Badlands Bloodsport

18

The night dragged on, cold, blustery, wearisome, with horses and humans starting to flag more noticeably. Fargo, who was used to going for long periods without sleep, nonetheless found himself nodding out in the saddle—a dangerous development with a murderer like Derek the Terrible watching him like a cat on a rat. It was time for an unpleasant but reliable ploy.

He dropped back beside the mud wagon. “Slappy, cut me off a little chaw, wouldja?”

“Since when do you eat ’baccy? I thought you favored them little black Mexer cigars like Montoya smoked?”

“Desperate situations call for desperate remedies, old warhorse. Slice me off a little hunk.”

Slappy fished out his plug and knife, cutting off a small wedge. Fargo parked it in his cheek and got it juicing good. Then he soaked the end of his finger in the juice and lifted each eyelid in turn, smearing the back of the lid.

“God’s trousers!” Slappy blurted out. “Boy, are you lookin’ to go blind?”

“It won’t hurt the eyes,” Fargo replied. “But it will sting like hell if the eyelids start to close for very long over the eyeballs. An old mountain man taught me this trick over in the Green River country.”

Fargo spat the tobacco out of his mouth, drawing an oath from Slappy. He was about to nudge the Ovaro forward again when Ericka called out: “Mr. Fargo? We have an entire night to distance ourselves from the Indians, but our pace is frightfully slow, is it not?”

“’Fraid so, ma’am. These horses are just about blown in. The terrain is easier now, just mostly flat grass, but the fodder is gone and we dare not waste time letting them graze. Naturally they want that grass, and they’re fighting the harness.”

“The coach horses have gotten some rest, haven’t they? Couldn’t they be—what is the phrase—switched out with the tired ones?”

“Yeah, I was thinking about that, and we’ll do it if we have to. But they wouldn’t be all that much better rested, and besides, it would cost us valuable time to harness them. And there’s another problem—we don’t have enough to switch out the fodder wagon team. That means the mud wagon would gradually pull ahead and we’d be separated when trouble comes.”

“Yes, I see. But didn’t you say the fodder is depleted?”

This was a delicate point, and Fargo decided to skirt it. “All the weapons are in that wagon, and it’s carrying Jessica and your husband. If they pile into the mud wagon with you ladies, and we add the weapons, this team would founder.”

“What he really means,” Rebecca put in, “is that we’ll need every bit of cover possible when the savages attack.”

“Well, we are on the open plains,” Fargo agreed reluctantly. “Why don’t you ladies try to catch some sleep?”

“Catch some sleep,” repeated Ericka’s delighted tone. “I’ve heard of catching a hansom and even catching a falling star, but never sleep.”

Fargo touched his hat and rode forward, having more and more trouble with the exhausted, hungry, irritated Ovaro. Twice now the stallion had tried to buck Fargo, and now and then he crow-hopped sideways in protest. During pauses the horses had taken to sleeping while standing on three legs to rest the fourth, a sure sign they were close to collapse.

“Steady on, old campaigner,” Fargo urged him quietly, patting the side of his neck. “We’ve pulled out of rough scrapes before.”

“Well, then,” Derek greeted him in a goading voice, “I was starting to feel a bit lonely, Fargo.”

“Does this mean I’m spoken for?”

“Oh, you’re spoken for right enough, living legend. Derek the Terrible will make sure you go to hunt the white buffalo.”

“Rein in,” Fargo ordered him. Something had been picking at him like a burr.

“What the bloody hell for?”

Fargo drew his Colt and thumb-cocked it. “I don’t chew my cabbage twice, hangman.”

Derek quickly hauled back on the reins. The cocky assurance deserted his voice. “Now, Fargo, I was only having a bit of a lark with you. That’s no reason to gun me down in cold blood.”

“Shut your mouth and put your arms out to your sides.”

Fargo nudged the Ovaro closer and stuck the muzzle of the Colt into Derek’s neck. “Move one muscle, old sport, and you’ll be riding that white buffalo.”

English riding saddles had no pockets, so Fargo ignored the tack and carefully patted the large pockets of Derek’s fustian trousers and jacket. There were no rocks handy on the plains, but Fargo realized he had left Derek alone for minutes at a time while they were still in the Badlands. His prowess at hurling rocks was proven.

He found nothing dangerous. But Fargo couldn’t help noticing the hangman’s layer upon layer of hard-slab muscle.

Fargo backed the Ovaro away a few steps. “I’ll say this much for you—if you were wrestling an ox, I’d bet against the ox.”

“I reserve my efforts for men,” Derek said pointedly, the old swagger back in his voice. “I’m much more cunning than an ox.”

“Gig it,” Fargo ordered, and the two men moved out at a frustratingly slow walk.

“It doesn’t matter a jack straw who I fight,” Derek added. “Every opponent is just a baby in a wicker basket for me.”

“You sure do like to flap your jaws. Words are cheap, traded freely by drunks and old women. Why don’t you just caulk up?”

“You don’t believe me, eh?”

“Oh, you’re strong, and I believe you’ve beat down plenty of men. But you’re a craven coward. You use your mouth to hide the fact.”

“Why, you lily-livered mange pot! You take my weapons and refuse to knuckle up, and sit there bold as King Henry’s harlot calling me the bloody coward. Fargo, you need no codpiece, for you have no cod. Let’s draw a ring and duke it out.”

“I’ve already admitted I wouldn’t want to face you in a dustup—I’d prefer to carve you or shoot you. I don’t pick fights with grizzly bears, either, but I’ve killed one when forced to it. I have no plans to kill you. I think you might be more useful to us alive.”

Before Derek could retort, a sudden racket broke out behind the two men. First horses erupted, shrieking whinnies of panic and anger. This was followed almost immediately by women’s screams. Then he heard Slappy cussing like a bull-whacker on a muddy road, unleashing a string of foul and creative epithets that would have made a mule blush.

Fargo wheeled the Ovaro and hightailed it back. The scene was pandemonium. The four horses in the mud-wagon team were kicking and trying to buck, their harness hopelessly twisted. And smack in the middle of them, head wedged between two horses, his stubby legs flailing in the air, was Slappy.

Lord Blackford had hurried over but appeared helpless, wringing his hands in consternation. All three women were trying to get hold of the hapless driver and extract him, but the agitated team made it impossible to get at him.

“I need something to use as blindfolds,” Fargo snapped as he swung down from the saddle. “Pronto, ladies! They’ll break his fool neck.”

Fargo heard cloth ripping inside the mud wagon, and then Rebecca handed him four strips of cloth. Fargo had a rough time of it, but soon managed to blindfold all four horses, quieting them. Then, Blackford assisting, Fargo grabbed Slappy by the legs and wrested him out of his equine trap, still cussing like a stable sergeant.

“Any bones broken?” Fargo asked him.

Slappy thrust out his chest. “Huh! Put a bounty on it and I’ll scalp it. The whole cockeyed world can kiss my ass!”

“Jesus, you’re a holy show. How’d you manage that play?”

Slappy’s chest suddenly sank in and embarrassment crept into his tone. “Ah . . . I shoulda tried that ’baccy trick myself, Skye. I fell plumb to sleep and rolled off the box.”

“I reckon I’m partly to blame,” Fargo admitted. “I needed to call a short sleep break, but I wanted us as far as possible from those tranced-up braves when the sun rises.”

“I say, Fargo,” Blackford said, “that harness appears to be in a fine bollix.”

“Ain’t it, though?” Slappy said. “And all them war hatchets not far behind us. Hookey Walker! Well, I done it, so it’s meet and just that I straighten it out. Looks like you got that sleep break, Fargo.”

“I’ll do it,” Fargo said. “I’ve got that tobacco sting keeping me awake. Besides, Tumbledown Dick, we’ll all be a lot safer if you grab some shut-eye.”

Fargo suddenly noticed that Slappy’s holster was empty. “Where’s your short iron?”

“Must be under the team,” he replied.

“It was under the team,” spoke up a familiar voice from the darkness behind them. “Right now it’s aimed at Fargo’s back, and the famous Trailsman is finally at the scrag end of his life.”

* * *

Fargo damned his own stupidity. With everyone’s attention focused on Slappy, it must have been child’s play for Derek to crawl under the wagon from the opposite side and then circle around behind the group. Clearly he now held the whip hand, and Fargo’s mind raced to find a plan.

“Unbuckle that gun belt, Fargo,” Derek ordered in a voice laced with triumph. “You owe me half an ear, and I’ll collect it before I leave. And anyone else, ladies and lords included, who even moves a hand will soon know if there’s an afterlife.”

Fargo, playing for time to think of something, anything, had not yet touched his leather gun belt. “Derek, now that you’ve killed Skeets, I’m the best shot left. What’s your plan—to challenge that Cheyenne battle leader to a bare-knuckles match? You can’t escape—there isn’t a horse left that can hold even a trot for twenty minutes.”

“Your horse will do after I give him the rest of the water. And it won’t matter one whit if he trots or walks. I intend to hamstring the rest of the horses and take the best weapons. That way those bloody savages will reach the rest of you first and will have a jolly time of it spilling your entrails and carving out your eyes. Fargo, drop that belt, I said, or I’ll shoot that whore Jessica in her filthy quim.”

Fargo complied, letting his rig fall draped around his feet.

“Derek,” spoke up Lady Blackford, “you can’t just—”

“Turn off the tap, m’lady.” Derek cut her off. “As soon as things are a bit more tidy here, you’ll be dropping your linen for me. A bit of the old in-out, eh, what, duck? You’re the only woman here that Fargo hasn’t pronged, and I’ll not eat off his plates.”

“Now, see here, Derek,” Lord Blackford spoke up, “isn’t there a more profitable way to settle this matter? I can deed over to you a property in Warwickshire worth ten thousand pounds.”

“You aren’t half an arse, are you? Fargo’s barmy talk about defeating these savages with rocks is merely air pudding. The cunning bloke hasn’t killed me only because he plans to hand me over to the sodding Indians and tell them I shot that red nigger who was crawling about in a buffalo robe. No, Lord Blackford, a dead man cannot profit from your wealth, and every sorry soul here shall cross over sometime tomorrow except for Derek the Terrible.”

Fargo still hadn’t turned around. Derek called out, “Now kick the gun belt a few feet off, Fargo. Then very slowly, use your left hand to pull that frog-sticker from your boot and toss it with the belt. Any fancy parlor tricks and I’ll pop one into you.”

Fargo did as ordered, sliding the Arkansas toothpick out.

Derek laughed. “Cor! The bigger the blade, the littler the man, right, Trailsman?”

“Derek,” Slappy spoke up, “if you was any lower you’d be walkin’ on your bottom lip. These ladies has got to be took to Fort Laramie.”

“Stifle it, you old pus bag. Two of those ‘ladies’ are Cockney whores who wallow in the dirt like bitches in heat. If I didn’t know those gut-eating savages will do a better job of it, I’d shoot you low in the guts, Ebenezer, just to hear you scream.”

“If I’m such a little man,” Fargo said evenly, “how’s come you’re so scared of me?”

“Scared, is it? Kiss my lily-white arse! Let’s all hear more of this treacle.”

“For the past few days all you’ve done is promise that you’re going to beat me down. You make your brag how you’ve whipped every man who ever knuckled up to you. Now you’ve got your chance to prove it and you’re just going to leave me to the Indians? If that ain’t a coward I’ll eat my hat.”

“Fargo,” Lord Blackford intervened, “I daresay this path is folly. Derek is not a hollow boaster—he has won dozens of matches and even killed several opponents. Bethink yourself.”

“Well said, milord,” Derek said, “but I didn’t ask you to stick your oar in my boat, now, did I? Fargo, you just signed your own death warrant. However, I will only beat you senseless, not kill you. That would be too merciful, and mercy is no part of my nature. But first . . .”

Derek looked at Slappy in the silver-white moonlight. “You, pus bag. Use your hat to collect up all three of the ladies’ muff guns. And collect that little piss-shooter Lord Blackford carries between his weskit and coat. Then pick up Fargo’s weapons and bring them over to me. Play the fox and I’ll burn you down, to use Fargo’s words.”

“I’m clemmed if I will, you British jackanapes! You’re crazy as a pet coon.”

“Do it, Slappy,” Fargo ordered. The Trailsman knew he would rather take on three Minnesota lumberjacks than grapple with this mountain of muscle. Fargo had observed the British style of boxing in saloon matches, and while it had a queer sort of look to it, English fisticuffs could be dangerous for those not trained in it. But he saw no other way out of this death trap—either he whipped Derek, and whipped him soundly, or there was not even a slim chance of survival for the rest.

Slappy brought the hat and Fargo’s weapons over and thrust them out to Derek, who counted the guns and set everything behind him. “Right we are, then. Now all five of you sit in a circle where I can see you—far away from the fodder wagon.”

When everyone had complied, Derek said, “Turn around, living legend, and come at me with all you have. I’ll even let you give me a facer to open the match. But by the Lord Harry, it’s the last hand you’ll lay on me.”