Hangtown Hellcat (16 page)

“Yes, but you’re leaving something out, aren’t you? Something important.”

Fargo had anticipated this and he answered forthrightly, “You mean my rifle.”

“Yes, this famous repeating rifle that one ‘loads on Sunday and fires all year.’”

“All week,” he corrected her from a grin.

“Never mind. The main point is that I want you to bring it back with you, Mr. Fargo.”

He nodded.

“You’ll knock when you return and wait outside for Jasmine’s instructions about how to surrender that weapon, is that also clear?”

“Very clear.”

Those bewitching brown eyes narrowed to slits. “Now…what else are you failing to mention?”

Damn the luck,
Fargo thought. He was hoping that acquiring Buckshot’s double-ten would throw her off. But obviously she had obtained a very detailed account of the shootout three days ago. This woman talked like a book and didn’t miss a trick.

“You must mean Buckshot’s rifle?”

“Indeed I do, and coyness is not becoming in a man, Mr. Fargo. I’m disappointed in you. I hoped we were starting to have a meeting of the minds.”

El Burro’s hand slid toward his curved machete. Clearly he didn’t like it when Jenny was disappointed. Fargo felt his back break out in cool sweat.

“All due respect, Miss Lavoy, but the fact that I didn’t mention that rifle doesn’t mean I had any plans for it.”

She studied him for another thirty seconds in silence. “No, it doesn’t,” she finally conceded. “But you
should
have mentioned it. I assume you’d like to go sometime after sunset?”

He nodded. “I should only need a couple of hours if even that.”

“Well, if we do eventually reach a meeting of the minds, obviously I would want you and Mr. Brady to have excellent horses. I like this idea of seizing mining company payrolls. On the other hand, I’ve come to realize you are a formidable intellect and a worthy foe. It makes perfect sense that you are worried about your horses. But I also fear you are fundamentally decent, and thus, beyond my ability to corrupt and control you.”

“A woman as beautiful as you,” Fargo said, “shouldn’t underrate her ability where men are concerned.”

The sincere compliment was a gamble, but it seemed to transform her manner.

“This book I’m perusing,” she told him, “is called the
Kama Sutra
. It’s a Sanskrit guide to erotic pleasures. Have you ever heard of it?”

He shook his head. She patted the empty cushion beside her. “Come. This section is called ‘Positions of Ecstasy.’ I’d like to show it to you.”

Fargo sat down beside her, drinking in the exotic smell of her perfume. She flipped slowly through the graphically illustrated pages, carefully watching his face.

“Well?” she demanded after showing him several pages.

Fargo shrugged. “Nice pictures, but I didn’t learn anything new, if that’s what you mean.”

“You mean, none of this shocks or offends you?”

“Nah. It’s pretty old hat.”

“You don’t mean to say you’ve actually…employed all of these positions?”

Fargo grinned. “I’d say enjoyed, not employed.”

“Even
this
one?” She pointed to one where the man and woman looked like two snakes swallowing each other.

Fargo nodded. “Yeah. It put a kink in my neck, though.”

“I never would have thought…” Her voice trailed off on a note of wonder. “Well, perhaps you
will
do.”

“What for, may I ask?”

“There’s one page I’m not showing you yet. It’s not so much a position as a…well, a rare technique and a longtime fantasy of mine. I’m afraid, however, that you might balk—I assure you, it’s new even to
your
apparently vast experience.”

“Don’t count me out just yet,” Fargo said. “With me it’s always the woman’s choice.”

“We’ll see about that. Talk is cheap. As for your request about your horses—I’ve decided to let you go. But first,
look
at me.”

Fargo did, staring into that classically beautiful face whose eyes probed him to his core. Those intrusive, knowing eyes searched deep into his, seeking the secret bastion of his very soul.

“You’re up to something,” she finally decided. “You’re very clever and a good dissembler, but I can see it. You’ve met your match in me, Skye Fargo. ‘All hope abandon, ye who enter here.’ Hope, Mr. Fargo, will get you and your friend killed.”

*   *   *

An hour after sundown Fargo set out. Under Burro’s watchful eye Buckshot was permitted outside long enough to hand the pails up to Fargo at the lip of the shallow gulch. The thick ring of protective brush forced him to work the pails through one at a time.

The vast indigo velvet sky was peppered silver with stars, and a cool, steady breeze made Fargo grateful to be free again, albeit only temporarily. He was suffering from cooped-up fever in the small, windowless room and longed to be spreading his blankets again to the backdrop of humming cicadas and the sweet serenade of the western wind.

Jenny Lavoy was absolutely right, he told himself as he carefully hauled the pails across the open, rock-strewn terrain—he was on the wrong side of the “power balance” and he didn’t like it one damn bit. The plan he had in mind was reckless and fraught with difficulties. But desperate situations called for desperate remedies. So far he and Buckshot were simply barking at a knot—sometimes even the wrong action was better than no action at all.

All hope abandon, ye who enter here.
Jenny Lavoy’s smug tone, as she spoke those words, now brought a flush of anger to Fargo’s face. She was telling him to either submit to the rudder or crash on the rocks.

“Screw you, bitch,” he muttered into the wind. “I’ll take the rocks any day.”

As he approached the grassy draw where they’d tethered their horses, apprehension filled him like a bucket under a tap. If those two high-spirited stallions had literally pulled up stakes and lit out for parts unknown, he and Buckshot were even more hopelessly trapped in a world of hurt. Their only option then would be outlaw horses, assuming they could acquire any.

A welcoming whicker from the Ovaro, who had caught his scent on the wind, tugged Fargo’s lips into a smile.

He topped the low ridge above the draw and spotted both horses in the silver-white moonlight.

“You two are a sight for sore eyes,” he greeted them.

Fargo let each horse drink half a pail of water and poured the rest into the little oilskin-lined cistern. He opened the bag of crushed barley lying beside his saddle and held it up so each horse got a good feed. Then he pulled their pickets and moved them into lush grass where they could still reach the water.

Fargo spent a few minutes scratching each mount on the withers and talking to them gently to calm their nervousness.

“Stick it out a bit longer, old campaigner,” he told his Ovaro. “I know you want to run and stretch out the kinks.”

Fargo slid the Henry and the North & Savage from their boots, rigging the slings and hanging them around both his shoulders. He would surrender them, all right—Buckshot’s life was forfeit if he didn’t.

But there was one remaining weapon Jenny “Little Britches” Lavoy could not know about, and it was probably his and Buckshot’s last, desperate chance.

Fargo unbuckled a saddle pocket and pulled out the French Lefaucheux six-shot pinfire revolver. The ornately detailed weapon was beautiful and included a foldaway knife blade under the barrel. Fargo had accepted it, during a riverboat poker game in New Orleans, in lieu of a cash bet.

Unfortunately, pinfire cartridges were hard to come by nowadays and there were only two in the wheel. Even worse, they were made of paper and hadn’t been replaced in years. There was a good chance the powder had clumped by now and wouldn’t ignite, nor could Fargo afford to waste one testing them.

At least the knife blade was sturdy and well mounted, he noted, examining it in the moonlight. Compared to the huge blade of his confiscated Arkansas toothpick, it was poor shakes as a fighting knife. Against formidable men like El Burro and Norton—especially El Burro—he would have to make the very first thrust count for score.

But the biggest risk of all, Fargo realized, would be hiding and then retrieving the pinfire revolver. He would certainly never get through the door with it tonight.

“Pile on the agony,” he muttered as he tucked the revolver into his belt and set out toward the gulch.

At the lip of the gulch he stretched out and let each rifle slide down to the bottom, followed by the pails. Then he scrabbled down and looked carefully around to see if one of the guards was lurking to spy on him. Spotting no one, he left everything else where it was and hurried around to the back of the rickety wooden privy.

Waiting for wind gusts to cover the noise, Fargo grabbed the end of one of the weathered gray planks and tugged it until the sharpened wooden peg, used instead of nails, gave way. He pushed the board back flush with the rest of them and laid the pinfire on the ground. If one of the guards found it before he retrieved it, Jenny Lavoy’s wrath might prove deadly—to him.

He gathered up everything, carried it to the house, and thonked on the door with the side of his fist.

“Skye, is that you?” Jasmine’s voice called out.

“Right down to the ground. Give me my instructions.”

“Just leave the pails outside. Miss Lavoy told me to tell you that I’m in the line of fire between you and El Burro.”

“I understand, hon. No parlor tricks.”

“I’ll crack the door open a few inches. You stick each rifle inside one at a time, stock first, so I can grab it.”

A wedge of light winked into view when the door meowed open. Fargo handed in first the Henry, then the North & Savage.

“All right,” she said. “Now put both your empty hands inside the door first, then leave them in view and come on in.”

As soon as Fargo was inside, Jasmine moved aside while Burro, jabbing the muzzle of one of his Colt Navy revolvers into Fargo’s gut, searched him thoroughly—so thoroughly that Fargo remarked, “Ease off—that ain’t a gun barrel you’re pinching, old son. Or have you forgotten?”

El Burro backhanded him so hard that Fargo bounced off the hallway wall. He tended to rile cool, a trait that increased longevity on the frontier. But Fargo made a mark in his ledger of accounts.

El Burro nodded to Jasmine, who called out, “All secure, Miss Lavoy!”

Jenny stepped through the nearest curtained archway. “Well, Mr. Fargo, are your horses still where you left them?”

“Yes, and now fed and watered. Thanks for letting me go, Miss Lavoy.”

“I hope you didn’t abuse my trust?”

“That would be a fool’s errand given the circumstances.”

“And you’re no fool, right?”

“Not tonight anyway.”

She gave him her tinkling, silver-smooth laugh. Then, abruptly, the stunning face hardened. “I suspect you’re lying, Mr. Fargo. Once again our minds are pitted one against the other. It’s a contest I rather enjoy.”

“Tell you the truth, I could do without it.”

“I’m sure. And may God have mercy on your soul if you lose.”

12

“How’d it go?” Buckshot whispered as Fargo pulled off his boots.

“The horses are all right. And the pinfire’s behind the crapper with a board in front of it loosened up. But Her Nibs is watching damn close for a fox play.”

Fargo stretched out on his pallet, realizing how bone-tired he was. His face still ached from that morning’s beating, and carrying two full pails of water for over a mile had left his shoulders feeling like they’d been hammered. He recalled the goading grin on El Burro’s face, the stun of his hard-hitting fists, and the anger seethed within him again.

“We best make our play damn fast,” Buckshot said. “That she-bitch has twigged our game, Skye.”

Something ominous in Buckshot’s tone made Fargo alert like a hound on point. “What’s your drift?”

“Plenty happened while you was gone. First she had Norton take me into the parlor so’s she could question me. She said she knew you was up to something, and she wanted to know what it was. She nagged me half haywire about it.”

“Yeah, so? You weren’t stupid enough to tell her?”

“Sell your ass, churn-brain,” Buckshot retorted. “But that pert skirt put the hoodoo eye on me. I ain’t as smooth a liar as you. I kept telling her you was only worried about our horses. But…hell ’n’ furies! She’s got this way of lookin’ right into a man’s thoughts.”