Thunderhead Trail Read online

  Then whoops and hollers broke out.

  A small man in an apron came over. “I’ll remember this all my born days. Would you care for a drink, mister?”

  “I sure as hell would,” Fargo said. His throat was parched.

  “Coming right up. It’s on the house for what you did for Candice.”

  That reminded Fargo. “Bring a blanket if you have it.”

  “What?” the bartender said. Then, “Oh. Sure. I have one in the back.”

  A gray-haired townsman approached and offered Fargo his hand, saying, “Mister, you have done us a favor. Those three have been the terrors of the territory for some spell now.”

  “I wish you’d just shot them,” said someone else.

  Fargo turned and offered his own hand to Dirk Peters. “I’m obliged for the help.”

  “Hell, it wasn’t nothing,” Dirk said.

  Fargo did the same to Rafer Crown, saying, “Heard tell of you down to Denver.”

  “Heard of you all over,” Crown said.

  “Are you here after the bounty, too?” Dirk Peters asked.

  “I don’t hunt men for money,” Fargo said. Which wasn’t entirely true. He’d done it a couple of times but would never take it up as a profession. He liked scouting too much.

  “Who said anything about a man?” Dirk Peters said, and chuckled.

  “This bounty is for a bull,” Rafer Crown said.

  Fargo wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “A what?”

  “A bull,” Crown repeated himself.

  “The most valuable in the country, or damn near,” Dirk Peters said.

  Before Fargo could ask them to explain, the bartender returned with a blanket and a bottle of Monongahela.

  “I reckoned this would do you better than a glass.”

  “You reckoned right,” Fargo said. He took both and wheeled to go but the bartender had more to say.

  “One more thing. That Rance Hollister doesn’t own just one Sharps. He totes two on his saddle, one on either side.”

  Fargo had never heard of anyone doing that.

  The bartender went on. “It wouldn’t surprise me none if he only went a short way and is out there waiting to pick you off.”

  “Hell,” Fargo said.

  7

  Fargo poked his head over the batwings and looked both ways. The street was still deserted expect for the forlorn naked figure a block away.

  A cloud of dust to the west assured him that the three brothers were, in fact, gone.

  Still, Fargo hugged the buildings until he was almost to Candice and then crossed to her and spread the blanket.

  Her head was bowed, her hair over her face as before. She started when he draped the blanket over her shoulders and stiffened in alarm.

  “It’s only me,” Fargo said. “You’re safe now.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Candice said. “The one who did this to me—”

  “They’re gone.”

  “Oh,” Candice said. “I heard horses but I didn’t look.”

  Fargo parted her hair. Her swollen eye was worse, her cheek a dark black and blue.

  “Did you have anything to do with their leaving?”

  “I did,” Fargo said.

  Candice managed a smile. “I don’t think I ever caught your name.”

  Fargo told her and held up the bottle. “Care for some firewater?”

  “I damn well would.”

  Fargo opened it and offered it to her. She didn’t take just a sip. She tilted it and gulped. A third of the bottle was gone when she handed it back.

  “I’m grateful.”

  “Hell, woman,” Fargo said. “You did know that’s whiskey and not water?”

  Candice laughed, and winced. “It never affects me for some reason. I can drink all day and all night and never get drunk.”

  “We must be twins.”

  She laughed again, and a lot of the tension and misery drained away. “Listen to you, Skye Fargo. You are my new favorite person.”

  “How about I get you back to the saloon?”

  “Wearing a blanket? Hell no. How about you take me to my place. It’s just up the street a ways.”

  “Need a hand?”

  “No.”

  Fargo noticed that she sagged and moved stiffly so he put his arm around her anyway. “Here,” he said.

  Candice fixed her good eye on him. “Why are you being so nice?”

  “I like your tits.”

  She snickered, then snorted, then burst out laughing and stopped herself to say, “Damn you. Don’t do that. It hurts when I laugh.”

  “Don’t do what? Like your tits?”

  Candice did more laughing, only softer, and leaned into him. “Damn, my face hurts like hell.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t talk, then.”

  “No, that’s all right.” She paused. “So why are you being so nice? No one else helped. The men in this town have as much backbone as oatmeal. And the others here for the bounty didn’t butt in, either.”

  “There’s that word again,” Fargo said.

  “Which?”

  “Bounty.”

  Candice tilted her face to him. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  “I was just passing through.”

  “Oh my. And you came to the aid of a poor, defenseless maiden. Just like that Ivanhoe in that book.”

  “I’m not a knight in shining armor,” Fargo said flatly.

  “What are you then?”

  “Randy,” Fargo said.

  Candice tried to stop herself from laughing but couldn’t. “Damn you. Will you cut that out?” She took a deep breath. “Take a right at the next corner. We’re almost there.”

  Fargo had glimpsed faces peering out at them from the windows of businesses and homes.

  Candice saw them, too. “Bunch of rabbits. Although I suppose I can’t blame them. Those Hollisters are as mean as anything.” She leaned against him even more, until he was supporting most of her weight.

  “Do you need me to carry you?” Fargo asked. He admired her grit almost as much as he admired her tits.

  “I’m tuckered out, is all,” Candice said. But that didn’t stop her from saying, “That bounty I mentioned is for a bull. There’s a man, Jim Tyler. He started up the first cattle ranch in these parts about, oh, a year or so ago. A couple of months back he brought in a stud bull all the way from Texas. He paid twenty thousand dollars for it, or so folks say.”

  Fargo whistled.

  “I know. That’s more than most folks make in a lifetime. But now the bull has gone missing and Tyler is beside himself. He thinks it wandered off into the mountains. If he can’t find it he’s out all that money, and from what I hear, he doesn’t have enough to buy another. So he’s doing the next best thing.”

  “Which is?”

  “Offering a bounty to anyone who finds his bull and brings it back safe and sound. You should give it a try.”

  “It would take a heap of money to get me to go after some bull,” Fargo said. “How much bounty are we talking about?”

  “Five thousand dollars.”

  Fargo whistled again.

  “Is that heap enough for you?”

  Fargo thought of the whiskey he could buy and the doves he could treat himself to and the poker games he could sit in on, and had to admit, “It just might be.”

  8

  Her room was in a boardinghouse, at the rear. She asked him to take her in the back way so no one would see her face.

  Fargo obliged her. He knew how some women were about their looks. No one was in the hall and he slipped her into her room and over to her bed. He went to ease her down but the moment he loosened his hold, she collapsed onto her side.

  Candice groaned and uttered a slight sound, as if she might b
reak into tears.

  “You all right?”

  “Be back on my feet in no time,” Candice said with her good eye closed.

  “Anything I can fetch you?”

  “All I want now is to sleep.”

  Fargo turned to leave but she suddenly showed some life and snatched his hand.

  “I want to thank you, again, for what you did. It was sweet.”

  “I’m many things,” Fargo said, “but not that.”

  “Still.” Candice mustered a lopsided smile. The half of her face that was swollen wouldn’t move. “When I’m up to it, and if you’re still around, I’ll treat you to a night you won’t forget.”

  “Night, hell,” Fargo said with a grin. “How about a week?”

  “Deal,” Candice said. She began to laugh, winced in pain, and closed her eye again. “I’ll ride you until you chafe,” she said softly, and passed out.

  Fargo touched her hair. “Quite a gal,” he said. He left quietly. In the hall he paused. Instead of turning to the back door, he walked to the front of the house.

  A parlor on the left was occupied by a man and a woman in their middle years. The woman was in a chair, tense with fear. The man was staring out the front window and jumped when Fargo said, “Folks.”

  “Who are you?” the man demanded in a tone that told Fargo he was more mouse than lion. “What are you doing in here?”

  “You run this boardinghouse?” Fargo asked.

  “We both do,” the woman said. “Harold works at the general store but this gives us extra money.”

  “The woman, Candice . . .” Fargo began.

  “Candice Phelps,” the woman said.

  “She was beat by the Hollisters. She’s in her room, hurt bad.”

  “Oh God,” Harold said. “I was sent home and Mr. Ogilby closed the store, he’s so scared of them.”

  “Seems to be a lot of that going around.” Fargo focused on the woman. “I hear there’s no doc in this town.”

  “There isn’t,” she confirmed.

  “Candice is asleep now but in a few hours you should look in on her.”

  “Don’t you worry. I like Candice. We’ll take real good care of her.”

  To the man Fargo said, “You can stop trembling. The Hollisters have left.”

  “Thank God,” the man said. “It’s a wonder they didn’t kill anybody.”

  Fargo touched his hat brim to the woman and left by the front door. The sudden glare of the afternoon sun after the half shadow of the house made him squint. He turned up the street and happened to gaze its full length to the prairie beyond.

  A flash of light gleamed far off.

  Fargo flung himself at the ground. Hardly had he done so when something whistled over his head. The distant boom of the shot followed half a second later.

  Rance Hollister was out there with his Sharps.

  In the hands of a marksman, a Sharps could hit a target from half a mile off. But it was a single-shot and took a few seconds to reload.

  Rolling, Fargo heaved up and ran between two buildings before Hollister could get off another. Hot fury boiled in his veins. The Hollisters would have been smart to leave it be. Now he couldn’t just ride off.

  Staying out of the open, Fargo reached the saloon.

  Nearly everyone was drinking and talking excitedly and a couple of card games had resumed. They were making so much noise, no one had heard the shot.

  The place fell as silent as a cemetery when Fargo strode in.

  Rafer Crown and Dirk Peters were at a corner table, and Peters beckoned.

  The bartender had just brought a couple of glasses over for them.

  Going over, Fargo pulled out a chair and set down his bottle. “I’m obliged for the warning about Rance.”

  “He tried?” the barman asked.

  “He did.”

  “They won’t give up, you know,” the bartender said. “I put the rest of their weapons in the back room if you want them.”

  “I don’t.”

  The bartender shrugged and returned to the bar.

  “If it was me,” Rafer Crown said, “I’d gun them on sight the next time I see them. Whether they are heeled or not.”

  Fargo chugged and let out an “Ahhh” at the welcome burning that spread from his throat to his belly. “I take it you gents are going after the bull?”

  Dirk Peters nodded. “The hunt commences tomorrow. That rancher, Jim Tyler, sent circulars all over about a month ago. I saw one in Utah.”

  “It was Denver for me,” Crown said.

  “There’s a lot of others who have shown up,” Dirk Peters said. “We’re to meet at Tyler’s spread tomorrow morning at ten.”

  “Why all at once?” Fargo asked.

  Dirk shrugged. “Tyler’s idea. Word is he’s got something he wants to say to those who go after the critter.”

  “Sounds like a waste of time to me,” Rafer Crown said. “I’d have been off hunting it by now.”

  “From man hunter to bull hunter,” Dirk Peters said with a grin.

  “For five thousand dollars I’d hunt a damn frog,” Crown said.

  “How long has this bull been missing?” Fargo wanted to know.

  “About two months,” Dirk Peters said.

  Fargo took another swallow. “It could be dead by now. Or clear up in Canada.” He was only joking about that last but the bull might have wandered anywhere.

  “Word is that a couple of trappers spotted Thunderhead about two weeks ago not ten miles from the ranch house,” Dirk Peters revealed.

  “Thunderhead? Tyler gave the bull a name?”

  “He probably thinks it’s one of the family,” Dirk joshed.

  “Why didn’t the trappers bring it back for the reward?” Fargo asked.

  “They tried, but the bull didn’t want to come,” the bounty hunter said.

  “They lost a packhorse for their trouble and nearly got gored, besides,” Dirk said.

  “So Thunderhead is no kitten,” Fargo said.

  “More monster than cat,” Dirk declared. “Half the size of a stagecoach, or so folks claim. With horns out to here.” He spread his arms as wide as they would go. “And the temper of a rabid wolf.”

  “Hell,” Fargo said.

  “Yes, sir,” Dirk Peters said. “Any gent who goes after Thunderhead is taking his life in his hands.”

  9

  Fargo mulled that over the rest of the day.

  Both Crown and Peters could track, and with them after the bounty, finding the bull first wasn’t a sure thing.

  He entertained second thoughts about joining the hunt. But there was Candice’s promise of delights to come, and the Hollister brothers to deal with.

  Fargo decided he might as well try while he waited for her to heal and for him to have his chance at the Hollisters.

  His bottle was almost empty when he sat in on a poker game.

  The townsmen seemed in awe of him. That anyone had had the sand to stand up to the Hollisters, especially Grizz, was a wonderment. Many wanted to shake his hand and thank him. And more than a few were eager to sit in on the game.

  Fargo was happy to have them. Nearly all were piss-poor players and he liked taking their money.

  By eleven or so that night, fatigue started to set in. Fargo raked in his winnings and added them to his poke and rose. “This is it for me, gents,” he announced.

  Crown and Peters were already gone.

  Fargo nodded to a few townsmen who had been particularly friendly, and pushed on the batwings. A breath of cool night air fanned him.

  Fargo stepped from under the overhang and bent to unwrap the reins just as the Ovaro raised its head and looked above him. Simultaneously, there came a scraping sound from the overhang.

  Instinct propelled Fargo into whirling and g
oing for his Colt just as a dark form smashed into his chest. Knocked back, he lost his hold on the revolver.

  Cold steel flashed in the light from the saloon window, nearly taking out an eye.

  Backpedaling, Fargo saw who it was.

  “I’ve got you now, you son of a bitch,” Kyler Hollister gloated. He wagged his antler-handled knife and grinned in glee. “Rance didn’t want me to come but I snuck off and here I am.”

  Fargo realized Kyler must have ventured into the back of the saloon and found their weapons. “I’m glad you did.”

  “Glad?” Kyler said.

  “One less of you I have to track down.”

  “I by-God can’t wait to kill you.” Kyler came on in a crouch, his knife held in a way that told Fargo he knew how to use it. “For what you did to Grizz, I aim to make you suffer.”

  “Talking me to death is a good start.”

  Kyler hissed and attacked. He thrust high, slashed low, and hissed again when Fargo avoided both. “I forgot how quick you are.”

  “Quicker than you Hollisters,” Fargo goaded as his hand dipped to his boot. In the partial dark the youngest Hollister didn’t notice. “Being turtles must run in your family.”

  “I’ll show you turtle,” Kyler growled, and closed.

  By then Fargo had the Arkansas toothpick out. He parried, and at the ring of steel on steel, Kyler uttered an oath and leaped back.

  “So you have a blade too.”

  Fargo grinned.

  “That little splinter against my big knife?” Kyler said. “I’ll cut you to ribbons.”

  “You jabber as much as a girl.”

  That did it. Kyler swore and attacked, and while he wasn’t the best knife fighter Fargo had ever tangled with, the boy was good, damn good, and damn deadly, and it was all Fargo could do to stay alive.

  They thrust, they stabbed, they circled. Every move was countered. Kyler was a lot smaller, but he was a rattler on two legs.

  Fargo had been in enough fights to know that the longer it lasted, the more likely it was that he’d be cut or worse. He had to end it fast. But try as he might, he couldn’t get the toothpick past that oversized blade of Kyler’s.

  The boy grew cocky. He laughed. He smirked. When Fargo tried a cut to the neck that he nimbly evaded, Kyler chuckled and said, “You’re not so much, mister. You stood up to Grizz and knocked him out but you won’t get the better of me.”