New Mexico Madman (9781101612644) (14 page)

Booger unlocked the door and grabbed the coal-oil lantern hanging on a nail beside it. He scratched a phosphor to life and turned up the wick, lighting it. Then he led Fargo into a small room crowded with crates, sacks of grain, harness gear and other supplies.

Fargo said, “What are—”

“Shush it!” Booger whispered. “Keep your voice low, Trailsman. That wall ahead of us is made from cheap flock-board. C'mon.”

Booger's excitement was palpable. They crossed the room and drew up in front of a calendar advertising the New Haven Arms factory. Booger snuffed the lantern and plucked the calendar off the wall. Two perfectly round peepholes had been drilled through the wall about a foot apart. Light beamed through them.

Booger leaned close to Fargo's ear. “That's the ladies bathhouse on the other side,” he said in a gloating whisper. “And I drilled these on a plumb line with the tub. I
told
you we'd see her naked.”

“Now, hold on here,” Fargo whispered back. “This is low even for you.”

“Low is it? Then clear on out, knight in buckskins, for
this
horny knave means to see America's Sweetheart in the raw. G'long, Fargo—p'r'aps that yapping preacher has got you pious.”

“Well . . . hell, long as I'm already here . . .”

Both men pressed an eye to the peepholes. Fargo instantly spotted Kathleen, flatteringly illuminated in the light of a six-branch candelabra. She had just taken down her thick, coffee-colored hair, and now it tumbled over her shoulders and framed that perfect face.

The station master's wife must have helped Kathleen, before she left, with the stays of her velvet traveling dress, for now she shrugged easily out of it and folded it on a chair. Her slim silk chemise showed two dark dimples where her nipples dented the sheer fabric. She slid it over her head, and Fargo suddenly felt his heartbeat throbbing hard in his palms at the sight of her bare tits.

Booger sucked in a hissing breath, then excitedly poked Fargo hard with his elbow. “Oh, Jerusalem! Her jahoobies ain't quite as big as Trixie's,” he whispered, “but she ain't no member of the itty-bitty-titty club, neither. There's
way
more than a mouthful there, catfish.”

Fargo admired form more than size, and Kathleen's breasts, like her face, could have been sculpted by Michelangelo. The pert, strawberry nipples were surrounded by aureoles the color of sunlit honey.

She laid the chemise atop her dress, then pulled off her knee-length, ruffled pantalets and stepped out of them, leaving them in a puddle on the floor. Now she stood completely naked, and Fargo almost forgot to breathe.

Kathleen was not as buxom as Trixie, nor did she have her flaring hourglass hips. But the beautifully tapering thighs and calves, the gently curving stomach and perfect breasts, the exciting “V” of silky mons hair, the gorgeous face and flawless opal skin painted a picture of female perfection unsurpassed in Fargo's vast experience. “Greek goddess” were the words that immediately came to mind.

“Jesus K. T. Christ,” Booger whispered. “She ain't no stable filly,” was all he could muster—in Fargo's mind perhaps the century's greatest understatement.

The long steel tub projected from the wall opposite them in perfect line with the peepholes, offering both voyeurs a full view of the beautiful actress when she had stretched out in the soothing bath. But neither man expected what began to happen next.

Kathleen slid both hands up to her breasts and took both nipples between thumb and forefinger. Slowly, at first, and then gradually more rapidly she rolled them until they were so hard and swollen they looked like little strawberry thumbs.

“Jumpin' Jupiter!” Booger emitted a little moan of excitement and Fargo elbowed him quiet.

One hand continued to stimulate her nipples while the other glided down to her stomach and then inched through the silky delta of mons hair. She bent her legs up and spread her creamy thighs wider, and now both men had a clear shot of the lovely coral grotto as her fingers probed lower.

Fargo felt the throbbing weight of his arousal as his manhood ploughed a hard furrow down one leg of his buckskins. By now Booger was barely able to contain himself. The man-mountain almost knocked Fargo over when he elbowed him. “God's trousers, Skye! She's . . . why, she's diddlin' herself!”

“Damn it,” Fargo whispered back, rubbing his sore ribs, “keep your voice down, mooncalf. And stop leaning into that wall so hard—I can feel it bending.”

Fargo forgot all else, however, when this vision of erotic loveliness began rubbing the chamois-soft hood over her sensitive pearl, her head starting to roll back and forth, her breathing growing deeper and faster, her face flushed as she pleasured herself toward higher and higher peaks. Her fingers soon moved so fast in the water that they made sounds like a hungry kitten lapping milk. Her lips began to form words in a hoarse whisper.

“Oh . . . yes . . . I'm . . . I'm close . . . oh,
yes
, Skye, I'm going to ex
plode
!” she moaned, and she did just that, jackknifing almost double and crying out sharply as the mother of all climaxes racked her entire body and sloshed water onto the floor.

Hearing Fargo's name startled Booger, who was already pressing dangerously hard into the weak flock-board. Abruptly the wall collapsed and Booger crashed through it, doing a desperate Virginia reel to keep his balance. But disaster heaped on disaster when he tripped and smashed onto one corner of the tub, spilling the water and a shocked Kathleen onto the floor.

The actress was too astonished to even scream. For the first time in his life, Fargo saw Booger blush. He scrambled to his feet, averting his eyes and trying to stammer an apology. But the man whose tongue usually outpaced his brain now reminded Fargo of a snake trying to get started on loose sand.

“Why . . . that is to say . . . you see, I . . . Miss Barton, it was Fargo talked me into this black deed!”

Booger, his clothes sopping, fled out the door. Fargo should have fled by now also, but still he stood gazing through the ruined wall, unable to take his eyes off the naked woman sprawled on the floor. She met his eyes.

“I would expect a schoolboy trick like this from that big bumpkin,” she told him. “But I'm surprised
you
would resort to illicit spying on a woman's bath, Mr. Fargo. You're hardly what I would call woman starved.”

She caught sight of the impressive swelling in his buckskin trousers and pried her eyes away only with obvious difficulty. “I see that the view pleases you. I suppose the two of you will now make a whore of me with your talk?”

“You suppose wrong. Take my word for it, me and Booger both know we were in the wrong. He didn't blush like that because he thinks you're a whore.”

“I appreciate that much, at least. But don't you think it's time you put an end to this brazen effrontery and leave me to what's left of my privacy, Mr. Fargo?”

Fargo swallowed hard to regain his voice. But her haughty, dismissive tone convinced him that she needed to be taught a little lesson. The faint shadow of a smile touched his lips.

“Why not call me Skye . . . Kathleen? After all, you did just a minute ago.”

“You mean you . . .?” Words failed her as she realized he'd heard the name she cried out in her flight of passion. Mortification seized her, then defensive anger to cover her shame. “Why, you arrogant, insufferable, immoral . . .”

Fargo ducked when she suddenly sat up and threw a hard lump of soap at him. He tossed back his head and laughed. “All right, I'm going, Princess. But I'm gonna have you on my mind, girl. Oh, am I gonna have you on my mind.”

14

San Felipe station, in Fargo's estimation, lay dangerously close to Santa Fe—especially considering that the fatal deadline of June nineteenth was only two days off, and Zack Lomax had to be desperate by now to seize the reins before his master plan careened out of control. So Fargo and Booger went turnabout on sentry duty, dividing the remainder of the night.

Fargo stood the second stint from two a.m. until sunrise. He patrolled the big yard, the corral, and the stock barn in a random pattern taking advantage of a moon bright enough to make shadows. He circled the station house frequently, pausing often to listen to the night.

Eventually the monotony took its toll on his hair-trigger alertness. Fargo had slept little since this dangerous mission began eight days ago in El Paso, and cobwebs of exhaustion clung to his senses. And every time he rounded the back corner of the station where the women slept, images of a naked Kathleen Barton further derailed his vigilance.

During this long stint of guard duty, Fargo occasionally heard the mournful howl of a coyote, and each time he thought of the Apaches. It didn't seem likely the decimated band under Red Sash would be raiding again this soon, but other bands had been terrorizing the Christianized pueblos in the nearby mountain ranges.

Now and then, when sleep fumes began to cloud his thinking, Fargo stopped at the pump and doused his head in cool water. The night dragged on, the moon slowly fading from yellow to pale white, the polestar to the north gradually losing its shimmer before fading completely. One by one the constellations, which Fargo had learned long ago to identify and orient to, winked out.

Finally the soft glow known as false dawn—herald of the real thing—illumined the indigo sky to the east. Fargo was making his latest circle around the station house when the Ovaro suddenly gave his trouble whicker.

It brought Fargo fully alert like a slap to the face. He pressed flat against a front corner of the house, levering the Henry and holding it against his chest. His eyes, fully ad-justed for night vision, quickly scanned the area. The stock barn loomed beyond the corral, a shadowy silhouette against the sky.

Maybe, he reasoned, it was just the
mozo
or a stock-tender stirring around that had alerted the Ovaro. But Fargo had not survived this long by assuming the best. He resumed his careful study.

Besides the station house and the barn there were two small outbuildings, one a shack where soap was made, the other an outdoor privy. What was it about the privy, he wondered, that seemed different from the last time he'd glanced at it?

The door, his mind answered. It was open before, but now it's closed.

Fargo knew someone could have used it during the night, but could he have been unaware of the visit? True, his vigilance had waned at times, but not that much.

He grounded his Henry and shucked out his Colt, crossing the yard at an oblique angle toward that door. The closer he got to it the louder his pulse throbbed in his ears—closed and half-open doors had come to symbolize, for Fargo, the unknown terror that could shape a man's destiny. They sometimes divided two worlds—life and death—and flinging the wrong door open could plunge a man into the “eternal movelessness” of death that lurked just beyond a thin slab of wood.

Stopping fifteen feet back and off to one side, he called out, “Come on out, whoever you are, or I'll turn that crapper into a sieve!”

Only the soft soughing of a cool night breeze answered his challenge.

“The fox play didn't work,” Fargo called out. “Now show yourself before I blast you to chair stuffings!”

Again nothing but a soft, moaning breeze that seemed to mock his suspicion. Doubt assailed Fargo. Maybe a snake had set the Ovaro off, and certainly the breeze could have nudged that door shut. Was he really going to open up on a probably empty shithouse and scare hell out of everyone at the station?

He started toward the door, feeling foolish. But just then the fine hairs on his nape prickled.
The
readiness
is
all
,
Fargo!

He turned sideways to reduce his target profile and edged closer, standing to one side and wedging the muzzle of his Colt between the rickety, weather-beaten door and its frame.

The door creaked slowly open with a sound like a rusty nail being pulled out. Nothing. Almost convinced by now the outhouse was empty Fargo nonetheless erred on the side of caution. He pulled his Colt back, hung his hat on it, and eased it inside.

The sudden, unexpected sound of a six-gun erupting was obscenely loud and iced Fargo's blood. His gun was knocked from his hand and clattered to the plank floor of the privy. Quicker than a blink the hidden man leaped outside and crouched, pivoting toward Fargo.

All this was quick as a rattlesnake striking. Over the years Fargo had honed a special knack for separating himself from a crisis moment, for becoming both participant and observer at the same time. Fargo the participant wanted to reflexively dive to safety while going for the Arkansas toothpick in his boot sheath; Fargo the observer, however, warned him there wasn't time—weapons would not save his life this time.

Fargo resorted to his long, strong legs, kicking up savagely and connecting with the six-shooter just as the gunman fired. The Trailsman felt a razor-burn of pain as the diverted bullet grazed his right cheek. Fargo waded in fast and threw a powerful haymaker that rocked the man's head backward, his teeth clacking like dice. Fargo followed up with a vicious uppercut. The assailant's knees bellied and he flopped face-first into the ground, unconscious.

“H'ar now!” Booger's voice bellowed from in front of the house. “Fargo, you better be dead! My dream was about to turn wet when this infernal racket rousted me!”

“Sorry to spoil your big time,” Fargo called back. “Booger, bring that lantern over here.”

Fargo rolled the intruder over and extracted the Remington from his hand, then searched him. He found an ivory-grip over-and-under hideout pistol in the inside pocket of his rawhide vest.

“What's this?” Booger demanded as he arrived with the lantern. “Did this shithouse rat bite you?”

The groaning man regained consciousness, blood flowing copiously from his broken lips and teeth. Fargo took in the flat, mud-colored eyes and the tight-to-the-bone skin of his face.

“Recognize him?” Fargo asked Booger, handing him the weapons.

“I recolleck that ugly dial from somewheres. He 'minds me of a face I seen on a wanted dodger in El Paso. Shall I lop off his nuts?”

“You two got it all wrong,” the man said through swelling lips. “I was just takin' a dump when this bearded hombre commenced to threatening my life. I only fired in self-defense.”

Fargo slapped him repeatedly and hard. “Bottle it, numbnuts. Who gave you your marching orders to kill me?”

Fargo's face etched itself in stone in the yellow lantern light. Again he repeatedly slapped the man, rocking his head fast from side to side. “How much did Lomax pay you to kill me, puke pail?”

“Mister, you must be moonstruck! I ain't no hired killer, and I don't know this Lomax. My name is Ansel Munro. I'm on my way to Santa Fe to find work in the silver mines.”

“Sure,” Fargo said, “and I'm the Romish Pope. You're just a miner with a tied-down holster and a hideout gun. This time of night you can take a shit anywhere without trespassing on posted land. And I gave you a call-out—all you had to do was speak up and step outside, but you tried to murder me. Now I'm asking you again—who paid you to kill me?”

“Skye?” Trixie's worried voice called out. “What's going on?”

The day was on the brink of sunrise and Fargo could make out several people in the yard near the house.

“You folks go on inside,” he told them. “Me and Booger will handle this.”

Fargo still knelt on one knee beside the supine man. “Talk out, damn you, or you'll wish you'd died as a child. You murdering pig's afterbirth,
who
hired you?”

“Go piss up a rope, cockchafer. I'm done talking.”

“Ha-ho, ha-ho!” Booger exclaimed. “So this one's about half rough, is he? Fargo, I know you're squeamish, so give old Booger your toothpick and I'll lop off his nuts. The sac will make a fine tobacco pouch once it's cured.”

“I see no reason to coddle him like that,” Fargo replied. “Ask Hernando for a shovel. We're gonna dig a honey hole for this scum bucket.”

“
That's
the ticket!” Booger said gleefully. “Fargo, you are a diabolical son of a bitch and I wish to have your child. Yes, a honey hole! By the Lord Harry he
will
talk, hey?”

By the time the new day's sun was giving its first warmth, the man who called himself Ansel Munro was buried up to his neck behind the station house.

“Mister, this ain't no way to treat a white man,” the would-be murderer protested.

“Aye,” Booger agreed heartily. “We shoulda shot you in the whang first. But the best is yet to come, boyo. Great larks ahead!”

By now the rest were too curious to wait in the house. Ignoring Fargo's order, they had assembled in the yard nearby.

“Hernando,” Fargo said, “you got any honey or molasses?”

“A big can of molasses, Senor Fargo.”

“Good. Fetch it out here, wouldja?”

“The hell?” the buried man protested. “Mister, what're you doing?”

“See those mounds about four feet away? Those are anthills—red ants. The meanest kind. I'm gonna smear this molasses all over your head. Once those ants pick up the smell, they'll swarm your head by the thousands. And they won't stop eating until they're down to the skull.”

“Oh, it's a screechin' misery,” Booger chimed in, rubbing his hands together briskly. “Takes hours for them little mites to sup full. The eyeballs will go first, and they'll stream up your nostrils—”

“Gentlemen,” the preacher cut in, “this is not Christian.”

“Shut your cake-hole, nervous Nellie,” Booger snapped.

“Skye, are'n'cha taking this a little too far?” Trixie asked.

“I
could
just send him to glory with a clean head shot,” Fargo conceded. “We're under territorial law and he signed his own death warrant when he made an attempt on my life. But, see, the man who hired him doesn't want to be put over the fence into the open. I mean to prove, once and for all in front of witnesses, it was Zack Lomax.”

Hernando returned with a big can of molasses. The killer's face turned pale as alkali dust.

“His name ain't Lomax,” he finally gave in. “It's Cort Bergman. He lives in Santa Fe.”

“Describe him,” Fargo demanded.

“Middling height, plenty of muscles, wears his hair in one a them high whatchacallits.”

“Pompadour?”

“Yeah. But it's his eyes that you first notice—they sorter bore into a man, like, and force you to look away.”

Kathleen gasped. “It's Lomax! He
is
still alive!”

“All right,” Fargo said. “Everybody here is a witness—this jasper admits Lomax hired him to kill me.”

“Mr. Fargo,” Kathleen said, “what are you going to do with this man? Surely you can't just leave him here?”

Fargo had already pondered that dilemma. Despite having the legal right to kill him, Fargo was not comfortable with summary execution. Every man he had ever killed had an even chance.

But it was Hernando who resolved the situation.

“Senorita Barton,” he said, “it is out of Fargo's hands. As station master
I
am the authority on this Overland property. This man attempted to kill an employee of Overland, and with no other law the matter is up to me. Nothing will happen while you two ladies are here. And there will be no use of ants or molasses. Now,
por
favor
, put it from your mind.”

Booger stared at the preacher. “Like you was spoutin' to me last night: As ye reap, so shall ye sew. You got a complaint, psalm singer?”

“The Old Testament is very much a part of the Good Book, Mr. McTeague. It was the business with the red ants I deplored. Now we must render unto Caesar those things which
are
Caesar's.”

“Great day in the morning!” Booger exclaimed. “The Rev's got a pair on him after all!”

After a hot breakfast of eggs and the spiced sausage called chorizo, the Santa Fe–bound travelers again headed north. Fargo was astride the Ovaro now, riding close to the Concord. Perhaps five minutes after the coach rolled out, a lone gunshot echoed from the San Felipe station.

“Well, catfish,” Booger remarked, “at least we done most of the burying for Hernando.”

Fargo nodded. “Yeah, and now we've confirmed it's Lomax behind all the trouble. But the sick son of a bitch is getting desperate. Booger, these next two days will be a hell buster.”

* * *

Fargo's grim prediction started coming true even sooner than he expected.

The first swing station after San Felipe was La Cruz, about a three-hour drive. But the agitated swingman greeted them with bad news: snipers, hidden in a nearby tree line, had killed all of the fresh relay horses in less than a minute of withering fire.

“W'an a damn thing I could do, Booger,” the aging employee explained. “It all happened quicker 'n scat. A dozen horses dropped, and when I tried to let a few of the rest escape the pole corral, one of them-air shooters blowed my conk cover off. Hell, I had to kiss the dirt or they'da bucked
me
out.”

“Bad medicine,” Booger told Fargo. “These teams are working harder now to pull up some long, steep slopes, and mayhap we'll get stranded agin like we done after Los Pinos.”

“My guess,” Fargo said, “is that Alcott and his partner ain't worried about the schedule now. We saw the mirror-relay—likely they've got new orders to snatch Kathleen and get her to Lomax by the nineteenth—tomorrow sometime. Which still means they have to kill me and you, and that's easier to do if they strand us.”