Arizona Renegades Read online

  Poised for the kill, the jaguar paused.

  Fargo had always expected to meet a violent end. With the life he led, it was only natural to think a bullet or arrow would bring him low. Or maybe a grizzly would take him unawares. Or he would be caught in a buffalo stampede with nowhere to take shelter. But he had never thought one of the big cats would be responsible. Certainly not a jaguar.

  A person could never predict how their life would turn out. Fate was too fond of springing surprises.

  Then, unaccountably, the jaguar jerked and snapped its head around. It uttered a coughing roar.

  Fargo couldn’t understand why until he saw a rock strike it on the side.

  “Get away from him! Scat, damn you!” Gwendolyn Pearson had a stone in each hand and was barreling toward the riled carnivore as if it were a house pet that needed to be disciplined. “Go! Leave us be!”

  “Run!” Fargo shouted, but she paid him no mind. The cat had momentarily forgotten about him and glared at her, its lips curled, its tail twitching. Fargo still couldn’t reach the Colt, but out of the corner of an eye he spied a large rock. As the jaguar turned back to him, he smashed the rock against the side of its head with all his strength. At the same moment, Gwen threw a stone that thudded against its ribs.

  The jaguar leaped straight up into the air, a good five feet. It wasn’t seriously hurt but the pain had rattled it. By twisting its entire body, the jaguar was able to land so that it faced both of them.

  Gwen had picked up another rock. “Go eat something else!”

  Fargo saw the cat crouch to spring. It was so close, he could reach out and touch it. He started to go for his pistol but realized that even if he put two or three slugs into it as it charged, there was no guarantee he could stop it from reaching her. So, as the jaguar’s rear legs uncoiled, Fargo did the only thing he could think of to save Gwen—he seized its tail.

  The incensed jaguar spun, a front paw flashing, but it couldn’t quite reach Fargo’s hand. It lunged, just as another stone pelted it on the head. In baffled outrage the predator glanced from Fargo to Gwen and back again. It was confused. Prey rarely gave the big cats such a hard time.

  “Don’t come any closer!” Fargo yelled while making a bid for the revolver with his left hand.

  Another stone hit the jaguar, on the tip of the nose this time. Frenzied, it dug its claws into the ground and tore loose from Fargo. The next moment, in a fluid spurt of speed, it bounded off toward a cluster of boulders, moving so fast it was out of sight before Fargo could snap off a shot.

  “We did it!” Gwen exclaimed. “We drove it off!”

  Fargo stood and dashed to the Henry. They owed their lives to a fluke of feline behavior, nothing more, and he wouldn’t put it past the cat to come after them again once it had calmed down. “We’re getting out of here,” he announced.

  The Ovaro was still by the oak. Fargo took Gwen by the hand and hastened lower. “Were you trying to get yourself killed?” he demanded. “Chucking stones at a cat that size?”

  Gwen could be sarcastic when she wanted. “I’m sorry. I guess I should have let it rip you to shreds. Oh. And you’re welcome for saving your hide.”

  Fargo stopped. There was no denying he owed her his life. If she’d done as he told her, the jaguar would be feasting on his flesh right that minute. “It’s not that I’m not grateful,” he clarified. “I’d just hate to have anything happen to you.”

  “Aren’t you the sweet one,” Gwen playfully teased. Rising on her toes, she kissed him on the chin, close to his mouth. “I’ll take that as an apology.”

  Grinning, Fargo steered her to the stallion. It stared at the clustered boulders, ears erect. Wishing he could hear what it did, Fargo mounted, then lowered his arm for Gwen to hang on to so he could pull her up. “Are all Missouri girls as brave as you?”

  “I can’t speak for all of them,” Gwen said while straddling the pinto’s broad back, “but my folks taught me never to take any guff off anyone or anything. My pa may have been a dirt-poor farmer but he had more gumption than most ten men. And my ma was always at his elbow, through thick and thin.” She placed her hands on Fargo’s hips. “I miss them both, terribly. The Good Lord called them to their reward much too soon.”

  “They’ve both passed on?”

  “Pa died about a year ago. An accident. He was clearing trees for new acreage to plow, and one of the trees fell on him. Broke his neck.” Gwen coughed. “As for my ma, she just wasted away after pa died. She wouldn’t take a bite, wouldn’t hardly ever drink, wouldn’t do anything but lie there with tears in her eyes. Without him, she said, life wasn’t worth living anymore.”

  “You couldn’t force her to eat?”

  Gwen’s tone became bitter. “Ever try to force-feed someone? It ain’t easy. My sisters and brothers and I tried, but we couldn’t get much down her. Believe me, Skye. When a person makes up their mind to die, there ain’t a whole lot you can do except watch them slowly fade away.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The farm girl shrugged. “That’s the way the hog bladder bounces. I lost my grandparents when I was seven and always thought it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Then my folks up and died. Makes you wonder. Why does the Good Lord let us suffer like that?”

  “I’m no parson, Gwen.”

  She fell silent, and Fargo rode on under the blazing sun. Ranging wide of a steep-walled ravine, he came upon a broad canyon. Specks circling high in the sky drew his interest, especially when they circled lower and lower and finally merged with the ground ahead.

  “Are those what I think they are?” Gwen asked.

  “Buzzards,” Fargo confirmed.

  “Haven’t seen any in a long while. There used to be a lot in the woods around our farm, but my brothers used them for target practice.”

  Eleven of the ungainly carrion eaters had gathered and were tearing at something that lay in dry brush. Fargo slanted to the right. He took it for granted they had found an old cougar kill, or maybe one of the jaguar’s. A gust of wind proved him wrong. Loose papers fluttered across the ground, causing the stallion to shy as if at a sidewinder.

  “What the dickens?” Gwen said. “Where’d they come from?”

  Fargo reined up and swung off. He snagged one of the papers on the fly. At the top of the sheet, in big, bold, fancy letters, were the words “New York Stock Exchange.” Below the heading were lists, a lot of names and numbers in separate columns, which he couldn’t make any sense of.

  “What is it?”

  Fargo handed the paper to her and retrieved another. This one was a letter from the law firm of Klempner, John-son, and Foster. It was addressed to a Brandon J. Leonard in San Francisco and had to do with money Leonard had invested.

  “The New York Stock Exchange?” Gwen said. “Say, didn’t that grump, Elias Hackman, say he worked there, or some such? That he’s a stockbroker, whatever that is?”

  Fargo nodded. He’d met a man in Hackman’s line of work once. The broker had been as talkative as a drummer, going on and on about how much money there was to be made in stocks and securities. Fargo hadn’t paid much attention. He had as much interest in stock and bonds as he had in chemistry.

  Another paper rustled by. Fargo was bending to snatch it when he saw the black valise a dozen yards away, on its side. Gwen must have spotted it at the same instant.

  “Look! Isn’t that Mr. Hackman’s?”

  She hopped down. Together they walked over, gathering papers as they went. The valise was wide open, nearly empty, the contents scattered close by. Most had to do with stocks and quotes and other financial information as foreign to Fargo as a foreign language. He shoved everything inside, closed the black bag, and rose. The buzzards were engrossed in their grisly feast. “Hold this,” he said, shoving the valise at Gwen.

  “My word! You don’t think—?”

  It was hard to say. So many vultures had converged, Fargo couldn’t see what they were eating. He slowly approached them, wavin
g his arms and hollering to scare them off. A few took wing immediately. Some hissed and flapped before relinquishing their prize. The last couple merely walked off a few yards and tilted their bald heads to keep an eye on him.

  Fargo’s stomach roiled. “You shouldn’t look,” he called out.

  Elias Hackman had been dead at least twelve hours. His clothes had been ripped to tatters, his body well on its way to being the same. Something, a coyote possibly, had gotten to it before the buzzards and gnawed his throat to ribbons. Hackman’s eyes were gone, a delicacy by scavenger standards. So were his lips, most of his nose, and one ear. Fingers were missing. His stomach had been bit open and coils of intestine yanked out.

  “What are you doing?” Gwen asked. “How can you stand to be that close? I’m about to be sick!”

  Fargo had seen worse. One time he came upon an entire village of Mandans laid low by smallpox. Men, women, and children lay in droves, rotting where they had fallen. Like most Indians, the Mandans had no immunity to diseases brought in by whites. The tribe had practically been wiped out.

  Now, although bile rose in his throat, Fargo squatted to examine the corpse. The scavengers had done so much damage, determining the cause of death would be a challenge. Or so he thought until he noticed a small, neat hole in Hackman’s chest. Picking up a stick, Fargo scraped aside what was left of the stockbroker’s jacket and shirt. The hole told him a lot. His face clouded and he threw the stick at the two nearby buzzards. One lifted slowly into the sky but the other was unruffled.

  “What are you doing, Skye?” Gwen repeated.

  Girding himself, Fargo went through the New Yorker’s pockets. There was a wallet, a couple of keys, a few coins. And a pocket watch. Not as fine a watch as William Frazier III owned, but fine enough that no self-respecting Apache would pass it up. Apaches delighted in geegaws, in showy trinkets they could take back to their women. Backing off, Fargo rotated.

  “What do you have there?”

  Fargo showed Gwen the items, then put the watch and the coins in the valise. He checked the wallet before dropping it in. It contained papers Hackman had judged important, including a letter of introduction to Brandon J. Leonard from Stanley Klempner. There was a miniature of a rather plain woman in a pretty bonnet, maybe Hackman’s wife, maybe a relative. No money, though, which Fargo found odd.

  “Poor man,” Gwen commented. “I didn’t think much of him, but I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.” She motioned at the body. Buzzards were alighting to resume their interrupted meal. “Being butchered by Apaches is an awful way to die.”

  Fargo didn’t tell her about the hole he had discovered. When they were back in the saddle, he rode to where the valise had been lying. Hackman’s prints were plain enough. Fargo backtracked, reading them as easily as most men would read a book. Elias Hackman had staggered into the canyon from the other end, heel marks showing where his feet had dragged and he had lurched from side to side. Evidently, he had been shot elsewhere. How the man had lasted so long, Fargo didn’t know.

  Two other sets of footprints muddied the mystery. One set had been made by a man wearing shoes, the other by someone wearing high-heeled boots. The kind favored by cow-punchers.

  “Beats me what you’re looking at,” Gwen commented. “All I see are scratches and scrapes.”

  “Tracking is like everything else. It takes practice.”

  “What have you found? Do you think the Apaches got Burt and Mr. Frazier, too?”

  “Not that I can tell.”

  “Then where the blue blazes did they get to?”

  At the canyon’s entrance the two sets of tracks went in different directions. The cowboy had gone to the southeast, the other footprints bore to the southwest.

  “Which way now?” Gwen inquired.

  Fargo had another decision to make. William Frazier III was heading toward the gorge, and trouble. Burt Raidler was making for the San Simon. Fargo was inclined to go after the former but he had Gwen to think of. Clucking to the pinto, he reined to the southeast.

  “Lordy, I am tired,” the farm girl said. She leaned against him, her arms sliding around his waist, her cheek on a shoulder blade. “I don’t think I can keep my eyes open another five minutes.”

  “Doze if you want to. I won’t let you fall.”

  “Thank you, kind sir.” Gwen giggled. “My ma would have a fit if she were still alive and saw me acting so shameless. Where we come from, when a gal and a man ride double, it means they’ve taken a shine to each other.”

  “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”

  Gwen didn’t say anything. Presently, when Fargo glanced over his shoulder, she was sound asleep. For the next hour he was careful to avoid jostling her more than necessary by fighting shy of steep slopes and talus. Their winding course brought them within half a mile of the road, by his reckoning, when he entered an arroyo. The peal of the stallion’s horseshoes on stone was like the ring of a hammer on nails.

  Fargo rounded a bend. Gwen’s left arm started to slip so he gently grasped her wrist. When he looked up, light gleamed on a spine of earth fifty yards further. It might be the glint of sunlight off quartz. Or off metal. When the light moved so did Fargo. Grasping Gwen tightly, he dived head-first from the saddle—just as a rifle boomed. He tried to shift and grab her to cushion the fall but the drop was too short.

  The jolt of hitting the ground awakened her. Crying out, Gwen sat bolt upright, only to be pushed flat by Fargo.

  “Stay down or you’ll get your pretty head shot off!”

  As if to stress his point, two more shots blistered the arroyo, each kicking up dirt within a few feet of where they lay. Thanks to some yuccas, the rifleman couldn’t see them clearly. Nor could Fargo see the rifleman.

  “Who is it? Apaches?” Gwen asked.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Who else could it be?”

  That, Fargo aimed to find out. Flourishing the Colt, he gave it to her. “In case our friend out there gets past me.” Like an oversized lizard he crawled to the left. “I’ll give a yell when it’s safe.” Another shot cracked, the slug kicking up dust a foot from his head.

  Fargo pulled his hat low and crawled in among slabs of stone almost as tall as he was. A toad hopped out of his path. Ants half the size of his thumb marched by. Past the slabs grew a belt of thorny brush and he worked his way deep into it. Every now and then a barb would poke or gouge him.

  Wisps of gunsmoke pegged the position of the shooter. Fargo slid from the brush to the base of an embankment. He was rising when the rattle of a pebble warned him the rifleman had moved. Snaking to the top, he slunk up over the rim and lay flat. He was in the open now, exposed for anyone to see. But as Fargo had suspected, no shots shattered the dry air. He glued his eyes on the end of the embankment, waiting with the patience of the jaguar that had stalked Gwen Pearson.

  Into sight crept Burt Raidler. The Spencer was wedged to his shoulder and the hammer was all the way back. He looked right, he looked left, he looked straight ahead, but he didn’t think to look up. Sliding one boot forward at a time, he concentrated on the brush. His drawn features betrayed fatigue, and dust covered him like a second skin.

  Fargo shifted so he faced the edge, then rose onto the balls of his feet. He let Raidler get directly under him, and leaped. Too late, he realized the sun was at his back. A simple mistake, but one that could cost his life.

  Raidler saw Fargo’s shadow and spun, elevating the Spencer. For an instant the Texan appeared shocked. The Spencer went off almost in Fargo’s ear as he slammed into the cowboy, spilling them both into the dirt. Burt Raidler was last to rise and paid for it with a clout to the skull that dropped him like a poled ox.

  Fargo took the cowboy’s rifle and six-gun. He searched each of Raidler’s pockets but didn’t find what he was looking for. Backing off, he called Gwen’s name. She came on the run, her shock when she saw who it was as great as Raidler’s had been on seeing Fargo.

  “Why, it’s Burt!
What in the world is going on? Why did he shoot at us?”

  “Ask him when he comes around.”

  A groan hinted that wouldn’t be long. The cowboy sluggishly sat up, holding his head in his hands, and complained, “Damn, Fargo. I feel like I’ve been stomped by a mule. You had no call to wallop me like that.”

  Gwen spoke before Fargo could. “You have no room to talk. Why did you try to kill us?”

  Raidler peered up from under his hat brim. “Are you loco, girl? If I’d known it was you, do you think I’d have taken those potshots? The sun was in my eyes. I mistook you for Apaches, is all.”

  Fargo glanced at the sun, noting its position in relation to where the Texan had been when he fired. It was possible Raidler was telling the truth. It was also possible Raidler had gotten rid of the gun that killed Elias Hackman or hid it with whatever had been stolen, and planned to go back for it later, after Chipota’s band drifted elsewhere.

  The cowboy jabbed a finger at him. “The sun wasn’t in your eyes, hombre. So what’s your excuse?”

  Fargo watched Raidler closely, gauging his reaction when he said, “Elias Hackman is dead.”

  “I know. Those mangy Apaches! He was as mean as a stuck snake, and I’ll admit I didn’t care too hard if they made worm food of him. But he had a right to go on breathin’, same as the rest of us.”

  “The Apaches didn’t kill him,” Fargo said.

  “What?”

  “How’s that?” Gwen Pearson echoed. “If they didn’t do it, who did? That jaguar we tussled with?”

  Raidler looked all around. “There’s a jaguar in these parts? Where? Those sneaky critters make me as nervous as a long-tailed dog in a room full of rockin’ chairs.”

  Fargo continued to study the cowhand. “It wasn’t the jaguar, either. Hackman was killed by a white man. By someone from the stage.”

  Both were stunned. They started talking at the same time. Then they stopped, and Gwen motioned for Raidler to speak but he shook his head and said, “After you, ma’am. I’ve got the feelin’ I don’t know half of what’s going on and I’d sure like to learn.”