Six-Gun Gallows (14 page)

“Damn. They could attack our place,” Nate fretted.

“Not likely. There's not enough settlement, this far west, to make it worthwhile.”

“Then what's this bunch doing here?”

“They had a specific mission,” Fargo replied. “To attack the senator's fact-finding mission and prove the ‘Indian menace' makes this route a bad choice. That group of Quakers was just a target of opportunity—more bloody violence to convince Congress the northern route is safer.”

“Makes sense,” Dub agreed. “But it makes a body's head spin to understand it. A lot of what you're saying is pure guessing, right?”

“Mostly,” Fargo admitted. “But far as your place goes, I'm on solid ground there. I've seen army maps of all three proposed routes for a transcontinental railroad. One passes through Illinois and the territories way north of here. The other two cut through Kansas, but neither route puts your place in a railroad right-of-way.”

By now the newborn sun was balanced like a brass coin just above the eastern horizon. Fargo had slept less than an hour at the McCallister farm and his eyelids felt weighted with coins.

“Boys,” he said, stretching out in the grass with his saddle for a pillow, “I have to grab a little shut-eye. I expect our friends to try flushing us out again. You know where my spyglasses are. I want one of you up in the tree at all times, savvy?”

Both brothers nodded.

“Good. Wake me up at the first sign of trouble.”

 

Fargo, weary to the core of his bones, fell almost immediately into a deep sleep. In his pleasant dream, he was stretched out beside the bathing pool, first Krissy, then Rosario, bouncing up and down atop him in wanton abandon.

The women kept changing places as if by magic, and the confusion didn't bother Fargo one bit. Then something began to shake his arm and Fargo started awake.

“Mr. Fargo, they're coming!”

It was Dub shaking him, and Nate was sitting up in the tree, peering through the field glasses.

“Where they at now?” Fargo said, standing up and drawing his Colt to check the loads.

“They're closing in on the spot where you shot at them yesterday—closing in slow, all spread out.”

“How many riders?”

“I count fifteen or so.”

“All right, here's how they'll likely play it. They're going to—Nate, careful with those glasses, they reflect—they're going to blast hell out of that spot. Soon enough they'll realize there's nobody there. Then they'll start down the creek toward us, probing.”

Fargo tugged his Henry from its saddle boot and levered it to check the action.

“What are we gonna do?” Dub asked.

“You boys know what a pincers trap is?”

They both shook their heads.

Fargo said, “It's hitting your enemy from two directions at once. It works best when you have the element of surprise, which we do. Dub, bring the Spencer and throw the ammo belt over your left shoulder. Let Nate use the Colt Navy I gave you. Each of you bring your Remingtons, too.”

Even as Fargo finished speaking, a blistering salvo of gunfire erupted about a mile east of them. The rapid crackle seemed to go on for at least thirty seconds.

“Tarnal hell,” Dub said. “That's a right smart of guns.”

“It is,” Fargo agreed. “But a gun is no better than the man behind it. These jackleg ‘soldiers' talk the he-bear talk, but they generally show the white feather when it comes down to the nutcuttin'. Remember, both of you, they believe in nothing, and that means they'll save their own worthless hides if they get caught in a shit storm.”

“You were right, Mr. Fargo,” Nate called down. “They checked out the spot, and now they're coming toward us real slow.”

“Come on down and get heeled,” Fargo told him. “Here's how we play it. We'll have the advantage of both creek banks between us and them, each with its own trees and bushes. So we scoot toward them on foot just like I did yesterday. I'll station you boys at a good spot west of them. Then I'll hurry on ahead to the spot they just shot up. I'll pop out into the open and commence firing from behind them.”

“Step into the
open
?” Dub repeated.

Fargo grinned. “Some say I have a trouble-seeking nature, and some might be right. But I have to let them see me to focus their attention. You two
don't
break cover, and that's a strict order. Once I start shooting, they'll whirl around to counter my attack. That's when you two complete the pincers. Nate?”

“Yessir?”

“I know you boys are both dead aims. But Dub has the rifle, and he's aiming for men. With a short gun, all you'll likely be able to plug are horses. I don't favor shooting horses when a fight is even, but the odds against us are eight to one or better if you count the whole group. And every horse you hit puts a man to flight and weakens them.”

Dub looked troubled. “Won't I be shooting men in the back?”

“Back, front, it's all one target. Boy, the code out here is meant to cover two men with a grudge to settle. This is war against murderers and rapists who outnumber us. No surrender, no prisoners—if you ain't got the stomach for it, just stay here. I won't hold it against you.”

When Fargo sprinted off alongside the creek, however, both boys were beside him. About a half mile east of their camp, Fargo began looking for a good spot to hide his companions.

“There,” he said, pointing to the bole of a fat cottonwood. “Get across and hunker behind that tree. Soon as I open up, pour the lead to 'em. But
don't
show yourselves.”

Holding his Henry at a high port, Fargo raced toward the spot from which he had ambushed the jayhawkers yesterday—the same spot they had just shot up for nothing. There was one tricky piece of work, however. He could see them through the trees, about two hundred feet past the old ambush point, and he had to slip past them unobserved.

When he was closer, Fargo dropped into the grass and rolled rapidly, the movement made awkward by his gun belt and the rifle clutched to his chest.

A gunshot rang out, the bullet thwacking into the ground inches from his head, and Fargo froze, tasting the corroded-pennies taste of fear. Two more shots plunked into the ground, so close Fargo could feel the impact. Not only might he have been sighted, but if the boys thought that was him shooting, his plan was doomed along with the three of them.

“The hell you shooting at, Moss?”

“I think I just saw buckskins on the far bank. Can't be sure. Over in there.”

“Let 'er rip, boys!” called the first voice. “Then we'll take a closer look.”

Before Fargo could twitch a muscle, every man opened up—short guns, rifles, shotguns. Leaves fell on him, branches snapped, the bushes rattled as if hail were coming down. If Fargo tried to stand and flee, he knew he'd step into the path of a bullet. Instead, he made the hard decision to stay put—no man seemed to know exactly where he was.

“Cease fire!” the voice in charge commanded. “Jesus Christ, Moss, you hawg-stupid son of a bitch—your ‘buckskins'! A patch of cattails!”

“Hey, Moss,” jeered another voice, “the eye you got left ain't no good, neither!”

Fargo was proud of the McCallister boys. Confusing as all this must have been, they were disciplined enough to stick to the plan. He finished the distance to yesterday's ambush point, splashed through the creek, and stepped boldly out into the open.

The border ruffians were moving west. Fargo brought his notch sight between the shoulder blades of the last man and began squeezing back the trigger. “Welcome to the happy hunting grounds, scum bucket,” he muttered.

The Henry spoke its piece, and the jayhawker tipped sideways out of the saddle, left foot caught in the stirrup. His panicked horse took off, the dead man bouncing up and down like a bag of rags. Fargo levered, wounded a man, levered again and missed when his target spun his horse around. By now all the border ruffians had spotted him. Just as they opened up on Fargo, however, the McCallister boys rained in a deadly storm of bullets.

Fargo stood his ground, despite the bullets snapping past him, levering and firing three more rounds. Dub had killed at least two men, and Fargo watched first a claybank, then a sorrel buckle to their knees. Then he spotted the sight he had dreaded: the jayhawker leader called Moss, bringing his Big Fifty to the ready.

Fargo dove headlong into the tree cover as the big-caliber gun boomed. At the same time a panicked voice screamed out repeatedly: “Retreat, damn it, retreat!” By the time Fargo got to his feet, the badly shot-up men were thundering toward their camp, several seriously wounded jayhawkers hunched over in the saddle.

The two men in the grass had sustained hits to the head and required no finishing shots. The one Fargo killed was still bouncing across the plains full chisel, his debt to society paid in full.

Fargo sprinted toward the brothers' position. “Fancy-fine shooting, boys! I'll guarandamntee you they won't play pheasant flush with us anymore.”

“Mr. Fargo!” Dub's nearly hysterical voice replied. “Hurry! Nate's been hit, and there's a powerful lot of blood!”

Fargo's first thought, when he heard Dub's calamitous words, was,
Damn! Nate's a good kid, but I put him in over his head.
His second thought, however, was even more troubling:
If Nate dies, you're honor-bound to take him home to his mother.
Fargo would rather harrow hell and deliver a Bible to the devil than return a dead son to his mother.

“Hurry, Mr. Fargo!” Dub pleaded as the Trailsman reached his position. “Hurry!”

“All right, I'm here, Dub, get reloads in your rifle, then watch to the east in case those bastards about-face on us.”

Nate lay writhing in the grass, breathing hard like a woman in labor.

“Where you hit, son?” Fargo said, kneeling beside him. “Belly? Chest?”

“My leg,” Nate gasped. “Left leg.”

“Your . . . ?” Fargo bit his lower lip to keep a straight face. There was a small trace of blood on the ankle of his grain-sack trousers.

“It's curtains for me, Mr. Fargo,” he said dramatically. “No need to sugarcoat it. I'm a gone beaver, ain't I?”

Fargo slit the pant leg with his toothpick and glanced at the wound. “Boy, get straight with your Maker. You're about bled out.”

“I knew it,” Nat wailed. “You hear that, Dub? Gunned down on the plains. Just like in
Wild West Adventures
.”

“That's right, boy,” Fargo said. “Nobody can call you pissproud now. You're a fighting frontiersman, and your name will go down with Caleb Greenwood, Jim Bridger, and Daniel Boone.”

“Can't you save him, Mr. Fargo?” Dub pleaded from behind him.

Fargo finally had to take pity on Dub. “Save him from
what
, you damn young fools? There ain't enough blood here to feed a baby skeeter.”

“What? He ain't shot up bad?”

“Dub, the boy ain't even
shot
. I've wounded myself worse just shaving. He got grazed along the ankle, is all, just like I got grazed in the neck yesterday. Prob'ly a ricochet. It's piddlin'. Take a look.”

Dub bent over his brother, then flushed to the roots of his tow hair. “Christ, Nate, you damn weak sister! Way you carried on, I thought you was dying.”

Fargo forced himself not to laugh. “Never mind. It's still a bullet wound, after all, and a man's first time is apt to rattle him. I'm just glad he's all right. And the main mile is that you two fellows did some fine shooting. C'mon, Nate.”

Fargo helped him up. “I'll put some salve on it and wrap it with a strip of linen.”

“You little she-male,” Dub muttered. “ ‘It's curtains for me.' That ain't nothing but a rope burn.”

“Kiss my hinder,” Nate retorted. “
You
ain't never been shot.”

They returned to their simple camp and Fargo tended to the leg. By now both boys were starting to realize they had been in their first shooting scrape—and acquitted themselves well.

“Any regrets?” Fargo asked them.

“You kidding? It beats the Dutch,” Nate replied.

“Caps the climax,” Dub added. “It ain't like we shot up decent men. I think I'm gonna be a sheriff—maybe even a U.S. marshal.”

“Don't go off half-cocked,” Fargo warned. “This today was an ambush, with the element of surprise on our side. Last night, in their camp, they were corned. But we can't count on Old Churn-brain tonight.”

“These men sure
look
tough,” Dub said. “How's come we run 'em off so easy just now?”

“Don't get cocky,” Fargo warned. “They can be trouble when they want to be. They were smart to hightail it just now. They were caught in a pincers, and that was their own stupid fault. These old boys are too lazy to learn trail craft and tactics. They may look tough, Dub, but the truth is they're hard.”

“What's the difference?” Nate asked.

“Well, this bunch is what you might call easy-go killers. For them murder is as natural as taking a leak. That makes them dangerous—real dangersome, as Old Jules would put it. But only when the odds are with them because, at heart, they're cowards like most criminals. But never forget they're dangerous—and when they're cornered, like rats, they fight.”

 

At regular intervals Fargo climbed up into the cottonwood and checked the plains all around them. He spotted one or two isolated riders, but no one came close to the creek.