South Pass Snakepit Read online

  Fargo poured oats into the wooden feed trough at the head of each stall, then used a pail to draw water from the pump behind the barn, eventually filling the single trough that ran past all the stalls. During all this labor, he kept an eye peeled for his enemies.

  When he was finished, Fargo drew water for himself before he stropped a straight razor on his gun belt. He soaped his face above the beard line and shaved in the broken mirror hanging in the tack room. As the razor scraped, he contemplated his dicey situation. Among the many challenges Fargo faced, the problem of that cabin was a mountain in his path.

  It was Fargo’s nature to control events, not be controlled by them, and he would rather ride out to that cabin today. But the wind wasn’t right for the only plan he had—it would need to blow from the east, and most winds this time of year blew from the southwest or the north.

  Fargo went to breakfast near the end of the meal, missing Avram and O’Malley. Only three men lingered over their food, one of them Orville Danford. The landlord kept a close eye on Jessica.

  “Morning, Mr. Fargo,” he said in his high falsetto voice. “How’s Jake?”

  “Better than he was yesterday,” Fargo said. “Speaking of Jake—I want to split my breakfast with him. All right if I take the plate over? I’ll fetch it back.”

  “Sure. Jake’s a good man.”

  Jessica smiled when Fargo appeared in the window, but nervous strain showed around her mouth. “Good morning, Mr. Fargo. You almost missed breakfast.”

  “It won’t be long,” he whispered quickly. “We’re busting out of here.”

  She nodded, dishing up hot cakes and bacon. “I gave you extra,” she told him, “since you’re sharing with Jake. And here’s a second plate.”

  “Now see here, Lily,” Orville sputtered. “I don’t mind the extra plate, but food doesn’t grow on trees.”

  “Here you go,” Fargo said, flipping him a gold dollar.

  Danford bit the coin and then grinned. “You’re a true gentleman, Mr. Fargo.”

  For Jessica’s sake Fargo resisted the temptation to slap the fat, fleshy-lipped man sick and silly. As Fargo walked toward Jake’s shanty, a crisp wind stung his fresh-shaven cheeks. The reminder of colder weather, in these high mountains, filled him with urgency—he would have to get Jessica and her brother well away from here before the first snowfall, which wasn’t that far off.

  “Jake!” he called, swinging open the stiff cowhide that served as a door. “You awake? Grub pile.”

  “Yo! I’m awake, Fargo, and I smell that grub.”

  Wincing at the pain in his back, Jake maneuvered into a sitting position on the leather-padded bench he used as a bed.

  Fargo divided up the food and handed him a plate. He took a seat on an empty nail keg. “How you feeling today, hoss?”

  “Just sore, is all, and a mite shaky in the legs.”

  “It makes me ireful, Jake, you taking a whipping like that when all you did was help me save my life.”

  Jake devoured half a buckwheat cake in one bite. “Ahh, balls, Fargo. I helped you, and you’re helping me—it all comes out in the wash. You got no reason to feel bad, not by a jugful. Seen Slade or Clay?”

  Fargo grinned. “We ain’t likely to see them today. They got whipped at least as hard as you did, and Slade took a slug to the arm. It was a bad day for the South Pass Vigilance Committee. But I ain’t getting cocky—sometimes you dodge a flood only to step into a stampede.”

  “Sing it, brother.”

  Both men finished their meal in preoccupied silence.

  “Well,” Fargo said, swallowing the last of a tasty biscuit, “I best haze those horses out into the corral.”

  “Say, Fargo,” Jake said, “Clay and Slade might be stove up, but Philly’s got a big payroll. You watch your ampersand out there.”

  “I am. Denton wants me dead as a can of corned beef. I’ll run these plates back later. Get plenty of rest, Jake.”

  Taking a good look all around, Fargo went into the livery and led the horses out into the corral two by two. When he was finished, he secured the gate and folded his arms over the top pole of the corral for a few moments, watching the horses work out the kinks.

  When the shot rang out behind him, Fargo flinched violently. The bullet grazed the left side of his neck, a white-hot wire of pain. The horses ran into a mill, raising a thick, yellow-brown cloud of dust, and under its cover he ran back into the livery.

  “Fargo, are you still with us?” Jake shouted.

  “Still sassy,” he shouted back.

  But he couldn’t help wondering: for how long?

  Philly Denton stepped past the fly of a tent located just east of the Buffalo Palace. He stared at the two men lying on filthy bedrolls.

  “Oh, you’re a pretty pair of killers,” he said, contempt clear in his voice.

  “No need to fling it in our teeth,” Jack Slade shot back.

  “Yeah, why don’t you kill Fargo then?” Clay Munro added.

  “I hire the menial labor out, Clay, that’s why. It’s a privilege of wealth. In fact, that shot you just heard was Dooley Jones taking a crack at Fargo. With luck our troubles are over. After all, Fargo killed his brother Jesse.”

  “Bullshit,” Slade said. “That bastard Fargo is protected by a hoodoo.”

  Philly squatted to take a closer look at those ravaged backs. “Jesus, you two are a holy show. Looks like you led with your chins.”

  “That son of a bitch got the drop on us,” Clay protested, “and busted right into the saloon with his hand filled. We didn’t have no choice.”

  “Sounds like a nancy- boy excuse to me. Jack, you’re damn lucky Katy knows how to dig out lead. You might’ve bled out.”

  “She done good work,” Slade agreed.

  “But what all of us have to keep in mind is this—Fargo is the best. Not good, the best. And that means only one person could have sent him—Cornelius Mumford.”

  “If he’s such hot shit,” Munro said, “how’s come the girl is still here?”

  Philly sighed like a man trying not to lose his patience with a slow child. “Mumford wants the brother, too. You think a wealthy father wouldn’t want his namesake?”

  “Well, hell,” argued Clay, “one is better than none. When he gives up on that cabin, he just might bust the twat loose, pull foot, and cut his losses.”

  “He might,” Philly agreed. “I’ve considered that possibility. But we’re not going to give him the chance. We’ll be down on him like all wrath.”

  “Hell,” Slade said, “why bother? You just said he’s the best, and I’ll second that.”

  “I said he’s the best. I didn’t say he’s Robin Hood.”

  “I don’t give a frog’s fat ass who he is,” Clay steamed. “That whip-dick son of a bitch thrashed me, and I mean to sink air shafts through him.”

  “Attaboy,” Philly said. “This is no time for backing and filling. We stand to make a huge fortune if we can put Fargo under.”

  Slade snorted. “And if pigs had wings they could fly. Boss, you’re talkin’ a big damn ‘if.’ ”

  Philly waved this aside. “Jack, I’ve worked this thing out from every angle. The ransom plot will be duck soup—once we kill Fargo. And we will.”

  Fargo banged on the leather- hinged door, keeping his eyes to all sides.

  “Now remember, Professor,” he told O’Malley, “let me do the talking. You just play the scribe and write it down.”

  “As you wish, Fargo. But Orville is a coward, and Philly Denton is his greatest fear. Besides, I doubt if he knows that much. He’s not really part of Denton’s—”

  The door creaked open and Orville Danford gaped at the two men, his fat and folding face startled and suspicious. He glanced at the writing pad, steel pen, and pot of ink in O’Malley’s hands.

  “Yes, gentlemen?” he inquired.

  “The neighborly thing to do,” Fargo said in a flat, monotonous tone, “would be to invite us inside.”

  Orville
pushed his spectacles higher on his nose. “No offense, Mr. Fargo, but lead tends to fly around you.”

  “Mm. That’s especially true when the yahoos trying to murder me get help from my landlord.”

  Orville’s entire face seemed to quiver. “Mr. Fargo, I swear—”

  “Yeah, we all do. You went to Philly Denton’s private room right after I moved into your house. Even told him right where my shakedown was located and priddy near got me killed. Deny that, and you’re calling me a liar.”

  “Well, I—”

  “C’mon, Professor,” Fargo said, brushing past Orville. “It looks like we’ve been invited in.”

  Orville’s dark, cramped room with its strange odors—dirty clothing, old food, stinking liniment—made Fargo want to escape to the clean air of the surrounding mountains.

  “Sit down, Orville,” Fargo ordered, and the huge man settled into a cowhide chair. “Professor, set up your stuff on that table. Just push the checkerboard aside.”

  “Don’t disturb the pieces,” Orville squeaked in his feminine voice. “I’m winning.”

  “All right, Orville,” Fargo said. “Here’s the way of it. It’s plain as bedbugs on a new sheet that you’ve been helping Philly Denton pull off crimes in this valley—”

  “Foul!” Orville protested.

  “Hush down. Just sew up your lips and let me finish. Granted, I don’t think you’ve had much choice in the matter. Philly told you he’d kill you if you didn’t play along. Even so, you did play along, and how will the law know you were forced?”

  “The law? What law?”

  “There’s the U.S. Army and a U.S. marshal out of Fort Laramie.”

  “But they don’t even know—”

  “They will,” Fargo cut him off, “after I file a complete report. And this is your only chance to come to Jesus. Either you’re in that report as a cooperative witness, or your name joins the list of criminals. I’d hate to see you swing from a gallows.”

  “Swing?” O’Malley interjected. “No rope could hold—”

  “Shut your piehole,” Fargo snapped.

  “Mr. Fargo,” Orville pleaded, “I dursn’t help you. Denton will shoot me down like a dog.”

  Fargo shook his head. “He’ll never know you cooperated because I aim to kill him before he finds out.”

  “Well, then, why bother with a report?”

  “Because there’s more than law involved here. Who knows how many pilgrims have been killed in this valley, and their people back in the land of steady habits got a right to know.”

  Orville backhanded sweat off his forehead. “Mr. Fargo, I don’t know as many details as you may think I do.”

  “Anything will help.” Fargo nodded at O’Malley, who dipped his steel nib into the ink. “Let’s start with this house. Did you build it?”

  “No, Philly had it built before I came here. He was convinced this valley would become a huge mining center when gold was discovered in the Wind River Range. He figured to have the first hotel and gambling parlor, but that gold ain’t been discovered.”

  “So how’d you end up out here? No offense, but you don’t look like the rugged western type.”

  “Back east I specialized in recording land titles. I came west from Illinois because I figured the Homestead Act was about to pass. I intended to get rich locating and marking government corners.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The four corners of a land plot. The government doesn’t mark them except on a map. When the Homestead Act didn’t pass, I bought this place cheap from Philly. Course, I don’t really own it—we’re all squatters out here.”

  “Slow down, you two,” O’Malley complained, furiously scratching.

  “What did Philly require you to do?” Fargo asked.

  “Well, he’s always got his nose in the pie—every pie. He told me to spy on everybody. Go into their rooms . . .”

  Orville reached under the chair and produced a jimmy, a device for picking locks. “Many of the tenants have trunks, and he told me to open them with this. I was told to steal any valuables and give them to Philly.”

  “You’ve been doing that?”

  Orville nodded. “I had to. But now and then I let the tenants keep their valuables.”

  “That’s mighty white of you,” Fargo said from a poker face.

  “You don’t understand, Mr. Fargo. When it comes to crime, Philly is smart as a steel trap. A man can’t hide things from him.”

  “Well, I can believe that. What about this story that Denton’s big idea for being here is to sell mining rights?”

  “It’s all twaddle and bunkum. Ever since I’ve known him, his profits have been made on the backs of pilgrims or anybody else who happens into the valley.”

  “Fess up now—have you ever actually witnessed him or his men killing anyone?”

  “The ones I watched were legal by territorial law—Clay Munro has goaded several into shoot-outs. And twice men were killed in my house, but I only heard it. I know, though, from things I’ve overheard Denton and his men say, that plenty of murders took place out in the valley.”

  “What do you know,” Fargo said, “about a woman named Jessica Sykes and her jewelry box?”

  “I’ve heard plenty, but to tell you God’s truth, Mr. Fargo, I think most of it is saloon gossip. Denton seems convinced he’s got Jessica Sykes, and I figure he’s holding her at a cabin west of here. For a long time he thought the jewelry box was somewhere in this camp. But he seems to’ve soured on his plans to find it. Now he figures to go the whole hog.”

  “Meaning . . . ?”

  “Well, ransom. Her old man is stinking rich.”

  Fargo watched Danford closely for signs he was lying. But evidently he didn’t suspect Lily was Cornelius Mumford’s daughter.

  “What about Lily Snyder?” Fargo said. “Why is she being so closely watched?”

  “Well, because you’re the moth and she’s the flame, I expect. They really want to kill you, Mr. Fargo.”

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed. And you knew my food was poisoned on Denton’s orders a couple days ago, didn’t you?”

  Orville flinched hard, turning pink to his earlobes. When he said nothing, O’Malley spoke up.

  “Soon, Orville, we must all face the ‘wrathful and retributive throne.’ It’s wise to confess your sins before you go.”

  “How . . . how did you know?” Orville asked Fargo.

  “I listened through a chink in the wall when they planned it,” Fargo lied.

  “What could I do, Mr. Fargo? They would’ve killed me for telling you.”

  “I already figured that out,” Fargo said, “or you’d be cold by now. One last question: what’s behind that boarded-up door in your kitchen?”

  Danford looked surprised. “Why, I have no idea. It was already nailed shut when I bought this place from Philly. I wanted to open it a couple times, to see if the space could be rented, but it seemed like too much work.”

  Fargo picked up the pad of foolscap paper and handed it to Orville. “Sign this and put the date next to your signature.”

  When the landlord hesitated, Fargo’s tone hardened. “Danford, you’re a fool not to sign this. Otherwise you become a party to the crimes committed in this valley. This statement makes it clear you were forced to cooperate.”

  “I understand that, Mr. Fargo. But if Philly Denton—”

  “He’ll never see this. And if you tell him about it you’re a fool. He’ll have to kill you.”

  Looking unhappy about it, Danford signed and dated the document.

  “Nothing we talked about here gets back to Denton, savvy? You’re the one who will pay.”

  Orville nodded. “Why didn’t I leave long ago?” he lamented.

  “Good question,” Fargo replied. “That’s what any decent man would have done.”

  14

  Fargo spent the rest of his sixth day in Sweetwater Valley exploring more paths outside the camp. He discovered one more skeleton and dutifully ma
rked the location on his hand-drawn map. He was sure, however, that a thorough search of the area would also turn up a few shallow graves.

  As the bloodred sun set behind him, Fargo rode back to camp, alert and vigilant. This valley of death reminded him how vulnerable the pilgrims were once they left the group. With only a token presence of law or military out here in western Nebraska Territory, and virtually no one willing to report crimes, the chances any authorities would step in were slim to none. And given the slow travel times and uncertain mail delivery, it might be many months—even years—before anyone even missed waylaid stragglers.

  Fargo looked for trouble at any moment as he cautiously approached, then searched the livery barn. He stripped bridle, saddle, blanket, and pad from his stallion, dropping the blanket and pad over the side of a stall to dry. Fargo gave the Ovaro a quick rubdown and forked some hay into the manger.

  Fargo was hungry but decided against eating at the boardinghouse. He was afraid that Philly Denton’s increasing zeal to see him cold as a wagon wheel could get others killed. So he settled for a hunk of buffalo jerky he pulled from a saddlebag.

  By the time he finished eating, darkness had settled over the valley in a black cloak. Fargo lighted the lantern hanging from a crossbeam and slipped next door to check on Jake. He was in deep sleep, his body recovering from the savage whipping, and Fargo didn’t disturb him.

  He returned to the livery barn, again searched it, then shut the front doors and secured them with an iron bar through the brackets. Knowing the Ovaro was his best sentry, Fargo spread his blanket near the entrance to the pinto’s stall, Colt and Henry to hand.

  “Keep your nose to the wind,” Fargo told his horse. “Just a little more time and we’ll put this place behind us.”

  Fargo intended to fall into the light-sleep state he relied on when trouble surrounded him. But the exhaustion of the past six days caught up with him, and he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  He was aware, in some deep recess of his mind, that a horse was nickering. But like a drugged man, his limbs would not respond to his will.