Seminole Showdown Read online

  ‘‘Is it . . . is it really over?’’ she managed to ask.

  ‘‘Rafferty’s . . . dead,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘It’s over.’’

  ‘‘Who was he? What . . . what happened, Skye? Where are Billy and my father?’’

  ‘‘Your father’s all right,’’ Fargo told her.

  Echo’s eyes widened. ‘‘Billy . . . ?’’

  Fargo shook his head solemnly.

  Then he put his arm around Echo’s shoulders and drew her against him as she began to cry. The other girls were sobbing, too, because they had heard Echo’s question and seen Fargo’s response. Charley tried to comfort them as best he could.

  Yes, this ordeal was over, Fargo thought.

  But the sorrow it had caused would last for a long time.

  Six weeks later, Fargo stood beside the pool in the canyon with Echo and Charley. At their back was the burned rubble of the cabin where Echo, Wa-nee-sha, and the other girls had been held prisoner. Back along the canyon, near the marker that Fargo and Charley had put up earlier for Billy, the members of his family stood in silent mourning, along with now-recovered Joseph McNally. The group had made the pilgrimage here to say their final farewells to their wayward son, brother, and friend.

  In the time since the showdown with Rafferty at the Red River, Fargo had rested and healed for a few days, then set off for Texas to try to track down the rest of the kidnapped girls who had been taken there. He had been partially successful, finding six of the eight in whorehouses in Gainesville, Dallas, and Fort Worth. He had convinced the owners of the houses to let them return to their families, although probably nothing could ever blot away the shame they felt. To Fargo’s way of thinking, what had happened to them hadn’t been their fault by any stretch of the imagination, and he hoped that someday they would be able to find some peace and go on with their lives.

  The other two girls had vanished where not even a Trailsman could find them. Fargo suspected that they were dead, victims of the greed of evil men.

  ‘‘What are you going to do now, Mr. Fargo?’’ Charley asked. He was standing straighter and prouder these days, Fargo noticed, and he figured he ought to stop thinking of Charley as a boy and start thinking of him as a young man.

  ‘‘What I always do, I reckon,’’ Fargo replied. ‘‘Drift along until I find something interesting.’’

  ‘‘You could stay with us, you know,’’ Echo said. ‘‘You may not be Seminole, but you will always be welcome in the Seminole Nation.’’

  ‘‘I appreciate that,’’ Fargo said with a smile, ‘‘but I’ve never been one to let grass grow under my feet.’’

  Echo sighed. ‘‘That’s what I was afraid you’d say, Skye. I’ll be sorry to see you go. But you’ll come back someday, won’t you?’’

  ‘‘Nobody knows the trails they’ll wind up following, I reckon.’’ Fargo turned to Charley and clapped a hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘‘I’ll be counting on you to look after things around home.’’

  Charley nodded. ‘‘I will. I won’t let you down, Mr. Fargo.’’

  Until the day came that Charley had to hit the trail, too, thought Fargo. When that happened, his adopted family would be sorry to see him go.

  But there were some calls that had to be answered, thought Fargo. The lure of the unknown, the siren song of the wild frontier . . .

  He knew because he heard that song himself, and always would.

  LOOKING FORWARD!

  The following is the opening

  section of the next novel in the exciting

  Trailsman series from Signet:

  THE TRAILSMAN #326 SILVER MOUNTAIN SLAUGHTER

  Arizona, 1861—in the heat of the desert,

  amid the cacti and the sagebrush, only one

  thing burns hotter than the sun above—the

  Trailsman’s fury.

  Winter in the high country had been hard, about as hard as the Trailsman could remember. He’d spent the better part of it high up in the California Rockies in an old trapper’s cabin. When he wasn’t huddled against the bone-numbing cold and its accompanying biting wind, he’d split most of his time between gathering what wood he could find that was fit to feed his fire, and trying to persuade his horse, the Ovaro, not to climb directly into it to keep warm.

  At winter’s end, the tall man and his trusty black-and-white paint stallion had emerged relatively safe and sound, if a little on the gaunt side, and had headed southeast—a path which took them down toward the Arizona Territory and its promise of sunshine and warmth.

  Well, he was sure as hell reaping that promise now, he thought in exasperation as he rode the flat, desolate stretch of desert between Phoenix and Tucson. It had been eighty degrees when he woke at just past dawn, and now, at midmorning, he was sweating up a storm and cursing his buckskins. He would have been smarter to make himself a buckskin loincloth!

  Suddenly, he reined the Ovaro to a halt, slithered down out of the saddle, and began to tug off his shirt. When it finally loosed its damp hold on his skin and he peeled it off, overhead, the breeze tickling his skin felt like a miracle.

  ‘‘Better,’’ he hissed between clenched teeth as he cinched his shirt across the back of his saddle, then secured it with the tie-down latigos.

  He knew it was stupid to ride without a shirt this time of year, but right at the moment, the pain of a future sunburn was nothing compared to the here-and-now hellish steam bath of riding inside that leather shirt.

  He swung up onto the Ovaro and nudged the stud into a slow jog, the breeze tickling his long-suffering skin. Yes, he thought, much better.

  And then he noticed it.

  Just a dot on the horizon, a dot growing larger and separating into tiny black figures as he drew nearer. Bandidos? Pilgrims? A million possibilities tumbled through his mind as he rode closer. Not hostile Indians, he decided early on. At least, as soon as it became apparent that one of the objects ahead was a buckboard, which was definitely not an Apache affectation.

  But something about the rig—and the folks traveling with it—seemed somehow wrong. For one thing, the fellow in the driver’s seat wore a tall stovepipe hat with a turkey feather sprouting from its hatband. He also wore a bright yellow vest, the sort in which you might expect to see some New Orleans cardsharp attired. But not an Arizona pilgrim, or a miner, or a cattle or horse rancher. It was the wrong sort of picture.

  Beside the odd duck driving the team sat what looked like a young girl. Maybe twenty or so, Fargo thought. But that was probably just wishful thinking. It had been a few months since he’d set his eyes on a girl worth looking at.

  ‘‘Don’t start getting yourself bothered,’’ he muttered so that only the Ovaro heard. ‘‘She’s probably some old Hopi squaw.’’

  Still, he pushed the Ovaro into a speedier jog.

  Although it seemed like forever, he caught up with them in no time, and the rig’s driver didn’t seem surprised to see him. ‘‘Took you a while,’’ the old man said, turning slightly in his seat. Protruding from the outlandish hat was a scant series of long, white wisps that the Trailsman hadn’t seen from afar, and the man seemed to have only a quarter of his original complement of teeth. Those that remained were stained by tobacco.

  The girl didn’t look at either one of them. She just kept the same posture she’d held since he first made her out—slumped forward, eyes on her hands in her lap. He couldn’t see her face, but he took some comfort in the fact that her hands didn’t look old and gnarled.

  Fargo turned his attention back to the wagon’s driver. ‘‘You a pilgrim?’’ he asked, more as an excuse to keep pace with the rig than out of any real curiosity.

  The old man jutted a skeletal hand out toward him. ‘‘Franklin Q. Stubbins, at yer service.’’

  The Trailsman took it and gave it a shake. ‘‘Skye Fargo’s my name,’’ he said. ‘‘Most folks know me as the Trailsman.’’

  ‘‘I will, too, then,’’ said Franklin Q. Stubbins, and then he broke out int
o a quick but loud bray of laughter. The girl beside him didn’t shift so much as half an inch.

  ‘‘What you doing out here in the nowhere, Mr. Stubbins?’’ Fargo asked. ‘‘You on your way to Tucson?’’

  Again, the old man broke out into that peculiar bray of laughter. ‘‘Mebbe, mebbe,’’ he replied. ‘‘We’ll see how the water holds out.’’

  The Trailsman’s brow wrinkled. Just what did the crazy old coot mean by that? He looked over at the girl again. She had cringed down into herself at Stubbins’s last comment, and Fargo was beginning to wonder how they had paired up. And if she was as crazy as Stubbins was. She’d have to be either crazy or desperate to share a buckboard seat with him all the way down to Tucson.

  So he simply nodded, as if the old man’s comment about the water made perfect sense to him, and asked, ‘‘Where do you and your daughter plan to bide? I’ve heard good things about the Wigwam Hotel.’’

  His little stab at finding out about the girl bore fruit sooner than he’d hoped, because Stubbins immediately replied, ‘‘Oh, she ain’t my daughter, no, not by a long shot. Been a few years since I had the itch so bad I’d scratch it with a squaw.’’ And then came that laugh again.

  ‘‘Not your wife, either?’’ Fargo asked.

  ‘‘Hell, no,’’ Stubbins said. And then he punched the girl in the arm hard enough to nearly knock her from her perch. ‘‘Speak up, gal,’’ he said. ‘‘Tell the Trailsman here your name!’’

  Fargo had nearly jumped from his horse to the buckboard’s seat when Stubbins struck the girl, but she suddenly wheeled toward him and he forgot all his good intentions.

  She was striking. Her features bore the high cheek-bones and faraway—but at the same time, intense—look of an Indian, yet her skin was not the copper or latigo color he’d expected. It was pale, almost milky, and blue eyes burned out of her face, burned him to his core.

  ‘‘I am Kathleen Dugan,’’ she said in a monotone, then turned her face from him once again.

  It was a good thing she had, as the shock of her had almost made him lose his seat. While he pulled himself together again, Stubbins added, ‘‘Her pa was from County Cork, and her ma was an Apache squaw. They was neighbors to me. Her ma died and her pa went broke, and he sold her into servitude. Got her papers right here.’’ He patted his vest pocket. ‘‘I’m havin’ me some financial wear and tear of late, and that’s why we’re headed for Tucson. Gonna try and sell her.’’

  Fargo barely let the last words come out of Stubbins’s mouth before he asked, far too eagerly, ‘‘How much?’’ He knew the Tucson he was used to was chock-full of rowdies and scofflaws who’d think nothing off buying the girl, then renting her out for a nickel an hour. Or worse. All that he wanted at this moment was to permanently sever the bond between Stubbins and the fair Kathleen Dugan. The girl wouldn’t even look at him for more than a second, and had said no more than four words to him in the entirety of their acquaintance. If you could call it that.

  Thoughtfully, Stubbins scratched his chin between thumb and forefinger. ‘‘I’d hoped to get me a biddin’ war goin’,’’ he said. ‘‘Hoped to get enough to buy me a couple of weanling hogs and a calf. And some grain. And mayhap a fair saddle horse.’’ He kept on scratching his chin and gazed out over the horizon.

  Fargo felt himself reaching for his pocket. Well, dammit, there were some things a man just had to do.

  He opened his coin purse and rooted around for the two double eagles he had put away last fall, in case of dire emergency. This was one, all right.

  ‘‘Forty bucks,’’ he said, holding the money out so that Stubbins could see but not reach it. ‘‘Final offer.’’

  Stubbins hesitated and Fargo let him stew for a moment before he started to draw his hand back.

  ‘‘Hold on there, son!’’ Stubbins blurted out. ‘‘I’m thinkin’!’’

  Fargo let his hand drop to rest on his leg while the buckboard and the Ovaro moved them down through the desert. If the girl had any feelings about the transaction or her impending sale, she didn’t make them known. She hadn’t even looked at him, not once, save when she’d said her name at Stubbins’s command.

  Fargo asked, ‘‘Can she say anything besides her name? You ain’t tryin’ to gyp me with a one-trick pony, are you?’’ In truth, he had sort of been hoping that she’d be a fair conversationalist, seeing as they were going to ride down to Tucson together.

  He figured to cut her free once they got there, but talking was the only thing he figured to be able to do with her till they made town. And that was another sixty miles or so.

  Suddenly, he was having conflicting thoughts about her, and her freedom, and without thinking, began to draw his money-holding hand back toward his pocket.

  Stubbins must have had great peripheral vision, because he suddenly snapped, ‘‘She can recite the whole Bible, almost. And I reckon forty dollars would do it, son.’’

  This time, the laugh that followed was less a bray than a cackle. It plucked at Fargo’s spine like icy fingers.

  It had about the same effect on the girl, because he saw her curl in on herself. Suddenly he didn’t have any doubts anymore.

  He reined in the Ovaro, and Stubbins held his mule. Fargo, finding the transaction more and more distasteful with each passing second, once again held the coins out toward the old geezer, stopping an inch short of where the old man could grab them. Stubbins made a face and opened his mouth, but Fargo beat him to the punch. ‘‘You said she’s got transfer papers?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘Sure, sure, she does,’’ Stubbins croaked, and dug a grimy sheet, folded several ways, from his pocket. He waved it at Fargo. ‘‘Got ’em right here.’’

  ‘‘Well, sign her over,’’ Fargo said, and leaned forward to let Stubbins take the money. He sat his horse while Stubbins dug out his pencil, then made his mark on the tired sheet.

  Stubbins folded the paper back the way it had been while he said, ‘‘Get down, girl. You been bought.’’ As he handed the paper up to Fargo, the girl jack-rabbited off the other side of the wagon and about ten feet away from the buckboard. She stood there, head bent toward the ground, her arms circling her torso, her hair hanging in her eyes.

  Fargo took the sheet and unfolded it, quickly scanning the spidery scrawl before he refolded it and stuck it into his back pocket. The girl was his. At least, on paper. She continued to stare at her feet.

  He had expected more. Maybe a thank-you.

  Stubbins tossed a ratty carpetbag to the ground, then clucked to his mule and continued on his way without another word to either of them, leaving Fargo and the girl to stare at each other. Or not. He was staring at her, but she was still focused on her shoes, which he’d just noticed were grimy moccasins.

  He took her in. At least, as much as she was letting him see. She wore a faded red calico skirt that fell over long, slim legs and softly belled hips, and her blouse was white and very loose, in the Mexican peasant style.

  Stubbins and his rig had nearly disappeared from sight before Fargo had the presence of mind to say, ‘‘Miss? Miss, you want to climb up behind? It’s a long way to Tucson, and I don’t want you travelin’ on foot.’’

  Finally, she looked up at him, turned that beautiful face toward him. In a voice that was soft but devoid of expression, she said, ‘‘Screw you, white dog.’’

  Fargo didn’t know how to react, so he just stared at her as if someone from afar was remotely operating her mouth and voice. But she’d said it nonetheless, and eventually he had to say the word that had balled up in his mouth. Which, unfortunately, was ‘‘Huh?’’

  ‘‘You heard me,’’ came her reply.

  She wasn’t looking at him any longer, but he could guess her expression by the tone of her voice, which had grown decidedly more hostile since Stubbins had moved on down the road.

  By now, he and his rig were little more than a dark, smudgy speck in the sun-blasted distance.

  Fargo didn’t answer her, just kept o
n staring at Stubbins’s tiny, disappearing form to the south. But finally he said, ‘‘Get up,’’ and reined the Ovaro in front of her.

  She looked up at him, hate suddenly pasted across that beautiful, fair face, and grunted an ugly sound.

  Fargo didn’t like the tone of it, not one bit, but he slid his boot from the stirrup and said, ‘‘Now.’’

  Apparently he said it sternly enough that it had effect, because suddenly she slipped up behind his saddle and planted her fanny firmly on the Ovaro’s croup.

  Fargo was about to welcome her aboard when, from behind him, came her words.

  ‘‘Well? Didn’t you want to take me someplace? Get on with it! Or are we just going to sit here all day?’’

  Jaw clenched, he gave the Ovaro a little knee, and as the horse moved them forward, muttered, ‘‘Buddy, the next time you see me wantin’ to do some good, or to do the right thing, just kick me right square in my bleedin’ backside.’’