South Pass Snakepit Read online

  “Look closer. They were thrown in a shallow draw or something and covered with lime, then sawdust to keep them warm while they rotted. Lime works real quick, and you can see traces of it on the clothing. Sawdust, too.”

  “You’re right, Fargo. You got a good eye for details. Brother, I never seen the like. But why was Denton stupid enough to keep them here?”

  “I figure whoever put these here was low on the totem pole. He’s likely dead or gone by now, and nobody even remembers they’re here. That’s why we’re gonna nail this door shut again. I’m doing my best to bring the law down on Denton and all his lick-spittles, and this is going in my report.”

  “So you got a plan?”

  “Right now it’s only scratched out in the dirt, but it’s a plan.”

  “Yessir,” Jake repeated, “I am definitely out of my latitude. My ma used to say, ‘Evil is “live” spelled backwards,’ and that room proves it.”

  “It rocked me back on my heels, too,” Fargo said, picking up a board. “Denton isn’t just a savage outlaw—he comes straight from hell itself.”

  And that was why, Fargo reminded himself, he had to spring Jessica as soon as possible.

  Fargo returned to the livery and, peering through cracks in the wall, watched the camp street. Locals streamed into the Buffalo Palace and the few other establishments, but for about two hours he saw no sign of Jack Slade or Clay Munro.

  “Lily—I mean Jessica—is gonna be under mighty tight guard,” Jake told him as he pounded caulks into horseshoes. “You won’t just blast your way in and out.”

  “With lead flying at close quarters,” Fargo agreed, “it’s too likely Jessica could get hit. But I’m cooking up a plan for busting her loose. Say . . . what have we here?”

  Young Clay Munro had just stepped out of the Palace and into the brittle morning sunshine. His face was puffy and surly, and he came straight down the street like a man on a mission, hands resting on the butts of his .38 Colt revolvers in their cutaway holsters. He wore thick bull- hide chaps and walked a bit stiffly, a legacy of the cowhiding Fargo had given him.

  Jake scuttled over to look outside. “Oh, hell’s bells, don’t take the bait, Fargo.”

  “You got it hindside foremost, Jake. That cocksure bastard has become my hair shirt, and this is my big chance to air him out for good.”

  “It’s a trap to flush you out.”

  “ ’Course it is,” Fargo conceded. “But if a man knows it’s a trap, the element of surprise is gone.”

  “Munro likes to hot jaw,” Jake said, “and he prefers to shoot a man in the back. But he is a quick-draw artist and shoots plumb. Besides, he’s counting on help if you’re foolish enough to get into a walk-down with him.”

  “A man can’t conquer the world from his own front porch,” Fargo said, still watching the killer advance. “Besides, it’s long past peace-piping now. If I can pop him over, that takes the worst threat off Jessica.”

  Jake sighed. “Fargo, you know ‘B’ from a bull’s foot about such things, I s’poze. But, brother, have you lost your buttons? I’d just take that Henry and cut him down like a rabid wolf.”

  “That’s not sporting,” Fargo said, heading for the double doors. He walked out to the street and turned to face Clay, thumbing his hat up a little higher to clear his line of sight.

  “Better hunt a hole, squaw man,” Munro taunted. “You’re apt to get hurt.”

  “I’m in no mood right now to calibrate insults, junior. That one just got you killed.”

  “I’d call that mighty reckless talk, buckskin man. You’re standing on your own grave.”

  From long experience Fargo knew that all this talk was not typical of most burn downs. He suspected Jake was right: Munro was giving a partner time to get into position. But a quick check to right and left revealed no one, and Fargo dare not take his eyes off Munro’s hands for long.

  “Throw it,” Clay demanded.

  Fargo’s lips pulled away from his teeth in a taunting grin. “Ladies first, Priscilla.”

  “Yeah, I figured as much. Squaw man’s willing to wound, but afraid to strike. You ain’t got enough hard to draw down on a shootist like me.”

  Fargo’s grin widened. “Oh, I’ve got all the courage of any oyster can. You’re a white- livered coward, Munro, and I’m gonna plant two slugs low in your guts just for the sheer, cantankerous hell of it. Pull those smoke wagons, junior, and let’s open the ball.”

  Clearly Munro’s bravado was eroding in the face of Fargo’s cool confidence. His eyes flicked to his right, and at least Fargo had a clue where the second shooter was.

  “Fargo, you made a big mistake when you called Clay Munro a coward. That’s what you might call a shooting point with me.”

  “All right, let’s get thrashing.” Fargo lowered into a crouch, but still Clay made no move. “Shooting point, my ass,” Fargo said. “Hell, you’re going to talk me to death. I’ve had my fill of this female jawboning, so bottle it. Your partner must be in place by now, so either show yellow or jerk it back.”

  The newspapers were filled with lurid claptrap about how a man had to watch his opponent’s eyes in a gunfight, but Fargo always watched the hands—no eyeball had ever pulled a trigger. He suspected Clay would beat him to the draw, and he did, both .38s blazing quicker than scat. But in his haste and trembling fear he was bucking his weapons, throwing off his aim.

  In contrast, Fargo was a devout believer in taking that extra second to stand steady and squeeze the trigger evenly. His first shot drilled Munro below the belt buckle; his second tore the wound even wider, and blood blossomed from his gut as he fell screaming.

  But Fargo knew the fight wasn’t over. Even as he fired his second shot, in the corner of his left eye he saw a man step out from behind a jack pine at a front corner of the boardinghouse, his shotgun already aimed. With time critical, Fargo resorted to the “border shift” to avoid having to turn his body. He flipped his Colt from his right hand to his left, never missing a beat.

  His first shot blew half the ambusher’s jaw away, and the second, better aimed, caught him square in the chest. He flopped forward spurting blood like a stuck pig.

  Clay, however, was still clinging to life, his entrails ruptured and causing such red-hot pain that all he could do was loose one high-pitched scream after another. Normally Fargo would have tossed a finishing shot into his brain, but he wanted everyone in this camp—especially Slade, Denton, and his minions—to hear this. Nothing was more unnerving than the sound of a gut-shot man crossing over.

  “Holy Hannah, Fargo,” Jake’s voice sounded behind him. “I saw the whole shooting match. No wonder folks talk you up big. You got no more fear in you than a rifle.”

  “Oh, I was scared,” Fargo assured him above the sound of Munro’s screams. Curious men were poking out their heads from the Palace and other structures. “Jake, who’s the jasper that tried to flank me with the shotgun?”

  Jake crossed to the body. “Luke Rawlings, one of Philly’s men. I hear he was a sentry at Blackfoot Canyon. He bragged about how he’s wanted for rape and murder in Tennessee.”

  “Case closed on him,” Fargo said.

  “Fargo!” Jake warned, pointing at Clay. “Look!”

  Munro’s groping hand had found one of his guns in the dirt.

  “Tarnation, you best shoot him,” Jake advised.

  Fargo shook his head. “Revenge ain’t on his mind, Jake, not with the pain he’s feeling. Watch.”

  Clay, still shrieking with pain, ate the muzzle of his Colt and pulled the trigger, spraying brains, blood, and bone shards all over the street. His heels scratched the dirt twice as his nervous system tried to deny the fact of death.

  “To quote our new sheriff,” Jake said, “case closed.”

  18

  Fargo hid in the hayloft and bided his time patiently. By watching the camp closely he quickly learned that trouble had arrived on the hoof—a bunch of well-armed strangers mounted on good horseflesh. These were
hard-eyed, hard-faced men who were obviously no strangers to killing—a different kettle of fish altogether from some of the penny-ante thugs on Philly’s payroll.

  “Know anything about these jaspers?” Fargo asked Jake as both men watched a pair of them ride down the camp street.

  “According to Professor O’Malley, who eavesdrops at the Palace,” Jake replied, “Philly sent a rider down to the Green River outlaw camp offering good wages. About a dozen showed up. These bastards are meaner than Satan with a sunburn.”

  “I guess Philly is a mite shorthanded.”

  Jake chuckled. “A mite? Fargo, I been keeping accounts. You’ve taken at least eleven men out of the fight.”

  “Eleven?” he repeated. “That must be a stretcher.”

  “My sweet aunt! You killed three of Philly’s skunk-bit coyotes out at the cabin. You done for Jesse Jones and his brother Dooley, Angel Hanchon, Ben Thompkins and, earlier today, Clay Munro and Luke Rawlings. That’s nine you sent up the flume. The two you conked on the cabeza with rocks are both brain-addled now and piss themselves like pups on the rug. I ain’t countin’ Avram since he was a one-man criminal outfit. And I ain’t countin’ the fifteen yellow curs you put the quietus on, God love you.”

  “Well, cuss my coup,” Fargo said softly. “I ain’t braggin’ on that tally, Jake—I’d just as soon live and let live. But every hombre that got it waltzed to him required killing. And most of ’em got an even draw.”

  “Why, hell, no honest man would dispute that. Matter fact, everything you did is legal under territorial law.”

  “This new hatch of flies,” Fargo said, nodding toward the riders in the street, “appears headed this way. I’m gonna crawl under the loose straw. You go below and get to work. Play it smart, Jake. These are easy-go killers, so don’t be a hero.”

  Fargo burrowed into a huge mound of straw in the loft. A large crack between floorboards gave him a good view of the livery below. Two men stepped through the open doors.

  “Hep ya, gents?” Jake called out.

  A man wearing a low-crowned leather shako hat said, “Are you Jake Headley?”

  “Yessir. Blacksmith and liveryman.”

  “Philly Denton tells us you been talkin’ chummy with a back-shootin’ son of a bitch named Fargo.”

  “I was friendly with that rapscallion. But the slick bastard played me like a piano. Got me to trust him and then took off owing me a week’s board for his horse. Stole some tools, too.”

  The other man, wearing kersey trousers and a sheepskin coat, said, “You ain’t seen him since he hightailed it?”

  “Oh, he’s been back in camp. Just today he shot Clay Munro to trap bait.”

  “Did he come here?”

  “Not while I was here, but that bastard sneaks around plenty.”

  Shako hat said, “You ain’t hiding him right now?”

  “I’ll tell the world I ain’t hidin’ that piker.”

  “Well, I’m gonna give it to you with the bark still on it, Headley. If we catch you helping him, you ain’t gonna die in bed.”

  “Helping him? If I could, I’d pound him to paste. I’m a friendly cuss by nature, but once a man steals my labor, he goes on my shit list.”

  Fargo grinned. Jake was a better actor than he’d expected. The Green River hard cases exchanged a quick glance.

  “We’ll take your word on that. You got room to board a dozen horses?” Shako hat asked. “Denton’s footing the bill.”

  “Well, stalls are a mite scarce, but there’s room in the paddock.”

  “That’ll work. They’ll be in later tonight.”

  “ ’Preciate the business, gents.”

  Fargo heard the pair ride off into the valley.

  “Denton ain’t gonna pay, either, Jake,” he called down.

  “Don’t I know it? And if I squawk about it, they’ll gun me down.”

  “I’m clearing out for good after dark,” Fargo promised as he crawled out from under the straw. “And if I can pull off what I’ve got planned, this hellhole becomes nothing but a bad memory.”

  “What if you can’t pull it off?”

  “In that case I’ll join the rest of the skeletons out in the valley.”

  By midnight most of the new killers hired by Philly Denton—minus at least five—had led their horses into Jake’s paddock. Fargo watched them cross to the rear of the boardinghouse and guessed they were spreading their blankets on the floor of the dining commons. The ones who were unaccounted for, however, were probably divided between guarding Jessica and patrolling the valley.

  By now his joints and muscles were stiff from inactivity. Fargo stretched, then swung down from the loft. With his Henry balanced in his left hand, he slipped out the double doors and dropped low, studying everything from eyes honed by decades of frontier survival. No one seemed to be patrolling, but shadows dark as a coal cellar at midnight covered most of the camp. Light still poured past the doors of the Buffalo Palace, but Fargo heard nothing.

  While the pale moon inched toward its zenith, Fargo sprinted across to the erosion gully beyond the far side of the street, marking the western boundary of the camp. Eyes and ears alert, he moved down to the rear of the Buffalo Palace, then leaped out of the gully. He could see fingers of light poking through the wall where Slade and Munro had peppered it with bullets last night.

  The holes were too small to afford him a clear view into the room, so he pressed his ear against the wall.

  “You sure are an uppity cooze, Miss Lily Snyder,” said a voice Fargo didn’t recognize. “Me ’n’ Danny here are right friendly, but you act like we’re smallpox blankets. Why’n’cha give us a little bit? Philly says you was married, and hell, nobody misses a slice off a cut loaf.”

  Fargo noticed that Philly had given these thugs the Lily Snyder name, no doubt realizing they would move in on the ransom if they knew the true story.

  “Damn straight,” said a voice Fargo assumed was Danny’s. “Iffen you don’t wanna take your dainties off, I’d be happy if you just skin the cat for me. A man can explode like a volcano iffen he don’t get some kind of relief.”

  Fargo did a slow boil, rage warring with disgust within him. But at least he knew Jessica was here, and apparently had two guards again. He wondered, briefly, where Jack Slade was. The granite-faced bully who wore his guns tucked into a red sash, pirate style, was the lone survivor of the original gang Fargo had fought—and whittled down—for eight days now.

  He moved up to the front corner of the saloon and watched for at least ten minutes. Then he spurted toward the batwings and pushed inside, Henry at the ready. But the saloon was deserted except for Dakota, who gaped in astonishment when he saw the Trailsman. Fargo held a finger to his lips and advanced on cat feet toward the plank bar.

  “Fargo,” the bar dog greeted him in a low voice, “killing that sick bastard Clay Munro earned you a coup feather far as I’m concerned. But you’re skating on mighty thin ice right now. Philly brought in a whole shitload of killers from Green River. These boys weren’t born in the woods to be scared by an owl.”

  Fargo nodded, keeping a careful eye on the door leading to Philly’s private room. “Bad news travels fast, and I know all about ’em. That’s two of the Green River killers back with Jes—I mean, Lily right now, eh?”

  “ ’Fraid so.”

  “Why are you here so late?”

  “Denton’s orders. He claims it’s a courtesy for his new hires, but the truth is he doesn’t trust them—figures they’ll just bust in and help themselves. These ain’t exactly high-society types.”

  “The ones back in the room—are they drinking liquor?”

  Dakota snorted. “Would a cow lick Lot’s wife? They’ll be shouting for another bottle any minute now.”

  “So Philly’s got his private stock locked up?”

  “Hell yes. That’s good bourbon. This riffraff are drinking the usual corpse reviver and seem to like it.”

  “Good. Dakota, you’re fond of Lily, a
ren’cha?”

  “It’s okay, Fargo, we both know she’s Jessica Sykes. And between me and you, I’m not just fond of her—I fell like a ton of bricks the first moment I laid eyes on her.”

  “I can’t blame you there, hoss. You even gave her a revolver to protect herself, right?”

  Dakota glanced nervously toward the door behind the bar. “Sure I did, but Philly found it when they moved her over here.”

  Fargo stood sideways so he could watch the batwings as well as the door behind the bar. “Where’s Jack Slade?”

  “He’s with Philly day and night now—personal body-guard.”

  “Yeah? Well, about Jessica—are you willing to help her again?” Fargo asked.

  “Even if it gets me killed.” The saloon keeper reached under the bar and produced a shotgun with a burled walnut stock. “Twenty-gauge bird shot ain’t usually fatal, to humans, but a load in the face is a hell of a deterrent to bullyboys and skulking Indians.”

  “Why piss around with bird shot?” Fargo asked. “You need Blue Whistlers. If a man’s worth shooting, he’s worth killing. This way you’re leaving an enemy alive to kill you later.”

  “I know, but it’s all the boss will let me have. Anyhow, I told Jessica to scream if they touch her.”

  “I’m talking real help,” Fargo said. “The kind of help that will get her the hell out of here without using firearms. One shot, and I’ll never get her out of this camp.”

  “Hell yes. What you got in mind?”

  Fargo reached into the right pocket of his trousers and produced the bottle of laudanum. “This. It’s a tincture of opium, but it’s mostly alcohol, and these imported killers will never notice the taste, not in this burro piss Philly calls whiskey. With a good dose, and drunk as they are already, the opium will put them out in twenty minutes.”

  Dakota debated a few moments and then nodded. He handed Fargo a bottle of liquor. “Drunks pass out all the time. But Philly’s gonna wonder where I was when you came and took Jessica.”