Nevada Vipers' Nest Page 8

  Libby straddled him, gripping his manhood and adjusting it perfectly before she nudged the swollen purple tip past the chamois-soft portal of her cunny, both of them gasping at the explosion of galvanic pleasure.

  Instead of plunging down greedily, she teased both of them by rapidly working just his glans, stimulating her swollen pearl. Her first climax was almost instant, and Fargo did indeed feel her shiver. Unable to hold this discipline she suddenly twitched her hips and took all of him to the hilt, their pubic hairs grinding together.

  She bent forward far enough for Fargo to again lick, suck, kiss and nibble her tits while she rode him wilder and harder, unable to suppress her cries of ecstasy. Fargo barely twitched a muscle and didn’t need to—this enflamed fox, now climaxing every few seconds, worked him with her love muscles, gripping and relaxing until the Trailsman felt that familiar, indescribable tightening and tingling between his asshole and balls that signaled imminent volcanic release.

  Only now did his pleasure-overloaded body force him to move, bucking repeatedly like a mustang trying to shake the saddle off as he spent himself. Afterward, Fargo had no idea how long the two of them lay there, his mind shutting down completely in postcoital daze. Libby’s tired but happy voice broke the silence first.

  “Skye Fargo, I swear—if every man was as good as you, I’d become a whore tomorrow so I could have it all night long.”

  “Good? Me? You did everything—I just laid there.”

  “It was that fine cod inside me that inspired me. I hope you weren’t thinking about Belle Star while I was working it?”

  “Honey, I wasn’t thinking at all. But since you brought up the subject of Belle Star . . .”

  Fargo was getting desperate and he had decided to take Libby into his confidence. He told her everything about what happened at the massacre site, including his brief sighting of a beautiful woman escaping the scene.

  “That woman is the only witness to what happened,” he concluded. “If I can’t find her, and soon, I just might be looking up to see daisies.”

  “But you said the hair color is all wrong.”

  “Yeah, but you would know this—could a woman change her hair color so good that it would look as natural as hers does?”

  “Well . . . yes. There’s a few shops in town that sell very good hair dyes—some of the dance gals have done that, and you can’t tell it.”

  “How ’bout a wig?”

  “A wig might fool a man, but a woman could tell it. She’s not wearing a wig.”

  “And those blue eyes,” Fargo mused. “They do go perfect with the hair.”

  “’Case you haven’t noticed, you big galoot, your eyes are a fetching blue, too, and you’re sure no blond.”

  “There’s a point,” Fargo conceded.

  “You know, Skye, there’s always been talk around Carson City about this Clement Hightower fellow, and folks say he’s been living up in Washington Territory. Belle Star definitely has a Southern drawl in her speech.”

  “Libby, very few of the folks now in the West, besides the tribes, were born here. And a good number of them hail from the South. That means nothing.”

  “That’s true enough. I was born in Illinois, and I don’t know of one gal at the Sawdust Corner who was born west of the Missouri River.”

  “But where could she be staying?” Fargo wondered. “Ma Kunkle’s boardinghouse?”

  “Could be. That’s a big place, and Ma’s got it divided up into at least twenty rooms. I haven’t seen her there, though. It’s no use in asking Ma. Most of her boarders are women, and she’s very protective—she won’t tell you a thing, even with you being a deputy. Somehow I don’t think she’s staying there—one of the other gals would have mentioned it. And her being the prima ballerina and all, she won’t talk to any of the women at the Sawdust Corner.”

  “I s’pose there’s other places to stay in town, huh?”

  “Quite a few folks have rooms to let. If Bob Skinner knows, he won’t let on. He’s crazy in love with her, and she’s got him wrapped around her little finger. A man as ugly as him is putty in the hands of a beautiful woman.”

  “Yeah, Bob Skinner,” Fargo said. “So he’s loopy on the girl, huh? That’s interesting.”

  “You sure you’re not asking all these questions because you want to get under her petticoats?”

  “Libby, you know the deal. There’s no red-blooded man alive that can look at any pretty girl—you included—and not immediately think about what’s under her petticoats.”

  “That’s true,” she conceded. “Didn’t take me long to wonder what was under your buckskins, and if women do that, men surely do.”

  “Believe me, that’s not my main interest in Belle Star. I’m still not convinced she’s the same woman I saw running away, and I might just be barking at a knot. But I would truly appreciate anything you can find out about her. Remember, if it is the same woman, she’s scared spitless. She knows she’s the only witness to what really happened, and the scum that killed her family won’t hesitate to put the quietus on a witness.”

  “If it is her, Skye,” Libby said, “that would explain her snotty behavior and why she stays so private, the poor thing.”

  “Damn straight it would. Matter fact, she’s in more danger than I am. And Iron Mike Scully made a big deal out of asking me about a woman. That means him and his bunch of cutthroats are looking for her, too. If I don’t find and identify her before they do, she’s going to die hard. And Skye Fargo might not be far behind.”

  • • •

  At the same time that Fargo was disporting himself with Libby Snyder in Carson City, Iron Mike Scully was sharing a bottle of forty-rod at Rough and Ready with his chief lieutenants, Romer Stanton and Leroy Jackman.

  “I shoulda listened to you boys on day one,” Iron Mike said. “You both told me that Skye Fargo was death to the devil. First he busts out of here a-smokin’ and scatters our mounts to hell and back. Then he rides into an ambush and manages to pin down three men well hidden in boulders. Yesterday he beats Russ up so bad that he still can’t move from his bedroll. And then today he guns down Deadwood Dick, one of our best shots.”

  “On top of all that,” Jackman said in his hillman’s twang, “he’s got hisself made a deputy goddamn sheriff.”

  “I still say we just leave the son of a bitch alone,” Romer put in. “He ain’t got the map, so screw him.”

  Iron Mike Scully spat into the fire, loosing a string of creative curses. “’Course he ain’t got the map, you thundering asshole! We searched him and that sad sack of shit with him, di’n’t we? We went through their saddlebags, too. Unless one of them shoved it up his bunghole, they didn’t have it. The problem with Fargo ain’t that he’s got the map.”

  Iron Mike took down at least two inches of whiskey and passed the bottle to Leroy.

  “The problem, Romer, you ferret-faced idiot, is Fargo himself. Why do you think he pinned on that star? You think a newspaper hero like him is going to let the murder of Hightower and his family stand? Or that he’s just going to sit on his prat after we tried to hang him? He means to shoot us or hang us, and you can take that to the bank.”

  “You think he seen the woman?” Leroy asked.

  “Now there I’m neither up the well nor down. By the time he rode in, she had plenty of time to vamoose. I wish we knew what the bitch looks like. But she had to be with that family. In his letter saying he was coming down to help us, Hightower named everybody in his family that was coming with him. And he definitely mentioned a sister named Dora. It was pitch-dark when we jumped them, she could easy have slipped out taking that map with her.”

  “Well, she didn’t go to Virginia City,” Romer pointed out. “We’ve had two boys up there watching the only road in, and they got there way before she could’ve. And even a woman ain’t stupid enough to flee into the desert east of us.
Either she escaped toward the eastern slope of the Sierra or she’s holed up in Carson City.”

  “I just can’t see her running toward the Sierra,” Iron Mike said. “That’s mighty rough country and there ain’t nobody living on it but grizz bears and a few trappers. What prospectors are left are way the hell up near the summit. We got no choice but to assume she went to Carson City.”

  “Yeah, that shines,” Romer said. “But we got no proof she’s got a map, or even that Clement Hightower ever made one. He said he knew where the vein is, but he never claimed to have no map.”

  “We got no proof your mother doesn’t fuck Indians, either,” Scully snapped. “But do you figure she does? Boys, I was up on the Comstock when Clancy Munro showed me a clipping from an old newspaper, and it said Hightower did map out where that vein is. We tossed that wagon and every damn one of the bodies, and there was no map.”

  “There’s a map,” Leroy agreed. “And now Fargo knows we’re looking for a woman on account we asked him about her. If he’s half as smart as he seems to be, he’ll track down that skirt and them two will parley. Hell, he could be in cahoots with her now.”

  “Sure as sun in the morning,” Iron Mike agreed. “Which means he might get that map eventually. And you was stupid enough to yell out my name during the attack. If that bitch heard it, that’s all Fargo will need to settle our hash. We got to find her and get that map, but unless we point Fargo’s toes to the sky first, it won’t be of no use to us when we’re feeding worms.”

  The bottle made its way back around to Scully, who again took it down by a couple of inches. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and then loosed another string of curses.

  “You know, boys, I’m starting to regret that we didn’t go along with the original agreement ’steada killing that family. But that damn profit-sharing agreement he was gonna make us sign gave half the profits to him. I figured, hell, why not just get the map, scare these other stupid rubes outta the valley, and then us three could sell the whole kit and caboodle to one of them big, wha’d’ya call it, consortiums. But it looks like I opened a can of worms.”

  At the next campfire, voices rose in argument.

  “Hear that?” Scully said. “More of them dirt pushers fighting about whether or not to pull out. At least that part of the plan is panning out. Won’t be long now and there won’t be enough left to keep this mining operation going. Then us three will be sitting in the catbird seat.”

  Romer chuckled. “This next little show I got planned will cap the climax. Half of ’em that’s left are so scairt now they won’t go into the woods alone after dark to take a shit.”

  “You’re doing a good job on that,” Scully allowed. “But Skye Fargo ain’t the type to be scared off by haints. So we best figure out how to kill that bastard, and quick.”

  10

  Fargo and Sitch McDougall rolled out of their blankets at sunrise before Carson City came to life for the day.

  “Tack that sorrel and hop your horse,” Fargo ordered. “We’re riding out to take a squint around.”

  “A squint around where?” Sitch demanded, alarm spiking his voice. “Not back to that damn mining camp?”

  “Not quite to it, no. Those queer lights the night before, and that damned hellacious scream last night, came from the same area. I want to take a look around.”

  “But how could you possibly pinpoint them? Lights and sound bounce around all over the place.”

  “Did I use the word ‘pinpoint,’ chowderhead? I make mind maps of every area I spend time in,” Fargo explained after warming the bit so the Ovaro would take it without rebelling. “I got a good general idea where to look. If you really want to survive on the frontier like you claim, you’d best get chummy with geography. Memorize landmarks and terrain features, and try to map out things in your head like escape routes and ambush points.”

  “It all makes sense, Fargo, but how does a man learn all that?”

  “Not in college,” Fargo assured him. “You learn quick or you die quick. And even if you learn all of it, death is always as real as a man riding beside you.”

  “So why do you take the risk? A clever fellow like you could get on fine back in the States.”

  “Maybe because I don’t cotton to the idea of paying taxes on the meat I eat.”

  “I don’t either, but I just cheat the tax man.”

  “Just sew up your lips and get horsed.”

  “All right, but what about breakfast?”

  Fargo cinched the girth and inspected the latigos. “We’ll eat in town when we get back.”

  The two men rode out bearing northwest, patches of jack pine and juniper to their left, the already glaring alkali flats on their right. Desert nights were chilly in autumn, but the day had already heated up until the brittle air seemed to radiate from a giant furnace. Even this early, heat shimmers had begun to distort their view of the desert horizon. Closer to hand, Fargo watched a yellow-gray coyote slink off through a dry wash.

  “Shouldn’t we ride in the tree cover?” Sitch inquired at one point.

  “That’s usually the best idea, yeah. But right now I want to see what kind of prints I might find around here. Besides, those drunken sots at Rough and Ready roll out late with a hangover. The only thing we need to fret is red aborigines.”

  Ten minutes later they rode upon a large scattering of dung. Fargo reined in.

  “All right, Daniel Boone,” he said, “read the ground around here and tell me what you see.”

  “Well, plenty of horseshit. And I can see that the hoofprints weren’t made by shod horses.”

  “All right, but that leaves you two possibilities. It’s a herd of wild mustangs or a bunch of Indians. How do you tell which?”

  Sitch shook his head. “Flip a coin, I guess.”

  “All your coins got two heads on them,” Fargo barbed. “If all this dung was in a large pile that would mean a herd of wild mustangs because they always stop as a group to relieve themselves. These riders are Indians because they keep their mounts on the move while they crap, and you can see the droppings are scattered in a line.”

  “Say, that’s good to know.” Sitch sent a nervous glance around them. “Are these fresh prints?”

  “Nope. If you look close you’ll see how the edges have crumbled and sand has started to blow into them. You can also tell that they were running their horses—the prints will be between seven and ten feet apart, and these are at least nine. They were in a hurry to get someplace.”

  “Likely to slaughter white men. I’ve heard the Paiutes in this territory are bloodthirsty savages.”

  “Yeah,” Fargo shot back, “unlike the white curs who slaughtered those women and kids, huh?”

  “We don’t know for sure it was the red sashes who did that.”

  “Did I say which white curs? It wasn’t bronze john who filled them folks full of big-caliber rounds. Besides, the only tribes I know of that will kill kids that small are the Apaches and Comanches—most Indians take little kids into the tribe and raise them as Indians.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if you’re an Indian lover,” Sitch remarked as the two men gigged their horses into motion again.

  “Sure I am. I’ve ‘loved’ more Indians into their graves than you’re likely to ever see. But you can lay a lot of the trouble with Paiutes at the feet of these white whiskey peddlers. That Indian burner they supply them ain’t just cheap whiskey—it’s usually laced with strychnine and makes a man crazy wild, not just drunk. I took a jolt of it once and started shooting at the moon.”

  Fargo led them into the scattered tree cover now as they edged closer to the camp. They slowed their horses to a walk, and the only sound was the dusty twang of grasshoppers and the eerie singsong of cicadas.

  “We’re close now to where those lights and that scream came from,” he muttered to Sitch. “Hush down and keep a s
harp eye out.”

  Fargo rode in slow circles, narrowing the circumference with each revolution. After about twenty minutes:

  “Here’s medicine,” he announced with satisfaction, swinging down and tossing the reins forward.

  They had discovered a small clearing, about thirty feet across, packed down with the prints of iron-shod horses and men wearing boots. Whiskey bottles and cigarette butts littered the area. Most curious, to Fargo, was the deep, narrow fire pit that had been dug in the center of the clearing—far deeper than needed to merely suppress the glow of flames. Fargo beat the bushes for a few minutes.

  “Here’s your ‘otherworld’ scream,” he said. He pulled out a wooden megaphone of the type sometimes used by auctioneers and politicians giving stump speeches to large crowds.

  “That definitely explains why it was so loud and traveled so far,” Sitch said. “But the man who did the screaming had some gruesome talent.”

  “It was a variation of the Texas yell,” Fargo said.

  “The who?”

  “The Texas yell. Texans came up with it for fighting Mexican soldiers, and later the Texas Rangers had a version of it they used to unnerve Comanches and Kiowas when they were closing in on them. I didn’t place it at first, but that’s what it was.”

  “Still doesn’t explain those strange lights,” Sitch pointed out.

  “Nope. But if this scream was made by men working a scam, the lights were too. Hold on—here’s something else.”

  Fargo rummaged into a pile of dead leaves and pulled out an accordion-folded bellows of the type used by blacksmiths to stoke a fire hotter.

  “The hell?” Sitch said.

  Fargo mulled these discoveries for a minute, glancing at the fire pit. “It’s got something to do with that fire pit and whatever’s causing those floating lights.”

  “What about corpses drained white of their blood?”

  “If you pierce a man’s jugular,” Fargo said, “without killing him first, the heart will pump out enough blood before he dies to make it look like he was sucked dry of blood.”