Flathead Fury

8

Fargo was up and around three days later but he was so sore and stiff that the best he could do was hobble about for short spells and then crawl back into bed to rest. He discovered that Sally lived in the back of a frame house. The front half she had converted into a millinery. She sold dresses and bonnets, along with things like hairbrushes and combs and hand mirrors, and even a selection of colored beads prized by Indian women. Her selection was modest compared to millineries in, say, Denver or St. Louis, but since she had the only lady’s store for a thousand miles around, she had a devoted if small number of clients. Her living quarters consisted of the bedroom, a kitchen, a parlor, and a sewing room.

Fargo also found out that she was spending her nights on a cot in the sewing room. He objected, and suggested they switch and she take her bed back.

Sally would not hear of it. “You are under my care, and my guest, and I would be a poor nurse and a worse host if I put you in my sewing room. You will recover more quickly with a nice, comfortable bed to sleep in.”

When Fargo still insisted it did not feel right, she put her hands on her shapely hips and her emerald eyes blazed.

“I will not hear of it and that is final. Besides, I have an ulterior motive. You are one of the few allies I have in my fight to stop Big Mike Durn from ruining the lives of more maidens.”

“What about the rest of the tribe?” Fargo asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It is not just the women. Durn is luring a lot of Indian men into his saloon, plying them with liquor, and putting them in debt to him.” Fargo paused. “Then there is his loco notion of one day running the whole territory.”

“He has made no secret of his ambition,” Sally said. “It explains why he is always stirring everyone up against the idea of a reservation, and why he is doing all he can to cause trouble between the whites and the Flatheads and other tribes.”

Insight hit Fargo with the force of a physical blow. “Durn wants an all-out war.”

“That would be my guess, yes. If he can incite the Indians into going on the warpath, the government might decide a reservation is a bad idea.”

“Then Durn can take all the Indian land for his own.” Fargo marveled that he had not seen it sooner.

“With that much land, he will, in effect, run the territory, just as he has been claiming.”

Fargo sat back. It all made perfect, horrifying sense. And Mike Durn did not care one whit that the loss of life on both sides would be frightfully high. “Why haven’t you reported this?”

“To who, exactly? We have no marshal. We have no sheriff. The only person in Polson with any authority is, ironically, Durn himself.”

“The army can take a hand when a civilian stirs up an uprising,” Fargo pointed out.

“Do you realize how far the nearest fort is? It would take me weeks to get there. And all I have are suspicions. I have no proof. Without that, what good would the army be?”

“They would send someone to investigate,” Fargo said. Which Colonel Travis had done on the strength of a few rumors. If she had gone, Travis would have sent a whole company.

“Maybe I should have,” Sally begrudged him. “But I doubt I would have made it out of Mission Valley. Durn has me watched day and night. Were I to rent a wagon, he would find out and want to know where I was going.” She shook her head. “No. I am fighting Durn as ably as I know how. Which is to do some stirring up of my own. A lot of people don’t like the way he treats the Indians. Especially how he is turning innocent maidens into doves. I fight fire with fire in the hope that if enough people see him for what he is, his scheme will fail.”

Fargo conceded that made sense.

“But even there Durn has outfoxed me,” Sally brought up. “He has been bringing in a lot of men, vermin who do whatever he wants. By now there are almost as many of his people as there are those who were here before Durn came. And more of his kind show up every day.”

Fargo saw where she was leading. It wouldn’t be long before Durn had enough backers to virtually do as he pleased. The realization sobered him. There was no time for him to go to Colonel Travis, not when it might take the colonel weeks to prevail on Washington to act. The army’s wheels of command turned exceedingly slowly. By the time soldiers were sent, Indians and whites could be slaughtering one another. All it would take was one massacre for the newspapers to whip their readers into a red-hating frenzy, with dire consequences for the Flatheads and others.

Fargo had to act, and act soon. But there was not much he could do, the condition he was in. Three more days went by. Days of frustration, and growing impatience. Fargo had Sally ask around to learn if Birds Landing had been caught; apparently, she had gotten away.

The next morning, Fargo was in the kitchen fixing coffee when the back door unexpectedly opened and in strolled Big Mike Durn. Fargo instinctively reached for his Colt and frowned when his hand brushed his empty holster. “This is a surprise.”

“It shouldn’t be,” Mike Durn said. Leaving the door open, he walked to the table and pulled out a chair. “I have a vested interest in Miss Brook.”

“Sally is in her store.” Through the open door Fargo glimpsed Kutler, Tork, and Grunge.

“It is not her I came to talk to,” Durn informed him. “It is you.”

Fargo leaned against the counter and folded his arms. “Me?”

“Surely you did not think I was unaware you were here? I know everything that goes on in Polson. Everything,” Durn stressed.

“It must be nice to be God.”

“It is,” Durn said with a smug grin. “I am a generous god, too. I permitted you to stay so you could recover and be fit to travel.”

“Permitted?”

“No one does anything in Polson without my say-so,” Durn bragged. “But enough about me. Now that you are on your feet, the time has come for you to move on.”

“What if I don’t want to go anywhere?” Fargo said.

“You do not have a choice. By tomorrow morning you will be gone. Say, by ten o’clock. One minute past ten, and if you are still here, well—” Durn did not finish the threat.

“You want me out of your hair,” Fargo said.

“I want you away from Sally,” Durn corrected him. “She can be a headache, but I have designs on the lady. The two of you living here doesn’t sit well with me.”

“Are you jealous?”

“What do I have to be jealous about?” Durn snapped. “If I thought for a second that you and her had—” Again he stopped, and indulged in a sinister smile.

“What about my Colt?”

“What about it? I gave it to one of my men. Hoyt is his name. He lost his fording a river a week ago.”

“And my rifle?”

“The Henry? I took a fancy to that myself. It is up in my room.”

“I want them back,” Fargo told him.

“Is there no end to your pigheadedness?” Mike Durn leaned toward him. “You don’t tell me what to do. I tell you. And I am not about to give you a gun that you might use against me. Count your blessings that you are getting out of Polson with your hide intact.”

But was he? Fargo wondered. He would not put it past Durn to have him ambushed on the trail. “Anything else?” he asked when the would-be lord of the territory did not get up and go.

“You impressed me the other night in the saloon. I have never seen anyone take the punishment you did.”

“Go to hell. You made it happen.”

Durn ignored the comment. “I doubt anyone in my employ could endure half of what you did. You are tough. Damned tough. Which is why I am willing to let you stay in Polson provided you abide by two conditions.”

Fargo was genuinely surprised. “Two seconds ago you wanted me out of here. Now I can stay?”

“The first condition is that you do not so much as speak to Sally Brook, ever. The second is that you come to work for me.”

All Fargo could do was stare.

“I can use a man like you. In your own way you are as famous as Jim Bridger and Kit Carson. Imagine if word got around that the famous Skye Fargo was riding for me. It would bring people over to my side who otherwise wouldn’t give me a second thought.”

“You’re serious?”

Durn made a teepee of his hands. “It is an either-or proposition. Either you leave, or you stay and work for me. And before you say no, bear in mind that I can make it well worth your while once I run the whole territory.”

“Do you walk on water, too?”

Big Mike Durn laughed. “I don’t need to. I’m not out to claim men’s souls. I just want everyone to think as I think, to see that there isn’t room for us and the redskins. That we must drive the red scum out or exterminate them.”

Fargo glanced out the back door. Kutler, Tork, and Grunge were watching and listening, ready to spring to Durn’s aid if need be. “You must need spectacles. From where I stand, there is plenty of space for both.”

Durn’s features hardened. “So you are one of those, are you? A red-lover? You care more about those who kill your kind than about those who are killed.”

“I have lived with Indians. They are not the rabid wolves you paint them to be.”

“Oh, no?” Durn half rose but sat back down. “Tell that to all the whites that Indians have slaughtered.”

“Whites have done their share.” Fargo could recite a long list. Whole villages wiped out, every warrior, woman, and child. Blankets tainted with disease given free to grateful Indians who died in the most horrible agony.

“They brought it on themselves,” Durn snapped. “I doubt there is a white man on the frontier who hasn’t lost a family member or a friend to those stinking devils, or knows someone who has.” His voice dropped to a growl. “I lost my own parents.”

“What?”

“You heard me. My mother and father were killed by hostiles. They were part of a wagon train bound for Oregon Country and the train was attacked. My parents were last in line. The Indians were on them before anyone could do anything. After it was over, the wagon boss found what was left of them.” Durn gazed out the window but he was not looking at Sally’s yard; he was peering into his past. “I will never forget the day I heard the news, and I will never forgive those filthy heathens for what they did.”

“Which tribe?” Fargo asked.

“Eh?”

“Which tribe did the hostiles belong to?”

“What difference does that make? One tribe is as bad as the other. Or haven’t you heard the expression that the only good Indian is a dead Indian?”

“Too many times,” Fargo said. That Durn hated all Indians over an atrocity committed by a few was not unusual.

“I have been looking for a chance to pay them back,” Durn went on, “and now I have it.”

Fargo could only abide so much. “You damned jackass. The Flatheads are friendly. So are the Coeur d’Alenes. Neither had anything to do with your folks dying.”

“They are red, aren’t they?” Durn stood and crossed to the door. “Remember. You have until ten o’clock tomorrow morning. My men will be keeping an eye on this place so don’t try anything.” He gave a little wave and strolled out.

Fargo went to the door and watched. He heard footsteps behind him.

“I was out in the hall,” Sally said. “I heard every word. I still cannot condone what is he doing, but now I understand why.”

“Why here?” Fargo wondered out loud, turning.

“Excuse me?”

“Out of all the towns and settlements west of the Mississippi, what brought Durn here?”

“I can answer that. He told me once. Apparently he got into trouble over a killing and came west one step ahead of a lynch mob. He had heard about Flathead Lake and figured he could make a living here. He built a ferry, and the saloon, and was all set to start a new life. Then one day out on the street a Flathead bumped into him.”

“On purpose?”

“No, no. The Flathead came out of the general store as Durn was walking past and they brushed shoulders. It was nothing, really. But Durn flew into a rage, and the next I knew, he started all this talk about driving the Indians out. It never made any sense until now.” Sally clasped his hand. “But what about you? What will you do about tomorrow?”

“There is nothing I can do,” Fargo said, thinking for now. “I will be gone by ten, like he wants.”

“Oh.” Sally’s disappointment was transparent. “I am sorry to hear that.”

Fargo closed the back door, clasped her elbow, and steered her to the other side of the kitchen, away from the window. “I am not really leaving, only pretending to. You can expect word from me through Thaddeus by the end of the week.”

“I pray you are not biting off more than you can handle. You are one man and Durn has a small army.”

“No one takes my guns from me and tells me to light a shuck,” Fargo said. “No one.”

“That is pride talking,” Sally warned. “Unless you are careful, it can get you killed.”

“Is there anyone else I can count on besides that old geezer and you?” Fargo needed to find out.

“Not that I can think of. A lot of people don’t like what Durn is doing but they don’t have the backbone to stand up to him.” Sally paused. “That is too harsh. A handful would do more if they could but they have their families to think of. Durn is not above hurting their wives and children.”

Fargo had bucked strong odds before, although rarely as lopsided as this. Big Mike held all the aces. But in life, as in poker, sometimes it was the joker in the deck that won the pot.