New Mexico Madman (9781101612644) (9 page)

“Sure as sun in the morning. I'd say Zack Lomax went to a mort of trouble to get vengeance on you.”

“Is the man a Capricorn?” Malachi Feldman interceded. “A man born under the influence of Mars is bellicose, certainly. But even worse is a Capricorn. They—”

“Miss Barton has no interest in your inane prattle,” Lansford Ashton cut in harshly. “Nor do the rest of us. I prefer an honest pickpocket to your ilk.”

Kathleen ignored all of this, still watching Fargo. “It has occurred to me, Mr. Fargo, that you are facing great danger to protect me. I hope you realize I'm grateful.”

Her tone implied that she was praising a servant for getting the carpet extra clean.

“I'm getting good wages for it,” Fargo replied. “It's just a job.”

He grinned when he saw scarlet points suddenly appear on her finely sculpted cheeks. She stiffened, then abruptly returned to the coach.

Interesting, Fargo thought.

The Concord swift wagon resumed its trek toward the station at Los Pinos. Booger tipped his flask now and then and belted out bawdy verses while Fargo kept a close eye on the surrounding valley. Booger suddenly burst out laughing, slapping his tree-trunk thigh.

“Oh, Skye, Her Nibs will likely have a catfit when we get to Los Pinos. You know the place?”

Fargo shook his head. “Why? What about it?”

But Booger only smiled mysteriously. “Why, you'll see.
I'm
not the boy to ruin a surprise.”

“You're mighty rough on that gal. Why'n't you ease off a bit?”

“I, rough on the Quality? That's a libel on me, long-shanks. Why, she's a reg'lar peach of a woman. I'm merely having a bit of sport with her.”

Booger cracked his blacksnake over the leaders. “Gee up, you lazy animules! Get up! Hi yi! Fargo, straight arrow now: Do you b'lieve this Ashton yack works for Lomax?”

“I think he's shiftier than a creased buck, and I'd never leave my horse with him. I ain't so sure he's with Lomax, though. He can't be unless Lomax knew which coach Kathleen was taking.”

“Fargo, is your brain any bigger than your pee hole? First the bomb, then the attack today—ain't it obvious as a third tit that Lomax knows the very coach she's on?”

“
Now
he does, sure. But recall that gunslick at the Vado station—he coulda been there as a spotter. The real poser is—did Lomax know
before
the coach pulled out of El Paso? That's the only way he could plant a man on it.”

Booger said, “Look here, catfish—Lomax is s'pose to be deader than a dried herring. What if it ain't him behind all this?”

“He's the only one that fits the known facts. There's no proof he's dead, either.”

Fargo was silent for a minute, thinking. “Could your boss—Addison Steele—be bought?” he finally asked. “Paid off to tell Lomax what stage she was taking? It was in the newspapers that she was coming to Santa Fe from El Paso.”

“Yes, he could be bought like most men, but not in any plan to kill a woman. And
this
woman? Addison owns stock in Overland—why, if anything happens to America's Sweetheart on an Overland run, it could sink the company. And Steele would be cashiered, for a surety.”

Fargo nodded. “That rings right. But he's not the only one Lomax could bribe, is he?”

“Naw. Overland is packed up the wazoo with pus-guts and board walkers—assistant managers, clerks and such. The green eyeshades, I calls 'em. Why, I'd say it's an even bet Lomax knew in time to put a curly wolf on the passenger list. And Ashton—I like him for it.”

“Mm. If so, it's not his job to kill the actress. Seems like Lomax wants that pleasure for himself. Most likely, it's Ashton's job to kill me if the others come a cropper.”

“Happens that's so, why, he'll have to kill old Booger, too.”

“Well, he's got a pepperbox in his valise—six bullets fired at one time would drop even an ox like you. Then he could just steal my horse and abduct Kathleen.”

Booger looked over at him, his moon face set in a frown. “It could play out that way right enough. We best watch that bastard, Skye—watch him like two cats on a rat.”

9

Three hours after Fargo lit the four night-running lamps, Booger reined in at Los Pinos.

The place was hardly more than a dilapidated shack caving in on itself. In the silver-white moonlight it reminded Fargo of deserted hovels he had seen in depleted mining camps. No smoke curled from the stovepipe chimney, and no light showed through the flyspecked, oiled paper serving as windows. An open-fronted stock shed stood empty and Booger had already informed him that Los Pinos could offer no fresh relay because of manpower shortages.

“This place looks abandoned,” Fargo said as he prepared to swing off the box. “Maybe there's been trouble.”

Booger was unable to stifle a giggle. “Oh, there
is
trouble, catfish, count on it,” he said, volunteering no more.

Fargo swung the step into place and helped the weary ladies out. Kathleen Barton gaped in astonishment. “
This
is a station? Mr. McTeague, you gave me to understand there were bathing facilities here!”

“Why, yes, Your Nibs. There's a pump around back, and as you can plainly see, a water trough. When the horses have finished drink—”

“I shall protest this outrage!” she enunciated crisply. “I will have your job for this!”

By now Booger was shaking with mirth. “Why, cottontail, you may have it for the asking—I'll not deprive you.”

Fargo stifled a laugh, lifting the latchstring and stepping inside. The place was as dark as the inside of a boot and filled with the stench of whiskey and boiled cabbage. Even fouler, however, was the stink of antiquated fish-oil lamps. Somebody farther inside the room was snoring with enough racket to wake snakes.

Fargo found one of the old lamps hanging by the door. He snapped a phosphor to life with his thumbnail and fired up the wick. Dirty yellow light filled the room, pushing shadows back into the corners.

“My God!” Kathleen said in a shocked whisper, peering around Fargo.

The light annoyed a rat, which ambled back to its nest in a back corner filled with rubbish. Several empty whiskey bottles dotted the rammed-earth floor, and the only “furnishings” were empty nail kegs and a table made from a door nailed to a pair of sawhorses.

An old man who looked to be straight out of Genesis and sprung in the knees was fast asleep on a tatty buffalo robe. His face was as wrinkled as a whore's bedsheet, and a tobacco-stained beard covered most of his caved-in chest. He wore frayed canvas trousers—gone through at the knees—and a shirt sewn from old sacking.

“Roust out, Methuselah!” Fargo sang out.

The old codger woke with a violent start, shading his eyes from the light.

“Katy Christ, mister,” he croaked, struggling to his feet with a loud cracking of stiff joints. “Scare the bejabbers out of a fellow, why'n'cha?”

“Don't tell me you're the station master?”

“Why not tell you, it's God's honest truth. My name's Pow—that's bobtail for Powhatan. 'Bout damn time you folks got here—I waited up long as I could.”

Kathleen, Trixie, Malachi, Ashton and the preacher all stood crowded outside the door, perhaps daunted by the hellish stench. They stared with paralyzed stupefaction.

“Well, don't stand there gawking like chawbacons at a county fair,” he admonished from a sullen deadpan. “C'mon inside—you're lettin' flies in.”

“I'd wager they're trying to escape,” Fargo remarked, casting his eye around the rubbish-strewn room. Booger was unhitching the team out in the yard, and Fargo heard him roaring with laughter.

“Shall I draw your bath now, Miss Barton?” he barely managed before more laughter choked him. Fargo laughed, too, and shook his head.

“Mr. Fargo, it's
not
humorous!” Kathleen shot at him, stamping her foot in frustration. “Perhaps you and—and ‘Booger' are used to such abominable conditions, but I am not!”

“Hear, hear,” the preacher said. “It's not fit for pigs much less ladies.”

“
How
can Overland treat its passengers this way?” Kathleen demanded. “By contract we are promised hot food, clean accommodations, and the opportunity for at least one hot bath. And where are we to sleep—on this filthy floor?”

Pow got his first good size-up of the actress, squinting in the lamplight as if gnats were swarming his eyes. He loosed a whistle. “Pretty as four aces and brash as a rented mule. You'll have your eats, Little Miss Pink Cheeks.”

He winked at Fargo. “Jest today I got in a fresh load of fat, sugar-cured Salt Lake grasshoppers. Them's good fixin's.”

Methuselah picked up a quirt from the crude table and snapped it at a fly, squashing it dead. “Got two that time,” he boasted. “Must be mating season.”

“I will
not
eat grasshoppers,” Kathleen flung at him.

He grinned at her, yellow nubbins of teeth visible through his beard. “Look who's feelin' a mite scratchy tonight. You two pretty gals may sleep on my buff robe.”

“And catch fleas? I will pass on that wondrous opportunity. The stench in here is unbearable.”

Pow winked at Fargo. “Oh, thissen's silk, all right. Pure silk.”

“And when was the last time,” Kathleen steamed on, “you laundered your clothing?”

“Well, I ain't got no Sunday-go-to-meetin' togs like concho belt there, Your Bitchiness.”

Fargo was enjoying all this but now it was time to intercede. Kathleen had every right to be angry. But Fargo was dog tired and so was everyone else.

“Miss Barton,” he said mildly, “why push if a thing won't move? You still have plenty of eats in your hamper. Far as sleeping arrangements, I'm not bedding down inside this rattrap, either. I suggest you and Trixie sleep in the coach, and the rest of us will bed down in the stock shed.”

“You folks oughter keep a weather eye out while you head north,” Pow warned. “They was an express rider through here today. Says 'Paches is raiding up that way. The station house at Polvadera was burnt down. They kilt the station master and his woman but spared the children. Sons-a-bitches also raided the swing station at Lemitar and killed the relays. It was that bunch under the renegade Red Sash.”

This news doubly alarmed Fargo. Polvadera was the next scheduled station before La Joya, and with the swing station at Lemitar down, this team would be dangerously overworked.

“Yeah, I've seen Red Sash's handwork,” Fargo remarked. “His bunch left nine men dead at the silver mines of the Santa Rita over in Arizona.”

Fargo knew they also raided with impunity in New Mexico knowing that, if pursued, they could flee south to the lava-bed country and the desolate alkali pan known as Jornada del Muerto, the Journey of Death. Fargo had barely survived it once, and no one was foolish enough to follow Apaches there.

“Apaches,” Ashton said, his normally nonchalant tone now tense. “No boys to fool with. I was under the impression they were hiding down in the Dragoon Mountains and harassing Mexicans.”

“To them,” Fargo replied, “the entire New Mexico territory has been
Apacheria
for centuries. That bunch you're talking about is only the Coyotero branch of the tribe. Red Sash and his renegades are Jicarillas. They're raiders and they don't put down roots anywhere.”

“God preserve us,” the preacher said.

“Skye,” Trixie said, “do Apaches . . . I mean, when they capture white women, do they . . . ?”

“They'll rape the living shit outta both you beauties,” Pow interjected bluntly. “And then they'll either stone you into silence or take you along fir the bucks to enjoy every night when they git shellacked on tizwin—that's corn beer. But there's good news, too.”

By now Kathleen had been stunned out of her indignation, which was replaced by tight-lipped fear. “Good news? You say we'll be outraged and murdered. How could there possibly be good news?”

Pow quirted another fly. “Apaches don't scalp, little lady. You won't have to lose that beautiful hair.”

* * *

By midafternoon of June fourteenth, Zack Lomax was nervously pacing back and forth in his study, gesturing with both hands.

“Damn it, Olney, I'm starting to worry. It's a ten-day run from El Paso to Santa Fe, and they're now halfway here. You're certain this latest mirror relay was interpreted correctly?”

“'Fraid so, boss,” Olney Lucas replied. “Congreve and the rest of the team know the signal system real good—I tested them all. Today's message from Alcott is that they failed to kill Fargo at Bosque Grande.”

“Shit, piss and corruption! That's two failures now. The chances for any further attempts diminish greatly until well north of Albuquerque—it's mostly open and level country along the Overland route. I was hoping Russ's bunch would point Fargo's toes to the sky by now.”

Olney cleared his throat. “Just calm down, Mr. Lomax, and remember what you always tell me—you planned this out for one full year. You anticipated trouble and you knew you'd need safeguards. There's still plenty of time, and the odds look mighty grim for Fargo.”

“And now these goddamn gut-eating Apaches,” Lomax stewed. “Jesus, talk about irony. One year of planning, thousands of dollars to execute those plans—all so that
I
personally
can balance the ledger by killing the bitch with my own hands. And here a bunch of half-naked red savages might beat me to it.”

“Yeah, but at least she'd be dead.”

Olney realized the remark was unwise when his employer's burning, preternatural eyes drilled into him, piercing like bullets. “You pathetic idiot! We'll
all
die eventually, won't we? The question is how and who's in control of it. The point is to make her realize, in her last terrified seconds, that
I
am the master of her fate—that her signature on that vicious letter to the newspaper one year ago also signed her own death warrant.”

This time Olney wisely held his tongue. Watching Lomax now, the hard angles and planes of his face a mask of soul-searing rage, those intense eyes were windows on a mind rotted by insanity and the lust for revenge. All this because a piece of uppity quiff gave him the mitten—you had to handle a man like that the same way you'd handle unstable nitro.

“Fargo,” Lomax said suddenly, abruptly picking up the thread he'd dropped. “It's irony heaped
on
top
of irony. All of a sudden I have to hope Fargo
does
stay alive long enough to stave off this Apache threat.”

“Yeah, but don't forget your safeguard,” Olney reminded him. “Fargo can't know you got a man on the coach. Hell, you kept that so secret even I don't know who it is. If Russ and the boys botch it, he can kill Fargo.”

This reminder, however, evoked a worried frown from Lomax.

“You forget something, Olney. Remember Alcott's report that the stagecoach driver has not been relieved for hundreds of miles? Haven't you figured that one out by now? Whoever that driver is, Fargo handpicked him. If he trusts the man that much, count upon it—he is both trustworthy
and
capable.”

“I take your drift. He has to get the drop on both of them. Still—if they don't suspect one of the passengers, it can't be that hard to just back-shoot the two of them. Since you picked this man yourself, you must have confidence in him.”

Olney's remark heartened Lomax for a moment. Everything in his face smiled except those strangely luminous, insane eyes. “You've put the axe on the helve. He's the best money can buy.”

Abruptly, however, the smile faded from his face like a snowflake melting on a river. His features turned hard as granite.

“But I
don't
want to use him to kill Fargo, don't you see? Because then his cover is exposed and he has to kill the driver, too. That throws all my plans into disarray. That would force him to abduct her and get her to Santa Fe, and given who she is, that triggers a manhunt.”

“It would at that,” Olney agreed. “We're talking America's Sweetheart here.”

“It's the damn
timing
, Olney, don't you see it? This man's job is to strike at Blood Mesa on the nineteenth, with Fargo already out of the picture. He kills the driver and the passengers when it's far too late for any authorities to intervene.”

Lomax crossed to his desk and picked up the Spanish dagger he had purchased just for one occasion, gazing fondly at it as if it were a beloved child.

“When you thrust steel deep into vitals, Olney, and give it what's called the Spanish twist, you can actually feel the victim's body heat rush out on to your hand. I won't, I
can't
, let Fargo ruin this for me! One way or the other he must be killed before Blood Mesa.”

* * *

By late afternoon the exhausted team could not be whipped past a walk.

“Pah!” Booger slipped his six-horse whip into its socket and cursed in disgust. “Bad medicine, Skye. We'll hafta rest and water 'em soon or we'll all be riding shank's mare.”

Fargo nodded, his eyes narrowed to slits as he minutely studied the surrounding landscape. The vast western sky stretched to infinity all around them, only a few ragged tatters of cloud in a dome of china blue. Distant mountains—the Manzano Range—saw-toothed the northeast horizon, but the agriculture had thinned out toward the Rio Grande just west of them. The terrain around them now was mostly yellow-brown and arid, dotted with creosote bushes and greasewood.

“Them hawk eyes of yours spotted any sign of Apaches?” Booger demanded.

Fargo shook his head. “But that's what troubles me,” he admitted. “It's bad enough when you see Apaches, but at least you know where they are. It's worse when you don't see them.”

“Skye?”

Fargo leaned sideways and looked over his shoulder. Trixie's anxious face hung out the window. “What, m'heart?”