South Pass Snakepit Read online

“Glad to hear that because it’s not for sale.”

  “I said clear out, you meddling son of a bitch.”

  Fargo laughed. “So you’re wild and woolly and hard to curry, huh? Junior, you’re all gurgle and no guts. That’s what comes of shooting oyster cans and Mormon women and children.”

  Clay flinched visibly, his fists clenching and unclenching.

  “S’matter?” Fargo goaded him. “Did I step on a corn?”

  “Jerk it back if you’re game!”

  “Oh, I’m your boy. But I never pull first, junior, unless a man threatens me. Then I just shoot him like a snake. Go ahead—say you’re going to kill me.”

  Clay stood there, enraged and fueled by Dutch courage, yet too intimidated to make a play.

  “Well, then,” Fargo said, “just pretend I’m an oyster can, junior. Pop! Right from the hip. C’mon, shit or go blind.”

  A look of resolve finally tightened the kid’s face, and Fargo went into his crouch.

  “Clay!” snapped an authoritative voice from the doorway. “Go back and sit your ass down.”

  “I mean to kill this worthless, shit- heel drifter, Mr. Denton. I’ve had my belly full of him.”

  “Worthless? Son, a man is not a failure just because he drifts through the American West. Some are just fiddle-footed and given to wanderlust. That’s how Jim Bridger found South Pass.”

  Denton strolled farther into the saloon. His unbuttoned coat revealed an ornate brocaded vest and his trademark diamond belt buckle—but no weapon that Fargo could see.

  “I don’t care if he’s Benjamin goddamn Franklin,” Clay retorted. “I’m gonna send him to the farther side of Jordan.”

  Denton’s voice hardened. “He’ll burn you down where you stand, Clay. And if it’s a gut shot, you’ll be hours dying—screaming the whole time. Those are the hard-cash facts, my friend.”

  Fargo, calm but alert, waited perhaps twenty seconds. Abruptly, Clay spun on his heel and stalked out of the saloon.

  “He’ll sulk,” Philly told Fargo. “Then he’ll be all right.”

  Philly smacked his left hand with a folded newspaper. “Freighter just pulled in and I got some back newspapers. According to Horace Greeley’s New York Herald, Fargo, they’re rioting for a ten-hour workday back east. Ten hours! Men who work for me rarely put in more than a few hours of actual work a day—for much higher pay than these factory rats get.”

  Fargo ignored this. “There’s a rumor going around that settlers along the Oregon Trail tend to disappear around here.”

  Denton gave him an unguent smile. “The wise wave it aside.”

  “That would be easier to do if there weren’t so many skeletons underfoot.”

  Philly made a negligent gesture. “Warpath Indians.”

  “The Northern tribes don’t kill children. They adopt them into the tribe.”

  “Look, as long as we’re on the subject of rumors,” Denton said, “there’s a nasty one floating around about you and Katy.”

  Fargo kept a straight face. “The wise wave it aside.”

  Denton’s smile looked a bit strained. “Just a word of caution, Fargo. There’s been talk, and maybe that’s all it is. I’m a generous man, but I won’t let any son of a bitch eat off my plate.”

  “That’s all right if you’re talking about a wife. Otherwise, it’s always the lady’s choice. If I’m invited to dinner, I eat.”

  The smile was gone now. “Fargo, I showed you every consideration. And now you stand there and piss in my boots?”

  “I wouldn’t waste good piss that way, Denton.”

  “Mister, looks like you’re trying to kick the dirt out from under your own feet. I gave you a chance; now you can reap the whirlwind.”

  10

  Denton went into his private room behind the bar, and Jack Slade and Angel Hanchon joined him. Avram whistled.

  “Damn, Fargo! ‘If I’m invited to dinner, I eat.’ You’ve got a bear by the tail now.”

  “Don’t you know that discretion is the better part of valor?” O’Malley chimed in.

  “I’m discreet when it pays to be,” Fargo said. “Other times, I take the bull by the horns. You boys will have to carouse without me—I’m riding some more paths today.”

  In fact, however, Fargo had a few questions to ask first, and there was nothing discreet about where he was going to ask them.

  As he left the Palace, Fargo kept a weather eye out for Clay Munro, but the young hard case was nowhere to be seen. Fargo slipped behind the saloon and climbed the ridge atop which sat Philly Denton’s house. He went around back and knuckled the door.

  Katy answered, her rosebud mouth pursing in surprise. “Fargo! Quick, get inside before you’re spotted.”

  She wore only a green silk wrapper, her strawberry blond hair cascading in glossy waves over her shoulders. Those smoky eyes traveled his length as she shut the door and pulled in the latchstring.

  “So . . . you’ve been thinking about it and wanted more?” she teased him.

  “Hell, what red- blooded man wouldn’t? You’re a beauty, Katy. But Philly could be here any minute—he just now warned me to stay away from you. I figured you should know he’s in a stew over talk he’s heard.”

  Katy slipped her hands under Fargo’s buckskin shirt and stroked his hard, sloping pectorals. “So what? Sauce for the goose. He’s had plenty on the side—see how he likes it. Mm... you’re a hard man, Skye.”

  “And getting harder,” he admitted. “I don’t want him to kill you.”

  “That’s a hoot. Philly is a practical man. If he kills me, all he’ll have left are those smelly old crib gals. The only other pretty female in this valley is Lily Snyder, and she pisses icicles—or have you thawed her out by now?”

  “Haven’t even tried.”

  Katy slid a hand into his trousers, and Fargo felt a jolt of pleasure when she grasped his man gland. “Well, being’s you’re such a good boy—oh! And such a very big boy—and there’s not much time, Katy has something nice for you.”

  She tugged him to a nearby chair and sat down, untying Fargo’s fly. “Every gal wants a big one like this in her mouth,” she cooed in a breathless tone. “Wouldn’t you like that, Skye?”

  “That might be tolerable,” he quipped as she released his pulsing length and ran her hot, velvet-soft tongue along the sensitive underside of his shaft. Fargo groaned at the explosive surge of pleasure.

  She next took his pliant dome into her mouth and gave it little teasing nibbles. Fargo plunged both hands into her wrapper and rubbed her nipples, which immediately stiffened.

  “You’re really gonna get it now, Fargo,” she promised him.

  Katy plunged as much of him as she could into the warm, moist holster of her mouth, moving him in and out rapidly. The part that wouldn’t fit she gripped in a tight fist, making sure every bit of his shaft was being stimulated. Fargo, swept up in a tidal wave of tingling, pulsing pleasure, felt his leg muscles turning to water.

  Feeling him harden even more in her mouth, Katy went for the strong finish, her head a blur of speed. Fargo groaned hard as shuddering release came, now so weak he sank to his knees.

  “Like it?” she asked when he finally rose to his feet and closed his fly.

  Fargo grinned. “Do you really need an answer to that question?”

  Katy grinned back. “No. We both liked it.”

  “But I have a question that does require an answer. Katy, why are you making Professor O’Malley think that you’re supporting him out of your faro winnings?”

  The question seemed to sideswipe her. “Is that what the starry-eyed simp told you?”

  “No,” Fargo lied. “I overheard him and Avram talking about it.”

  “Oh. Well, don’t lay it at my door. Philly told me to pretend I was doing it.”

  “Why?”

  “Skye, just because I sleep with Philly doesn’t mean we’re friends. He tells me nothing. Obviously he wants to keep the little fop in the valley, but I don’t kno
w why. Hand to God.”

  “All right,” Fargo said, heading toward the door. “I won’t beat the truth out of a woman, so I’ll have to take your word.”

  “For such a rugged, silent- looking type, you’ve got a mighty long nose—you know that?”

  “I’m being paid to have a long nose.”

  Fargo had started to open the door when she called by way of parting injunction: “Fargo, for your own good, you need to back off all these questions.”

  Fargo gave her a cross-shoulder look. “Ain’t nothing on God’s green earth gonna make me, pretty lady. And the way things stand now, I’m gonna have to kill your man.”

  The young woman was seasoning a big pan of pinto beans when she spotted something from the corner of her left eye. She looked at the serving window and felt her blood chill.

  Philly Denton was smiling at her, his coal black eyes a pair of bullets piercing to her core. “Hello, Jessica. Let me in, please. We have a delicate matter to discuss.”

  “I . . . I have supper to pre—”

  “Ahh, yes, supper. That’s what I’m here to discuss. Now let me in or I’m liable to get . . . nasty.”

  He laughed, but it didn’t soften the sharp edge of his hint. She removed the skeleton key from the pocket of her apron and unlocked the kitchen door.

  “My dear, you look especially fetching today,” Denton told her, stepping inside and closing the door. “A dimple on the chin means a devil within.”

  When he tried to touch that dimple, she averted her face. “By now you must need a man, eh? I mean, after the tragic loss of your husband.”

  His horrible, mocking words hung in the air like a bad smell. Anger choked her for a full ten seconds. “I suppose ‘tragic loss’ sounds better than cold-blooded murder.”

  “Murder is such an ugly word in the mouth of such a beautiful woman. And either way, you must need a man by now.”

  The words spurted out before Jessica, still angry, could stop herself. “Evidently, it’s you who needs a woman now that Katy’s met Fargo.”

  His rage was instant. He slapped her so hard she staggered to one side, ears ringing. “I’ll throw my coat on the floor and bull you right here,” he threatened. “And then I’ll ride out to the cabin and personally kill that brother of yours.”

  “No,” she pleaded. “Please don’t. I’m sorry.”

  “If you really want to prove your contrition, you’ll help with this.”

  He pulled a small brown bottle from his pocket and handed it to her.

  “It’s marked ‘poison,’ ” she said, her eyes widening as she read the label.

  “Yes, pure strychnine. It’s an odorless, tasteless white powder. A generous pinch will kill a man.”

  “I . . . I don’t understand.”

  “What’s to understand, cupcake? You’re preparing supper, right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Orville tells me tonight is beans and bannock, right?”

  She nodded, her mouth too dry to speak.

  “Well, that’s mean fare. Right now I have two big trays of juicy and tender hump steak on their way from the Palace. Best part of the buffalo. Now a hale and hearty frontiersman like Fargo will devour eats like that.”

  “You can’t mean—”

  “Oh, can’t I? You’ll set one plate aside for Fargo. You’ll put some white powder in the gravy on his meat, making sure it’s dissolved. Easier than rolling off a log. Orville Danford will be in the kitchen supervising you. Once Fargo takes his plate, Orville will move into the dining commons and observe the meal.”

  She aimed an entreating gaze at him. “Please, Mr. Denton, you’ve hurt me and my family enough. Don’t turn me into a murderer.”

  “That’s another harsh word. Technically, sweet love, you aren’t accountable for crimes you’re forced to commit.”

  “It’s still murder.”

  “Here we are, right back to that ugly word. I prefer the phrase ‘business contingency.’ ”

  “Please, please no,” she said, her tone passionately earnest. “I want nothing to do with it.”

  “You don’t really have a choice. I and my men dare not be seen anywhere near this place at mealtime or Fargo might snap wise. And Orville is too squeamish to actually do it.”

  “I won’t do it,” she blazed.

  Denton laughed. “I like spirit in a horse or a woman. This is all just futile bravado, lass, and you know why.”

  He reached into a coat pocket and produced a small white box. “By the way, here’s a present for you—open it.”

  “No. No. I don’t want—”

  “Nonsense. Open it.”

  With trembling hands, she did. The moment the lid popped off, she cried out in shock and revulsion, her entire body going cold and numb.

  A single human eye stared up at her, lifeless and dull. She thrust it back at Denton, trying to control her breathing. “Is it—”

  He laughed. “No, it’s not Michael’s. But it certainly could be your brother’s—next time.”

  “It’s been so long since I’ve seen him. How can I even know he’s still alive?”

  “Of course he’s still alive, muffin. Philly Denton never destroys a valuable asset.” He reached out and patted her rear. “Speaking of a very nice ass . . . et.”

  She flinched away from his hand. He gave her a tight- lipped smile that seemed to cost him an effort. “If you fail to do it, I will kill your brother and send you his eye. Remember, as rich as your old man is, I can get the same amount of ransom for one of you as for two.”

  After he left Katy, Fargo followed the long erosion seam behind the camp and returned to the livery. He tried to swing wide of Slade’s dog pen, but the curs caught his scent and raised a fierce clamor of barking.

  “Those sons of bucks grate on my nerves,” Jake Headley greeted him, busy repairing a broken tug chain. “I can’t figure out why the hell Slade keeps them.”

  “Must be the children he never had,” Fargo said, fetching his saddle and bridle from the tack room. “How the hell can you sleep at night?”

  “I shove wax in my ears. Want some?”

  “Seein’s how I’m not too popular around here, that’s not a wise idea.”

  Fargo tacked the Ovaro, examined his hoofs for cracks or stone bruises, then led him outside into the brassy afternoon sunlight. After a final test of his cinches and latigos, he stepped up into leather and pointed his bridle toward the north end of Sweetwater Valley.

  Fargo skipped the winding trail completely, convinced by now it was a gauntlet of death. But that had to mean there was something at the end of that trail, something he wasn’t supposed to see. So Fargo had fixed, in the mind map he’d made of the area, the probable location where that trail ended.

  He calculated that he might reach it by circling the valley wide from the north, then closing in through the dense trees to the west. He kept his Henry loose in its scabbard and his eyes in constant motion because the next scrape was never far away around here.

  In the distance, as he climbed up out of the pretty valley, serried mountain peaks were stark white against a sky the bottomless blue of a gas flame. Water dashed itself to foam in the gorges, and the hills surrounding him were carpeted green with pine trees. Fargo breathed deep of the pristine air, wondering how any man could prefer those steaming dung heaps called cities.

  Before he was swallowed up by the trees, Fargo glanced down toward the Sweetwater River and spotted a small band of graceful antelopes, white rumps flashing in the sun as they bounced along so fast that no creature could catch them.

  He completed his circle and entered the trees. They grew so densely that little sun broke through, and it was like riding in twilight. The Ovaro didn’t like being closed in like this and snorted a complaint. Horses depended on their eyes and open spaces for defense, and that’s how Fargo felt, too.

  “I don’t like it either, boy,” he said, patting the stallion’s neck to calm him. “But if we can’t raise the bridge, we�
�ll have to lower the river. I got a strong hunch that trail we followed a couple days ago leads to something Denton doesn’t want me to know about.”

  The Ovaro settled down, and they moved farther into the massive forest of pine trees. Now and then, lower branches forced Fargo almost flat in the saddle, and once he had to dismount and lead his pinto. Fargo blazed the trees to mark his progress, afraid he wouldn’t find his way out.

  After an hour in the near darkness of the trees, they broke out onto a sunlit ridge too rocky for trees. Remaining in the saddle, Fargo pulled out his field glasses. Making sure the lenses wouldn’t reflect, he began traversing the hills, ravines, and canyons that stretched out before him.

  Fargo soon spotted the winding trail and the boulder-jumbled canyon beside which he’d been ambushed. Fargo used the canyon as a reference and worked his way beyond it, spotting nothing that stood out. Then, abruptly, his face came alive with interest.

  “I think we just struck a lode, boy,” he told his stallion.

  About a mile below Fargo’s position stood a small cabin made of pine logs chinked with mud. An Appaloosa and a white-faced bay were tethered in front of it. Then Fargo spotted something else through the field glasses, and another nagging question was answered.

  “Just damn,” he muttered in frustration.

  At least three of Jack Slade’s trademark vicious mongrels—yellow curs—were staked near the cabin, and now Fargo guessed at least one purpose for those mangy dogs—to assist guards who rode those horses in securing a prisoner or prisoners in the cabin. And it was a safe bet the captives were relatives or friends of Jessica Sykes, whose entire party had disappeared from the Oregon Trail.

  “It’s gonna be a hell-buster,” Fargo said softly.

  Men—especially the criminal variety—could be sneaked up on by a man with good scouting and movement skills. But dogs, whose noses were among the best in the animal world, were excellent sentries—the reason so many Indian tribes kept plenty of them around.

  “Yessir. A hell-buster.”

  Fargo tucked his field glasses back into a saddle pocket. The sun was westering now, ready to sink beneath the mountain peaks. He wheeled the Ovaro around and headed back into the pine forest, his mind already grappling with the thorny problem of reaching that cabin.