Thunderhead Trail Read online

  ROUND ONE

  “Do you know why they call me Grizz?”

  “It’s a common name for lumps of stupid,” Fargo said.

  And then there was no more talking.

  Grizz waded in, his knobby fists raised in an awkward boxing stance. He flung an overhand that Fargo easily ducked. Quickly, Fargo retaliated with two jolts to the ribs that would have knocked other men onto their toes. All Grizz did was grunt.

  Fargo sideslipped a jab and rammed a solid right to Grizz’s jaw. Grizz’s head barely moved an inch. A huge fist drove at Fargo’s face and he got his left up to block it. Even so, the force of the blow rocked him on his bootheels and sent pain flaring down his arm to his toes.

  Fargo realized this wasn’t going to be a short fight.

  SIGNET

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014

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  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  The first chapter of this book previously appeared in Diablo Death Cry, the three hundred eighty-fourth volume in this series.

  Copyright © Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2013

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  ISBN 978-1-101-63014-3

  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, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  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

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Excerpt from TRAILSMAN #386

  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.

  1861, in what will one day be Montana—where a bounty is being offered for a killer with horns.

  1

  Skye Fargo wasn’t surprised to find a town where there hadn’t been one two years ago. New towns sprang up all the time. This one had a single dusty street and barely twenty buildings but one of them was a saloon.

  A crudely scrawled sign Fargo had passed not a hundred yards back said the town was called Trap Door. It seemed a strange choice, but when it came to naming towns, people could be downright peculiar. There was a town he’d stumbled on once called Sludge. The name he liked the most was one he heard about from back east. It was called Intercourse.

  He figured naming a town Trap Door was someone’s notion of a joke.

  He didn’t know what to think of the naked woman standing in the middle of the street.

  Fargo drew rein to study on what he was seeing. Fargo, a big man, broad of shoulder and hard with muscle, wore buckskins and a white hat so dusty it was brown. A Colt was on his hip, and unknown to anyone else, an Arkansas toothpick was strapped to his leg inside his left boot. Women rated him handsome. Men rated him dangerous.

  The woman in the street was in her twenties or so. Long brown hair fell past her bare shoulders.

  Her head was down and Fargo couldn’t see her face. He did see that she was quaking as if with fear. Her arms were across her breasts and she stood with her legs half crossed.

  Fargo looked up the main street and then down it and was further surprised to find there wasn’t another living soul in sight.

  Just the naked woman and no one else.

  Fargo gigged the Ovaro and when the stallion was next to her, he drew rein again and leaned on his saddle horn. He was tempted to say “Nice tits” but he decided to be polite and said, “How do you do, ma’am?”

  She didn’t look up. All she did was go on quaking.

  Scanning the street again, Fargo said, “Folks don’t wear clothes in these parts?”

  Her hair was over her face and when she raised her head just a little, a single green eye peered out at him.

  “You shouldn’t,” she said.

  “How’s that, ma’am?” Fargo said while admiring the rest of her.

  “You shouldn’t talk to me,” she said, her voice trembling like she was. “It’s not safe.”

  “Safe for who?”

  “You, mister. He won’t like it. He’ll hurt you, or worse. Or his brothers will.”

  Fargo looked around yet again. Horses were at hitch rails and a cat was licking itself but they were the only signs of life. “Where is everybody?”

  “Hiding.”

  “From who?”

  “Mister, please,” she said, practically pleading. “Ride on before it’s too late.”

  “I was thinking of wetting my whistle.” Fargo hadn’t had a drink in a week and a whiskey would go down smooth.

  “God, no. You don’t want to. Light a shuck before one of them looks out and sees us.”

  Just then there was a loud crash from
the saloon and a burst of gruff laughter.

  The woman nearly jumped out of her skin. She quaked harder and balled her hands, her fingernails biting into her palms.

  “You have a name?”

  “Just go. Please.”

  Fargo bent down and carefully parted her hair with a finger. She didn’t try to stop him. He spread it wide so he could see her face, and a ripple of fury passed through him.

  Her left eye was fine but the right eye was swollen half shut. Her right cheek was swollen to twice its size and was turning black and blue, and blood had trickled from the corner of her mouth and dried on her chin. Someone had clouted her, clouted her good.

  “Well, now,” Fargo said.

  “Please,” she said again.

  “How long have you been standing here?”

  “I don’t rightly know. An hour, I suppose. Ever since they rode in and he got mad at me for not wanting to sit on his lap.”

  “I need a handle,” Fargo said.

  “Folks call him Grizz on account of that’s what he looks like. Him and his two brothers show up from time to time to have a frolic, as they call it.”

  “How about your own?”

  “It’s Candice.” She glanced over her shoulder at the saloon. “God, you’re taking an awful chance. For the last time, please skedaddle or they’re liable to do you harm.”

  “Where did your clothes get to?”

  Candice looked down at herself and closed her good eye and a tear trickled from it. “Grizz ripped them off me after he hit me and I was lying on the floor. He said as how he’d teach me to mind him and told me to come out here and stand until he hollered for me to come back.”

  “Well, now,” Fargo said again. “I reckon I’ll have that drink.” He raised his reins but she clutched at his leg.

  “I’m begging you. Go before it’s too late. I don’t want you stomped or killed on my account.”

  “You say he has two brothers with him?”

  Candice nodded. “Rance and Kyler. They’re almost as snake-mean as Grizz. Rance carries a Sharps everywhere and Kyler is partial to a big knife. You don’t want to rile either of them. Both will kill a man as soon as look at him.”

  “You don’t say.”

  She removed her hand. “Now that you know, fan the breeze.”

  Fargo clucked to the Ovaro and made for the hitch rail.

  “Wait,” Candice said. “Where are you going?”

  “To do some riling,” Fargo said.

  2

  More laughter and another crash drowned the dull thud of the Ovaro’s hooves as Fargo rode up to the hitch rail.

  Swinging down, he tied off the reins.

  As Fargo stepped to the batwings, he loosened his Colt in its holster. He didn’t go in. Not yet.

  The saloon was a shambles. Most of the tables and many of the chairs had been overturned. Cards and chips were scattered everywhere. Upended bottles and glasses lay the length of the bar, and behind it the big mirror had been busted.

  Along the left wall and the far wall stood twenty or so customers. Almost all were cowering in fright.

  The cause of all the destruction and fear were three men. It was easy for Fargo to figure out which was which.

  Behind the bar, sorting through bottles on a shelf, was a huge hellion who had to be Grizz. He wore homespun that barely fit his giant frame and sported a bristly beard that hung down to his belt. He picked up a bottle, peered at the label for all of half a minute, and said, “Rum? I had this once. It tastes like sugar water.” And with that, he threw the bottle at the mirror.

  At the crash, some of the townsfolk cringed.

  The two men at the bar cackled.

  One had a Sharps cradled in the crook of an elbow and wore a floppy hat. That, Fargo reckoned, would be Rance.

  The other was the youngest, with peach fuzz on his chin and an antler-handled knife that had to be a foot and a half long on his right hip. That would be Kyler.

  Fargo pushed on the batwings. They didn’t creak and the frolickers didn’t hear him enter. He took a couple of steps and stopped, his right hand brushing his holster.

  Grizz picked up another bottle. “Scotch?” he said. “Ain’t they the ones that wear dresses?” He cocked his arm and hurled the bottle at the mirror and more shards of glass rained to the floor.

  “You sure are a hoot, brother,” Kyler exclaimed. “Break ’em all.”

  “Like hell,” Rance said. “Save some for us to swill.”

  “Don’t worry,” Grizz rumbled. “I didn’t come to town to get sober. I came to town to get drunk.” He snatched yet another bottle and read the label in his slow way. “Rye? Who the hell drinks this stuff.” Grinning, he cocked his arm and glanced at his brothers and happened to gaze past them toward the batwings. “What the hell?” he said, and froze.

  Rance and Kyler turned.

  Fargo let them take his measure. He could tell a lot by their reactions.

  Rance’s dark eyes narrowed and he began to lower his Sharps but his eyes flicked to Fargo’s Colt and he thought better of it. Rance was the smart one.

  Kyler put his hand on his big knife and sneered. He wasn’t so smart, and would be rash, besides.

  As for Grizz, he slowly set the bottle down and came around the end of the bar. He had a revolver and a bowie tucked under his wide leather belt, one on either side of the buckle. “What have we here?”

  “I’m looking for someone,” Fargo said.

  “You’re what?” Grizz responded. It wasn’t that he was drunk. He was just plain dumb.

  “He said he’s lookin’ for someone,” Kyler said, and tittered as if it were funny.

  A glimmer of craftiness came into Grizz’s dull eyes.

  “Whoever you’re huntin’ ain’t here, mister. Go look for him somewhere else.”

  “Who is it you’re after?” Rance asked.

  Fargo noticed that the onlookers appeared to be stupefied, except for two. “I’m looking for a miserable son of a bitch. Maybe you know him.”

  “Oh?” Rance said, and his face had hardened.

  “Some bastard who hits women and strips them bare-assed and shoves them out in the street.”

  There were gasps from some of the men along the walls.

  One looked fit to faint.

  “You don’t say,” Rance said, even colder than before.

  “I just did,” Fargo said.

  “Stranger,” Kyler growled, “you have your nerve. Do you know who we are?” He didn’t wait for Fargo to answer. “We’re the Hollisters. We do as we please, when we please, and no one tells us different.”

  “That’s right,” Grizz said, nodding.

  “You’d do best to turn right around and forget about that gal in the street,” Rance said.

  A townsman cleared his throat. “Listen to him, mister. Get the hell out while you can. They’ve killed before.”

  “That’s right,” Kyler said, grinning. “I have five notches on my knife.”

  Fargo had heard of some who notched their pistols but never anyone who notched a knife. “That few?” he said.

  “Huh?” Kyler said.

  Rance had both hands on his Sharps and was poised to use it. “You can’t drop all three of us before we drop you.”

  “I won’t have to,” Fargo said. “Put all your weapons on the floor.”

  “Not hardly,” Kyler said, and laughed.

  “Listen to him,” Grizz said, and he laughed, too.

  “Is that all you want us to do?” Rance asked sarcastically.

  “No,” Fargo said.

  “What else?”

  “I want you to take off your clothes.”

  3

  The Hollister brothers looked at one another as if they couldn’t believe their ears.

  “Us?” K
yler said in amazement. “You want us to take off ours?”

  “So Candice won’t feel lonely,” Fargo said.

  The three of them guffawed mightily, with Grizz doubling over and slapping his tree-trunk thighs in hilarity.

  A lot of the townsfolk were looking at Fargo as if he was loco. Once again, there were two exceptions.

  Against the rear wall leaned a thin man who wore a buckskin shirt that, unlike Fargo’s, didn’t have whangs. His pants were ordinary britches, and instead of boots he wore moccasins. High on his right hip was a Tranter revolver, not a common model on the frontier. He wore the kind of high-crowned, short-brimmed hat that Indians liked but he didn’t appear to have Indian blood in him. He had folded his arms across his chest and showed no fear whatsoever of the Hollisters.

  The other exception was over by the left-hand wall. A black flat-crowned hat that gamblers favored crowned his head but he wasn’t dressed like a gambler in a frock coat and high boots. He had on a store-brought shirt and pants, both dark blue, both well worn. He wore two pistols. Oddly, they were mismatched. On his right side was a Remington Beals Navy. On his left hip was a Smith & Wesson. His thumbs were hooked in his gun belt, and he seemed more amused than anything.

  Fargo waited for the Hollisters to get the mirth out of their systems, and as Grizz straightened, he said, “We’ll start with you.”

  Grizz got real serious real quick. Flushing with anger, he snarled, “You are the stupidest jackass I ever came across.”

  Fargo smiled. “You must not look in the mirror much.”

  Grizz squared his broad shoulders and flexed his thick fingers. “Mister, I am goin’ to—”

  “No,” Rance said.

  Grizz stopped flexing and looked at his brother in confusion. “What’s that?”

  “No, I said.”

  “You heard him,” Grizz said, gesturing at Fargo. “We don’t let anyone talk to us like he’s done.”

  Rance’s eyes had narrowed and he was studying Fargo with new interest. He glanced out the front window at the hitch rail and gave a slight start. “I’ll be,” he said.

  “What the hell has gotten into you?” Kyler snapped.

  “Do you recollect that time we were down to Fort Laramie,” Rance said, not taking his eyes off Fargo, “and we got to jawin’ with those fellers about gunmen and man-killers and such?”