South Pass Snakepit Page 10

  11

  By the time Fargo returned to the livery some daylight remained, but a nascent moon like a thin white wafer was visible above the mountain spires. He had made the trip back in jig time, but he felt tired from his eyes to his insteps. The nights of broken sleep, and the constant vigil for the ever-expected attack, were taking their toll.

  Fargo headed next door to Orville Danford’s boardinghouse for his supper, stopping first at his old room.

  “You two chowderheads going to grub pile?” he greeted O’Malley and Avram.

  “Just waiting for you, my boy,” O’Malley said, capping his flask. “I’ve been trying to convince our resident skeptic here that opportunities abound out west for everyone.”

  “Listen to this jay!” Avram exclaimed as the three men left the squalid room. “If you ain’t born rich, you don’t stand a Chinaman’s chance.”

  “Pah! Wealth is usually an accident of birth. What is important is that a man improve himself and his condition, that his children be worthy to lead and inspire.”

  Avram made retching noises. “What a crock! I had to get thrown in with a cracker-barrel philosopher. Fargo, have you improved your condition?”

  “Not so’s you’d notice.”

  “Well, neither have I. And you, Professor, wear trousers that are shiny in the knees. Maybe you better practice what you preach.”

  As they filed into the crowded dining commons, O’Malley took another swig. “You’re right, Avram. I am a hypocrite—a drunken hypocrite.”

  Why, Fargo wondered, was Orville Danford eating with the rabble tonight? Usually he ate in his quarters. Fargo took a swift look around, watching for Philly’s gun-throwers.

  “Both you two lower your hammers,” he told his companions. “Everything Professor O’Malley said is true. It’s no less true just because the three of us choose to ride another trail in life.”

  O’Malley sniffed the air as they lined up for their plates. “What’s this? It should be beans and bannock tonight, but—by the boot!—I smell meat.”

  “Not just meat,” Fargo said. “I know that smell. It’s buffalo hump steak. Good fixin’s.”

  “Fargo,” O’Malley said, “I have never seen a great shaggy. Are they truly noble beasts?”

  “Well, picture tufted tails, woolly humps, horns and long chin whiskers on the bulls. They’re dirty and stupid animals, but strong. And when a big herd is on the move, it’s a sight to behold. Sometimes it takes hours for them to pass by.”

  The line moved slowly tonight. Fargo caught Orville watching him while chewing with his mouth open. The Trailsman edged closer to the serving window, the succulent meat smell making his stomach churn with hunger.

  “My first taste of buffalo,” O’Malley said. “I almost wish I was sober so I could remember it.”

  “Enjoy it while you can,” Fargo advised. “The buff’s days are numbered. And with the buff goes the ‘wild’ Indians. Won’t be long and the West will be nothing but a battleground between the fence men and the free-range men.”

  “Who do you predict will win?” Avram asked.

  “You’ve seen it back east—fences everywhere. What man has done, man will do.”

  “Hear, hear,” O’Malley approved, flashing his woebegone smile.

  By now Avram, just ahead of Fargo, stepped up to the window. Fargo could see Lily, and her pale, drawn face made it clear that trouble was afoot. Jessica, as he chose to think of her now, never looked happy. But tonight worry molded her face.

  “What’s cookin’, good-lookin’?” Avram greeted her, but she hardly seemed to hear him.

  Avram took his plate and spoon and headed toward a table. The moment Fargo stepped in to the window, her color ebbed and perspiration beaded her forehead.

  “Evening, Lily,” he greeted her.

  “Mr. Fargo.” She handed him a plate with a delicious-looking piece of steak and fried potatoes, all of it covered with flour gravy. Then Fargo realized she had shoved a tightly folded note into his hand along with the plate.

  “Let no one see it,” she whispered. “And read it before you eat.”

  She spoke with her face averted from Orville’s watchful eye. Acting as if nothing had happened, Fargo went to join O’Malley and Avram. He put his hand under the table and unfolded the note while salting his food with the other.

  Don’t eat food. Poisoned. Danford watching to make sure I don’t warn you. Philly will kill my brother if I’m caught. Make it look good.

  Fargo did a double take when he saw it was signed “Jessica.” That had to mean she was in trouble now and taking him up on his offer of help. He also realized he had to play this smart, or she would bear the brunt of Denton’s wrath.

  With Danford watching his every move, Fargo stalled for time by cutting his meat and swirling it in the gravy.

  “Avram,” he said from the side of his mouth.

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t look at me. There’s trouble. Don’t upset the chuck wagon—just play along with me. We’re gonna fake a fight.”

  Fargo raised his voice. “Look, Nash, take the pinecone outta your ass. Lily just doesn’t cotton to you. I’m gonna ask her to go riding.”

  “I’ll see you bark in hell first!” Avram shouted, leaping to his feet and playing his part to perfection.

  This was the chance Fargo needed. As he flew to his feet, his left hand tipped the edge of his plate and flipped it onto the floor.

  “Better simmer down quick,” Fargo warned, “or I’ll whale the snot outta you.”

  “Whale this, you woman stealer!”

  Avram surprised—but delighted—Fargo by planting a fast right hook that knocked Fargo back on his heels. No one would call it a sham fight now. He moved in, caught Avram in a hip lock, and tossed him over his back with a flying mare.

  “Break it up, you two,” Orville whined in his girlish voice. “You’ll damage my property!”

  “Had enough, magic man?” Fargo demanded.

  “Oh, hell yes,” a bruised Avram called from the floor. “Let’s be friends.”

  The diners laughed and the brief entertainment was over. Fargo caught Jessica’s eye and saw the relief in her pretty features—it was a good performance, thanks in part to Avram’s ready understanding, and with a bit of luck she wouldn’t be blamed.

  Fargo’s next reaction was a surge of hot rage against Philly and a desire to kill him now for cause. But if he failed, Philly would know Jessica intervened. So Fargo reluctantly swallowed his anger for the time being.

  “Here, Fargo,” O’Malley said. “Have some of my supper. I think this buffalo tastes too much like mutton.”

  Fargo had lost his appetite when he read Jessica’s note. But Orville was watching him again, and it would look suspicious if he didn’t eat.

  “Thanks, Professor,” he said. “I can’t believe I wasted all that good food.”

  Fargo accompanied his two friends back to their room. He noticed a stout board had been nailed over the small window.

  “Ounce of prevention?” he said, pointing at it.

  “Damn straight,” Avram replied. “Of course, now I can smell the professor’s cruddy socks, but I sleep easier.”

  O’Malley, busy nursing his flask, merely said, “Pah!”

  “C’mon, Fargo, give,” Avram urged. “What was the point of that little brouhaha at supper?”

  “Avram, my hand to God, I can’t tell you right now. But I can assure you—you may have saved a life tonight. You did a bang-up job, old son.”

  “Aww, Fargo, I got tossed around like the mail. Not even a hint?”

  Fargo shook his head. “Sorry. Maybe later.”

  “I saw Danford was there watching everything like a hawk. Does this involve Lily?”

  “Lily,” O’Malley repeated, slurring the word. “Bosh!”

  Fargo watched the pedant closely. “Bosh? Why’s that, Professor?”

  O’Malley wagged a finger at him. “Oh, I think you know, slyboots.”

&nbs
p; “Whew!” Avram said. “He’s got a skinful. He’s on a jag every night now.”

  “So what?” O’Malley demanded belligerently. “The whole cockeyed world can kiss my skinny white ass.”

  “There, there, that’s a tough old soldier,” Avram said in a tone one might use with a child.

  O’Malley drew himself up as if for inspection. “I’m not in my dotage quite yet, thank you.”

  A moment later O’Malley passed out, and Fargo caught him just in time to put him on his shakedown.

  “Damned old fool,” Avram said. “He hasn’t got the brains of a rabbit. I think—”

  He paused when he realized Fargo wasn’t listening. “What’s wrong, Fargo? You’re miles away.”

  “I wish I was,” Fargo muttered. “Look, Avram, I have to go now. Thanks again for your help tonight.”

  Fargo let himself out after carefully studying the evening shadows surrounding the house. Staying close to the building, he hurried to the far end and lifted the latchstring on the door of the common eating area. He listened to make sure there were no voices.

  “Jessica? It’s Skye Fargo.”

  Her voice replied from the kitchen. “Mr. Fargo? I’ll unlock the kitchen door.”

  Fargo crossed to the door and pushed it open when he heard the lock click back. Jessica Sykes, her long hair down for the night, held a Remington revolver dangling at her side.

  “Please don’t be offended,” she said when Fargo spotted it. “I live back here alone, and—”

  “No need to explain,” Fargo insisted. “But how in the world did you lay hands on that?”

  “Dakota, the bartender at the Buffalo Palace, dropped it off.”

  “Well, just remember not to point it unless you intend to use it. Any chance Philly Denton will be coming by to find out why his poison plan failed?”

  “I doubt it. He gambles until late, and he’s a creature of habit. Besides, Orville was fooled by that wonderful act you and Avram put on. Does Avram know who I am?”

  “If he does, he hasn’t let on.” A coal-oil lantern illuminated the kitchen, and for a moment he got lost in the shimmering pools of her soft blue eyes.

  “Well,” she said somewhat self-consciously, “let’s step back to my quarters and sit down. We have plenty to discuss. I was just braiding rags for a rug.”

  “Making a rug? Sounds like you’ve settled in here.”

  “Hardly. I have to occupy my mind somehow or I’ll lose it.”

  Fargo stepped behind the calico curtain with her. A tiny area the size of a ship’s cabin held a narrow iron bedstead, one reed-woven chair, a leather steamer trunk, and a low chest of drawers. Two candles burned in tin wall sconces.

  “Please take the chair,” she said. “I’ll sit on the . . . bed.”

  Face flushing, she sat quickly on the very edge of the mattress, and Fargo stifled a grin.

  “So my father hired you, Mr. Fargo?”

  “Yes, but please call me Skye. Jessica, he’s terribly worried about you and your brother, and all the cousins and friends who left Indiana with you. A rumor claims you all died in a landslide and were buried along the trail. But men he hired in San Francisco never found your graves. Cornelius is sinking fast from grief, but he refuses to give up. That’s why he sent for me.”

  A tear balanced on the ends of her eyelashes, then zigzagged down her cheek. Her nervous hands began braiding the rug again.

  “That rumor is partly correct, Skye. There was a landslide, but not up on the Oregon Trail. And some of us were killed but not in it—only afterward.”

  Fargo kept an ear cocked for the sound of footsteps beyond the curtain. “Yeah, even before I guessed who you are, I didn’t believe that story you told me about how you were going west to teach on the Modoc reservation—they don’t have a rez yet because they aren’t hostile to whites.”

  “Oh. You see, I just picked that tribe out of a book.”

  “Far as all these jealous wives tossing you off the wagon train—you’re pretty, all right, but not at all threatening. Besides, there’s still a pale line on your finger where you wore your wedding ring.”

  “I can see you’ve spent your life observing details. Anyway, that jealous-wives story I gave you was invented by Philly Denton.”

  “I figured as much. So what did happen, Jessica?”

  “As I’m sure my father told you, he was a sort of advance man for the rest of us. He wanted to invest in steamships in San Francisco before anyone else got in before him, but he didn’t want to spend six months sailing around the tip of South America. So years ago, he made the overland journey.”

  Fargo nodded. “He’s a widower, anyway, so he took the risk. Being Cornelius Mumford, shipping tycoon, it paid off in spades. But he couldn’t leave his shipping empire, and he missed his family. So you all decided to join him.”

  “Exactly. There were thirteen of us, counting some cousins and close family friends. But we were cursed from the start. Yellow fever struck six of us and delayed our start from Saint Joe. Our two wagons couldn’t even keep up with the stragglers—repair after repair put us ever farther behind. But once we’d passed the sand hills of Nebraska Territory, it seemed foolish to turn back. Oh, but we should have!”

  Another tear spurted down her cheek.

  “It’s pointless to blame yourself now,” Fargo said firmly. “You were pilgrims from Indiana doing the best you could. Now, what happened when you got into South Pass?”

  “Oh, Skye, what didn’t happen? One of our wagons broke an axle. Some of the men did a crude repair to brace it with leather. We tried to make it into the valley, but we chose the wrong spot and the slope suddenly turned into a landslide. Both wagons tumbled into the Sweetwater River. Everyone survived that, but my husband and several other men were killed trying to defend us from Philly Denton’s thugs.”

  She stopped speaking, emotion closing her throat at the horrific memories.

  “We were all seized, and my brother and I were recognized from papers we carried. For months, the two of us were kept prisoner in a cabin.”

  “I found it today,” Fargo said. “Somebody’s still a prisoner there. They’ve even got guard dogs.”

  Her face was suddenly animated. “Then it must be Michael. They had little interest in the others, and by now, I fear, they’ve all been killed—including Susan and Charlene, my two youngest cousins, twins and only eight years old.”

  “Why all this time,” asked Fargo, “and no ransom demand? That’s what your father hoped for—and is ready to pay.”

  “Well, Denton is finally working on such a plan. But at first he was afraid of my father—and how could Denton return me and Michael alive without being identified? I think their plan now, after they collect, is to move to Europe under new names. At first, though, Denton was obsessed with my jewels. Articles in various newspapers, and rumors along the trail, had mentioned their value.”

  “He didn’t get them?”

  She shook her head. “No one could have. By the time they captured us the box was long gone—when we tumbled into the river it was swept away on a strong, swift current. Philly has never really believed me, especially after Ignatius O’Malley got staggering drunk one night and boasted he had it.”

  “Is that possible, you think?”

  “No. They washed away, but they became an El Dorado to Denton and his minions. I think he’s finally accepting that I lost them, and he’s turning to his fallback plan with the ransom. But I fear he’ll kill Michael and me and flee with the money.”

  “Finally,” Fargo said, “the fog lifts.”

  “Will you help us, Skye?”

  “I’d admire to, Jessica. That’s why I’m here.”

  A tentative smile ousted her frown. “But there is that remote cabin—and those vicious dogs. How could you possibly . . . ?”

  Fargo gave a slow nod. “Yeah, that’s a sticker, all right. But I’ve wangled out of tighter spots. Say, how ’bout Avram Nash? Does he figure into this somehow?”
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  “I’ve wondered about him, but I just don’t know. He seems a fairly decent sort, and I hardly ever see him with anyone but O’Malley. But what would keep either one of them in this hellish spot?”

  “Maybe the El Dorado you mentioned. Anyhow,” Fargo said, “it’s pretty clear to me that Denton knows why I’m here. This plan to poison me shows he’s pretty desperate to protect that king’s ransom your father will pay.”

  Jessica laid the rug aside and began pacing. “Yes. When he ordered me to poison you, I realized I had to trust you, Skye. I hate risking Michael’s life, but I understand now they’ll probably kill him no matter what I do or don’t do. Just as they’ll rape and kill me.”

  “Speaking of poison,” Fargo said, “what kind was it?”

  “Strychnine. I still have most of it left.”

  “Let me have it,” Fargo said. “If Denton wants it back, you tossed it out, understand? You didn’t want that dangerous stuff around, so you dissolved it in dirty dishwater. You were afraid you might take it yourself to end your misery.”

  She opened a drawer and took out a small brown bottle, handing it to him. “ ‘Memory believes before knowing remembers, ’ ” she said softly.

  “Nice line,” Fargo said, standing up to leave. “What’s it mean?”

  “I guess it’s just a fancy way of saying I’ve been hiding in the past rather than facing reality. I hope, with your help, to change all that.”

  “We’ll do our best, lady. For now, just go about your usual routine. We’ve got a rough piece of work ahead of us, and if you’re a religious girl, pray your heart out.”

  12

  In Fargo’s dream, those damned curs across the street were raising hell again. Only, tonight, their ruckus seemed to be moving closer and getting louder.

  Fargo, exhausted in body yet only half asleep, lay in the stall on his blanket, both his guns close to hand. When the Ovaro let out his shrill trouble whicker, Fargo jolted awake.

  For a few moments he thought he was still dreaming because he could still hear the barking and growling. Then an icy chill moved down his spine when he saw the horses—several were chinning the moon in panic, others rearing and bucking, adding to the din and chaos.