Northwoods Nightmare

Table of Contents

 

 

Locked together, they strained with all their strength, Strath to use his knives, Fargo to prevent him.

Fargo bucked in an effort to heave Strath off but the killer clung on. Hissing, Strath threw all his weight into forcing the tips of his knives into Fargo's neck.

Water lapped at Fargo's ears. He drove his knee into Strath, once, twice, three times. At the third blow Strath let out a howl, wrenched loose, and jumped up and back.

Fargo kicked him in the groin. . . .

SIGNET

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First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

First Printing, May 2009

 

The first chapter of this book previously appeared in
Tucson Temptress
, the three hundred thirtieth volume in this series.

Copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2009

All rights reserved

 

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eISBN : 978-1-101-03276-3

Beginnings . . . they bend the tree and they mark the man. Skye Fargo was born when he was eighteen. Terror was his midwife, vengeance his first cry. Killing spawned Skye Fargo, ruthless, cold-blooded murder. Out of the acrid smoke of gunpowder still hanging in the air, he rose, cried out a promise never forgotten.

The Trailsman they began to call him all across the West: searcher, scout, hunter, the man who could see where others only looked, his skills for hire but not his soul, the man who lived each day to the fullest, yet trailed each tomorrow. Skye Fargo, the Trailsman, the seeker who could take the wildness of a land and the wanting of a woman and make them his own.

Skye Fargo saw the black bear before it saw him.

A big man, broad of shoulder and narrow at the hips, he sat tall in the saddle. He spotted the bear when it came out of the thick woods onto the trail and stopped.

Fargo quickly drew rein. He wasn't too concerned. He had a Colt strapped around his waist, over his buckskins. In a sheath in his boot nestled a razor-edged Arkansas toothpick. The splash of white and black under him was an Ovaro. Fargo had been riding the stallion for years now and would go on riding it until it died or he did. He'd never had a horse so dependable.

Fargo waited for the bear to move on. That it was a black bear and not a griz was in his favor. Black bears rarely attacked people. This one was big, though, as big as any he ever came across. But then, the bears were like everything else in the colony of British Columbia.

Fargo didn't know what it was—the land, the water, the soil, the fact there were so few people—but the wildlife and the plant life all seemed to be bigger north of the border.

An old-timer once told Fargo that was the way it had been in the States back in the old days. Where humans were few, the animals grew and grew. Then waves of emigrants, pushing west, killed off the big ones, and the game that came along after that never got the chance to grow as big as those before. They were killed off to fill supper pots and so their pelts could be made into clothes and rugs.

Fargo liked that part about few humans. He was fond of the quiet places, the lonely places, the places hardly any whites ever saw. It was why folks called him the Trailsman. It was why the army relied on him so often as a scout. It was why others hired him as a guide.

That was what Fargo was doing at the moment: guiding. A quarter of a mile back down the trail came his party. He'd gone on ahead to check the trail and keep an eye out for game, and now this black bear had come along and brought him to a stop.

It was late afternoon and Fargo had spent all day in the saddle. He could use a cup of coffee and a hot meal. Stretching, he idly gazed at pillowy clouds floating through the blue British Columbia sky. Then he glanced up the trail and gave a start.

The black bear was coming toward him.

Fargo dropped his hand to his Colt. He'd rather avoid the bear than shoot it. Bears took a lot more butchering than deer, and some people weren't as fond of bear meat as they were of venison. Personally, he liked bear meat just fine, but some of those in the party he was guiding struck him as finicky.

The bear was still coming.

Fargo rose in the stirrups and hollered, “Skedaddle, you idiot.” Black bears were skittish. They often ran at the sound of a human voice. But not this one. It raised its nose and sniffed a few times and then kept on lumbering toward him.

“Hell.” Fargo reined around and tapped his spurs. He would go back down the trail. The bear would realize he wasn't a threat and go its merry way. He went around a bend and glanced back.

The bear came trotting after him.

“Son of a bitch.” Fargo scowled. The bear was moving fast—not a full-out lope, but fast. Clearly, it had decided that he or the Ovaro was worth catching. And what a bear could catch, it ate.

Fargo used his spurs again, bringing the stallion to a trot. He trotted around the next bend and went fifty more yards besides, and again drew rein. Surely, he told himself, the black bear had given up.

Here it came, lumbering after him.

“Damn contrary critter.” Fargo was mad. He was trying his best to spare the thing and it wanted him for its dinner. Once more he wheeled and this time he rode a good distance at a full gallop, enough to show the bear it had no chance of catching him. Bears were as fast as horses over short spurts, but a horse with a big enough lead usually left a bear eating its dust.

Fargo came to a stop and reined broadside to the trail. He figured that was the end of it. He figured the bear had given up and gone off into the forest in search of easier prey. He waited to be proven right—and was proven wrong.

Once more the black bear appeared, and when it saw him, it ran faster.

Enough was enough. The day Fargo couldn't outsmart a bear was the day he hung up his Colt, found himself a rocking chair somewhere, and put himself out to pasture. He galloped to the next turn and on around. Once out of the bear's sight, he reined into the trees. The undergrowth was so thick, it only took him a few moments to find cover where he could see the trail without being seen.

The seconds went by and Fargo began to think that this time the bear had gotten it through its thick head that it couldn't catch him, when there it was, its heavy paws thudding on the ground. Breathing like a bellows, it ran past his hiding place and soon was out of sight around the next bend.

Chuckling, Fargo gigged the Ovaro and turned up the trail to continue on his way. With the bear behind him he had nothing to worry about. But then it hit him. The bear was now between him and those he was guiding—
and heading right toward them
.

Fargo wheeled the Ovaro. The odds of the bear attacking a party as large as his was small, but this bear wasn't acting as a bear should. He spurred to a trot, confident he would soon catch up.

Minutes went by, and there was no sign of the bear. Fargo grew more and more sure the bear had given up and gone off into the forest. He was congratulating himself on outsmarting it when the first shot cracked, and then another. There was a roar, and someone screamed.

The bear was attacking them.

Blistering the air with fiery oaths, Fargo sped to their aid. From the shrieks and the cries, at least one person was down and there might be more. Most were city dwellers and prone to panic at a time like this, and too often panic led to dead.

Fargo reached down and shucked his Henry rifle from the saddle scabbard. The brass receiver gleamed as he levered a round into the chamber. The bear was as good as dead. It just didn't know it yet.

Another scream knifed the air. The bear must be wreaking havoc. Then a rifle boomed like a cannon.