Seven Devils Slaughter Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Teaser chapter

  LEAD VENDETTA

  Billy Swill snarled and reached for his sixgun. He wasn’t slow, but he wasn’t nearly fast enough, either. Fargo had his gun out before Billy could clear leather, and he fired once from the hip. The slug spun Billy around and sent his revolver flying.

  For a moment the Swills were frozen. Then Clancy spun on Fargo, fury turning him reckless. “You shot my brother, you son of a—”

  “I can do the same to the rest of you,” Fargo said, sliding his Colt into his holster, brazenly inviting them to try.

  Instead, Clancy motioned for his brothers to get out the door. As they filed out, Clancy gave Fargo a look that would wither a cactus. “I don’t care how famous you are. You just made the biggest mistake of your life. No one puts lead into a Swill and lives to brag about it.” He slowly backed out. “The newspapers will have a story to print, sure enough. But the headline will read: ‘Trailsman Dies in Seven Devils Country!’ ”

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

  First Printing, May 2002

  Copyright © Jon Sharpe, 2002

  All rights reserved

  The first chapter of this title originally appeared in Texas Death Storm, the two hundred forty-sixth volume in this series.

  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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  eISBN : 978-1-101-17882-9

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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.

  Seven Devils country, 1861—

  Evil comes in human guise, snaring the innocent

  deep among the silent, dark hills.

  1

  Skye Fargo liked to play poker as much as the next man. He liked the challenge, the thrill of pitting his wits against others in a high-stakes contest. But one thing he didn’t like was a cardsharp. Tinhorns who cheated rather than play fair. Men who thought they were as slick as axle grease and went about fleecing tenderfeet and wide-eyed fools.

  Fargo was no greenhorn, and he sure as hell was no fool. He was a big, broad-shouldered man with piercing lake-blue eyes and the muscular grace of a mountain lion in the way he moved and held himself. He favored buckskins and boots and a red bandanna, and strapped around his lean waist was a Colt, its grips worn smooth from regular use. Now, as he stared across the table at the polecat who was cheating, his blue eyes lit with an inner fire no one else noticed. He kept a poker face as he watched the man rake in the pot, then slid his cards toward the dealer.

  “Yes, sir,” the card cheat crowed, his porcine face aglow with greed. “Lady Luck has been sitting in my lap this whole game.”

  “And here I thought you were pregnant,” quipped a player to Fargo’s left. He was tall and lean and wore a black frock coat, a white shirt, and a black hat tilted low over his dark eyes. Unless Fargo missed his guess, the tall drink of water was a professional gambler, and like him, had spotted the heavyset cardsharp’s sleight of hand.

  The cheat glanced down at his ample belly and frowned. “I don’t much like having folks poke fun at my expense, Denton.” His clothes were as slovenly as he was, and consisted of a cheap suit, a bowler smeared with grime, and a shirt that served as a catchall for food that missed his mouth. But there was nothing cheap about the Smith and Wesson buckled to his left hip.

  The gambler smiled thinly and responded, “I don’t much care what you like, Mr. Swill. And I’ll thank you not to use that tone with me ever again.” As he spoke, he rested his right arm on the table.

  Fargo heard the scrape of metal on wood. It was obvious that the gambler had a derringer up his sleeve. Swill realized it, too. He flushed with resentment but didn’t say anything more.

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen, please!” declared the dealer. His name was Harry Barnes and he owned the ramshackle excuse for a saloon. The only watering hole in the small settlement of Les Bois, it boasted a plank counter for a bar, four tables that needed new legs, and chairs that creaked when those seated in them so much as twitched. “This is supposed to be a friendly game. Let’s not have any trouble.”

  “Fine by me,” Swill said.

  The last two players, both locals, bobbed their heads in agreement, and one of them cast a sly look at Swill.

  Only then did Fargo catch on that the game itself was rigged. Swill wasn’t playing alone. The card mechanic had partners. Among the gambling fraternity, it was known as a card mob. Fargo had a hunch all three local men were in on it. Not Barnes, though. The owner played too ineptly. A friendly old cuss who had opened the saloon as much to satisfy his own craving for liquor as anything else, he was also a chatterbox.

  Barnes began gathering in the rest of the cards. A half-empty bottle of rotgut was perched next to his elbow, and every so often he would take a healthy swig. Now, pausing, he lifted the bottle to his mouth, gulped a few times, smacked his grizzled lips, and sighed with contentment. “I sure am glad you boys happened by,” he said to Fargo and the gambler. “Other than an occasional wagon train off the Oregon Trail, we don’t see all that many new faces here.”

  Fargo could see why. Les Bois was well off the beaten path. Founded by a French-Canadian trapper who gave the place its name, the settlement was situated near the Boise River. It
was literally in the middle of nowhere, miles north and east of the Oregon Trail. Even calling it a settlement was giving it more credit than was due. It consisted of the saloon, a stable, and a sorry excuse for a general store. That was all. There were no homes, no families. Not in town, at any rate. Most of the locals were backwoods sorts. Hunters and trappers, men who lived off the land. Recluses who shunned human company. Outcasts who wanted nothing to do with civilization or its trappings; unsavory types like Swill and his partners, who weren’t above trying to fleece a couple of travelers.

  Fargo sat back and took a sip of whiskey. He was on his second glass and his gut was pleasantly warm. And empty. He had been on the go most of the day and stopped over in Les Bois on a whim. Soon the sun would set and he would have to find a spot to bed down for the night. Tomorrow he would move on, bound for the Pacific Coast.

  Barnes began dealing. The deck was in front of him, and he slipped the cards off the top slowly, one-by-one, exaggerating his movements so no one could accuse him of anything shady. Glancing at Fargo, he remarked, “You haven’t mentioned your name yet, friend.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Barnes blinked, then chortled. “I get it. That’s your way of telling me to mind my own business.” He slid a card across. “I’m not trying to be nosy, mister. I just see no reason to sit here like a bunch of tree stumps.”

  Swill made a sniffing sound. “Hell, Harry, you prattle like a woman at times. I swear, it’s enough to drive a gent to drink.” He guffawed loudly and was joined by the other two locals.

  Harry Barnes stiffened, then said something peculiar. “You would know all about women, wouldn’t you, Gus?”

  To Fargo’s surprise, the cheat came half out of his chair and his left hand dropped to his Smith and Wesson.

  Swill’s jowls worked and his cheeks puffed out like those of a riled squirrel. For a few seconds it appeared he would draw, but instead he merely glowered and eased back down. “You ought to keep a rein on that tongue of yours, Harry. It’ll be the death of you one day if you’re not mighty careful.”

  The other two locals were also glaring. Barnes shriveled under their gaze, then forced a grin and tried to lighten the mood by saying, “You know me, boys. Always gabbing away. No one ever takes me seriously.”

  “You’d best hope to God they don’t,” Swill said.

  Fargo’s curiosity was aroused. The saloon owner’s comment hardly merited such hostility. “There must be a shortage of women in these parts,” he mentioned to see how they’d react.

  Swill and the others clammed up. Swill pretended to be interested in his filthy fingernails and the other two just stared at the table.

  Only Barnes responded. “Ain’t that the truth, friend. Most feminine critters don’t cotton to living in the wilds. They like a nice home and pretty dresses and all that foofaraw. Not a one-room cabin off in the sticks.” He nodded toward the bar. “Mabel, there, is fixing to move on to San Francisco just as soon as she saves up a couple of hundred dollars.”

  “Which shouldn’t take her more than five or ten years,” Swill threw in, and he and his friend chortled.

  Mabel was the sole female inhabitant of Les Bois. In her late twenties, she had red hair that she wasn’t fussy about keeping brushed and had a pretty face on which she dabbed more war paint than ten Sioux warriors combined. She wore a tight red dress that clung to her like a second layer of skin. A couple of minutes ago she had strayed over to the bar to refill her glass. She heard Swill’s comment, and as she sashayed back she said, “What do you know, you dunderhead? One more year in this flea-ridden dive should do it.” She halted beside Fargo’s chair and brushed his shoulder with her painted nails. “What about you, handsome? Care to treat a lady to a few drinks later?”

  Fargo was the last man in the world to ever refuse female company. “See me later,” he said. At the moment he couldn’t afford to be distracted from the game.

  The cards had been dealt. Everyone was contemplating their hands. Fargo had two kings, a queen, a seven, and a three. Swill opened, indicating he had a pair or better. Fargo stayed in, and when his turn came to ask for more cards, he requested two. He held onto the queen on the chance he might get another. He didn’t, but he did receive another king and a four of clubs.

  Swill had a good hand, too—or so he tried to convince everyone by raising the stakes. Barnes and the other locals bowed out.

  Fargo stayed in.

  “That’s ten dollars to you, friend,” Swill said to the gambler. “Unless you’d rather be smart and get out while you still have a shirt on your back.”

  Denton’s thin lips curled in contempt. “I reckon I’ll keep playing, Mr. Swill. I aim to see this through to the end.”

  “Your choice,” Swill said, shrugging. And as he shrugged, he slid one of his cards up his right sleeve and replaced it with a card from up under his left. He was quick, Fargo had to hand him that. But he lacked the nimble finesse needed to be a truly good cardsharp. “Just don’t hold it against me if I don’t feel a bit guilty taking your money.”

  “Not at all,” Denton said, shifting his right arm so his hand was pointed in Swill’s direction. “Provided you won’t hold it against me if I buck you out in gore for giving card slicks a bad name.”

  “How’s that?” Swill asked. He had gone rigid, and the other two locals had the look of ten-year-olds whose hands had been caught in a cookie jar.

  “I’ve run into a lot of cheats in my time,” Denton went on. “You’re not the worst, but you’re damn close to it. You should never try the same trick two hands in a row. That’s the mark of an amateur.”

  Swill slowly pushed his chair back. “Talk like that can get a man killed, gambler.”

  “So can cheating,” Denton said.

  One of the other locals chimed in, a brawny specimen in dire need of a bath. “We know Gus Swill real well, mister. He’d never cheat anyone. He’s as honest as the year is long.”

  The gambler grinned. “And you’re a bald-faced liar.”

  Their bluff had been called. Fargo expected them to try for their hardware and they didn’t disappoint him. Swill was fastest, but the Smith and Wesson wasn’t clear of its holster before Fargo pushed to his feet and filled his hand with his Colt. As he drew he thumbed back the hammer, and at the loud click the three locals turned to stone.

  Simultaneously, Denton had given his right wrist a flick and a Remington-Eliot .32-caliber four-barrel derringer had slid into his palm. Commonly known as a pepperbox, it had a ring trigger and was quite deadly at short range.

  Fargo sidled around the table to come up on Swill from behind. Reaching under the cheat’s arm, he relieved Swill of the Smith and Wesson and slid it off across the floor. Then he gripped the wide cuff of Swill’s left sleeve, and tugged upward. It rose high enough to reveal a mechanical holdout strapped to Swill’s forearm. A similar tug on Swill’s other sleeve revealed a second holdout.

  “Talk about greedy,” Denton said, rising. “What should we do with these jackasses, friend? The last town I was in, they hung a cardsharp from the most convenient tree. And I noticed plenty of trees outside.”

  Harry Barnes stood and hastily stepped back. “I want you boys to know I had no part in this. I’ve never swindled a soul in all my born days.”

  “I’ll vouch for that,” Mabel said, and treated herself to a more than healthy swallow of rotgut.

  Fargo frisked Swill and found a Green River knife, which he tossed into a comer. “Your turn now,” he told the cheat’s companions, and took a step toward them.

  Demonstrating he had more sinew than brains, the brawny tough yelled, “Like hell!” He heaved out of his chair and made a mad grab for a Volcanic Arms brass-plated pistol tucked under his belt.

  Fargo lunged, and brought the Colt’s barrel crashing down onto the bridge of the man’s nose. Cartilage crunched. Blood spurted over the tough’s cheeks and jaw as he drew up short, howling in outrage as much as pain.

  Fargo relieved him of
the pistol, then stepped back. The third man opened his jacket and turned completely around to show he wasn’t heeled. Motioning for them to move back, Fargo faced the main culprit.

  Gus Swill was as white as high country snow. Beads of sweat had sprouted on his sloping brow, and he nervously licked his pudgy lips. “Don’t do anything hasty, mister! Why don’t you take the pot and all my winnings and we’ll call it even? Divide it up with the gambler, if you like.”

  “I was planning on doing that anyway,” Fargo said. He leveled the Colt at the portly man’s ample stomach. “Don’t!” Swill whined, his nerve breaking. “What I did was wrong, sure, but no harm came of it.”

  Denton came around the table. “Only because we caught you before you walked off with our money, you obscene slug.” He jammed the muzzles of the pepperbox against Swill’s temple and Swill bleated like a terror-struck goat. “I would be perfectly in my rights to blow a hole in your head.”

  “Hold on!” Swill cried shrilly. “It ain’t right to kill a man over a little thing like cards.”

  “A little thing?” Denton repeated coldly. “I’ll have you know cards are how I make my living. You’ve not only slandered my profession, you’ve insulted every honorable gambler alive.”

  Fargo repressed a grin. Honesty and gambling hardly went hand-in-hand. The simple fact was, most gamblers cheated in some form or another. Some relied on sleight of hand. Others used rings or poker chips with tiny mirrors on them to read cards. Still others preferred marked decks. Then there were those, like Swill, whose fingers weren’t nimble enough to deal crookedly without the aid of a holdout.

  Swill nervously wiped a sleeve across his forehead. “What is it you want from me? Ask anything and it’s yours. My horse. My saddle. My belongings.”

  “For starters, we’ll dispose of your toys,” Denton said, and tapped the pepperbox against the holdout on Swill’s right forearm.