Badlands Bloodsport

8

By late afternoon on the day after Skeets took his foolish, fatal shot, Fargo was convinced the Cheyenne warriors were not yet on their trail. He called a two-hour halt to rest before the long night’s journey. “Sleep” was out of the question for everyone except Slappy, who crawled under the japanned coach and immediately commenced to snoring.

“Is that the sound of a sawmill or a boar in rut?” Montoya asked Fargo. The wind was cold, the sun bright, and the two men were resting with their heads on their saddles in the scant shade of an eroded mesa.

“Slappy hates to worry,” Fargo replied. “So when there’s trouble afoot, he falls right to sleep. I say let a man go the gait he chooses. Not a bad idea when you con it over.”

“Perhaps, but how many men can do it?”

“Not many,” Fargo agreed. “And a good thing, too, or who’d be awake when the fandango comes?”

“On this delightful subject of trouble—the water cask for the horses is bone dry.”

Fargo adjusted his hat over his eyes. The wind suddenly shrieked and he shivered. A nighttime snowstorm was not out of the question.

“Yeah, I know,” he replied. “And drinking water is down to short rations. Derek and Skeets been guzzling out of their canteens, and the women are lighting into me on account they want a bath. These high fellows make for piss-poor pioneers.”

Montoya’s voice turned sly. “As you say. But Rebecca and Ericka have been asking Jessica about your little walk into the sand hills. You know how it is with women—they pretend to such modesty around men, but among themselves—ay, caramba!”

Fargo’s lips eased into a grin. “God love ’em.”

“Why? He has you for that.”

After a pause Montoya’s tone turned serious again. “You said there is water in the Badlands?”

“That’s not carved in stone, old son. I know a place up ahead called Elephant Butte on army maps. Three years back, I found good water there. But this summer has dried the Badlands to jerky, and I ain’t certain it’s there.”

Montoya mulled that over in silence. Then: “And if it is not?”

“I figure we’re at least four days from Fort Laramie. Maybe longer. I went without water once for three days, and it damn near killed me. We’re going to be under steady attack from Cheyennes, and without water . . .”

Fargo didn’t bother to elaborate. Nor did he mention that he had survived only because he forced himself to drink his own piss—something he couldn’t see the Quality doing, especially the women.

“What you are saying,” Montoya suggested, “is that we—all of us here—will look like those settlers back in that rotting wagon.”

“Except that all of our parts won’t be in one place. Cheyennes like to hack off legs and gouge out eyes—they believe vanquished enemies will enter the afterlife with all their mutilations.”

“Does Slappy know all this?”

“Sure he does. He was a fair-to-middling Indian fighter in his day.”

“And still he is asleep? Fargo, I confess I am a coward. I will not sleep, and I will turn my gun loose on myself before I submit to such—how you say?—barbarism.”

“That’s not cowardly,” Fargo disagreed. “But it’s not smart to think about it. I’ve seen soldiers so scared of being captured by redskins that they shot themselves right when the feather-heads were retreating. You should always expect to win, Montoya.”

Sometime while Fargo was fitfully dozing, Slappy stirred his stumps and rustled up a meal. “Grub pile!” he shouted, his gravelly voice eliciting several curses.

“Folks, for you as expects oysters and ice cream, the chuck ain’t so fancy as it was when we commenced this trip,” he announced when everyone had gathered. “I’d give a fist-sized nugget for that frosted cake I made in New Mex. I’ve got out of meal and salt and them airtights of peaches and tomatoes. But I bought a burlap bag of roasted corn in Santa Fe, then leached it with ashes into hominy. I pounded that into johnnycake meal.”

“Leached it with ashes?” Blackford repeated dubiously.

“’At’s right, Your Percyship. Ashes from a tanner’s furnace.”

But Skeets had already tied in to his hoecake and pronounced it “smashing.” Soon even Aldritch was complimenting the cook. Fargo, however, brought the mood down with his announcement that he was collecting all the canteens and water flasks.

“It’ll be poured into one vessel,” he said. “I’ll say when it’s time to drink, and everybody will get the same amount. I’m hoping there’s water ahead, but if not, only strict rationing will see us through.”

The women accepted this with stoic patience. Blackford and Aldritch complained but turned over their canteens, as did a scowling Skeets. Derek the Terrible, however, refused. “I’ll bloody well drink when I want to, Fargo. You act like you’re ten inches taller than God.”

Quicker than eyesight Fargo’s walnut-grip Colt appeared in his right hand. Everyone clearly heard it when he thumbed back the hammer to full cock. “All right, hangman, have a drink.”

Derek’s face twisted into a mask of hatred. “Any bloke can act rough with a gun in his paw. Care to try knocking me about with your fists?”

“Oh, we’ll hug, bully boy, assuming we live long enough. But we have women to escort safely to Fort Laramie first. You’ll be getting plenty of fight soon enough.”

Derek sneered. “A bit of the old gallantry, eh, to paper over the yellow?”

However, he tossed Fargo his canteen.

“Derek,” Slappy said, “you just turned your tongue into a shovel when you called Fargo a coward. That tongue just buried you.”

“To quote a quaint frontier phrase: He’s all gurgle and no guts. I’ll pound him to paste.”

“Uh-huh, course you will, John Bull.”

“Stow the chin-wag,” Fargo snapped. “You stags can clash later. Right now let’s raise dust.”

Skeets again dropped back as rear guard while Slappy drove the fancy coach and Derek the mud wagon with Montoya driving the fodder wagon and the horses on a lead line from the tailgate. Moon-wash was generous and the stars like brilliant points of fire. But the caravan was held to a slow pace by the profusion of rocks strewn across the flat, cracked earth. If even one iron tire was wrenched loose from a wheel, they’d be laid up for hours repairing it.

Fargo scouted ahead, as usual, but spent most of his time rolling rocks and boulders out of the little-used army supply trail he himself had established years earlier. He was relieved when he failed to find any sign that the Lakota Sioux had been in this region recently. If they were sticking to the Black Hills, that might be one less tribe to contend with.

“Fargo,” Aldritch called out a window when Fargo dropped back to check with Skeets, “how can you be so certain the Cheyenne will be coming after us? It’s been more than a day now and we haven’t been molested.”

“On the frontier, Mr. Aldritch, you have to go by experience, not what’s ‘certain.’ No creature is more notional than an Indian, and might be you’re right—they won’t attack us. But I wouldn’t bet a plugged peso on that, and if I won’t bet a peso, I sure’s hell won’t bet the lives of the women.”

“There’s his ‘gallantry’ again,” Derek called derisively from the box of the mud wagon. “It’s all a blasted show to impress the ladies.”

Rebecca poked her pretty head out of a window and looked back at Derek. “And it’s working, too.”

“Yes, you’ve all gone loopy over him. I don’t doubt you’ll cry for him when I clout him sick and silly.”

“Mr. Fargo,” Ericka said, “won’t you please ride closer? Right snug next to our coach? Rebecca and I wish to verify something Jessica said.”

Fargo touched his hat and edged the Ovaro close to the japanned coach. Both women reached out and felt his upper right arm.

“My stars!” Rebecca exclaimed. “Muscles hard as rock!”

“Muscles,” Aldritch repeated in his special Fargo tone. “The badge of the laboring classes. You won’t find a true gentleman sporting muscles.”

“Then certainly you are a true gentleman,” Rebecca shot back, still feeling Fargo’s arm.

“I say,” Lord Blackford spoke up, “must you two pet Fargo as if he were a lapdog? This is unseemly in women of the better class.”

“Oh, forgive me, Percival,” Ericka said with exaggerated innocence, causing Slappy sputtering fits of mirth. “I did not mean to stain your family escutcheon.”

Fargo didn’t know that last word, and he didn’t wait around for a definition. The outline of Elephant Butte was rolling into view, and he crossed his fingers as he rode forward to check for water.

He veered off the narrow trail and threaded his way through a maze of boulders, letting the Ovaro set his own pace and course. At the base of the huge butte, he relied on a mind map to steer him toward a niche in the rock, and there it was—a small seep spring bubbling up from an underground aquifer.

One huge weight, at least, was lifted from Fargo’s chest. But he suspected that at dawn tomorrow the fighting Cheyennes would attack out of the rising sun, and their faces would be streaked in black—the color of death.

* * *

“All right, Skeets,” Fargo told the British army marksman after riding back to his position, “the sun will be up in less than half an hour. Go join the others and take up a good spot.”

“Even if they’re behind us, Fargo, how could they know exactly where we are?”

“That scout. He hung on to us like a tick.”

“We should have killed the bugger.”

“Maybe we should at that,” Fargo conceded. “But Plains warriors are first-rate trackers, and they’d find us without him.”

“Are we still just killing their horses?”

“Shoot braves. They must’ve returned to their camp on Crying Woman Creek, and they have huge horse herds there. That means they’ll have plenty of remounts. We don’t have enough ammo to waste trying to pop over all those mounts.”

“Finally,” Skeets said, starting to boot his big sorrel forward. Then he pulled up. “Fargo, blast it, that herd spy looked like a bloody buffalo. I’m sorry now I didn’t listen to you.”

“It’s too dead to skin now,” Fargo said, dismissing him. “Make up for it with your marksmanship today.”

“Ah—one more little matter. Derek. You see, the man is insanely jealous because of Jessica. When the bloke heard those . . . noises she was making in the sand hills, blimey! He went off his noodle. He will beat you to death if you’re foolish enough to knuckle up to him.”

“He’s a mighty potent force,” Fargo agreed. “Tell me, can he shoot?”

“He’s no Scots fusilier, eh? But I’ve taught him to plink at targets. He’s a grand sight better than those two fugging toffs. Blackford has gone to the hunt many times and hit nothing. Aldritch can handle a pistol somewhat, but that fancy German rifle is wasted on him. He’s too weak to even hold it steady.”

After Skeets rode forward, Fargo made a minute study in the gathering light. He could see nothing, but the Ovaro had been trained to hate the smell of bear grease, which Cheyenne braves wore in their hair. The stallion crow-hopped nervously, all the evidence Fargo required.

He joined the others, hobbling his horse. “They’re out there,” he announced. “They’ll be hitting us any time now. Remember, don’t jerk your trigger and buck your weapon. Every shot has to count for score. Squeeze your rounds off easy, and don’t waste a slug—if you’re even half a bubble off bead, don’t shoot.”

“Have you actually seen these savages?” Derek demanded.

“They’re out there,” Fargo repeated.

“Yes, and Robin Hood with his merry men, eh?”

“Derek,” came Lord Blackford’s nervous, reedy voice, “give over. You’re in Fargo’s world now.”

Fargo made a last survey of their defensive position. The three conveyances had been parked in front of a low mesa, a fairly good makeshift bulwark. A traprock shelf jutted out from the mesa and created an overhang, preventing the Cheyenne attackers from firing down on them. Once again the women had sheltered under the fancy coach, and this time kegs and boxes protected them from the exposed side.

Fargo fretted, however, about the horses. They had been clustered tightly behind the fodder wagon. Bales of hay provided some cover but not enough. Fargo knew he could really count on only four shooters—Skeets, himself, Slappy, and Montoya. The verdict wasn’t in on Derek, but he recalled what Skeets had told him about the toffs. Better to save their ammo for someone who could aim it.

“Aldritch,” he said in a diplomatic tone, “I want to hold you and the earl in reserve for now. I’d like you two to protect the women if the coach is rushed. Save your loads just for that.”

Both men looked relieved as they scurried under the coach.

“This is a bloody fool’s errand,” Derek the Terrible snarled from his position behind the mud wagon. “There’s not a redskin within two hundred miles of us. Fargo is just—”

An arrow suddenly thwacked into the wagon, a fierce, yipping cry went up, and one of the women screamed. The attack had begun.