Arkansas Assault Page 17

  He gave himself a few minutes to put his mind and body back together and then began his descent into utter darkness again. This time, he moved more cautiously.

  The closer he got to the ground, the more keenly he listened for the dogs. He began to peer around the tree, holding on with one hand, using the other to part leaves for a look at the shore. Burgade’s boat, traced by moonlight, looked like a means of holy deliverance straight out of the holy book itself. If he could only get to that, find a weapon aboard. . . .

  When he was ten feet from the ground, he stopped and listened as intently as he could. He could hear, faintly, the voices of Noah and Burgade—not the exact words—but he certainly heard the urgency of what they were saying. They had to know that if Fargo got a weapon, the first thing he would do once he got past the dogs—if he got past the dogs, of course—was to come after them.

  What he didn’t hear was any evidence of the dogs. Just those voices and all the surrounding clamor and clutter of the animals, large and small, dangerous and docile, that inhabited the forest.

  He spent five long minutes listening to the night and the woods. Now, he had no other choice but to try to reach Burgade’s boat.

  He wondered which would attack him first. The dogs or Noah and Burgade. These were the times he had to consciously hold his fear at bay and work on pure instinct.

  He eased himself down the remaining circle of tree. Dropping to the ground would make too much noise.

  One foot had barely touched the sandy soil when he heard the scream.

  It would have been funny if they’d been mind readers. They both had the same idea. Noah would push Burgade’s ass out of the tree, the dogs would attack him and give Noah cover to reach the boat and safety. Not the row boat. Those damned dogs would jump in the water to get him. He needed a cabin where he could lock himself in as he was pulling away from the shore.

  Burgade’s plan varied only slightly. He planned to push Noah out of the tree, wait for the dogs to attack him and then shoot the dogs while they were beginning their meal. If Fargo had a weapon of any kind, he would have used it by now. And that meant that Burgade, with Noah and the dogs dead, could easily stroll to the boat, get it ready for sailing and push off. He could feel a southeasterly wind starting to build now. He could be in Little Rock in under two days.

  They sat and watched each other.

  Noah thought: he gets leg cramps about every ten minutes. Then he stands up. Next time he stands up, I’m going to push him right off this branch. Just take my Spencer and shove him right in the crotch to get him off-balance, and then give him another poke of the Spencer and knock him all the way down. He’ll be dead when he hits the ground. Or he’ll wish he was.

  Burgade thought: so what I do is get up real gentle, like I’ve just got another cramp or somethin’, and then when I get on my feet I just kick out and knock him right off this branch. He’ll be dead when he hits the ground. Or he’ll wish he was.

  They eyed each other some more and continued to assess each other, refining their plans all the while—just a bit here, a bit there—and then they talked and waited to fill the time. Noah waited for Burgade while Burgade waited for some instinct to tell him that this was the exact right moment to stand up and give a boot-shove to old Noah, sending him to certain death.

  “Legs,” Burgade said.

  “Huh?”

  “Legs. Cramps.”

  “Oh.”

  Here we go, Burgade thought.

  Here we go, Noah thought.

  And that was when it happened. If either of them had known a damned thing about the stress two full-grown bodies put on a tree branch the size of the one they were cohabiting at the moment, they would have listened carefully to the faint creaking, the faint cracking the branch made from time to time.

  Burgade leaned back against the trunk of the tree, ready to lunge suddenly and push the old man off his perch.

  Noah hefted his Spencer, pretending to be examining it out of sheer admiration, but ready of course to plow its butt right straight into Burgade’s crotch and send him shouting and cursing to his death, his well-deserved death.

  The moment was upon them, now.

  Both ready to betray and murder the other.

  And then it happened.

  All those tiny creaks and cracks.

  All that weight on this one branch.

  A scream.

  Fargo’s first impression was that only one man was screaming.

  Then it became obvious that it came from the both of them.

  By the time he realized this, he heard their bone-crushing landing on the ground. And then something remarkable happened—or didn’t happen. No dogs appeared. No dogs barked. No dogs even whimpered.

  Something was wrong here.

  Fargo edged his way from behind the tree to the narrow shoreline. In the distance, he could see two prone human bodies lying in the moonlight. One of them—Burgade, it appeared—was carefully raising and moving his right arm. Noah didn’t move at all.

  Here was his chance for a weapon. He couldn’t move directly on Burgade. Even injured, the man could kill him. Fargo would have to move through the forest and come up behind him.

  Fargo slipped back into the darkness of the woods. He wondered what the ladies were making of all this. Screams. The hard landing. And now the strange silence.

  He found a narrow trail, partly obscured by undergrowth that took him all the way to the last of the oaks that formed the natural screen and wall along the shoreline.

  He had to be as quiet as possible. Burgade might have a broken bone or two but all his other faculties could still be running. He might have even heard him already, but there was no time to worry about the danger ahead. Fargo wanted a weapon and Fargo wanted off the island.

  He stumbled only once, on a tree root he couldn’t see, pitching head first into a small patch of bramble that put several good scratches on his arm. A moment of sheer frustration—all these traps he had to overcome before he set this island to rights. Sometimes even the Trailsman got discouraged.

  But then he found an opening to go through—one that held nothing more problematic than a few long ferns that wanted to cool and soothe and heal his body. At least, that was what it felt like after all the bramble.

  Burgade wasn’t waiting for him. Burgade lay flat on his face. His rifle was four feet from his hand where, apparently, it had fallen. No sign of movement from Noah, either. His Spencer wasn’t close at hand, but scattered in pieces several feet away.

  Either one of them could wake up and turn on him.

  He crept up to Burgade, his eyes scanning up and down the body, looking for any sign of life. Sometime between the time Burgade had raised his arm to see if it was broken and now, he’d fallen down the long, dark well into unconsciousness.

  Fargo felt a moment of pure, unreasoning, unadulterated joy. This was easy. He’d just walk over and pick up Burgade’s gun. If the dogs did show up—exactly where the hell were they anyway—he’d be prepared.

  He did love dogs. But he’d have no trouble killing these two. Burgade had trained all the canine virtues and beauty out of them. Now they were nothing more than enemies.

  He started walking toward the rifle. And then he heard the growl. He scanned the shore and then the edge of the timber. Where were they? Nearby, from the sound of their low, trembling growls. And another question. Why weren’t they attacking?

  He reached instinctively for his Colt but it wasn’t there. He felt as if his hand had been amputated, he was so used to his Colt riding on his hip, ready at all times when needed. He moved even faster now. He was just picking up Burgade’s rifle, just thinking that everything was in hand again, when he heard a voice that sounded as if it was coming from the realm of death.

  In his rush to get Burgade’s rifle, Fargo had forgotten all about Noah. While Fargo sensed that Burgade had passed on, Noah had rallied enough to dig his pistol from its holster while sitting up on one elbow. Awkward as his position was,
he could shoot just fine. “You just stay there with your hands in the air, Fargo. What the hell did you do with my dogs is what I want to know?!”

  “I was wondering about them myself.” He couldn’t help himself; he just kept staring at Burgade’s rifle. His mind, as well as his eyes, was fixed on it.

  Fargo took a slow step forward.

  “One more and you’re dead,” Noah grunted.

  “It’s all over for you, Noah.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But you try for that rifle and I’ll be glad to take you with me, Fargo.”

  “Burgade may still be alive. You want me to check his pulse?”

  “I want him dead. Now you just stand there and watch.”

  It was something to see. For all the pain he must have been in after his fall, for all his age, for all his general infirmities, Noah found the same strength now that he’d found when he was recreating this section of country in his own image. There were only a few men like him on the entire planet. Some of them used their vision and intelligence and savvy for good and created new medicines and new laws and new businesses. And some used their gifts for bad. Like old Noah here.

  He kept his gun on Fargo all the time he was getting to his feet. Twice he looked as if he would fall over. His gun hand was shaky. He winced in pain. His knees trembled. But somehow he managed to stand strong and purposeful.

  “I’m getting on the boat there and you’re going to push me out in the water.”

  “That’s a good-sized boat.”

  “I could still do it myself if I had to. You’re a tough man, Fargo. It won’t be easy but I know you’ve got it in you. And anyway, you won’t have much choice. If you don’t do it, I’ll kill you on the spot. Sound reasonable?”

  Fargo chose silence once again.

  “You go ahead of me down to the dock, Fargo.”

  Fargo shrugged. There had to be a way of escape now. Maybe the water. Yes, the water. Dive deep and long. Swim wide. Come up on another part of the island and get the girls down from the tree. Then make a final run on Noah.

  Noah was a mind reader. “The water’ll tempt you. But you won’t make it, Fargo. Now you get down there to that boat.”

  He took two steps and heard it then. Heard it again. The low rumble. The dogs.

  This time, he knew exactly where it came from. The cabin of the boat. The dogs were in there. Hard to know why they’d elected to hide in there. Maybe it was as simple as getting away from the gunfire that had felled the other two. That explained why they hadn’t attacked him or Burgade or Noah.

  Noah was still several feet behind him. Apparently he hadn’t heard the dogs. Noah’s hearing wasn’t good enough to pick up their rumble.

  When Noah reached the boat, Fargo stood aside so that Noah could walk up the plank stretching from the dock to the deck.

  Noah said, “You know what you need to do.”

  Fargo nodded. All he could hope was that the dogs would remain quiet enough to fool Noah.

  Noah got on the plank and said, “For right now, you stand about halfway to Burgade then you come back down here when I tell you to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t move as fast as you do and you’ll try to jump me when I’m on the plank. Now get up there. I’ll pull up the plank and you push me out away from the dock.”

  He didn’t have any choice, anyway, so he agreed.

  As he walked toward the dead body of Burgade, he realized that here was a chance to get a weapon. If he could act fast enough. If things played his way. Noah still didn’t seem to know that the dogs were hiding in the boat’s cabin.

  “That’s far enough,” Noah shouted.

  The plank was wide enough that he had room to turn around on it if he needed to. He could easily look back at Fargo if he needed to. And kill him if he needed to.

  And then it happened.

  Happened with such speed and fury that Fargo could only sort it all out later.

  When Noah reached the boat itself, he shouted for Fargo to walk up to the shoreline and give the craft the push it needed to get into the water. With the strong wind, Noah would have no trouble getting away.

  Fargo looked longingly over his shoulder at Burgade’s rifle. The temptation was strong to lurch to the side and dive for it. But Noah’s marksmanship was pretty damned good. Plans always looked so easy in the abstract. He’d just fade back and grab Burgade’s rifle and. . . .

  He had no choice but to oblige Noah.

  He started across the narrow band of sand separating him from the boat and that was when the world ended for old Noah.

  While he was holding his pistol on Fargo, he reached around and opened the cabin door and finally figured out—far too late—where the dogs had been hiding all along.

  A lot of it happened in shadow and a lot of it happened below the top edge of the boat’s sheer, making it impossible for Fargo to see anything.

  But he heard plenty.

  Noah shrieking, Noah sobbing, Noah crying out for help to the vast indifferent universe, and finally Noah screaming as the dogs dined and supped on his flesh and blood, rending and gnawing him down, as they did to the others.

  He heard all this on the run, as he rushed back to Burgade’s rifle. He knew that it wouldn’t be long before the dogs came for him. They’d hidden after the deaths of their fellows but now that they’d toppled and consumed Noah, they were eager for more human food.

  He killed the first one when it came lurching over the top of the boat’s sheer. It took two bullets to its chest in midflight. It seemed to hang there for a moment so long it was as if the very earth itself had stopped moving. And then it collapsed, dead, to the ground.

  The next dog came right behind it but this one hit the ground and moved so fast that Fargo had some difficulty finding it in the shadows. It was just about to leap at him—it probably couldn’t have covered the eight or nine feet that separated them but it was sure willing to give it a try—when Fargo found a true shot and blasted the animal, exploding the top of its head into several flying pieces.

  There was a certain melancholy for Fargo in killing these animals. By nature they would have been good and loyal companions. But Burgade had perverted their nature. It was almost too bad that they hadn’t been able to have the pleasure of ripping him apart, too.

  Fargo and the women watched the sunrise from the bow of the boat. It was a lavish spectacle, streaks of red and aqua lending rare colors to the dawn. A faint fog on the water gave the limestone cliffs on either shore a feel of long-ago times before even the Indians were here. Fargo felt a reverence for untrammeled land such as this. It was in the wilds that he felt the greatest peace.

  “I hope I get to spend a little time with you before you go,” Nancy said, sliding her hand through Fargo’s as he watched the far dock begin to sketch itself into reality behind the fog.

  “Don’t forget about me,” Stephanie said.

  Difficult to do, Fargo smiled, as she pressed her bountiful breasts against his arm. “I don’t think you have to worry about that.”

  “In fact,” Nancy said, “we were talking about maybe getting a room next to yours in a hotel, you know, while everything gets sorted out.”

  “Yeah, Skye, what do you think of that?”

  “Well, there sure will be a lot to sort out.” And there would be. With Noah, Tom, and Aaron dead, somebody would have to take over not only the estate, but the town—introduce it to real democracy and say goodbye to what had been virtual one-man rule.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Stephanie said. “What about the idea of staying in adjoining hotel rooms, Skye?”

  He laughed and drew them both to him. The sun wasn’t the only thing rising at this moment. “I’ve sure heard a lot worse ideas in my day,” Skye Fargo said. “I sure enough have.”

  LOOKING FORWARD!

  The following is the opening

  section of the next novel in the exciting

  Trailsman series from Signet:

  TH
E TRAILSMAN #264 Snake River Ruins

  Washington Territory, early 1861—

  Where the promise of a new life

  reaped horrible death.

  The big man in buckskins did not know what to make of it. Rising in the stirrups, he studied the stretch of dirt road ahead. His piercing lake-blue eyes flicked from the wagon that sat in the middle of the road to the woodland on either side. Something wasn’t right.

  Skye Fargo slid his right hand to the Colt on his hip. He had survived as long as he had by always heeding his instincts, and they were telling him he must proceed with caution. He clucked to the Ovaro and rode on at a slow walk, alert for anything out of the ordinary. All seemed as it should be except that he didn’t hear any birds. Usually, where there were a lot of trees, there would be sparrows and robins and jays and ravens, yet the woods were deathly still.

  The wagon was a one-horse farm wagon, common on the frontier, with a bed nine feet long, a high seat at the front, and large wooden hubs. What it didn’t have was the farmer who owned it or a horse to pull it. Apparently, it had been abandoned. Which begged the question: why?

  Dismounting, Fargo checked the wheels and the springs and the tongue. They were in working order. Nothing was broken. It made no sense for the owner to have left the wagon sitting there. Even stranger, part of the harness was still attached. Squatting, Fargo examined it. The harness had been cut.

  The tracks were plain enough for a seasoned tracker to read, and Fargo was one of the best. The tracks told him the farmer had jumped down from the seat, cut the horse loose, climbed onto it, and galloped off to the west. All of which spelled trouble. The farmer had needed to get out of there in a hurry or he would never have cut expensive harness. Someone or something had spooked him.

  Fargo made a circuit of the wagon. His first guess was hostiles, although to his knowledge none of the local tribes were acting up. His second guess was outlaws, but that seemed even less likely. The Palouse River country of southeastern Washington Territory held little to attract the lawless breed. He found no other recent prints, nothing that would explain the mystery.