Trailsman #360 : Texas Lead Slingers (9781101544860) (19 page)

“It will.”

“Then yes, let's try your idea of luring him in. Let's end this once and for all.”

“One way or the other,” Fargo said.

Stars speckled the night sky, broken here and there by islands of clouds.

Fargo lay a dozen feet from the southeast rim of the basin in waist-high grass. He had been there for hours. It was almost midnight and Garvin Oster hadn't shown.

From where he lay Fargo couldn't see Marshal Moleen, who was off a ways, or the senator and Roselyn, who were well hid at the north end of the basin, well out of possible harm.

The fire had long since gone out but before it died it gave off enough light and smoke that if Oster was anywhere near, he was bound to spot it.

So where the hell was he? Fargo wondered. All this trouble they had gone to, and Oster might be too smart for them. He went to shift his legs and froze. Over by the basin something moved. He sought to pierce the dark, to tell if it was an animal. The grass swayed—or did he imagine it?

Fargo pressed the Henry to his shoulder and slowly thumbed back the hammer. The click was so slight that he wasn't worried Oster would hear. He waited for a glimpse of his target. Then, for a split instant a large bulk appeared at the brink of the basin. It was there and it was gone, too swiftly for him to shoot.

Fargo bit off a choice cussword. Lowering the rifle, he crawled. He used his elbows and his knees and tried to rustle the grass as little as possible. He came to the edge and peered over. The basin was a bowl of ink. All he could see were the black silhouettes of the horses.

The horses.
Fear filled him—fear for the Ovaro—and he crabbed down into the ink, moving faster than he should but he wouldn't ever let anything happen to the stallion if he could help it. He'd ridden it for years now, and it meant more to him than most people.

He was making more noise than he should but it couldn't be helped. A third of the way in, he saw a form rise to his left. He rolled as the night pealed to man-caused thunder and heard the thwack of the slug striking the ground. Prone on his side, he fired, jacked the lever, fired again. The second shot was a waste. The figure had already sunk from sight.

Fargo fed another cartridge into the chamber while scrambling into a crouch. Had he hit Oster? He wasn't sure.

Minutes passed, and he stayed where he was. To move might draw lead.

“Fargo!” Marshal Moleen called down from the rim. “Are you all right?”

Fargo didn't answer. It would tell Oster where he was. The lawman should have known better. Then he realized—now Oster knew where Moleen was. Taking a gamble, he replied, “Watch yourself! He's down here somewhere.” As he shouted, he dived, and it was well he did. The Sharps shattered the night, and the whistle of heavy lead nearly claimed his life.

Oster was good, damn good.

Fargo lay still. More minutes elapsed. The basin stayed still. He was beginning to think he would be there all night when a commotion broke out at the rim. There were blows and curses and a grunt. Throwing caution aside, he rose and raced for the top. When the commotion abruptly stopped, so did he.

Crouching, he listened.

The silence was deafening.

Fargo didn't move. He dared not make the same mistake again. His ears pricked at a slight scrape, as of a body dragging along the ground. Someone was crawling toward him.

He centered the Henry on a patch of grass and guessed right—the grass parted. A dark object the size of a melon poked out and he curled his finger around the trigger.

“Fargo?”

Moleen's voice was strangled with pain. Wary as a cat Fargo went over. The lawman was slumped flat. His hat was missing and his vest was torn. Fargo put a hand on his shoulder.

“Moleen?”

“The son of a bitch stabbed me,” the lawman said into the dirt, his words muffled.

“Here,” Fargo said, and carefully rolled him over. Dark blotches marked the shirt under the sternum. “How bad?” he whispered.

“Bad,” Moleen rasped.

“I can't tend you until I know where he is.” Fargo scanned the rim.

“He's gone,” Moleen said. “I think you hit him. He was moving strange when he jumped me and when he crawled off.”

The lawman coughed and dark spots appeared at the corners of his mouth. “I shouldn't have yelled.”

“Keep it down,” Fargo said. “He might circle around.”

Moleen groaned. His hand rose feebly to his shirt. “So this is how it will be.”

“Save your breath. Maybe it's not as bad as you think.”

“No. He got me good. His knife went in to the hilt. He was going for the heart.” Moleen coughed harder and blood trickled down his chin.

“I can get you some water.”

“Don't bother.”

They were quiet save for the lawman's heavy breathing, which grew slower and slower.

“Never been so wrong about anyone as I was about him,” Moleen broke the silence. “I thought he'd given up his old ways.”

“A wolf can be tamed but it's still a wolf,” Fargo said.

Moleen sucked in a long breath. “Don't let him get the senator and the girl.”

“I'll protect them the best I can.” Fargo didn't add that it might not be good enough.

Moleen raised his face to the heavens. “A pretty night for dying.”

“You're not dead yet.”

“Yes,” Moleen said. “I am.”

The breathing sounds stopped.

Fargo had to say their names several times before Marion Deerforth answered. He led the horses to the spot where they were hidden. “You can stand up.”

The senator rose, Roselyn clinging to him in fear. “We heard shots. I didn't know if it was safe.”

“We're lighting a shuck.” Fargo handed over the reins to their mounts.

“What about Marshal Moleen?” Deerforth peered at the basin. “Is he staying to cover our backs?”

“He's gone.”

“Gone where?” Roselyn asked.

“Heaven or hell or nowhere. Take your pick.” Fargo gripped the saddle horn, the saddle creaking under him.

“Hold on,” Senator Deerforth said. “It's just the three of us now?”

Fargo told them about the lawman's death. They were shocked, Deerforth more than his daughter.

“I knew Floyd a good many years. He was as honest as they come. Dependable, too.” He went to climb on his animal. “Wait. Did you bury him?”

“We don't have the time.”

“Damn it, man. We can't leave him for the vultures and the coyotes.”

“Listen to me,” Fargo said. “Oster is out there somewhere. He might be hurt but that won't stop him from finishing what he's started. We have to go, now, and put as many miles as we can behind us before daylight.”

“Listen to him, Father,” Roselyn said.

Deerforth smiled. “Thank you for calling me that. I was afraid you would regard Garvin as your parent now that the truth has come out.”

“He didn't raise me. You did.”

Going to her horse, Deerforth held up his hand and Roselyn clasped it. “It means the world to me that you still care for me.”

From across the basin came a thud.

“Get on,” Fargo commanded.

With the senator on his right and Roselyn on his left, they spent the next several hours fleeing south across the starlit plain.

Fargo needed a brainstorm, a way of turning the tables, but he was fresh out of ideas. Oster was too canny to fall for the same ruse twice.

Toward morning he was on the lookout for a place to lie low. Endless flat met his gaze.

“Skye,” Roselyn spoke for the first time since midnight. “I can't keep my eyes open.”

“Me either,” the senator was quick to say. “I demand you let us rest. It's inhuman to push us so hard.”

“Would you rather be dead?”

A swath of churned ground gave Fargo hope. A herd of buffalo had passed that way in the past few days, and where there were buffs, there were wallows. Wallows reeked of urine and in the heat of the day swarmed with flies but they were large enough and deep enough to conceal a horse and rider.

An arch of fire had risen to the east when Fargo found what he was looking for—half a dozen wallows. Drawing rein, he announced, “This is as far as we go.”

“Thank God,” Deerforth said.

Roselyn had to be helped off her horse. When Fargo started to usher her into a wallow she stopped and sniffed and scrunched up her face.

“You can't be serious.”

“We'll rest and head out at sunset.”

“Spend all day in
that
?” Roselyn shook her head. “I can't. It reeks to high heaven.”

“It's just buffalo piss.”

“Fargo, please,” Senator Deerforth broke in. He hadn't climbed down yet. “Your language.”

“I absolutely refuse,” Roselyn said.

“You'll be safe.”

“I'll be sick.”

“If she doesn't want to, we can't make her,” the senator declared.

“There's nowhere else,” Fargo said impatiently. “We can't stay in the open.”

“Surely we've lost him,” Deerforth said. “We must have covered ten to twelve miles or better.”

“It's not enough.”

“He couldn't track us in the dark,” Deerforth argued. “It will take him most of the day to overtake us, if he even can. I say we stop, yes. But I absolutely refuse to have you force my daughter into one of those awful wallows.”

“Thank you,” Roselyn said gratefully.

Deerforth smiled. “You've been through enough, my dear. Spread your blankets and get some sleep. I assure you we're quite safe.”

That was when his face exploded.

For a split instant Fargo was riveted in disbelief. He shouldn't have been, not after Oster had already killed so many. Galvanizing to life, he seized Roselyn. She screamed and tried to pull free to run to her father but he threw her into the wallow.

Grabbing the reins to the Ovaro and to her horse, Fargo pulled them in after him. Hers balked. Suddenly it squealed and staggered; part of its head had been blown away.

Letting go of its reins, he hauled on the Ovaro's. He was deathly afraid the Sharps would thunder again and the stallion would share its fate.

A few bounds and they were in the wallow. Fargo started to go for the senator's animal but another shot brought it crashing down before he could reach it.

Fargo swore and shucked the Henry from the scabbard. Roselyn was in a crouch, her arms around her chest, bawling hysterically. He put a hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed.

“Get hold of yourself.”

“He's dead!” Roselyn wailed, and swatted his hand off. “That terrible man killed him!”

Fargo tried to comfort her and was rebuffed. Leaving her to her grief, he went up the wallow and hunkered. Taking off his hat, he peered over. The shot horses were limp, red pools forming. Deerforth was on his back, what was left of his face oozing scarlet.

As the prairie brightened, Fargo searched in vain for some sign of Garvin Oster. He was about to sink back and ponder his options when a figure rose out of the grass to the north.

He couldn't believe his eyes. It had to be Oster—and he was coming toward them. He snapped the Henry to his shoulder and waited for Oster to come in range.

It struck him that Oster seemed taller than he should be, and that there was something odd about the way the man was moving. Presently he saw why.

Oster was holding his hands over his head and walking with a shuffling gait, as if each step were a trial.

“What the hell?”

Fargo centered the Henry on Oster's chest. Soon Oster was in range but he didn't fire. On Oster came. Five hundred yards out, Oster stumbled. At two hundred yards, a crimson stain on Oster's shirt suggested why. At fifty yards Oster stopped and seemed to be having trouble breathing. He advanced, tottering. At twenty yards, his pasty face, slick with sweat, confirmed what Fargo already knew—Oster was a dead man walking.

Fargo rose out of the wallow, covering him. “That's far enough.”

Garvin Oster came to a halt. He licked his lips and croaked, “I don't have long left.”

“I can see that,” Fargo said. “Marshal Moleen's doing?”

“Yours,” Oster said, “when we swapped lead last night.” He coughed violently. “You're a regular hellion.”

“Lucky shot,” Fargo said.

“I'd like—” Oster swayed and grunted and steadied himself. “I'd like to see her before I cash in.”

“I doubt she wants to see you. You just killed her father, you stupid son of a bitch.”

“
I'm
her pa,” Oster exclaimed with a flash of vehemence. “Where is she? Call to her.” He looked past Fargo. “Is that a wallow? Tell her I'm here. Leave it to her.”

Fargo would just as soon shoot him. “Where's your Sharps and your six-gun?”

“I left them with my horse,” Oster said. “You're welcome to all of it once I'm gone.”

Fargo glanced over his shoulder. Roselyn was still sniffling and sobbing. “Roselyn?”

She didn't look up.

“Roselyn, he's here.”

Slowly raising her head, Roselyn blinked and said, “Who is?”

“Who do you think?”

“He's hurt bad. He wants to see you before he dies.”

Roselyn dabbed at her eyes, smearing dirt on her cheek. She stiffly rose and timidly approached, stopping when she set eyes on the man who had sired her.