Utah Deadly Double (9781101558867) (15 page)

“Listen to this jay! 'Bout what I'd expect from a man what thinks a woman deserves a ‘shiver' when he tops her. You mollycoddle that damn animal, Fargo, that's the long and short of it. By God, he'll be broke to saddle
and
master when I'm through with him.”

Fargo grinned wickedly in the darkness. “All right,” he said mildly. “You might be right, at that.”

They had purchased a sack of oats at Kellar's Station. Fargo fed and watered both horses from his hat while Old Billy softened ground for their bedrolls. But as Fargo worked he gazed in the direction of Salt Lake City, wondering: Was the man who signed himself Death's Second Self already at work?

Later, the words of the killer's second note chased Fargo down a long tunnel into sleep:

 

The fifth day of Fargo's relentless struggle against an unseen foe dawned somber and hot, with rain clouds piling up like boulders on the horizon. With time to spare before they rode into Salt Lake City after sunset, Fargo put his sharp eye and prodigious tracking skills to work.

When they were about five miles northeast of the city, Fargo tugged rein and guided Billy's Appaloosa toward the south.

“How's come we're leaving the freight road?” Old Billy demanded. “I thought you was figuring to cut sign on this twin of yours?”

“I am. But do you really think he'll just waltz into Salt Lake City on the main trail? He's not likely disguised as me all the time, especially now, but he's riding a stallion that fits the Ovaro's description.”

“That ciphers. You always was a better hand than me at tracking, Fargo.”

Fargo glanced at the gray, bleak morning sky. Those ragged black clouds on the horizon were now rapidly blowing off without dumping rain. But the stiff wind that propelled them was also scouring the barren plain that rimmed Salt Lake Valley, obscuring any prints.

For nearly two hours the men walked their horses at a right angle to the freight road, Fargo leaning low out of the saddle and minutely studying the ground. Now and then he swung down and hunkered on his heels, searching closer.

“Somebody walked a horse in from the south,” he said at one point, “but the hooves are unshod.”

“Mountain Utes from the Wasatch Range,” Old Billy said matter-of-factly. “I seen 'em work this grift before. They make attacks on the outposts and lure the soldiers up into the mountains in pursuit. But they keep a band down here to hit the freight wagons.”

Fargo nodded and climbed up onto the hurricane deck. “The city is safe, though. Even without the Mormon Battalion there's enough firepower here to start a war with Europe.”

“Uh-huh. 'Sides, your average Red John won't attack even a small town. The buildings scare the shit outta them. But that firepower might be turned on
us
, Trailsman, in a puffin' hurry.”

But Fargo ignored him, swinging down again and squatting over a gravel seam. Old Billy joined him.

“The hell, Fargo! What you glommin' so close? All I see is dirt and gravel.”

Fargo outlined a dim print with his finger. “It's fresh—the edges haven't crumbled. But the damn wind is filling it in.”

“Is it our killer?”

Finally Fargo nodded. “I'd lay good odds. This is the rear offside shoe, and it's loose.”

Eyes closed to slits, Fargo glanced ahead into the swirling dust and gravel. “No sense trying to follow him. This print only lasted because of the gravel, and there's nothing but sand ahead. The wind will wipe 'em out.”

“He must be a blame fool,” Old Billy pointed out. “Riding that marked horse straight into the city. Or do you figure he went in at night?”

“The print was likely made last night, but I don't think he headed into the city. The course he's riding would likely take him south of the city and up to Mormon Station near the lake.”

Old Billy rubbed his chin. “Where it'll be easier to rape and kill.”

“Seems to me it won't be easy, and he won't kill. He could shoot from ambush, sure, but that's not what he's after. He wants to leave a raped and badly hurt woman to testify that Skye Fargo attacked her.”

Fargo forked leather. “Much as I hate to let it happen, we've got no choice. If we go charging in there now, we'll just get shot or jugged.”

They gigged their mounts in the direction the mystery outlaw had taken.

“If we ain't gonna stick our noses into the pie,” Old Billy said, “why're we dogging him?”

“We have to do something,” Fargo replied. “We can sneak up through the salt dunes and get a good look at the valley and Mormon Station. He'll likely wait until tonight to make his move. If I spot the son of a bitch, I'm gonna kill him and drag his body into the middle of the city. Let them get a good gander at ‘death's second self.' ”

 

The sun returned with a vengeance as the last, swift-moving storm clouds blew to the east. The sky had cleared to a deep, gas-flame blue, and purple-hazed mountains marched along distant horizons.

The two riders stayed far enough back from the city to be obscured in the brilliant glare reflecting off quartz and mica in the sand. The conical dunes provided excellent cover as they ascended to the lip of the valley.

They finally cleared a long, sloping ridge and even jaded Old Billy gawped in amazement at sight of the fertile valley. It was shaped like a giant amphitheater and ringed completely by mountains. Thanks to irrigation it was brilliant with green grass and large fields of cucumbers, melons, and squash, separated by grape-stake fences. Fargo spotted cattle, hogs, chickens, turkeys, all of excellent quality. Broadleaved cottonwoods and tall poplars, while not profuse, were a welcome sight for destitute travelers approaching from the arid and featureless Salt Desert west of the city.

“You can't say the Saints ain't hard workers,” Old Billy begrudged. “Damn! I'd give a party for one a them melons.”

“Yeah, Mormons have no need of clocks,” Fargo agreed. “The workday goes on from can to can't. Only way to whip a desert.”

Just then Fargo felt a familiar “goose tickle” on the back of his neck—a feeling he had learned to respect.

“Pull back a little,” he told Old Billy. “You're skylined.”

“Kiss my lily-white hinder, rapist,” Old Billy replied, though he did cluck to the Ovaro, backing up.

Fargo reached across to his own saddle and pulled the field glasses out. Careful not to let them reflect, he began studying the entire valley.

“Nothing's happened yet,” he decided. “Or else, it hasn't been discovered yet. Nothing but hard work going on below.”

“Then where's he laid up?” Old Billy demanded.

“He could be holed up anywhere—laying down in a field, up one of those cottonwoods, maybe even in a root cellar. But where the hell's his horse?”

Old Billy shook his head. “That's a sticker, all right. Fargo. I ain't one for spirit knockin's and such, but this old hoss commences to wonder if we're up agin a damn ghost.”

Fargo, still feeling a tickle on his nape, reined the Appaloosa around to study the long line of dunes behind them. Just for a heartbeat reflected light winked from one of them.

“The hell you eyeballing?” Old Billy demanded.

Fargo opened his mouth to reply when a rifle cracked, sending loud echoes out over the valley.

“Here's the fandango!” Fargo shouted almost joyously, recognizing the distinctive sound of a Henry repeater and guessing his deadly imposter had finally confronted him.

Even as he spoke he jerked his feet from the stirrups and tossed the reins to Old Billy. He reached over and snatched his own Henry from its boot and jacked a round into the chamber.

“Get those horses to the other side of the dune,” he ordered Billy. “Then bring your Greener.”

A fractional second after he finished speaking, the Henry erupted with another concussive, ear-splitting crack. “Jesus!” Fargo muttered when the bullet nicked the bow of the Appaloosa's saddle, then sent up a geyser of salt dust when it punched into the ground.

Old Billy wheeled the Ovaro around and slapped his glossy rump, leading both mounts to safety. All of this took only a few seconds, and there was still a black feather of telltale powder smoke marking the shooter's position. Fargo, realizing by now the hidden man had no plans to kill him, guessed that his real target was Old Billy—a dangerous sidekick and one well worth removing.

Fargo took up a kneeling-offhand position, dropped the Henry's front sight on the edge of that dune, and peppered it with eight quick shots. Again the shooter's Henry spoke its piece, but the bullets hit the dirt wide of Fargo. He's waiting for Billy, Fargo realized.

The moment Old Billy appeared, Fargo grabbed the scattergun and handed his partner the Henry. “Cover fire, old son,” he ordered Billy. “I'm charging the son of a bitch. Right now we just want to make him rabbit—those settlers in the valley are sounding their horn, and they'll be on us quicker than a finger snap. And
don't
give him a target—it's you he's trying to plug.”

With Old Billy spraying the dune from a prone position, Fargo ran forward in a low crouch, thumb-cocking both hammers. He steadied the gun in his hip socket and twitched one trigger. The shotgun kicked hard and the spray of 12-gauge buckshot blew a melon-sized chunk out of the dune. He blasted it again and tossed the Greener aside, shucking out his Colt and hoping for a showdown.

But when he rounded the mutilated dune, no one was in sight. Nor did he hear a horse retreating.

“Time to dust our hocks!” Old Billy shouted behind him. “We got five Mormons with rifles riding this way and they ain't looking to convert us!”

Fargo cursed. This was an excellent opportunity to cut sign on the elusive criminal. But falling into Mormon hands right now, especially appearing as if he had disguised himself, was no sane option. He quickly rejoined Old Billy.

“Most of these Mormon horses are just plow nags,” he said as he swung up into leather on Billy's Appaloosa. “We'll head across the desert toward the mountains. They don't know what was going on up here, so I don't figure they'll chase us that long. If they do, a few snapshots should reverse their dust.”

Unless, Fargo reminded himself, somebody got word to the military barracks near City Creek. If that happened, they were in for a merry chase.

 

Fargo had called it right. The Mormon farmers, realizing they were up against two fast horses, gave up the chase before it even began. Fargo and Old Billy, riding slow in the furnace heat of Salt Desert, hooked wide to the west of the city looking for a suitable place to hole up until nightfall.

“You think them dirt-scratchers mighta recognized your stallion?” Old Billy asked, trying to spit but failing.

“I think we had too much of a lead,” Fargo replied. “But I fear they'll soon know Skye Fargo is around—just as soon as that dry-gulching bastard attacks again disguised as me.”

“Ain't it just the drizzlin' shits? You know the poison-mean snake is gonna strike again, but you can't show your pan to stop it. It's a jo-fired mess.”

“I'm not so sure I can't show my pan,” Fargo said. “If I'm careful and wait for dark, I mean. It's buckskins and beard that mark me—and the Ovaro, who's gonna be boarded.”

“Uh-huh, mebbe so. But Salt Lake City spreads out like a fat man's ass. We gonna patrol the whole place?”

“Nix on that,” Fargo said. “Too many constables and roundsmen—fear of Indians. And they set loose packs of dogs at night, too. They might raise a ruckus and get us nabbed.”

Old Billy sputtered drily when he tried again to spit. “Christ, I'm spittin' cotton. And we gotta cross this big son of a bitch alla way to Sacramento.”

Even the Trailsman, who cheerfully accepted most terrain the West set before him, felt humbled and daunted in the Great Salt. The vast desert plain stretched between scarred ranges of sterile mountains. The wind-driven grit stung like buckshot, and a blazing yellow sun was stuck high in the sky as if pegged there. Alkali dust hung curtain-thick in the air, the searing sunlight turning it into a blinding white haze.

“What I think we should do,” Fargo said, picking up the conversational thread from earlier, “is concentrate on the outlying places, including Mormon Station. He'll be got up to look like me, and with that pinto he's riding he'd be a double-barreled fool to ride into the city.”

“I still say he's a haint,” Old Billy insisted.

“Sell your ass. How would a ghost hold a Henry rifle? Or, for that matter, wear buckskins?”

“Hell, Fargo, you yourself said he just disappeared today. And there wa'n no horse.”

“A Comanche can sneak in and out of a rolling wagon without being seen. And he left the horse hidden for obvious reasons.”

“Stuff,” Old Billy protested. “How in blue blazes could he know we was coming up to them dunes?”

“He didn't, you mule-headed fool. Likely he was up there to get the lay of the land below, see how the wind sets. Anyway, I'd guess he'll wait until dark. With luck we can pop him over before he strikes again. Say, what's this?”

Fargo had just spotted a ramshackle structure straight ahead, obscured by blowing sand. Both men filled their hands and rode in slow. The weather-rawed shack was barely larger than a packing crate and showed no signs of life. He guessed it was an old sentry post—the history of Mormons in America had taught them extreme vigilance.

“Hallo, the shack!” Fargo called out.