Arizona Renegades

LOOKING FORWARD!

The following is the opening

section from the next novel in the exciting

Trailsman series from Signet:

THE TRAILSMAN #209

TIMBER TERROR

Montana, 1861, the logging country just north of the

Sapphire Mountains where trees were not the only thing

cut down and the two-legged timberwolves were worse

than the four-legged kind...

“Coming events cast their shadows before them.”

The big man with the lake blue eyes uttered the phrase as he guided the magnificent Ovaro between two towering Ponderosa pines, his voice colored with wry amusement. Written by a man named Joseph Campbell, the phrase had stayed with Skye Fargo ever since he’d first read it. It had proven itself to be true all too often but always when hindsight had given the shadows form and meaning, and everyone knew that hindsight was always too late to be of practical help. Shadows, Fargo reflected, were hard to interpret, even for a trailsman.

His lake blue eyes narrowed as they swept the rugged terrain. Certainly the high-mountain country of north Montana held plenty of its own shadows. Named Land of the Mountains by the Spanish conquistadors, it was a land that offered pleasure and hardship, beauty and danger, in equal measure. As he rode from the north, the Sapphire Mountains in front of him, the Bitterroot Range rising in the distance on his right, he wondered if Abbey had been one of those events that cast their shadows. It had to be a good shadow she cast, benign and filled with pleasure memories. Her eager passion, unrestricted ecstasy and ample breasts could cast nothing else. He had made the long detour into the north Montana high country, hoping she still ran the small sheep ranch with her brother. He discovered that she did and together they turned the clock back to old pleasures with new urgency.

It had been almost a week he’d spent with Abbey and he smiled as he rode, a parade of intimacies and memories surrounding him. He’d been surprised at how little things he’d thought forgotten leaped up at once as though they’d simply been waiting for a time to wake. Abbey’s nipples were two of those memories, always so very small on her ample breasts, as though they really ought to belong to a very young, very small girl. But their tiny mounds were fountains of sensitivity, rising at once, reaching upward to give and be given. It had always been that way with Abbey and time hadn’t changed that at all. The week that followed had been all he could have hoped for, the feeling mutual, she acknowledged when the week drew to an end. “You have to go,” she said as she lay exhausted beside him, her slightly chunky body quivering with spent passion. “I’m not getting any of my work done. All my chores are piling up. Or stay with me always,” she added. “And I know you won’t do that.”

He didn’t answer and they both knew he had. She’d clung to him before he left after breakfast, leaving the only regret they shared. Abbey rode with him, a welcome companion if only in his thoughts. Shadows. He grunted. If they were being cast by coming events they could only be good ones.

Shaking off idle thoughts, he steered the Ovaro down a deer trail as he scanned the land. He always felt small riding this land. The tremendous Douglas firs, Engelman spruce, ponderosa pines, the giant sequoias and the red cedar were giants to make anything and anyone feel small. This was logging country, evidence almost anywhere he looked, the stumps of fallen trees, the broken pieces of a bucking saw, the long hafts of a splintered falling ax and the ubiquitous hooked oilcans left lying on the forest floor.

But mostly, the land was imprinted by the thousands of logs that floated down every river, tributary, lake, and waterway. Still other logs were seen stored in big ponds behind splash dams, built for the purpose, waiting for the moment when the spill gate of the dam was pulled away and the cascade of logs sent hurtling down to the river or lake. Riding through logging country always gave him a mixed feeling, Fargo acknowledged. There was a violation here, the power and beauty of nature being destroyed by man’s uncaring greed. Someday a better way of using the timber would be found than the unchecked logging practiced now, he told himself. There had to be if the treasure of the great forests were to be renewed for others. But now there was a headlong selfishness, a dark spirit of destruction that had to affect the destroyers as well as the destroyed. These loggers were a breed unto themselves, he knew, personally brave and foolhardy, the lumberjacks simply crude and unthinking, their bosses adding greed and contempt to their legacy.

Fargo turned the Ovaro along the edge of a narrow river, into the open sun that made the horse’s jet black fore- and hindquarters glisten, its pure white midsection gleam. Fallen logs all but filled the narrow river, moving faster than they seemed to move from a distance, no room between them as one pushed against the other. Suddenly his eyes rested on a figure almost in the center of the logs. The man lay face-down, his legs hanging into the water, caught between logs, the one he clung to and the one that held him pinned against it. Fargo sent the pinto into a canter, down a steep bank that deposited him at the water’s edge. He peered across the carpet of logs that moved down the river. Though still traveling slowly, they were gathering speed as they moved into the center of the river, jostling each other with increasing force.

Fargo pulled the pinto to a halt and swung from the saddle, leaping onto the nearest logs that drifted past him. Landing on both feet simultaneously, he felt the logs instantly move under his weight. Though the movement was slight, it was enough to send some of the logs immediately climbing over others. Though he didn’t wear the cleated, caulked logger’s boots, he began to make his way across the logs, leaping lightly from one to the other. But the logs moved, unexpectedly, some sinking down, others shifting away, and he found each step becoming a tricky little dance with the creak and scrape of logs the only rhythm. But his eyes went to the still figure as he became more convinced the man would be crushed as soon as the logs that held him began to gather speed when they reached midriver.

Leaping forward more recklessly, Fargo neared the figure, finally halting on the log that trapped the man’s legs. Dropping down, Fargo used both feet and all the strength of his powerful leg muscles to push against the next log. It moved, even with the pressure of other logs against it, opening up enough for him to reach out and swing the man’s legs out of the water and onto the log on which he lay. Straightening up, Fargo stepped onto the log where the man lay. He knelt down on one knee to turn the man onto his back. He felt the frown dig into his brow as the figure wouldn’t turn. Leaning closer, he tried again, then saw the two big ten-penny nails that had been driven into the log. Ropes ran from the nails around the man’s wrists.

The frown digging deeper, Fargo stared at the figure. The man hadn’t fallen and been trapped by the crush of adjoining logs. He’d been nailed to the log and sent out into the river with the mass of other logs. The terrible truth speared into Fargo. The man had been nailed to the log to be crushed to death when the logs gathered speed and climbed over each other. But death hadn’t waited to claim him, perhaps mercifully so, Fargo saw. The logs that had trapped his legs had also taken life from him, probably by sheer loss of blood. Sitting back on his haunches, his eyes riveted on the lifeless figure, thoughts whirled inside him. If the man had been crushed by other logs, the wrists ropes would have been torn away. Had it been a clever way to hide a killing? Or had he been put there not to hide anything but to be an example?

Did it much matter? He asked himself. It was a cold-blooded killing. The reasons wouldn’t change that. They’d only put a face on it, nothing more. He’d let others struggle with that, in their own way, in their own time. He was but passing by. The bitter taste stayed in his mouth as he rose to his feet and began to hop his way across the logs, a treacherous, shifting floor. Suddenly a huge redwood rose up and drove itself forward over another log and straight at him with thunderous speed. He spun, half leaped, half dived, and landed on a nearby log, then jumped onto another and continued to find his way over the logs. Finally, with a long jump, his feet hit the soft earth of the shoreline and he heard his own breath escape him.

Turning, he watched the logs gathering speed as they went by and he slowly walked back to where the Ovaro waited. The questions clung to him as he pulled himself onto the horse and rode up the embankment and away from the waterway. He rode south again, refusing to dwell on what he’d seen, though other logs in other waterways refused to let him forget. He was passing through, he reminded himself again, and he’d let it stay that way. Moving through the thick forests of red cedar and lodgepole pine, he heard the distant sounds of logging operations, the crash of the huge trees that reverberated for miles, the sounds of big, double-handled bucksaws, and the sharp crack of broadaxes. The sounds faded away as he rode deeper into untouched, virgin timber-land, and as dusk began to slide into the day, he slowed to a halt.

He listened, his head inclined to one side, and his eyes scanning the forest from beneath the frown that had again come to his forehead. He sat very still, his wild-creature hearing picking up the sounds. They had intruded on him since he’d entered the virgin forest. This time it was the whir of wings taking flight, an entire charm of goldfinches with their black foreheads and black wings filling the sky. Before that it had been a herd of black-tailed deer, all fleeing through the forest at once, startled and fearful of an alien presence. Before that there had been the tremendous racket of a murder of crows, the kind only set off when they were unexpectedly disturbed. Crows, being what they are, didn’t just fly away as most birds would. They stayed, swooped in huge groups, and angrily cawed and protested, aggressively showing their displeasure. Finally they had calmed down. But before that there had been the unmistakable rustling sound of grouse taking wing almost straight up.

It had all been a good distance behind him yet it had persisted, one sound after the other, each a message to those who could understand. He had ridden casually and made no effort to cover his tracks, but he was becoming convinced that either someone was following and searching out trail-marks, or happened to be riding along the same paths. Fargo grunted at the last thought. He never dismissed coincidence. He just didn’t put much store in them. As night supplanted dusk, he swung from the Ovaro and led the horse into a dense thicket of hackberry with plenty of wild geranium to soften the land and welcome a bedroll. He ate cold beef jerky, certain that darkness had put a stop to anyone tracking him. Then he lay down and listened to the night sounds, the clatter of scarab beetles, the buzz of insects, the soft swoosh of bats, and the chatter of kit foxes, until finally he slept.

When morning came he found a stream, washed, and rode on until the trees thinned out enough to leave patches of open land. He stopped, dismounted, and used his boots to scrape marks on the ground, then pressed a circle in the grass. He used his canteen to damp down the grass inside the circle he’d scraped. He finished, added a few more meaningless marks, and smiled. Even he wouldn’t know what to make of them. Taking the Ovaro behind a cluster of cottonwoods, he sat down against the furrowed, pale bark and waited. The sun had reached the noon sky when he heard the horse approaching in clustered, hesitant steps, the rider pausing often to search the ground.

Fargo was on his feet behind the tree trunk when the horse pushed into sight, a dark brown gelding, the rider on it no more than eighteen years old, he guessed, as he took in the young man’s smooth cheeks and full, unruly black hair. The youth halted, dismounted, and knelt down beside the markings on the ground. Fargo watched the frown of consternation gather on his forehead as he studied the markings. “Real confusing, isn’t it, junior?” Fargo said as he stepped from behind the tree. “What do you make of it?” Startled, the young man straightened up and spun, one hand moving toward the gun at his hip. “I wouldn’t do that, junior,” Fargo said quietly. The youth’s hand dropped to his side and his eyes went to the marks on the ground.

“You make these?” he asked.

Fargo smiled as he nodded. “Figured they’d give you something to wonder about,” he said.

“They did. I’d have spent hours trying to figure them out. Why didn’t you go on?” the youth asked.

“Curiosity,” Fargo said. “You’ve been following me.”

“Been following tracks, hoping,” the young man said.

“Hoping what?” Fargo queried.

“That you’d be Skye Fargo,” the youth said.

“What made you figure I might be?” Fargo asked.

“Heard you were staying at Abbey Carson’s. I stopped there. She told me you’d gone on due south. I followed. Yours were the only single rider tracks I came onto.”

“If I was Skye Fargo, what then?”

“There’s somebody wants to see you. I was sent to find you,” the young man said.

“Who, why, and what for?” Fargo asked.

The youth started to answer but he had only opened his lips when the shot rang out, the heavy crack of a rifle. Fargo saw the young man’s unruly black hair bounce in all directions as the bullet smashed into him. Clutching his side with a groan, he fell as another shot rang out, followed by more. Fargo dived and hit the ground as he saw the riders racing into sight. Six, he counted automatically. They were still concentrating their fire on the young man stretched out on the ground but Fargo rolled and flung himself into the trees as bullets began to kick up dirt inches from him. The brush closing over him, he yanked the Colt from its holster as he saw the attackers start to come after him. Two led the charge and Fargo aimed and fired, and the two men dropped from their horses as if they’d both been pulled off by one invisible rope. The other four immediately swerved into tree cover and Fargo took the moment to retreat behind the trunk of a big cottonwood.

He heard the young man on the ground moan and heard the four riders dismount and start to come after him on foot, staying in the trees. They were overeager hired guns, he saw, and they stayed too close together as they moved toward him. He raised the Colt, steadied the gun against the tree trunk, and let one of the figures move into sight, another at his heels. Both were in a half crouch but moving too quickly, again their overeager amateurism obvious. The Colt barked twice, the second shot only a half-inch away from the first, and both figures went down at once. Fargo waited and heard the other two halt and crouch. They were suddenly uncertain, fear gripping them in its paralyzing hold. His ears picked up the sound of their feet sliding backward, and then suddenly turning to run. He shifted position to the other side of the tree trunk, his gaze fixed on the spot where they had ridden into the trees.

He had only seconds to wait when the two horses burst from the trees, racing over the open ground to reach the thick tree cover from which they’d appeared. Fargo had time for only one shot, chose the rider at the right, and fired. The man fell forward, hit the saddle horn, and the motion of the galloping horse did the rest, tossing him into the air to hit the ground with a resounding thud and lie still. The last rider raced on, vanishing into the trees. Fargo listened to the sound of his horse as it fled. Holstering the Colt, Fargo ran forward to the young man and knelt down beside the red-stained figure. He was still breathing. Grimacing, Fargo took in the extent of the wounds that soaked the youth’s clothes, at least four bullets, he saw. The youth managed to lift his head a few inches from the ground. “Easy, take it easy,” Fargo murmured.

“Tillman ... Darlene Tillman ... waiting for you,” the young man managed to gasp. “Important . . . go see her.” The effort took the last of his strength, words ending with a final gasp and Fargo leaned back as he softly cursed. He rose after a moment and walked to where the other figures littered the ground. He examined each one and found nothing to help him. But someone had sent them to find the young man and stop him before he could deliver his message. They had almost succeeded, Fargo grunted angrily. Almost. His eyes went to the young, slender figure. The youth had given his life in his assignment. Somebody better have a good explanation, Fargo thought as he went to the youth’s horse, drew a blanket from the saddlebag, and wrapped it around the silent, stained figure.

He lifted the youth, laid him across his saddle, and walked to the Ovaro. Holding the reins of the brown gelding in one hand, Fargo slowly started to ride on south. He’d no way of knowing if south was the way to go and hoped he’d find somebody who might help. As he rode, he tried to piece together the few bits and pieces of information he had. The young man had visited Abbey looking for him. That meant he had to have first visited Ed Stanford up near Ninepipe. Ed was the only one who knew he was going to visit Abbey, Fargo recalled. They’d spent a few days talking after he’d broken the trail from Idaho Territory for Ed. But Ed wasn’t the only one who knew about his coming to Montana. Ed had told enough others that he’d hired Skye Fargo to break a trail for him.

So finding he had visited Abbey was explainable. Then the youth had followed south, picked up the trail, and met his death because of it. A Darlene Tillman had hired him, he’d muttered with his last breath. Not much to go on but it would be enough. Fargo had found trails with slimmer leads. He felt a bitterness inside him, first at what he’d witnessed, and then at being plunged into something he knew absolutely nothing about. The young man had been a total stranger and yet now he was suddenly no stranger at all. He was suddenly someone with whom Fargo had become involved. That imposition angered him, Fargo realized. He certainly had no responsibility for the youth’s death, yet a kind of oblique responsibility had been thrust upon him.

Damn, Fargo swore as he found himself thinking about coming events that cast their shadows before them. If he had not stayed the glorious week with Abbey, he would have been long gone from this north Montana country. If he hadn’t told Ed Stanford he was going to visit Abbey, the man wouldn’t have been able to tell the youth. There’d have been no one to trail him, to pursue him with still undelivered messages. Coming events did cast their shadows, but you could only understand them after they’d been cast.

What shadows was he riding into now, Fargo wondered as he moved past a lake half filled with logs, a big splash dam holding back hundreds of other logs. Perhaps he’d be wise to let the brown gelding behind him find its own way, he pondered. But he wouldn‘t, he knew. The young man wrapped in the blanket behind him deserved to have his message delivered. Everybody deserved some kind of obituary.