The Trailsman #396 Page 6

  The pride of accomplishment on Jude’s face was replaced by sheepishness and then by pale nervousness when he spotted Robinson strolling quickly toward him.

  “Yeah,” he said, “I didn’t think about none of that. It’s the cowhide for sure.”

  “Who’s doing all the damn shooting?” Robinson demanded.

  “I did, Sergeant,” Jude spoke up. “­But—”

  “Stick your ‘but’s back in your pocket, trooper! Did you have permission to fire that weapon?”

  “­I—”

  “He who excuses himself accuses himself, private. Was that weapon fired in ­self-­defense or to engage a hostile?”

  “Well, ­no—”

  “I asked him for a demonstration,” Fargo lied. “The private said he was a sharpshooter with a short gun, and turns out he wasn’t just boasting. Show him the plate, Grizz Bear.”

  Robinson glanced at it. “That plate is U.S. Army property.”

  “It still is,” Grizz Bear pointed out. “Only now it’s a strainer.”

  Robinson, perhaps recalling his narrow escape after breakfast, suddenly washed his hands of it and walked off without another word.

  “You damn fool,” Fargo told Jude. “Don’t be poking fire with a sword. But you’re sure some pumpkins with a handgun, kid. I’ll be keeping that in mind. All of us best turn in now.”

  Fargo lugged his saddle into the apron of shade cast by the women’s tent. Even out of the direct rays of the broiling sun, the heat was oppressive. Fargo tugged his conk cover over his eyes and let near exhaustion ferry him into an uncomfortable doze.

  At some point Fargo felt the hot desert breeze suddenly turn blessedly cool on his face. He dreamed he was sprawled naked in a cool Rocky Mountain stream. Then his eyes eased open and he saw Rosalinda kneeling close over him, sponging his face with water from a canteen.

  “Shush,” she whispered, placing a finger on his lips. “Anyone who might see us here is asleep now. And if one should glimpse us . . . what of that?”

  “Yeah,” Fargo agreed. “What of it?”

  “I have waited long enough, handsome stallion named Fargo. Here . . . do you like them?”

  Her peasant blouse already bared both shoulders. It took her only a sinewy twist to pull it down lower and release a set of caramel, ­satin-­smooth breasts only inches from his mouth. The dark brown nipples stiffened instantly when Fargo lashed his tongue at them rapidly.

  “Damn straight I like ’em,” Fargo assured her between licks, his strong hands kneading the hard heft of her tits. He felt his groin flood with tickling heat when her exploring hand slid down to his crotch.

  “Eres grande,” she whispered excitedly in his ear as her hand began massaging the hard furrow in his trousers. The way she knew just where to squeeze it sent surges of hot pleasure through his tool and made Fargo pant like he was already in the rut.

  “It is so big and throbbing so hard!” she said in a voice gone husky with lust. “I must have you in my mouth now, Skye. Oh, I must!”

  “I’m damned if I’m stopping you,” Fargo assured her.

  One of her trembling hands opened his fly and freed what she was after. Her dark teakwood eyes widened at the sight of the angry, demanding organ she’d unleashed. Fargo groaned aloud when she parted those pouting lips and eased him into her mouth, working the sensitive, ­purple-­swollen dome with lips, teeth and tongue as if it were a complex woodwind.

  Fargo, waves of mindless pleasure coursing along his staff and deep into his groin, worked one hand under her thin cotton dress and into the furry junction where her thighs met. His fingers teased open the soft rose petals of her outer sex and worked the area around her pearl rapidly without applying too much pressure directly.

  In Fargo’s vast experience, Mexican women had the shortest fuses and the most violent explosions. Perhaps she hadn’t expected such manual dexterity, but his fingers quickly coaxed her to a gasping, quivering climax even as she flexed and unflexed her cheeks rapidly to ­flutter-­squeeze Fargo and drive him over the Divide in a ­hip-­bucking frenzy of release.

  Adrift in a ­half-­waking daze, Fargo thought he heard bells tinkling softly.

  “Look!” she commanded breathlessly when Fargo had recovered some strength. She pointed at his still-aroused manhood. “This time I want it inside me, stallion! I ­want—­ayy!”

  Her lusty whisper turned into a scream of terror as a shadow fell over them just before the intruder attacked her.

  8

  The sudden stench hit Fargo like a deadly weapon. He started to throw Rosalinda to safety, but the escaped ­dromedary—­a troublemaker the soldiers had named Mad ­Maggie—­was faster.

  The long neck snaked out, the sharp front teeth nipped her a good one on her sitter, and Rosalinda shrieked.

  Pandemonium erupted as Maggie continued to take her foul mood out on the camp, tipping over Deke’s wreck pan and then deliberately charging the horses and mules, already rearing up at the sudden smell of her. They began to leap out of the corral and scatter to the four directions as the malevolent beast bore down on them.

  Rosalinda made the panicked mistake of pulling her dress up over her hips so Fargo could examine her wound. Just then Bobbie Lou and Karen came hurrying around one corner of the tent, a group of bustling soldiers and camel drivers around ­another—­with Grizz Bear in the lead.

  Rosalinda lay across Fargo’s ­thighs—­his fly still wide open, his arousal aggressively ­obvious—­her round, hard, exciting ass cupped in Fargo’s hands like his next meal.

  Karen was no prude, but this was too . . . shocking. The pretty pale blonde flushed pink and, after delaying for several ­wide-­eyed peeks at Fargo’s endowment, hurried back inside the tent.

  Bobbie Lou, however, didn’t ­peek—­she savored with hungry eyes until Fargo managed to fumble things under control. Rosalinda, so daring minutes ago, now gasped and fled inside the tent as the soldiers and drivers cheered and whistled.

  “Hey, Fargo!” Grizz Bear roweled him. “One ‘hump’ or two?”

  A whip cracked as Robinson approached, cursing at the knot of men. “Corral that goddamn camel, you shitbirds, and round up those horses and mules! Snap into it, damn it, or it’s the ball and chain for you malingerers!”

  “Hope you saved some for me?” Bobbie Lou said in a low, urgent voice just before Fargo went to whistle in the Ovaro.

  “Many helpings,” he assured her. “Bring your appetite.”

  • • •

  Despite the daytime chaos, and sleep lost chasing down stock, the U.S. Army Camel Corps was on course to move out at sundown as usual. The animals knelt, protesting in their odd growls, as impressive loads were secured to them.

  “You know they ain’t had no fodder in a week?” Jude remarked as he and Fargo watched the fascinating operation of putting a camel caravan in motion. “Heck, they won’t even look at the alfalfa now.”

  The army had been pleasantly surprised to discover that the camels, without prodding, had taken to eating greasewood and other desert growth horses and mules snubbed. Camping around plenty of greasewood helped hold the camels and saved on more expensive fodder.

  Jude tilted his hat against the progress of the sun, which would still be unforgiving for another half hour. “Didja know that while you was sleeping, Deke Ritter cracked an egg open on a hot rock and it cooked? Honest to John! It only cooked the white, but I lost two bits on that bet.”

  He reached for the canteen dangling from a strap around his shoulder. Fargo stayed his hand.

  “Kid, what were you told before we left San Antone? You don’t survive out here unless you play by careful rules. The first one is about water. Never drink when you’re in direct sun. It’ll evaporate before your body gets any use of it.”

  “But we took on plenty at the river.”

  “There’s never plenty when
you cross the Mojave. We’re counting on a couple of key water holes along the way. If even one is dried ­up—­or ­poisoned—­you’ll regret every drop you wasted.”

  Fargo made his usual forward probe before the rest set out, realizing once again he was the meat that fed the tiger. But no shots rang out and by sunset the odd caravan was moving even deeper into country that was still a blank area on most American maps.

  Riding ridiculously high in saddles rocking like porch swings, a multitude of bells constantly ringing out confusion, the Middle Eastern drivers sang to their camels in strange languages Fargo had never heard before this job. But as the caravan moved deeper into the desert landscape, treacherous dust devils pelted them with maddening frequency, driving irritating sand under Fargo’s eyelids and swelling them shut. Only the camels seemed unperturbed.

  When the swirling sand and grit settled, visibility was good. Now and then Fargo spotted piles of bleached bones, mostly animal, some human. They gleamed with an eerie phosphorescence in the ­blue-­white moonlight.

  Onward, ever onward, energized by the cool night air, the expedition crossed the desert flat and began ascending the eastern slopes of the Old Woman Mountains. Twice they passed old test shafts made by hopeful miners.

  The thick stands of ocotillo, numerous on the flatland, had thinned out as the trail wound and twisted its way higher. They passed through a stretch of desolate ­lava-­bed country, then into the rough, folded peaks beyond.

  Grizz Bear gigged his mule up beside Fargo. “You know, Trailsman, Mojaves will attack at night.”

  “Yeah. So will the Scorpion and his bunch.”

  “We close to that mirror station yet?”

  “Three miles ahead by the army map.”

  “Every damn one of them ­blue-­bellies,” Grizz Bear reiterated, “is dead as a can of corn beef.”

  “All right,” Fargo said. “They’ll get buried and the next of kin notified. Any soldier has that right.”

  “Ahuh. And who buries us? Say, here’s one . . . these two old maids was sorter reminiscin’ ’bout their younger days traveling abroad.

  “‘I’d like to see Big Ben one more time before I die,’ says one. ‘Ah, yes,’ says the other. ‘Good, wasn’t he?’”

  Grizz Bear laughed himself into a coughing fit while Fargo slewed around in his saddle to check the formation. The soldiers were holding good positions at the rear and along the flanks. Some had made fools of themselves during their first skirmish with Indians west of Fort Lancaster in Texas, one man even curling up in fear and refusing to fight. But most had improved with experience, and Fargo trusted their courage if not their marksmanship.

  Robinson rode to the left of Hassan and Turkish Tom, who were leading the way on Topsy and Tuili. His hatred for Fargo had become less important at the moment than his fear of being in military command during combat.

  For seventeen years now Robinson had carried out the orders of superiors, and unlike many men, he did not relish battlefield authority. In three years he would retire, and one serious mistake in combat could mean a drumhead ­court-­martial and loss of his pension.

  Robinson spurred his sorrel forward. “You’ve seen what’s coming up on the map?”

  Fargo nodded. “I rode through it once before. There’s no way around it.”

  “Looks like good pickings for any ambushers,” Robinson complained.

  “I don’t believe I whispered just now,” Fargo said. “There’s no way around it.”

  They had reached a place marked “vulnerable ascension” on their army maps: a spot where the rising trail was forced into a series of switchbacks, winding higher and higher from the desert floor through a rocky pass. The mirror station had been erected at the pinnacle.

  “I proposed a way around this entire area,” Robinson carped. “Those six men are ­dead—­mirror relays stopped long ago.”

  “No wonder you’re such an inspiration to the troops,” Fargo shot back, disgusted at the man’s lack of warrior camaraderie.

  Robinson stared at Fargo before dropping back again.

  The stretch of switchbacking trail began and Fargo took the point with Grizz Bear.

  “You oughter keep the kid up front with us,” he told Fargo. “I ain’t even believing how good that little shit can chuck lead with a short iron. Happens it’s Mojaves that get to us first, they’ll swarm in close with their ’tater mashers. A good pistolero is just the ticket.”

  “Robinson would raise holy hell, and I don’t buck the army unless it’s necessary.”

  “That ain’t how the army tells it.”

  “I lied,” Fargo admitted. “I buck them all the time. But Ed Beale is a good leader, and I’d like to avoid a set-to with his topkick. Now pipe down and watch for trouble.”

  But the ­ever-­expected attack never came. The switchbacking trail straightened at the top of the pass, a cut blown by army engineers through a maze of jagged outcrops. A mud hovel stood in the shade of a rock shelf, dark and ominously still in the eerie moon wash.

  The signal to halt was passed down the line. Fargo, Grizz Bear and Robinson approached the hut.

  “Hallo inside!” Fargo called out. “Friendlies coming in!”

  There was no response from inside. Robinson barked out an order and a private hustled forward with a camp lantern. The three men entered and found the place empty and obviously ransacked. The big ­three-­foot mirror used for relaying signals had been shattered into countless fragments.

  A search began in the desolate terrain surrounding the station. Before too long a shout went up at the grisly discovery: five of the missing soldiers, all discovered within feet of each other in a rock nest about thirty feet beyond the mud hovel.

  The skull of each one had been brutally smashed, a few with such force they no longer resembled human heads.

  “Mojaves, all right,” Grizz Bear pronounced. “Looks like they been dead for at least a couple weeks.”

  “Happy now, Fargo?” a smug Robinson demanded. “I told you these men were goners.”

  Fargo stared at him. “You know what you sound like? Like a man who’s happy as hell he won a bet.”

  “Don’t be an ass. But now you’ve led us into ­Indian-­infested mountains.”

  “I didn’t lead you ­anywhere—­Lieutenant Beale did, and he’s the boss.”

  Hassan and Turkish Tom pushed their way forward, rattling in agitated Arabic.

  “The hell do you sand darkies want?” Robinson demanded. “Talk American!”

  Hassan moved closer into the light and held up one of the ­gutta-­percha bags that held half of the caravan’s water ­supply—­the bottom had been slit.

  “Ten bags this way!” he shouted. “Somebody cut!”

  “Son of a bitch!” Robinson exploded. “Corporal Helzer! How could those bags be cut with fifteen soldiers riding security detail?”

  “It can’t be, Sergeant.”

  “Well, goddamn it, it happened!”

  Fargo had already exchanged a long glance with Grizz Bear.

  “It likely happened,” Fargo spoke up, “during one of the stops to spell the horses and mules. The camels are all milling around then, and it wouldn’t be that hard for somebody to get in among them.”

  “You’re saying,” Robinson countered, “that somebody on this expedition did it?”

  “It wasn’t the fairy fucking godmother,” Grizz Bear said.

  “A saboteur among us? Horseshit! That person would be killing himself!”

  “Unless,” Fargo suggested, “he had no plans to stick with the expedition.”

  “Maybe,” Robinson suggested, “Indians sneaked up and did it.”

  Fargo considered that. “It’s possible,” he admitted. “Their goal is to stop this expedition.”

  “Don’t seem likely to me,” Grizz Bear gainsaid. “A Mojave is an
impatient son of a buck when he decides to fight. He ain’t one to pussyfoot around and make his enemy suffer slow. He’ll get hopped up on cactus beer and pitch right into an armed battle.”

  Whatever the explanation, Fargo saw that things were going to hell fast and knew they could only get worse.

  But he didn’t expect it to happen so soon.

  Fargo and a few of the soldiers had fanned out in circles searching for the sixth body. Fargo found it about forty feet away from the others behind a tumble of boulders.

  Like all the others, the soldier had died from a crushed skull.

  Fargo called the rest over, still kneeling over the corpse.

  “Well, that accounts for all of them,” Robinson said. “We can only hope the savages have cleared out by now. These killings aren’t fresh, so there’s a good chance they’ve cleared out of these mountains.”

  “Wrong,” Fargo said, rising to his feet again. “This last one must have somehow held out. The blood is still tacky. He was killed in the last few hours.”

  Robinson seemed to have been slapped hard. Wind shrieked in the pass, sand and grit pelting them hard. “You ­mean—?”

  “I mean,” Fargo said, “that it’s more than likely we’re all surrounded right now by warpath Indians. And these six dead soldiers ought to tell you what they’ve got in mind for us.”

  9

  The six soldiers were quickly buried under desert moonlight. Mounted, and very nervous, soldiers constantly guarded the stalled expedition.

  Robinson, Fargo and Grizz Bear palavered in the shadow of the crude station.

  “I say we just push on through the pass now,” Fargo said. “We can be down on the flatland by sunup or a little after.”

  “I ain’t so sure sunup wouldn’t be better,” Grizz Bear countered. “We’re paring the cheese mighty close to the rind. You know they’re out there close right now, hanh?”

  “Yeah. I’ve heard their lizard clicks.”

  “What’s that?” Robinson demanded. “You both know the savages are nearby?”