California Carnage (17 page)

He caught up with Elam just as the hardcase reached the edge of the trees. Fargo threw himself at the man in a diving tackle. He caught Elam around the knees and brought him down. Elam twisted and slashed at Fargo’s head with the barrel of his gun, which he held in his left hand now because his right arm was wounded.

Fargo jerked his head aside so that the blow missed, but the gun thudded into his shoulder and sent knives of pain stabbing through his arm before the limb went numb. Fargo reached across his body and grabbed Elam’s left wrist with his left hand. Wrestling like that was awkward for both men, but Fargo managed to hold the gun off so that Elam couldn’t bring the barrel in line for a shot.

Fargo brought his knee up and slammed it into Elam’s midsection. Elam grunted at the impact but didn’t stop fighting. His right arm was wounded, but unlike Fargo, he could still use it. He grappled with Fargo and got his right hand on the Trailsman’s neck. The fingers clamped down in a cruel grip that cut off Fargo’s air.

Knowing that he couldn’t last long like that, Fargo used his feet, kicking hard against the ground so that both he and Elam rolled over and started to topple down the slope. Brush tore at them but didn’t stop them. They emerged from the trees and went over the edge of a rocky outcropping. With nothing but air under them, Fargo felt himself falling.

He didn’t know how long the drop was going to be. It was only about five feet, but that was enough for the hard landing to knock him and Elam apart. Some of the feeling was coming back into Fargo’s right arm. He reached for the Arkansas toothpick.

But Elam had been able to hang on to his gun, and now, a few feet away from Fargo, the big hardcase was swinging the weapon up. Fargo knew he wouldn’t be able to reach his knife in time. Elam grinned as he prepared to splatter the Trailsman’s brains all over the hillside.

Three shots roared so close together that they sounded like one giant explosion. Slugs from the handguns fired by Sandy and Jimmy smacked into Elam’s back. It was doubtful that he ever felt the bullets’ impact, though, because at the same time a .52 caliber round fired by Arthur Grayson from Fargo’s Sharps struck him in the back of the head.

Fargo winced and turned his face aside from the crimson destruction. Elam’s body flopped forward, most of its head gone. The revolver slipped unfired from the hardcase’s fingers.

Fargo pushed himself to his feet and stepped past the corpse. As the echoes of the volley rolled away, the hillside became silent except for the never-ending sound of the sea at the base of the cliffs. The three men emerged from the shelter of the coach, but Grayson told Belinda and Angie to stay put for the moment.

‘‘Fargo, are you all right?’’ Sandy asked as Fargo came up to the stagecoach.

Flexing the fingers of his right hand as feeling fully returned to it, Fargo nodded. ‘‘Yes, I’m fine, thanks to you fellas. That was good shooting.’’

‘‘Are the rest of them gone?’’ Grayson asked.

Fargo nodded. ‘‘Except for the ones I killed. The others spooked and lit a shuck. Anybody hurt down here?’’

Sandy spat and said in disgust, ‘‘Only a couple o’ the horses. They’re dead. I hope them sumbitches who shot ’em burn in hell. I never did hold with hurtin’ animals.’’

‘‘The other horses are all right?’’

Jimmy was checking them as Fargo asked the question. The young man turned and said, ‘‘One of ’em’s got a bullet crease on his rump, but it don’t amount to much. They can all travel.’’

‘‘Then we’ve still got a four-horse hitch,’’ Grayson said. ‘‘That will be slower, but they can still pull the coach.’’

Fargo nodded. It would take a while to unhitch the two dead horses and rearrange the team, but even though the avalanche and the ambush had slowed them down, it wasn’t going to stop them.

‘‘Let’s get to work,’’ he said.

The sun was past its zenith by the time the stagecoach was rolling again. The grisly task of unhitching the two dead horses and toppling them off the edge of the trail to plummet to the rocks below had taken quite a while, just as Fargo had predicted. He hoped they would be able to put their hands on some fresh horses when they reached the town of Santa Cruz, just the other side of Monterey Bay.

That proved to be the case. The old Spanish settlement near the mission had several livery stables. Grayson found some suitable draft animals at one of them, and although he had to pay a steep price for them, the proprietor having figured out that Grayson was over a barrel, not long past the middle of the afternoon the stagecoach was on the trail again, being pulled by the fresh team of six horses.

A decent road ran between Santa Cruz and San Francisco, through hills that were covered with giant redwood trees. Fargo had seen those towering old-timers before, but they never failed to impress him.

Not that there was much time to take in the scenery. Sandy was driving the team for all it was worth, taking the bends in the trail at a clip that was a little faster than it might have been under other circumstances. Everyone wanted to reach San Francisco as soon as possible, though, because once the coach rolled into the city by the bay, Hiram Stoddard would no longer have any reason to harm them. He would have failed in his quest to stop Arthur Grayson’s stagecoach from reaching San Francisco first.

Fargo rode about fifty yards in front of the coach. He no longer needed to range as far ahead as he had earlier in the trip. Now he was more guard than guide, keeping his eyes open for any last-ditch ambush attempt by Stoddard’s men.

Stoddard might not
have
any men anymore, Fargo mused. Since Elam was dead, along with two more of the bushwhackers who had struck on the trail alongside Monterey Bay, the rest of the hired guns might have decided that enough was enough. The only loyalty hardcases like that had was to money, and they valued their lives more than they did anything else.

From the hills covered with redwood trees, the trail dropped into the broad Santa Clara Valley, then rose again into the hills at the southern end of the peninsula that ran between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay. The bustling, cosmopolitan city of San Francisco, once a sleepy Spanish village called Yerba Buena, sat at the northern tip of the peninsula. In the ten years since the discovery of gold in California, the city had exploded in size and population. It had endured some growing pains along the way. The violence and vice that had plagued the areas known as Portsmouth Square and the Barbary Coast had led to the rise of Committees of Vigilance that had cleaned out the more unsavory elements.

Portsmouth Square and the Barbary Coast were still there, and the establishments that called them home still did a brisk business in gambling and whoring, but things had settled down enough by now that the vigilantes, as they were called, had disbanded. Fargo had several favorite saloons along the Barbary Coast and was looking forward to visiting them. After the long, dangerous trip from Los Angeles, some good whiskey and maybe a friendly poker game would be excellent diversions.

The reddish-gold orb of the sun had lowered itself into the Pacific by the time the stagecoach rolled through all the smaller villages south of San Francisco. Dusk was beginning to cloak the countryside as the vehicle climbed up one last hill. Fargo reined in at the top of that rise and lifted a hand to Sandy, signaling for him to stop. The jehu called out to his team as he hauled back on the lines. As the coach rocked to a halt, Arthur Grayson called from inside, ‘‘What’s wrong, Skye? Why have we stopped?’’

‘‘Thought you might like to get out and take a look around,’’ Fargo said as he swung down from the saddle.

The coach door opened and Grayson climbed out, followed by Belinda and Angie. Jimmy was riding on the driver’s seat with Sandy, so he had already seen what Fargo was talking about. He dropped to the ground and stood next to Angie, slipping an arm around her shoulders as he did so.

From here, the travelers gazed out over the city. It was already dark enough so that the lights of San Francisco glittered brightly as they spread across the end of the peninsula. To the right was the bay, to the left the Pacific Ocean itself, lit by the fading glow of the sun. Northward, across the opening between ocean and bay known as the Golden Gate, lay wooded hills that stretched on up the coast all the way to Oregon Territory.

‘‘There it is,’’ Fargo told them. ‘‘San Francisco.’’

The ocean breeze was refreshing, and they stood there in silence for a long moment, embracing the wind, awed by the sight before them.

‘‘Oh, Skye,’’ Belinda finally said as she placed a hand on his arm and leaned against his shoulder. ‘‘It’s beautiful.’’

‘‘It certainly is,’’ Grayson agreed. ‘‘A part of me can’t believe we’re finally here.’’

‘‘We ain’t all the way there yet,’’ Sandy pointed out. ‘‘We still got a little ways to go.’’

Fargo said, ‘‘Sandy’s right. We’d better get moving. I’d hate to get this close and then have Stoddard stop us.’’

Even as he spoke, he halfway expected somebody to take a shot at them again. But the beautiful evening remained quiet and peaceful, and a short time later, the stagecoach rolled onto the cobblestone streets of San Francisco.

The journey was over.

Before ever coming west, Arthur Grayson had written a letter to the Metropole Hotel, the finest in San Francisco, reserving rooms for him and his daughter upon their arrival. That was where Fargo found himself later that evening, having dinner in a luxuriously furnished dining room lit by sparkling crystal chandeliers.

Even though he wore clean buckskins, he knew he looked out of place in such fancy surroundings, and the waiters who worked in the hotel dining room made no secret of the fact that
they
thought he didn’t belong there. But Fargo had never been the sort of man to let such things bother him. He was comfortable just being himself, no matter where he was or who he was with.

Tonight he was with Belinda Grayson, who looked lovely in a dark blue, low-cut gown as she sat across from him. Her father had dined with her and Fargo, but he had gone on up to his room, leaving the two of them alone. Grayson had meetings lined up the next day with the most prominent businessmen and bankers in San Francisco, to discuss his new stagecoach line with them, and he wanted to be well rested. Fargo wasn’t sure where Jimmy and Angie were, but he would have been willing to bet money that they were together, wherever they were.

Sandy had headed for the nearest saloon, vowing to get drunk and stay drunk for a week. Fargo didn’t doubt that he could manage that.

Fargo and Belinda had lingered over snifters of brandy after dinner. She smiled at him now over hers and said, ‘‘I’m ready to go upstairs. How about you, Skye?’’

Fargo yawned, making a show of covering his mouth with his hand, and said, ‘‘Yeah, I’m pretty tired, all right. Looking forward to a good night’s sleep for a change. Nothing but some nice, undisturbed sleep.’’

‘‘Keep that up and that’s
all
you’ll get,’’ Belinda scolded, but the smile on her face took any sting out of her words. Fargo knew that she was anticipating what the evening would bring as much as he was. Once again they would join in making love, a merging of body and passion that would send both of them to the heights of pleasure. Fargo lifted his glass and clinked it against hers, then drained what was left of the brandy.

A smile with a trace of sadness in it touched Belinda’s beautiful face. ‘‘I suppose now that we’ve reached the end of the trail, so to speak, you’ll be moving on, Skye?’’

‘‘Not right away,’’ Fargo assured her. ‘‘I’d like to take a few days to let my horse rest, stock up on supplies, things like that.’’ He inclined his head. ‘‘But the time will come when I’ll be riding. I won’t lie to you about that, or anything else, Belinda. I’m a long way from being ready to settle down.’’

‘‘I know that,’’ she said with a hint of wistfulness in her voice. ‘‘But a girl can dream, can’t she?’’

‘‘Everybody can dream,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘This old world would be a pretty sad place without them.’’

A few minutes later, arm in arm, they climbed the opulent staircase and went down the second-floor hallway toward Belinda’s room. Fargo felt his pulse quickening as he thought about how they would soon be nude together in a big, comfortable bed, with the whole night in front of them to do delicious things to and with each other.

When they reached the door, Belinda handed him the key to the room. He unlocked the door and went in first, taking a match from his pocket to light the lamp.

Before he could strike the lucifer, something crashed into the back of his head. It felt like the whole world had fallen in on him, and as he plummeted into darkness, Fargo realized that even though Hiram Stoddard had been defeated, he had one thing still driving him on.

Vengeance.

‘‘Mr. Fargo! Skye!’’

Fargo heard the voice and felt a hand shaking his shoulder. He climbed back up out of the black morass that had claimed him. A shake of his head cleared away the cobwebs, and he knew right away what had happened. Either Stoddard or someone working for him had found out which room was Belinda’s, and they had been waiting there for her. But Fargo had come in first, and the lurker had knocked him out.

He wasn’t surprised to see Arthur Grayson kneeling beside him with a frightened look on his face. Fargo shoved himself to his feet and said, ‘‘What’s happened? Where’s Belinda?’’

‘‘They took her,’’ Grayson said in a voice ragged with terror.

‘‘Stoddard’s men?’’

Grayson jerked his head in a nod. ‘‘It must have been. A note was delivered to my room a few minutes ago saying that if I want to see Belinda alive again, I have to abandon my plans for the stagecoach line. If I agree to do that, I’m supposed to come to some place on the Barbary Coast called Red Mike’s, and Belinda will be returned safely to me there.’’