South Pass Snakepit Read online

  “Cornelius Mumford has faith in me.”

  Lily clasped her hands until the knuckles turned white. “Cornelius Mumford isn’t here or he might change his mind. Now if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Fargo, I must get back to work.”

  The afternoon of his third day at South Pass found Fargo resuming what he did best—scouting.

  For now, however, he was avoiding that long, winding trail that led to the boulder-filled canyon. Obviously it led to something—or someone—Philly Denton didn’t want him to find. Fargo planned to find another route, perhaps by circling around and coming in from the west. Today, however, he was sticking to the numerous, narrow paths throughout the hills surrounding the camp.

  He kept a weather eye out for Denton’s graveyard rats. But Fargo suspected the gambler had more paid killers than just the three left in camp, especially if more of the Sykes party were being held somewhere.

  “So Lily Snyder is Jessica Sykes,” Fargo remarked to the Ovaro, who twitched his ears. “That poor gal must really be up against it. Say . . . look-a-here.”

  Fargo had spotted a set of old wagon ruts, almost too wide for the path. They definitely shouldn’t have been there. The path led nowhere but straight uphill, and in another hundred yards or so the slope became too steep for any team of horses or oxen.

  Fargo followed the ruts until they suddenly veered right at a little clearing in the dense pines. A charred circle, almost grown over, caught Fargo’s eye. He lit down and threw the reins forward, beginning to search the area.

  His first find was several iron tires, all scorched, and a rusted grease pail of the type that always hung from an axle of a prairie schooner. Then, probing behind a half-decayed log, Fargo pulled back in shock when he found a human skeleton with two holes in the skull—revealing both bullets lying in the hollow skull cavity. Three more skeletons, including two children, lay just beyond it.

  The fall chill in the air abruptly felt like dead of winter as a shiver moved through Fargo. These new pieces fit well into the puzzle. Denton’s men waited, in migration season, for bone-shakers to come down into the valley for resupply or repairs. They forced some of them to drive to remote spots like this and killed off the families. They stole their money and valuables and took the canvas and planks off the wagons, burning the axles, wheels, and other parts they didn’t want.

  Fargo forced himself to look at those skeletons, to always remember. Many called them fools for facing the hardships and dangers of the overland journey, but Fargo shared many of their motivations. In the land-settled East from which they came, there was too much social unrest, too damn much taxation and “lawing.” Some places even banned laughing on Sunday.

  But very few of those starry-eyed pilgrims spent any time in map rooms or reading reliable guides to the West. Nor did they truly understand the depths of criminal depravity out here—as those four skeletons suggested.

  “C’mon, old warhorse,” Fargo said to his pinto in a weary tone, stepping up and over. “This old world will never grow honest.”

  Fargo fixed this spot in his mental map and continued up the path, planning to follow a ridge over to the next path. He urged his mount up a steep slope, whacking him in the rear with his hat. Suddenly the Ovaro fought the bit, and Fargo pulled the pinto to his haunches, listening.

  Danger left a special texture in the air and, like his horse, Fargo felt it now. His worst fears were confirmed when, moments later, a deep, woofing grunt sounded from the ridge just above him.

  A grizz, Fargo thought, his blood running cold. One so close Fargo could see the brush rattling. And a stiff wind from the south had kept the Ovaro from smelling it.

  The shaggy yellow monster broke into the clear just above them, five-inch fangs bared. It was dish-faced, high in the shoulders, and filled with territorial rage. Fargo knew grizzlies grew so damn big it took them sixteen or seventeen years to get their full growth, which this one obviously had—at least twelve feet.

  The problem now was the terrified Ovaro. Horses hated and feared bears, and for the moment Fargo couldn’t flee while the panicked stallion was rearing and bucking, threatening to dump the Trailsman right in that enraged killer’s path.

  “Steady on!” Fargo shouted with stretched nerves, slapping the Ovaro’s neck and trying to wheel him around. “Steady on, old paint!”

  Fargo, trying to control his horse, couldn’t pull his Henry from the boot, nor would it matter if he did. A Sharps rifle fired a bullet with a 700- grain powder load, and even that wouldn’t drop a grizz unless you hit it in the eye and got to the brain. Fargo’s Henry shells would do nothing but enrage it further.

  Woofing and roaring, the huge bear crashed down the slope toward them, its face a mask of murderous rage. Desperate now, with his horse finally turned around but too brain-addled to run, Fargo bent forward in the saddle and bit the Ovaro’s right ear hard.

  The trick worked, replacing the Ovaro’s fear with anger. The fleet stallion bolted down the path at a two-twenty clip, rapidly outdistancing the grizzly.

  Back on the valley floor, Fargo reined his mount in. “I hope I never have to eat you,” he told his mount fondly. “You don’t taste so good.”

  Knowing grizzly bears ranged a wide territory, Fargo chose the paths on the south side of the valley. He discovered no more human skeletons, but two more places where wagons had been stripped and burned.

  By the time Fargo reached the livery, his new home, an ivory moon seemed to balance on the surrounding mountain peaks. He rode around the barn and corral twice to make sure no one lurked in the shadows.

  Gun in hand, Fargo pushed until one of the big doors yawned inward. Jake had left a bug-swirled lantern burning for him on the anvil. A claybank in the nearest stall was asleep on three legs. Fargo leathered his Colt.

  “We’re gonna share a stall tonight, boy,” Fargo told his horse. “But it might not stay this peaceful.”

  9

  However, Fargo and the Ovaro did pass a peaceful night albeit a noisy one. Jack Slade’s howling curs kept waking Fargo up, and by the time dawn glowed pink in the sky he was ready to cross the street and shoot every one of the flea- bitten mongrels.

  “You look like somebody kicked your horse,” Avram remarked at breakfast. “Why the somber face?”

  Fargo described what he found along the paths yesterday, curious to see Avram’s reaction.

  “It’s terrible,” Avram agreed, “and I’ve heard rumors. But what can anybody do about it? It could have been Philly’s bunch, but they can’t be the first white killers in this valley.”

  “And there’s no constabulary,” O’Malley said.

  As if to underscore his point, gunshots rang out.

  “The oyster-can killer is at it again.” Fargo remarked, shoveling fried potatoes into his mouth.

  “He’s killed more than cans,” Avram said.

  “Murdered, you mean.”

  “In these environs,” O’Malley said, sipping from his flask, “the difference is negligible.”

  “Yeah, and you two sure do take it in stride.”

  “I have no interest in crusading, Fargo,” Avram admitted. “I’m not a coward—just a man who never takes risks.”

  “If that’s straight-arrow, then you belong east of the Big Muddy. It’s all risk out here. By the way, I never called either one of you cowards.”

  “Zouks!” O’Malley said. “Praise from Caesar.”

  Avram leaned closer to Fargo. “I may not crusade, but I like gossip. Here’s a little tidbit for you. Yesterday afternoon Orville Danford met with Philly in the private room behind the bar. That’s Philly’s inner sanctum—men don’t go back there to discuss the causes of the weather.”

  Fargo nodded. “Makes sense that Philly would want reports on the only boardinghouse in town. Also explains how his killers knew which shakedown was mine.”

  “Yeah,” Avram said. “It helps him ride herd on Lily, too.”

  Fargo watched him from unblinking eyes. “And just why, do y
ou think, is he riding herd on her?”

  “Surely you jest?” O’Malley cut in. “Fargo, you’ve seen the woman. She’s a beauty.”

  “Speaking of beauties,” Avram said, “Katy asked me about you yesterday.”

  “Asked you what?”

  “Somehow she’s got wind you’re talking to Lily.”

  Fargo snorted. “Somehow, huh? This from a man who brags he likes gossip.”

  Avram’s handsome face looked sheepish. “Anyhow, she doesn’t like it.”

  “Katy is not a one- man woman,” O’Malley said. “But when she is enjoying a man’s . . . attention, she doesn’t like competition.”

  “What this drunken sot means to say,” Avram resumed,

  “is that Katy wants your one-eyed-wonder worm all to herself.”

  “Both of you sew up your lips,” Fargo warned. “It’s none of your beeswax.” To change the subject, he added: “Any more talk of the Sioux around here?”

  “Somebody saw them in the pass, heading east,” Avram replied. “Looks like they’re gone for now. I hear they’re no boys to mess with.”

  “You hear right,” Fargo said, even as Clay Munro fired another string of shots. “That goes for their battle cousins, the Cheyennes. But the roughest tribes I’ve come across are the Kiowas and Comanches. They’ll spend three days torturing a woman or child, and the whole camp turns out like it’s a holiday.”

  O’Malley waved a dismissive hand. “It’s pure myth that all the ‘wild’ Indians are out west. My research shows that the Algonquin word ‘Mohawk’ means ‘man eaters.’ Daniel Boone, you know, once remarked on a curious lack of bodies after a Mohawk victory.”

  “Blast it out your bunghole, windbag,” Avram scoffed. “Fargo, do you know this ‘professor’ actually told me that a Plains Indian warrior is too scared to walk up a staircase?”

  Fargo finished his coffee. “The old windbag is right. Most don’t know how. They’d rather be scalped. But never mind all that. Professor, I’ve noticed you’re not drinking wagon- yard whiskey lately—that’s the same bourbon Philly keeps as his private stock.”

  O’Malley wiped his hand across his lips, saying nothing.

  “I’m asking you again to tell me how you’re supporting yourself,” Fargo said in a tone of finality. “If you don’t tell me, I’m going to assume you’re on Philly Denton’s payroll. And you know what that means.”

  “Fargo,” he replied, “I’d already decided to tell you this, but only in the strictest confidence.”

  “All right, give.”

  “Denton has nothing to do with my support. It’s Katy.”

  “Katy? What the hell for?”

  “Yes, Katy. She supports me out of her faro earnings. You see, Fargo, she likes me. Oh, not in the same carnal fashion that she likes you. But she told me that I bring erudition and culture to this hole, and that she wants to support my book. She is a patron of the arts, you see.”

  Fargo could tell, from O’Malley’s prideful tone, that he believed this hogwash. “So she’s banging the drums hard on your behalf, huh? Local ladies’ aid society?”

  “He’s not lying about Katy giving him money,” Avram assured Fargo. “I’ve seen her do it. But the ‘patron of the arts’ business is horseshit.”

  “Professor,” Fargo said, “this wouldn’t have anything to do with that box Slade mentioned, would it?”

  “I knew you’d mock me. Scholars and artists are doomed to become martyrs in a base and violent land.”

  “Tell me this,” Fargo said. “Are you free to leave anytime you want to?”

  “Of course. I simply don’t want to.”

  “You really want to be snow-locked here for another winter? It gets so deep around here that the rabbits suffocate in their burrows. There’s no getting out then.”

  “No offense, Fargo,” Avram put in, “but you’re the one with the best reason to leave. No one’s trying to kill O’Malley.”

  Again Fargo studied Avram until the latter averted his face. “You never miss a chance to suggest I skedaddle, do you?”

  “I admire you and don’t want to see you killed.”

  “Well, even if that’s true, you don’t admire Professor O’Malley. All you do is insult and bully him. Yet, you two are joined at the hip. Why would a man spend so much time with somebody he can’t abide?”

  “That’s . . . I . . .”

  Fargo laughed. “You shameless grifter. You want that box, too. And just like Denton, you figure the professor has it.”

  “Fargo, that’s a stretch—”

  “No, it ain’t. I think both of you gents are trying to run a flimflam on me.”

  “What kind of flimflam?” O’Malley asked.

  “That’s one nut I haven’t cracked yet. But I will.”

  Fargo didn’t wait for a denial, gathering up his plate, cup, and rifle and standing up. They were among the last boarders to leave. Fargo glimpsed Lily—Jessica, he corrected himself—through the serving window, watching him. She turned away immediately.

  “I told you no man gets under her petticoats,” Avram said.

  Fargo ignored him, dropping his plate, spoon, and cup into the wreck pan. “Well, boys,” he said. “It’s still early for a bracer, but how ’bout I stand you to a drink at the Buffalo Palace?”

  “But surely to God you can’t be serious?” O’Malley said. “Don’t you know the danger that awaits you there?”

  Fargo grinned. “Yeah, I do. Ain’t it grand?”

  The moment Fargo and his companions reached the camp street, the jangle of a harness and the sound of iron- rimmed tires grinding on stony soil caught the Trailsman’s attention. A creak-wheeled freight wagon lumbered toward them from the far end of the street, pulled by four huge dray horses.

  “First teamster I’ve seen since I got here,” Fargo remarked. “He must’ve played hell getting down from the pass.”

  “Seems like using pack animals instead of wagons could save time,” Avram remarked.

  “True,” Fargo said, “but it could also kill the pack animals. The air gets mighty thin up in the Wind River Range.”

  The freighter wore a buffalo coat and buckskin gloves, a Greener 12-gauge balanced across his thighs. When he rattled closer, Fargo saw the freighter was an old man, his eyes sunken deep behind his cheekbones. The wagon slowed in front of the camp’s only dry goods store, and the driver kicked the brake on. Fargo watched him unhook the tug chains from the single-trees, then unbuckle the harness.

  By now the trio was abreast of the Palace.

  “At least Clay is done practicing pop shots from the hip,” O’Malley said. “One day he shot my hat off.”

  “That plug hat is pretty hard to miss,” Fargo said. “I wonder where oyster boy is right now.”

  “He’ll be inside matching shots of liquor with Angel Hanchon and Jack Slade,” Avram replied. “Every morning they come in and wait for Philly to arrive and give them their marching orders. Katy doesn’t come in until the afternoon.”

  Fargo slapped open the batwings. Business was still light, and Dakota wandered around behind the bar, swatting at flies with a quirt. As Avram predicted, Philly Denton’s lickspittles were there, occupying their usual back table against the wall. They watched Fargo from lidded, hateful eyes.

  “Well, there they are!” Fargo called out in a jovial voice. “Lined up like the three blind mice. I wonder which one can bury his nose farthest up Philly’s ass.”

  There was a thump when Clay Munro’s tilted chair came crashing forward. “Hell, you say?”

  “What’s got you all lathered up, junior?” Fargo taunted. “Somebody steal your gumdrops?”

  “This gazabo’s got a lot of mouth on him,” Slade told his companions. “Don’t take the bait, kid. He’ll get his.”

  “Oh, the death hug’s a-comin’, all right,” Fargo promised. “Get straight with your Maker, boys.”

  “Jesus God Almighty, Fargo,” Avram complained as he followed the Trailsman to the bar. “Has
your brain come unhinged?”

  “What’s the percentage in being a mealymouth? Almost every swinging dick in this camp is crooked as cat shit. Why keep it secret?”

  Dakota ambled over, still grinning at Fargo’s splashy entrance. “Attaway, Fargo. Name your poison.”

  “Dakota, it is poison around here. But bring me a bottle and three glasses.”

  Fargo flipped two silver dollars onto the bar and stood where he could see the entire room in the mirror. He was mindful that the three jackals in back were not Philly’s only hired guns.

  “Boys,” he advised, “stand clear a bit. If Clay unlimbers on me, I don’t want you hit.”

  “You know,” Avram remarked, “Slade seemed awful smug when he told Clay to back off, you were going to get yours. Was that just the usual bravado, or do they have a game afoot?”

  Fargo nodded. “Yeah, I noticed that. There’s stink brewing, all right, but I don’t recognize the whiff yet.”

  Fargo poured the shots and, grimacing, got his down with heroic effort. “Damnation! You need to put your fist through a wall to get this shit down.”

  Avram started to fill Fargo’s shot glass again, but Fargo covered it with his hand.

  “Don’t you ever cut the wolf loose a little?” Avram demanded.

  “Not when I’m surrounded by two-gun killers looking to plant me.”

  Fargo watched Clay shake off Slade’s restraining hand and stand up.

  “Trouble,” O’Malley warned. “Looks like Clay is on the scrap.”

  Fargo turned sideways. “That son of trouble is always on the scrap.”

  Clay, obviously liquored up, walked unsteadily toward the bar. He wore sharp-roweled spurs of Spanish silver that chinged loudly when he walked. His licorice black hair was greased down flat. He stopped about fifteen feet from Fargo and stood poker rigid.

  “You got a beef with me, junior?” Fargo asked, baiting him with a toothy smile.

  “Clear outta here, Fargo. I don’t like your goddamn face.”