Utah Deadly Double (9781101558867) (16 page)

“Hell, anybody inside that cracker box would roast to death,” Old Billy scoffed.

Fargo nodded. “But look at that brush ramada in front. We can at least wait out of the sun.”

He lit down and held the reins as, standing to one side, he kicked at the dilapidated plank door. It broke free of its dryrotted leather hinges and fell onto the dirt inside. Squinting in the bright sunlight, Fargo made out a plank table, a nail keg, and trash heaped everywhere.

“It's got the smell of an outlaw hideout,” he told Old Billy, “but nobody's been here in a coon's age.”

There was a small apron of shade on the east side of the shack, so they tethered their mounts there and watered them out of the sun. Then the two men squatted under the ramada, grateful for a little relief.

“Ain't you been wondering,” Old Billy said as they gnawed on strips of jerked buffalo, “who in Sam Hill is behind this outlaw Fargo? You think it's a gang or just one hombre?”

“Might as well ask me where all lost years go. The only evidence we've got points to one man.”

“Ain't no use,” Billy added, “to wunner who might hate you. That's like askin' if an old hound has fleas.”

Fargo grinned. “Sing it, brother. I keep running all the hard cases through my mind, but I can't put one to the top of the heap. I've killed plenty of the men I've locked horns with, and sent plenty more to prison. Whoever it is ain't content to see me pushing daisies. He wants to see me get one helluva comeuppance—he means to change my reputation forever and see me busting rocks in a Mormon prison before I swing.”

Old Billy grunted, picking at his teeth with a horseshoe nail. “I'll give it to you straight-arrow, Fargo—he's damn close to gettin' what he wants.”

“No, he's not,” Fargo said with conviction. “I'll kill him and the truth will all come out in the wash.”

The sun was still a crimson afterthought on the western horizon when Fargo and Old Billy, keeping a wary eye out, trotted their mounts into Salt Lake City. The wide, creosote-oiled streets of this plain and simple God-fearing town were mostly deserted—a rollicking nightlife was not characteristic of Mormon culture. It made Fargo feel like a naked target.

Here and there he spotted rustic outlanders, some sporting coyote-skin caps, prowling the streets under the watchful eye of civil but vigilant soldiers. Old Billy kept the Ovaro on the shadowy side of the street.

“Belly of the beast,” Old Billy muttered. “I'll breathe a mite easier when we get shed of these mounts for a spell.”

“Hold your whist, old son. Mica's place is dead ahead.”

The Ovaro, always a little flighty when riding into a settlement, snorted and pricked up his ears at Fargo's words. Of all the liverymen Fargo had encountered in his wanderings, none knew or appreciated horses more than Mica.

Fargo tugged rein and they trotted through the pole gate of a thriving livery on the western outskirts of town. In the light of a lantern they spotted a gaunt and gnarled old man who looked to be straight out of Genesis. He was in the paddock working a blindfolded coyote dun on a breaking pole and controlling it with apparent ease.

“Micajah,” Fargo called out. “Mica Jones. Got room to board two more horses?”

The old hostler glanced toward them, squinting in the weak light. He tried to place the smooth-shaven Fargo then dismissed him as an outlander.

“Mister,” he said to Billy, “air ye daft? I know that horse. He can stop on a quarter and give you fifteen cents in change. But your life ain't worth a busted trace chain if Skye Fargo catches you on it—that's his Ovaro.”

“Hell, I killed Fargo,” Old Billy boasted. “Bashed his brains out with a tent stake.”

Mica shook with laughter. “By grab, that's a corker. You ain't man enough to whip Fargo's shadow.”

Old Billy bristled like a feist. “Look here, dad. Don't presume on them gray hairs. I don't cotton to that frosty lip of yours.”

“Speakin' of lip,” Mica retorted, “you got enough for two mouths.”

“Don't listen to this chucklehead,” Fargo told the liveryman as he swung down and dropped the Appaloosa's bridle, letting Billy's mount drink from a stone watering trough. “I'm still above the ground, Mica. That's my Ovaro, all right.”

“Dang garn it, Fargo, I thought I recollected your voice. Ain't seen you since that fine animal of yours won the big horse race three years ago. Folks around here call him the Broken Drum—can't be beat.”

“Right now,” Fargo lamented, “he can't even be rode—not by me.”

“Aye, I been hearing all the claptrap about you going on a woman-killing spree.”

“Do they credit the story here in Salt Lake?”

“Only the fools, but that's a big enough majority in any town, eh? You best watch your ampersand—the big bugs in the Territorial Commission has put up a thousand-dollar reward for your capture. For that kind of legem pone a man don't
care
if you're innocent.”

“A thousand dollars?” Old Billy whistled. “Fargo, put your damn hands up.”

Fargo didn't bother to grin. Where gold and Old Billy were in the mix, loyalty was a dicey notion.

“You needn't cut capers,” Mica told Billy, “they got a kill-or-capture order on you. That is, if you're knowed as Old Billy.”

Now Fargo did grin. “He is.”

The Indian fighter glowered at his companion. “Fargo, you double-poxed hound! Easy wages, you told me! Hell and furies, you are one son of trouble.”

Mica chuckled as he led them inside the livery and produced a jug of mash from beneath a pile of straw in the first stall.

“Obliged,” Billy said as he set it on his shoulder.

“Finest horse I ever seen,” Mica said with deep respect, moving slowly around the Ovaro and studying him with an expert eye. “Never felt a breaking saddle. None of that choking nor water-starving nor wire bits to slice his mouth when he rebelled. And no cutting—a gelded horse will always lose bottom in a hard run on account he's spirit-broke.”

“Why, hell yes,” Old Billy agreed, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “If some bastard lopped your nuts off, ain't likely you'd be dancing a jig. But say, old-timer, that Appaloosa of mine has got plenty of bottom for a gelding.”

“Good breed,” Mica agreed, handing the jug to Fargo. “Say, Trailsman, ain't you paring the cheese mighty close to the rind? Soldiers and lawmen are combing this neck of the Utah Territory looking for you and your pard here.”

“Yeah, I'm in the grizzly's den,” Fargo replied as he stripped the saddle, blanket, and pad from the Ovaro. “Soldiers, huh? How many?”

“Only a squad right now under your old friend Captain Lee. Utes got most of the rest tied up in the Wasatch.”

Fargo welcomed the news. Captain Saunders Lee, a Mormon convert from the U.S. Army, had fought beside Fargo here in Deseret to break up a ring of whiskey peddlers selling to Indians. Fargo still intended to avoid soldiers, but if he had to fall into their net, he'd prefer Lee to be in charge.

“It ain't just soldiers and lawmen asking about you,” Mica added. He was already working the Ovaro's sore shoulder muscles with gnarled but deft hands.

Fargo, who was heading to the tack room with his saddle and bridle, stopped and turned around. “Mind chewing that a little finer?”

“Yestiddy and today this shifty little fox-faced fellow come in. Sneaky-looking little bastard—never seen him afore in my life. He ain't no Mormon and sure odds he was never Bible raised. He didn't ask for you by name. Wanted to know if two fellows was boarding horses here—a black-and-white pinto stallion and an Appaloosa.”

“Think he mighta been a law dog?” Fargo asked.

Mica shrugged. “Don't seem likely. Anyhow he didn't flash no tin star. Could be a bounty hunter—they ain't too savory looking.”

“Bastard might come back,” Old Billy fretted, “and spot our mounts.”

“Mebbe,” Mica agreed, “but the second time he come I told him I only board horses of Mormons I know.”

“A fox-faced fellow,” Fargo repeated, brow creased in concentration. “You recall anything else about him?”

Mica paused in his labors, thinking. “His eyes. They kept shifting around like a man with enemies to all sides. Never once looked me in the eye. And he carried one a them fatbladed Spanish dags tucked into a red sash.”

Enlightenment transformed Fargo's face. “Christ! That shifty bastard would be Orrin Trapp.”

Old Billy tossed his saddle on a wooden rack and turned to look at Fargo. “So you know him?”

“Know him, and hauled him to trial for the murder of a federal paymaster in west Texas. Him and two others in the gang—Butch Landry and Harlan Perry. I killed Landry's kid brother, Ralston, in a shootout down in the Big Bend country. Landry was the leader of the gang.”

“Was they convicted?”

“Hard labor for life at the federal prison in Sedalia, Missouri. Obviously they pulled a bust-out.”

“Yeah,” Old Billy said, “and obviously they mean to play turnabout on you. That's why the trouble didn't commence until we hit Utah. They want you to taste the joys of prison before you piss down your leg at the end of a rope.”

Mica's face, wrinkled as an old apple core, eased into a grin. “Whatever happens to Fargo, Billy, will happen to you.”

Fargo spoke up before Billy could retort. “Billy, it all fits, all right, except for one thing. Who's playing Fargo? Trapp is a runt, Butch is too stocky, and Perry is way too big. It has to be the same jasper who played Dr. Jacoby and killed Louise Tipton in Echo Canyon. He's built like me, so they've put a fourth man on the payroll.”

“I know you figure the Lord threw away the mold when he made you,” Old Billy barbed, “but every swinging dick has a look-alike somewheres. They musta found yours.”

Fargo conceded this with a nod. “Well, thanks to Mica, we know who it is that's been on us like ugly on a buzzard—or anyhow, who's behind it. And we know they're here in Salt Lake City.”

“It's a damn mare's nest,” Old Billy said, rubbing his chin. “Mighty dangersome. So far, these three killers you hauled in don't seem to be taking a hand in it. More like, they're just trailing along to watch the fun.”

“The way you say. They're fugitives and need to lay low. But that fourth jackal, the one who tossed lead at us out at the dunes trying to snuff your wick, is staying plenty busy. And while we're standing here flapping our gums, he's likely painting the landscape red again.”

He fell silent, not wanting the old man to be incriminated by hearing any plans.

“Mica,” he said, turning to the hostler, “you got two good horses to let?”

“I got a black and a blood bay you can use—won't show in the dark.”

Fargo nodded. “Good. And remember, if anything goes wrong, and me and Billy get the net tossed around us, you didn't recognize me without my beard and buckskins. I'm Frank Scully and this is Jim Lawson. That's all you know.”

“Be pretty hard to say I missed that half-purple face of Billy's. Looks like somebody tossed a pot of ink into his face.”

“Purple's the color of royalty,” Old Billy fired back.

“Come on, King William,” Fargo cut in. “Let's tack these new horses and survey your kingdom.”

James “Deets” Gramlich shared at least one thing in common with the man he was working hard to ruin: He never waded in until he knew how deep the water was. He had carefully scouted the area around Mormon Station, and he knew its strictly regimented routine.

His original plan was to leave the Fargo disguise off and make a tryst with a Mormon girl he knew when she lived in San Bernardino, showing up as Fargo to rape and cut her. But he hadn't caught sight of her all day and suspected the willful gal had run off with some gentile. Then he discovered something better.

At the far end of the melon fields an underground spring formed a natural bathing pool the size of a large room. And clearly the modest Mormons had reserved it for women only: Female after female had walked out from the settlement carrying soap and a towel with no men—except him—anywhere in sight.

Low-crawling through the melons just after sundown, he was now hidden within only twenty feet of the pool. The full moon and star-shot sky made the water gleam like liquid silver, and he watched a middle-aged matron scrub herself off. Nice dugs, he thought idly, but too much belly. Since he intended to relieve the pressure in his loins before he put the Arkansas toothpick to work, he might as well take a chance and see if something younger came along.