High Plains Massacre Read online

  “Not when it’s as nice as yours,” Fargo said.

  “Flattery, you handsome devil,” Rebecca said, “will get you everywhere.”

  Fargo pressed his thumb to her tiny knob. “Ready or not,” he said. His pole was a ramrod, his blood boiled with need. Spreading her legs, he positioned himself between them.

  “What about the bed?” she asked.

  “What about it?” Fargo rejoined, and impaled himself to the hilt, as it were, with a hard thrust that brought him up onto the tips of his toes.

  “God in heaven!” Rebecca exclaimed, throwing back her head. “There’s so much of you.”

  Fargo kissed her as she wrapped her winsome legs around his waist and locked her ankles at the small of his back. He cupped her bottom to support her weight. Not that she weighed much. Unlike Sally, she was tits and ass and not much else.

  Dipping at the knees, he thrust up and in. She gasped as he went on doing so, each time harder and faster than the time before, until soon he was slamming into her like a steam engine piston and she was puffing and huffing like a racehorse that had run a mile.

  They both rapidly climbed to the brink. Rebecca crested first, and to her credit, there were none of the telltale signs that she was faking it, as a lot of girls did. When she came, she came, spurting and contracting and bringing a constriction to his throat with his own impending eruption.

  “Now,” she breathed. “Oh, now.”

  Fargo let himself go. They were thumping against the wall loud enough to be heard in the parlor but he didn’t give a damn.

  They thumped quite a while. Finally Fargo coasted to a stop and Rebecca sagged against him with her cheek to his chest.

  “That was nice.”

  “Aren’t they all?”

  “No,” Rebecca said. “A lot of men are clumsy and awkward or lumps of clay.”

  Fargo had heard her lament before. The truth be known, he wasn’t fond of lumps, himself. A woman who didn’t like to make love shouldn’t waste the man’s time.

  Rebecca started to lower her legs.

  Firming his hold, he turned and carried her to the bed and gently deposited her on her back, then stretched out next to her.

  “How about a second helping in a minute or two?” he asked.

  “That soon?”

  “Bear River Tom and his damn tit talk has me randy as hell,” Fargo admitted.

  Rebecca laughed. “He does tend to go on about them, doesn’t he?”

  “There’s no ‘tend’ about it,” Fargo said. “He lives and breathes tit.”

  “Did you know he asked Sally to marry him?”

  Fargo stared at her.

  “I’m serious. He told her that she has the biggest he’s ever seen and he’d like to spend the rest of his days with them in his mouth.”

  “That sounds like Tom.”

  “He’s fun in bed, she says. He has more ways of making love to her tits than any john she’s done.”

  “That sounds like Tom, too.”

  “She almost said yes. She’s not getting any younger and she thinks he meant it when he told her he’d take care of her and her tits as if they were made of gold.”

  Fargo snorted. “Romantic cuss.”

  “What would you compare my tits to? If hers are gold, what are mine?”

  “Tits,” Fargo said.

  “I was fishing for a compliment. A girl likes to be appreciated.”

  “How about this,” Fargo said, and nuzzled her neck. “You’re a great lay.”

  “That will have to do, I suppose,” Rebecca said, and giggled.

  That was when the door burst open and the man with the eye patch and the scar came at Fargo in a rush.

  7

  It was the same man dressed in the same clothes, and something about them pricked at Fargo’s memory. The thought was there and it was gone.

  He barely had time to react. Cold steel flashed at his neck, and he rolled.

  Rebecca screamed. She scrambled back as the knife missed her by inches.

  Fargo still had his pants on but they were undone, and when he shoved the small man back and leaped off the bed, they started to slide down his legs. Retreating, he got them up and buckled.

  He grabbed for his Colt but his attacker was on him, cutting at his hand to keep him from drawing.

  Fargo kneed him in the balls.

  Most hombres, that would end the fight. Not this one.

  The small man snarled and stabbed at his throat.

  Fargo barely got his arm up to deflect the man’s wrist. He drove his fist into the other’s jaw but it didn’t flatten him as he hoped. It only made him madder.

  Again Fargo grabbed for his Colt. He had the six-shooter half out when a blow to his wrist numbed his hand. The man with the eye patch stabbed at his chest and he sidestepped.

  The man’s momentum carried him a half step past and close to the bed.

  Rebecca did a remarkable thing. Lunging, she raked the man’s face with her fingernails.

  The man swore and skipped back.

  Fargo went to pounce but a sweep of that glittering blade held him at bay.

  Rebecca had drawn blood. Scarlet streaks marked the man’s forehead and some were trickling into his good eye. Shaking his head, he growled in anger and abruptly wheeled and bounded from the room.

  Fargo went after him. He tried to draw but his hand was still numb and his thumb and forefinger wouldn’t work as they should.

  The man raced to the rear. He hit the back door on the fly and spilled out into the night.

  Fargo exploded out after him. He glimpsed the small figure melting into the darkness and gave chase. Within twenty feet he’d lost sight of him. Stopping, he listened for footfalls. There were none.

  His attacker might have gone to ground.

  Fargo roved in a circle but no luck. He roved wider. He was on his third circle when Bear River Tom pounded from the whorehouse shirtless and holding his revolver.

  “Where are you, hoss?”

  “Over here,” Fargo grumbled. He was annoyed at himself for letting the man get away.

  “Rebecca came running into Sally’s room, hollering about a man trying to kill you.”

  “This makes twice now.”

  “The same Metis from the saloon?”

  Fargo almost smacked his forehead. The killer’s small cap, those clothes. The man was one of the French-Canadians with Indian blood who came south each summer to hunt buffalo and trade with the Indian tribes.

  “What’s the matter?” Bear River Tom asked. “You look surprised.”

  “I should have seen it sooner.”

  “Strange, though, isn’t it?”

  “That he keeps trying to kill me and I have no notion why?”

  “That he’s one of those mixed-blood Frenchers. The same as Anton Laguerre.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Fargo said.

  8

  A blaze of orange and red filled the eastern sky with the rising of the sun.

  Fort Laramie roused to life. A bugler played reveille and presently troopers hustled from the barracks to line up for morning roll call, many struggling to shake off sleep.

  Fargo was doing some struggling himself. He’d spent the night with Rebecca and downed almost a full bottle of Monongahela before he fell asleep. She had him feeling stiff and sore and the whiskey had him feeling sluggish, to boot, as he led the Ovaro by the reins to the headquarters building.

  Bear River Tom was his usual vinegar-and-vim self. “Look at that sunrise, pard. It’s almost as glorious as Saucy Sally’s tits.”

  “Don’t start,” Fargo warned. “I don’t want to hear another word about tits before noon.”

  “You expect me not to talk tits for six whole hours?”

  Colonel Jennings emerged with the orderly
in tow. “Did I just hear the word ‘tits’?”

  “You did not,” Bear River Tom said.

  The colonel looked Fargo up and down and said, “You look like something the cat dragged in.”

  “Good morning to you, too,” Fargo said.

  “You have to forgive him, Colonel,” Bear River Tom said. “He got up on the wrong side of a whore’s bed this morning.”

  “That will be enough about whores, thank you,” Colonel Jennings said. “You never know who might be listening.”

  “I can’t talk tits and I can’t talk about whores.” Bear River Tom sighed. “What is this world coming to?”

  “Where the dickens is Lieutenant Wright?” Colonel Jennings said. “I told him to be here at the crack of dawn.”

  “Isn’t that him yonder?” Bear River Tom asked, pointing.

  At the far end of the parade ground, near the stable, Wright and six troopers were climbing on their mounts. The last man held the lead rope to a pair of pack animals.

  Fargo squinted, trying to make out their faces. “Did you pick men with experience or do I have to hold their hands?”

  “That’s hardly fair,” Colonel Jennings. “Except for a few senior officers like myself and a couple of sergeants, my command is made up of recruits fresh off the farm or city boys. The army expects me to make soldiers of them and I do the best I can.”

  “Hold their hands it is,” Fargo said.

  “You need only hold Wright’s and he’ll hold theirs,” Jennings said. “We call that the chain of command.”

  “I call it asking for trouble,” Fargo said.

  Bear River Tom nodded. “It’s plain dumb to send infants into Lakota country. We run into a war party, there’s not a damn one of them who’ll make it back to this fort alive.”

  “I’m counting on Fargo and you to see that they do,” Jennings said.

  Fargo would do his best but he wasn’t a miracle worker. The truth was, most boys in blue were poor shots and fair riders. None of which was their fault.

  The army pinched pennies everywhere it could, and that included ammunition. If they were lucky, troopers got to fire half a dozen rounds once a month. That hardly made marksmen out of them. It didn’t help that the army issued single-shot rifles instead of repeaters since repeaters cost more.

  Parade drill was daily, and often on horseback, but walking a horse through its paces on a flat parade ground couldn’t compare to riding rugged terrain in the wilds. A lot of troopers rode about as well as a ten-year-old Sioux.

  “Here they come,” Bear River Tom said.

  “Do you see that third man in line?” Colonel Jennings asked.

  Fargo looked. The “man” was all of eighteen if he was a day, with curly blond hair and a baby face. “The one in diapers?”

  “I wouldn’t say that around him, were I you,” Colonel Jennings said. “That’s General Davenport’s son.”

  “Blood and Guts Davenport?” Bear River Tom said. “I know that old he-bull. Any harm comes to his pride and joy, he’ll have us skinned alive.”

  “All the more reason not to let anything happen to Oleandar,” Colonel Jennings said.

  “Who?”

  “Oleandar Winston Davenport. Private Davenport to you.”

  “Good God,” Bear River Tom said. “Who names a boy Oleandar? That’s almost as bad as naming him Tits.”

  Colonel Jennings glared.

  “What?” Tom said.

  “My sources tell me his mother named him and the general went along with her as he does with most anything she wants. He cracks the whip in the army but she cracks the whip at home.”

  “Oleandar,” Bear River Tom said, and laughed. “If my ma had named me that, I’d chuck her off a cliff.”

  “Why not leave the general’s boy here?” Fargo suggested. The last thing he needed was a general mad at him.

  “Young Davenport has to acquire experience somehow,” Jennings said.

  “Can’t acquire much when you’re dead,” Bear River Tom remarked.

  “He’s going and that’s final.”

  Lieutenant Wright drew rein and saluted snappily. “Reporting for duty as ordered, sir.”

  “At ease, Lieutenant,” Colonel Jennings said. “I trust you remember what I told you about Fargo being in charge?”

  “I’d rather he wasn’t, sir, but I always do as I’m ordered.”

  Colonel Jennings surprised Fargo by stepping around the hitch rail and offering his hand. “Just in case.”

  “Don’t sugarcoat it,” Bear River Tom said. “Come right out and tell him you think he’s a gone gosling. Hell, that all of us are.”

  “Get him out of here,” Jennings said.

  “Why are you always picking on me?” Tom asked.

  Fargo forked leather. Reining around, he tapped his spurs and didn’t look back. Once clear of the post, he swung to the north. He figured to cover a lot of miles before sundown.

  Bear River Tom brought his roan alongside the Ovaro. “Pick a number between one and nine.”

  “Go annoy someone else,” Fargo said.

  “I’ve got ten dollars that says only two of us make it back alive and you can guess which two.”

  “Keep that to yourself.”

  “You don’t want me spooking the little boy bluebellies? Don’t worry, pard. I’ll let them learn the truth the hard way.” Tom paused. “By dying.”

  9

  When most folks in the East thought of the prairie, they imagined a vast flat sea of waving grass. While there were stretches like that, more often the lay of the land consisted of rolling hills and rises bisected by canyons and washes or towered over by buttes and bluffs.

  Grass of different kinds was plentiful but there was also mesquite and the thistle that broke off in strong winds to become tumbleweed and wildflowers and milkweed and clover and wild onion and more. In certain areas at certain times of the year there were sunflowers and coneflowers and plantain and black-eyed Susans.

  With such a great feast of plant life, it followed that there was an abundance of wildlife. The huge herds of buffalo were the animals most people thought of when someone mentioned the prairie, but the buffs were but one of many. Deer and a few elk and antelope called the prairie home, too, as did wolves and coyotes and foxes and cougars and a host of lesser animals on which they fed.

  It amused Fargo no end that one of the first white men to explore west of the Mississippi River had told everyone it was nothing but a “great desert.” He had to wonder if the man rode around with his eyes closed.

  He was reminded of it when, on their second day out of Fort Laramie, Lieutenant Archibald Wright brought his sorrel up to pace him and remarked, “If there is anything more boring than this godforsaken prairie, I have yet to come across it.”

  Fargo watched a red hawk wheel high in the sky and heard a sharp whistle and saw prairie dogs scamper down their holes.

  “I could never be a scout,” Wright said. “I couldn’t take this boredom.”

  In the distance antelope took flight in long, graceful bounds.

  “How do you manage?” Wright asked.

  “I reckon I just like a dull life,” Fargo said.

  Lieutenant Wright looked at him and seemed to be contemplating, and then said, “Tell me something. Is it true what Bear River Tom told me, that you lived with the Sioux once?”

  “For a short spell,” Fargo confirmed. He’d also lived with the Apaches and others.

  “How could you? I mean, given the fact they’re Indians?”

  “They’re people,” Fargo said, “like us.”

  “The hell they are,” Wright said. “White and red are as different as night and day. They’re savages, for God’s sake.”

  “And what are we?”

  “What kind of question is that? We’re civilized. We h
ave laws and government and culture. What do they have?”

  “Tribal councils and chiefs and what you call a culture all their own.”

  “Be serious. They run around in animal hides and disport themselves like animals.”

  “Disport?” Fargo said.

  “You know what I mean. They’re heathens. They don’t believe in God like we do.”

  “Ah.”

  “Ah what? Don’t tell me that when you lived with them you took up their heathen ways?”

  “Ever hear of the Great Spirit?” Fargo asked.

  “That hogwash the Indians believe in? Yes, the colonel told us about it and said we should try to respect their beliefs if we’re to get along with them.”

  “Jennings is a good man.”

  “If you ask me, he’s too weak-kneed,” Wright said. “The Sioux hate us. They don’t want to get along with us. They want to drive us out.”

  “They were here long before we were.”

  “So you’re one of those,” Wright said. “In that case let me make my own feelings clear. I don’t care that they were here first. We’re here now, and all this land will one day be ours. We owe it to the settlers who are flocking to the West to make it a decent place to live by keeping the hostiles in check by any means necessary.”

  “You’d put them all on reservations, I bet.”

  “Of course. Or exterminate those who refuse to go. That’s what you do with vermin.”

  Fargo controlled his temper enough to say, “There’s a lot of hate on both sides. And a lot of stupid.”

  “Are you referring to me?”

  “If the boot fits.”

  “I don’t like being insulted. To be honest, the more I get to know of you, the less I understand why Colonel Jennings admires you so.” Wright wheeled his mount and rejoined his men.

  Not half a minute later Bear River Tom took his place. “What did you say to get the lieutenant’s britches up around his nose? He’s back there ready to spit nails.”

  “He’s a jackass.”

  “You know why, don’t you?”

  “Don’t start,” Fargo warned.

  “He didn’t squeeze enough tits growing up. The more tits a man squeezes, the more mature he is.”