Bassiter’s, a popular saloon along the public square in Springfield, Missouri. He had stepped to the batwings just as the drunk did the same on the other side. Neither had been watching what he was doing. Fargo was admiring a lovely lady who happened to be strolling by. The drunk was staring at his own feet. Fargo pushed on the batwings a split second before the drunk, with the result that the batwings caught the man flush in the face. With a startled grunt, the man had whipped his knife from a belt sheath on his hip, and now here they stood, Fargo with one hand on an open batwing, the man glaring and swaying and reeking of liquor.

  “You damn near busted my nose, you son of a bitch!”

  Fargo did not want trouble. He was on his way west and had stopped in Springfield for the night to treat himself to whiskey, women and cards. But neither did he like being insulted. “Not on purpose.”

  “I don’t care,” the drunk belligerently snarled. “I have half a mind to cut you.” The man was almost as tall as Fargo but not as broad at the shoulders. He had droopy jowls and a paunch. His clothes, which were in need of a washing and mending, and his scuffed shoes with holes in them, marked him as a townsman, someone who, if he held a job, spent most of his money on his pet vice.

  “You are drunk, mister,” Fargo told him. “Put that pigsticker away before someone gets hurt.”

  “I already am hurt,” the man declared, slurring his words. “Now it is your turn.”

  It was pushing nine o’clock and the street was alive with people enjoying Springfield’s nightlife. A few stopped to watch, idly curious as to the outcome. One was the lovely young woman Fargo had been admiring. She was a brunette with as shapely a figure as a man could ask for, and full red lips that reminded Fargo of ripe cherries. She had lively brown eyes and full cheeks, and when she spoke, a throaty purr of a voice that would make any man tingle.

  “Harve Koons, you let this gentleman be, you hear?”

  The drunk squinted at her. Her beauty apparently made no impression. “Mind your own business, Lucille Sparks. I don’t tell you what to do and you will not tell me.”

  “I saw the whole thing,” the young woman responded. “It was an accident, plain and simple.”

  “He hurt me and I don’t like being hurt.” Harve Koons wagged his knife at Fargo. “Back up, mister, and do it real slow. The cutting is about to commence.”

  “I will go for the law,” Lucille Sparks said.

  “Do whatever you want, girl. It won’t change anything. I will have this bastard’s nose for a keepsake.”

  Fargo kept his eyes on the knife. He had a knife of his own, in an ankle sheath, and a Colt strapped to his waist, but he did not want to resort to either if he could help it. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said. Particularly with the law.

  “Isn’t that a shame,” Koons mocked him, “because you have trouble, and plenty. Ask anyone. Ask Lucy there. I am not a man to be trifled with.”

&nb
sp; Fargo simmered with rising anger. What he had here was a local tough who felt the need to prove how tough he was. “For the last time I am asking you, polite like, to put that knife back in its sheath. I will even buy you a drink to show you there are no hard feelings on my part.”

  “There are hard feelings on mine, plainsman.”

  Koons’s comment referred to the fact that Fargo was dressed in buckskins, the trademark of a frontiersman. Fargo also wore a white hat, brown with trail dust, and boots equally as dusty. A red bandanna added a splash of color.

  “If you know what I am,” Fargo said, “you know I won’t stand for being pushed around.” Frontiersmen were a hardy breed. They had to be. Living on the raw edge day in and day out tended to weed out the weak. It honed those who survived to a razor’s edge of steely sinews and sharp reflexes.

  “You long-haired types are all the same,” Koons snapped. “You strut around like you own the world.”

  “My hair is not all that long,” Fargo noted. Neither was his beard.

  “Enough jawing!” Koons wagged his knife. “Back up, I say, or I will gut you where you stand!”

  Lucille Sparks made a sniffing sound. “You are despicable, Harve Koons. I want you to know that.”

  “I thought you were going for a tin star, Lucy.” Koons countered, then snickered. “Or could it be you have a hankering to share a drink with me after I am through with this peckerwood?”

  “I would rather eat dirt.”

  Koons laughed, and glanced at her, and the instant his bloodshot eyes were off Fargo, Fargo struck. A lightning lunge, and Fargo had Koons by the wrist. With a powerful wrench, Fargo jerked him through the batwings. Koons bleated in surprise and swung his fist, but Fargo easily blocked it and drove his knee up and in.

  Gurgling and wheezing, Harve Koons fell to his knees. Spittle dribbled over his lower lip as he clutched himself and turned the same shade as a turnip.

  Now it was Lucille Sparks who snickered. “Oh, my. But if ever a simpleton deserved it, he did.”

  That was when Fargo made his mistake. He assumed Koons was in too much pain to do anything, and he started to turn toward her to thank her for trying to help. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed movement and instinctively sidestepped just as Koons slashed at his leg. The knife missed by a mere whisker’s width.

  Fury gripped Fargo. Sheer, pounding fury. He had tried to go easy on the lunkhead, but now his Colt leaped into his hand and he brought the barrel smashing down once, twice, three times. After the third blow, Koons’s nose and cheek were blood-spattered pulp. Uttering a low groan, Harve Koons pitched onto his face, twitched a bit, and was still.

  None of the onlookers or passersby was disposed to come to his aid. In fact, one man commented, “About time that jackass got what he deserved.”

  Fargo bent and wiped the Colt clean on Koons’s shirt. As he was sliding it into his holster, he noticed the young lovely staring at him, appraising him much as a horse buyer might appraise a fine stallion. “It is too bad you had to see that, ma’am.”

  “I have seen a lot worse,” Lucille Sparks said, and smiled. “Well, I should be going.”

  Fargo caught up with her before she had taken three steps. “What is your hurry? I was thinking I would like to treat you to coffee.” He almost said whiskey but she did not strike him as a frequenter of saloons.

  “You are a stranger, sir,” Lucille said, not unkindly, “and ladies are taught to be wary of strangers. Especially handsome ones.”

  Fargo chuckled, and doffed his hat. “How about polite ones? I promise to behave myself. If I don’t, you have my permission to slap me.”

  “I would slap you anyway,” Lucille said, and lightly laughed. “All right. I suppose it can’t hurt. And it is early yet. How about up ahead there? The Kettle and Drumstick?”

  The Kettle and Drumstick it was. Suppertime was over and only a few of the tables were occupied. Fargo picked a corner table as much for the quiet and privacy as for the fact that he could sit with his back to the wall and watch the comings and goings. He remembered to pull out Lucille’s chair for her, and for a brief moment after she sat he placed his hand on her shoulder. She did not object or swat his hand away. Taking his seat, he said, “I should thank Harve Koons. If not for him, we would not have met.”

  “I can’t quite believe I am sitting here with you,” Lucille said. “This is most bold of me.”

  “More kind than bold,” Fargo said, hoping she would not change her mind. He liked how her bosom swelled against her dress, and imagined what it would be like to taste those cherry-red lips.

  “As for Mr. Koons,” Lucille went on, “he is an example of why Springfield has a lot of growing to do before it is safe for a woman to walk down the street without being accosted.”

  “Koons has tried to force himself on you?” Fargo would not put it past the man if he were drunk enough.

  “He has made a few improper remarks but that is the extent of it,” Lucille answered. “He knows my employer, Mr. Huddleston at the feed and grain, would not stand for anything worse.” She paused. “I suppose I should have stayed in Ohio.”

  “That is where you are from?”

  Lucille nodded. “Born and raised. My father runs a mercantile in Dayton. I could be working there and earn twice what I earn here. And there are not nearly as many incidents as the one you just had.”

  “Let me guess. You wanted some excitement in your life so you came west.”

  “Not exactly. I came here on a personal matter and decided to stay awhile. Life here is not anything like I thought it would be. I much prefer safe and quiet to raw and wild.”

  The Mississippi River, as Fargo well knew, was the boundary line between civilization and savagery. East of the great river the laws and rules of civilized society applied. West of it, except for a few widely scattered towns and settlements, hostiles and renegade whites roamed at will and slew with bloodthirsty abandon. Missouri, specifically southwest Missouri, was a mix of both worlds. There was law, and law officers to enforce it, but there were also a lot of lawbreakers, cutthroats and outlaws who struck at random and then fled into the wild haunts lawmen rarely penetrated.

  Fargo was about to make more small talk, to ask her about her family in Ohio, about her job, anything to keep her there, when the door suddenly slammed open and in stormed the last person he wanted to see again.

  Harve Koons had given up the knife in favor of a double-barreled shotgun. He spotted them right away, and with the stock wedged to his shoulder, advanced on their corner table with as grim an expression as the Angel of Death. “I’ve got you!” he crowed. “I’ve got you now, bastard!”

  Fargo made no attempt to stand or to go for his Colt. Not with that cannon trained on him. A blast would blow him near in half.

  Lucille, though, swiveled in her chair. “What do you think you are doing, Harve?”

  “What does it look like?” Koons rejoined. “I asked everyone on the street where you two had gotten to and found someone who saw you come in here. Now I aim to pay your friend back for what he did to me.”

  “You brought it on yourself,” Lucille said. “Take that silly shotgun and go sober up. You are making a spectacle of yourself.”

  Fargo wished she would not rile Koons more than he already was. A twitch of Koons’s finger and the two of them would be splattered on the walls. As drunk as Koons was, that could happen at any moment. Ever so slowly, Fargo lowered his right hand under the table.

  “I mean it,” Lucille declared when Koons did not leave. “I will report you if you do not desist.”

  “If you know what is good for you, you will shut your mouth and get out of the way.” Koons sighted down the twin barrels at Fargo. “I don’t have a clear shot.”

  “And you won’t because I am not leaving,” Lucille informed him. “If you shoot him, you must shoot me, and you know what they do to men who kill women in these parts, don’t you?”

  Koons scowled, as well he might. Women were
at a premium in the border country. Harming one was a surefire invite to a strangulation jig at the end of a rope.

  “Damn you, you contrary female.”

  “I will thank you not to talk to me in that manner,” Lucille said. “I am not one of your dance hall trollops.”

  Fargo’s hand found the butt of his Colt. He slowly drew it and leveled it under the table. But now he had the same problem Koons did. He did not have a clear shot with Lucille sitting there.

  Koons seemed to have forgotten him. “You sure do put on airs, lady. You are no better than they are, no better at all.”

  “I do not lift my skirt for any man who buys me a drink,” Lucille said tartly.

  “It might be better for you if you did,” Koons responded. “It would get you off your high horse and take some of the starch out of those petticoats of yours.”

  Lucille flushed. “When I said you were despicable earlier, I had no idea how despicable.”

  “Insult me all you want. I have a real thick hide.” Koons gestured with the shotgun. “Now get the hell out of my way or I swear to God you will be pushing up daisies, female or not.”

  Fargo hoped she would heed, but to his considerable amazement she stood up and moved so the twin muzzles were inches from her bosom.

  “Go ahead,” Lucille said, defiantly glaring at Koons. “Prove how brave a man you are. I dare you.”

  Koons was equally amazed. “You crazy cow! Are you trying to get yourself blown to eternity?”

  “I am calling your bluff,” Lucille said. “Either shoot an unarmed woman or slink back to whatever hovel you live in with your tail between your legs.”

  Harve Koons opened his mouth but did not appear to quite know what to say. He glanced at the waitress and the other diners, who were frozen with fear, and then at Lucille. “Damn it. You are making a fool out of me.”