South Pass Snakepit Read online

  “You’re both wrong,” Fargo opined. “A camp becomes a town when it gets its first undertaker’s parlor.”

  “Well, this place has enough business, all right, especially since you arrived.”

  “Fargo hasn’t killed anyone who didn’t require it,” O’Malley said.

  “I never said otherwise. But I like towns and big cities. You know, Fargo, there’s talk of the Homestead Act finally passing soon.”

  Fargo was busy cleaning his teeth with a hog-bristle brush. He pulled it out of his mouth. “Where you been grazing? That’s old news.”

  “Maybe so, but brother, there goes your precious West in hundred-sixty-acre parcels. Where will you unroll your blankets then?”

  “There’ll still be places back of beyond. The Big Bend country in Texas is too rugged for settlement. If it does people up, there’s southeast California. They got rock- hard ground there called borasca—no punkin’ rollers would want it.”

  “Well, this mountain region is too imposing for my blood,” O’Malley said. “I prefer the Niobrara River country east of here. That’s a clear-bottom river, peaceful and pretty.”

  “For a surety,” Fargo agreed. “Trouble is, it’s also the heart of Plains Indian country.”

  The flame on the skunk-oil lamp began to gutter.

  “Needs a new wick,” Avram said. “I’ll cut one from my long handles.”

  While he fixed the lamp, Avram remarked, “Fargo, why is it that you rarely speak unless you’re spoken to? You’re obviously an intelligent man.”

  “Any man would seem quiet next to you two magpies.”

  “No, seriously.”

  Fargo lifted a shoulder. “There’s talkers and there’s quiet men. Talkers get into trouble.”

  O’Malley lowered his flask to laugh. “You’re in more trouble than anyone else in this camp.”

  “True, and I won’t talk my way out of it.”

  It was an unseasonably warm night, and Fargo pulled his shirt off before he stretched out to sleep.

  Avram stared at his chest and whistled. “Looks like you’ve stopped your share of lead.”

  “What about that new scar just above your chest hair?” O’Malley asked. “Knife?”

  “Nah. I had a run-in with a couple dozen Flatheads west of here in the Bitterroot Valley. One of ’em waltzed it to me with a war hatchet.”

  “A couple dozen?” O’Malley repeated. “How did you effect an escape?”

  “Lucky for me Indians don’t always understand the white man’s thunder sticks. These Flatheads thought they could save powder by charging their pieces light. When the bullets dropped short—one actually bounced off my horse—they got mad and threw their guns away.”

  “Ah, the noble red man,” O’Malley said, well shellacked by now. “Sic transit gloria mundi.”

  “That’s too far north for me,” Fargo muttered, his eyelids feeling weighted down by coins.

  “Something about a girl named Gloria being sick,” Avram suggested.

  O’Malley snorted. “The mountain labored and brought forth a mouse.”

  “Professor,” Avram said, “you need to paint a sign on your forehead: room for rent. Your ‘noble red man’ is a flea-bitten savage that never even learned to harness the wheel.”

  “Pipe down and go to sleep,” Fargo said, but by now O’Malley’s prominent throat muscles were swollen even more with indignation.

  “The white man is the savage,” he sputtered. “The westward migration is the ruthless despoiling of the continent, the rape of the Indians and the land.”

  “Horseshit, calamity howler. It’s the triumph of will over adversity, the chance for a man to start over.”

  Fargo rose on one elbow. “You’re both right,” he put in. “So stow the chinwag and let me sleep.”

  The moment Fargo fell silent he noticed it: the steady insect hum, beyond the burlap-covered window, had suddenly fallen silent.

  “Hit the deck!” he roared, grabbing his Colt from beside his shakedown and shooting out the lamp, plunging the room into near darkness. Fargo rolled several feet away from his bed.

  O’Malley’s voice: “Fargo, what—”

  A sudden hammering of gunfire erupted just outside, bullets shredding the burlap. Fargo heard slugs chunking into his empty shakedown, thwacking into the floor and walls, cracking the table legs. O’Malley screeched like an animal in a trap, and Fargo hoped he wasn’t hit.

  Rolling onto his back, Fargo sent his remaining five slugs out the window. The firing from outside ceased abruptly, and he heard the tramp of running boots.

  “Professor, nerve up,” he snapped. “Are you hit?”

  “Nuh-nuh-no, thank the good Lord.”

  “Avram?”

  “Still sound in wind and limb.”

  “Good. Most of the bullets went into my bed. Which is a mite queer.”

  “Why?” Avram asked.

  “Why? Because how did they know where I sleep?”

  8

  Unwilling to risk the lives of his bunkmates, Fargo spent the rest of the night on guard duty in bushes outside the window, Henry rifle to hand. When the first dull, leaden light of dawn appeared low in the sky, the clanging of a hammer on an anvil next door told him Jake Headley was at work.

  “Old son, you’re an early riser,” Fargo greeted him as he entered the big double doors.

  “I get up with the chickens and lie down with the pigs,” Jake quipped, and both men laughed.

  The Ovaro recognized Fargo’s voice and nickered a greeting.

  “Hell of a shootin’ bee at your place last night,” Jake said, putting down his hammer. “To tell it straight, I didn’t expect to see you again.”

  “It was quite a fandango,” Fargo admitted. “That’s why I’m here. I moved in with Avram Nash and Professor O’Malley. If I stay, it could get them killed. Since your corral is empty at night, any chance I could pay you to sleep there?”

  Jake sleeved sweat off his forehead. “Sleep in a corral? Might’s well just paint a target on your back. I got empty stalls in the barn. No killers will sneak past the horses without raisin’ a ruckus.”

  “ ’Preciate it, Jake. Now let’s dicker.”

  “Let’s not and say we did. You’ve already killed two of Philly Denton’s hired guns, and I figure you mean to send more of them over the mountains. Ain’t nobody in this camp with a set on him like you got.”

  Fargo thanked him again and returned to the boardinghouse, hoping to catch a little sleep. Less than an hour after he did, the noises of someone stirring around woke him up. He tilted his hat away from his eyes and spotted O’Malley mixing a sulfur-and-molasses tonic for hangover.

  “Ah,” O’Malley greeted him. “The enfant terrible awakens.”

  Light poured through the window and the bullet-tattered burlap flap. The opposite wall was riddled with bullet holes, and the table canted crazily on two buckled legs.

  Avram was busy working his boots on. “Orville will be here any minute now, blowing and puffing. Fargo, you’re all man, and I admire you. But I’m not looking to get my life over quick.”

  “Don’t worry, magic man. I’m moving out today.”

  “Where to?” O’Malley demanded.

  Fargo knew it would eventually get out that he was sleeping in the livery, but why telegraph it to his enemies? “I’ll just pitch a camp somewhere where it’s safe.”

  A fist thonked on the door.

  Avram grinned. “Here comes Orville to pin your ears back, Fargo.”

  “Come!” O’Malley called out.

  Orville Danford appeared in the doorway, still buttoning his suspender loops to his pants. He stared at the bullet holes and the damaged table. “Glory in the morning! Did you gents have a turkey shoot in here?”

  “Yeah, except we were the turkeys,” Fargo replied.

  “Yessir, looks like you boys had a high old time in here last night.”

  Avram snorted. “Oh, yeah, it was a barrel of monks.”

 
; Fargo waited while Orville delivered the usual dough-belly hokum about law and order, property rights, and his tolerance as a landlord having its limits. When he paused for a breath, Fargo pulled out a shiny gold eagle and handed it to him.

  “Here you go, cash money over the counter. I’m moving out today so you’ll have no more trouble, and you can keep the rent I paid in advance. All I ask is to keep taking my meals here.”

  Orville’s eyes puckered with satisfaction. “Why, of course, Mr. Fargo, of course. I knew we could come to an arrangement.”

  “That damn toad,” Avram said after the landlord left. “You know, he’s the one who made your shakedown. Sure is odd how Denton’s nickel-chasers knew right where to shoot.”

  “Could’ve been you or the Professor who told ’em, too,” Fargo pointed out. “I have enough major campaigns to win. I don’t need to add a skirmish. Let’s go feed our faces.”

  They met around the poker table in the back room of the Buffalo Palace, faces grim with determination: Philly Denton, Jack Slade, Clay Munro and Angel Hanchon.

  “Jesus Christ, you incompetent, idiots,” Denton fumed, his piercing black eyes now burning embers. “You had him at point-blank range last night and couldn’t plug him.”

  Slade spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “He shot the light out, boss. That room was dark as the inside of a boot.”

  Denton rose halfway out of his chair. “Dark? And you tossed all that lead anyway? You goddamn fools, you might’ve plugged O’Malley. And I think he’s the key to the mint—one of the mints, anyway.”

  “Who put sand in your ointment?” Slade complained. “If it’s Katy—”

  Slade thought better of it and shut up.

  “No, Jack, talk out. What about Katy?”

  “Well, I’m just saying—Katy and Fargo were both out of sight at the same time. There’s talk, that’s all.”

  Philly said nothing to this, his chiseled features a tight mask of hatred. “Angel,” he snapped, “trade places with Clay. I’m damned if I want to stare at that ugly goiter of yours.”

  Philly poured himself a few fingers of bourbon and tossed it back. “Why is that son of a bitch Fargo here?”

  “We got two stories on that,” Slade replied. “One is that he’s supposed to meet his brother, or find him, or some shit. The other is that he’s looking for a missing payroll.”

  “The payroll story could be true,” chimed in Clay. “ ’Cept none of us has heard a word about it.”

  “And the way he handles a barking iron,” Slade said, “he ain’t no goddamn trapper like he claims.”

  “Not of animals,” Philly said quietly.

  Slade’s stone-slab face showed puzzlement. “How’s that?”

  “Boys, I think all of Fargo’s stories are swamp gas. We have a herring in the pickle barrel. I think Cornelius Mumford sent him.”

  This announcement stunned the other three men.

  “Christ,” Slade said. “Mumford can afford the best.”

  Denton nodded. “And as long as Fargo’s above the earth, he’s a dagger at our throats.”

  “All the more reason,” Slade said, “to fill his belly with blue whistlers.”

  “Don’t make me puke. You jackasses couldn’t fill a straight if it was open at both ends.”

  “Don’t forget, boss, yesterday Ben came within an ace of dousing his light. But that lanky bastard has the reflexes of a rattlesnake.”

  “Reflexes?” Philly gave a contemptuous laugh. “Boys, admit it—he’s tough as a two-bit steak. He ain’t scared—he’s swaggering around like he owns the place.”

  “He’s plenty scared,” Clay cut in. “He has to be. He’s just running a bluff.”

  “If that’s true, I’d hate to play poker against him.” Philly rubbed the point of his chin, thinking. “Boys, time is not on our side. We have to profit big and move on before the mealy-mouthed psalm singers come in with all their law dogs. My first plan was to settle for the box—that would set all of us up for life.”

  “Yeah, but I ain’t so sure O’Malley has it,” Slade countered. “He was drunk as the lords of creation when he made that brag about having it. Hell, everybody around here knows the stories.”

  “It ain’t nowhere in his room, neither,” Clay interposed. “We combed the place. If he’s got it, it’s hid somewheres else.”

  Philly nodded. “I’m not sure, either, but that’s why I’m not letting him leave this valley. He believes Katy is paying all of his bills. And, Jack, I want no more torture or beatings. I’m glad Fargo stopped that whipping day before yesterday. That little lapdog is delicate—one good punch could kill him.”

  “I wasn’t gonna thrash the little pussy, boss, just toss a scare into him. But since Fargo showed up, O’Malley sticks to him like a burr.”

  “As to Fargo,” Philly said, “if you have a sliver in your finger, why cut your arm off at the elbow?”

  “Meaning what?” Slade said.

  “Meaning I don’t knuckle down to any man. We don’t have to trade lead with Fargo. We know he’s good at six-gun persuasion, so we use a more subtle method. We toss this into the hotchpot.”

  Philly reached into the pocket of his coat and produced a small brown bottle. “This is one ounce of strychnine. Even a tiny pinch of this white powder will kill almost any varmint. It’s used mostly against coyotes and gray wolves, but it will also kill a man, and it’s tasteless in his food.”

  “How do we get close enough to his food?” Clay asked.

  “We don’t, youngster. Jessica Sykes will. Orville Danford told me Fargo has left the boardinghouse, but still plans to eat there.”

  “All right,” Slade said, “but she ain’t no killer. You really think she’ll do it?”

  Philly laughed. “What choice does she have? Have you forgotten the cabin?”

  Slade nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. She’s got no choice.” “You’re sure Fargo knows nothing about that cabin?”

  “He can’t. We ambushed him at Blackfoot Canyon.”

  “Good. Make sure it stays under guard. If that box doesn’t turn up quick, we’re going for the ransom play. But first we have to point Fargo’s toes to the sky. If we pull off this deal, boys, we’re all rich men for life.”

  Once again Fargo chased off Avram and O’Malley, lingering in the crude mess room until the last boarder had finished eating and dropped his tin plate into the wreck pan. Fargo caught momentary glimpses of Lily through the serving window, busy cleaning up the kitchen after yet another meal.

  It made no sense, Fargo told himself again. Why was a woman of such obvious quality working like a mule in this remote mountain camp? He mulled what Dottie the crib girl had told him yesterday when he insisted Lily wasn’t telling the truth about Jessica Sykes: Just maybe somebody she loves will get killed if she does.

  Cornelius Mumford, San Francisco shipping magnate, had not seen his daughter in ten years, and the only portrait he had of her was even older. It bore little resemblance to Lily Snyder, but Fargo began to wonder . . . he had assumed Lily was exactly the kind of girl Jessica might befriend. But might she not be Jessica? And the “somebody she loves” could be her husband, her brother, or others traveling to California in her party.

  The kitchen door swung open and Lily hurried into the room, pretty in a blue calico dress and white bonnet. Spotting Fargo, she frowned in tight-lipped indignation. “You again? Haven’t you harassed me enough?”

  Fargo had come to his feet. “Harassed? I knew you’d be coming out for that pan, and it’s too heavy for you. I’ll carry it.”

  “Yes, it is heavy, but I carry it every day.”

  “Well, today you won’t.”

  Fargo beat her to the heavy pan and hoisted it.

  “Mr. Fargo,” she said, following him into the kitchen, “I appreciate your attentions, but—”

  “The thing of it is,” he cut her off, “quite a few people in this camp are making a heap of doin’s over some box. It’s missing. Any idea
what might be inside it?”

  “A box? I’m afraid I don’t.”

  Fargo set the sudsy pan on the counter of a wooden sink. As it did yesterday, the heavily boarded-up door in the back wall caught his attention. A feeling Fargo couldn’t shape with words tingled the back of his neck.

  “Any idea what’s behind that door?” he asked.

  “You are certainly full of strange questions today, Mr. Fargo. No, I have no idea. It was boarded shut when I started working here.”

  “Makes no sense,” Fargo said. “Nails are scarce as hen’s teeth out west, yet there’s dozens in those boards.” Fargo looked at her. “I forgot where you said you were from.”

  “Lenawee County, Michigan.”

  “Yesterday you said Monroe County.”

  Red splotches of anger leaped into her cheeks, and those wide, forget-me-not eyes flashed indignantly. “You said you didn’t remember.”

  “I lied. Anyhow, looks like you don’t remember.”

  “Well, I am from Monroe County,” she said, giving a regal tilt to her chin. “I mean, I was born there. But we moved to Lenawee County when I was just a small girl.”

  “You’re a fairly convincing liar, but you need to keep your stretchers from conflicting.”

  “You’re obviously suspicious of me, Mr. Fargo. Why?”

  “My motto is trust everybody, but always cut the cards.”

  “In other words, I’m a liar,” she reproached him.

  “Well, let’s just say you’re detouring facts. In your case it’s not lying because you’re protecting someone you love.”

  She started, and her eyes fled from his. “Assuming that were true, shouldn’t you respect my position and stop jeopardizing this ‘someone’?”

  “Jessica—”

  “Lily. Lily Snyder. It could be lethal to both of us if you’re heard speaking that other name.”

  “All right, Lily. Do you honestly believe this someone isn’t already jeopardized? And you, too?”

  “Of course. This is a den of cutthroats. But one man, even one as capable as you appear, cannot defeat Philly Denton or his money and thugs.”