3

Fargo discovered that when Fanny called it a circus, she wasn’t kidding.

Five thousand dollars was a lot of money. To some it was a fortune. So it was no surprise that the bounty had drawn would-be bear hunters from all over. That so many of them had never done any bear hunting didn’t matter. All they cared about was the money.

Rooster took Fargo on a tour of the saloons so Fargo could meet some of them and see for himself.

“It’s quite a collection,” Rooster said dryly.

Fargo agreed.

There were farmers. There were store clerks. There was a bank teller who admitted he’d never hunted so much as a chipmunk but who told Fargo, in all seriousness, “I don’t see where this bear will be a problem. All I have to do is point my gun and shoot.” There were buffalo hunters. There was a rancher who needed the money to keep his ranch afloat. There were mule skinners. There was a boy who couldn’t be more than twelve, who showed up with two cents to his name, toting a slingshot. Fargo was introduced to an Englishman who had brought a special rifle he used to bag elephants in Africa. There were several women, including a mother with three children who had lost her husband in an accident. Out of the hundred or so, only a handful had ever hunted bear.

“What do you think?” Rooster asked when they were at the last saloon.

“I think I need a drink.” Fargo bought another bottle and they planted themselves at the end of the bar. As he filled their glasses he remarked, “They have no damn notion what they’re up against.”

“It’s plumb ridiculous.”

“If the town council had any sense, they’d send these folks packing.”

“The council is hoping one of the hunters will get lucky and put an end to the killings.”

“That, and it’s good for business,” Fargo guessed. The saloons alone were taking in more money in an hour than they used to make in a week.

“Here’s to greed,” Rooster said, tipping his glass to his lips.

“Here’s to stupid,” Fargo said, and did the same.

“So the way I see it, hoss,” Rooster said, “is that you and me have as good a chance as anyone and a better chance than most of tracking this Brain Eater and splattering his brains.”

Fargo had shot black bears and grizzlies. A few times when he had to in order not to be eaten, a few times when he was halfstarved and a bear made the mistake of wandering into his sights before a deer or a rabbit, and once when he needed a hide to make a robe for a Sioux friend who just happened to be female. “Do you still have your Sharps?”

“Wouldn’t hunt with any other gun,” Rooster said. “Last year I brought down a buff at five hundred yards.”

“That’s some shooting.”

“You’ve still got yours, I take it?”

“I took to using a Henry,” Fargo revealed.

Rooster was about to take another drink but stopped. “Why in Sam Hill would you part with your Sharps? You could outshoot me with that beauty you had.”

“A Henry holds more rounds.”

Rooster slapped down his glass, spilling some of the whiskey. “Rounds my ass. Why, those things are only fit for chickens and chipmunks.”

“I’ve dropped a few buffalo with it.”

“Hell,” Rooster said in disgust. “Bet you had to shoot the poor buff eight or ten times. You know and I know that when it comes to stopping a critter in its tracks, there’s nothing like a Sharps.”

“Sharps do come in larger calibers . . .” Fargo began.

“Damn right they do. Mine is a .52. It’s a regular cannon. What caliber is your chipmunk killer?”

“You know damn well the Henry is a .44.”

Rooster snorted. “When we find Brain Eater, what do you intend to do? Club him to death? A bee would sting him worse than your girlie gun.”

“Did you just say girlie gun?”

“You’d be better off using that kid’s slingshot.”

“You’re full of it,” Fargo said. But his friend had a valid point. A Henry could bring a grizzly down, provided its vitals were hit, but he wouldn’t care to stake his life on it.

“The hell I am. Look me in the face and tell me you’re going to go after a griz as big as a Conestoga with your pitiful .44.”

Fargo frowned.

“I didn’t think so.”

More than a little annoyed, Fargo said testily, “I never said I gave up the Sharps entirely. A friend keeps it for me. I use it now and then. And before you ask, yes, I left the Henry and brought the Sharps.”

“What’s her name?”

“Who?”

“Your friend.”

“Go to hell.”

Rooster cackled and smacked the bar. “That’s the spirit. Between your Sharps and mine, Brain Eater is fit to be skinned.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“No,” Rooster said. “I don’t.”


An hour later Fargo and Rooster had finished the bottle and Fargo was set to order another when a commotion broke out in the street. Shouts flew from one end to the other.

“I wonder what that’s about,” Rooster said.

The next moment the batwings parted and a townsman thrust his head in. “There’s been another one! They have him in a wagon down to the undertaker’s.”

An exodus ensued, with a lot of pushing and shoving before everyone made it out. Fargo held back and waited for the press to thin, then joined the scores converging on a building with a sign that read simply, MORTICIAN. He had to shoulder through the crowd to a buckboard. A man in the bed had pulled back a canvas and onlookers were craning their necks to see the remains. One glimpse was enough for most; it was all they could stomach, and they had to turn away before they got sick.

Fargo wasn’t as squeamish. He’d seen freighters after the Apaches got done with them, and settlers after they had been paid a visit by the Sioux. He’d seen a man who had been clawed to ribbons by a mountain lion, and another who had blundered onto a she-bear and her cubs. But he’d never seen anything like this.

The arms and legs were lined up in a row, the hands and feet at one end, the stumps at the other. One of the hands was missing several fingers. The abdominal cavity had been ripped open and torn intestines lay in grisly coils. The neck had been bitten nearly in half. The face was intact but the crown of the head was attached by slivers of flesh and where the brains should be was a cavity.

“Merciful heavens,” a woman blurted, and vomited.

“Who was it?” someone asked the man holding the canvas.

“Ira Stoddard,” the man said. “He had a claim about two miles out. They found him near the creek. Or this that was left of him, anyhow.”

Rooster nudged Fargo. “Maybe we should go have a look-see before the horde shows up.”

“The horde?” Fargo said, and laughed. He didn’t find it so funny when they were barely out of town and found dozens of others ahead of them.

“I told you,” Rooster said. “Each time there’s a killing all of these so-called hunters want to be the first there in the hope they’ll spot the bear.”

Fargo was content to take his time. The grizzly would be long gone, anyway. They followed a rutted track pockmarked with hoofprints and had gone about half a mile when a black horse came up alongside the Ovaro and a shadow fell across him. “What the hell do you want?”

“Prickly, ain’t you?” Moose said. “I wanted to tell Rooster and you there ain’t no hard feelings about earlier.”

“That’s generous of you,” Rooster said, “seeing as how you were the one chucked me through the window.”

“You’re alive,” Moose said. “Or are you one of those sour folks who bellyaches over little stuff?”

“Little? By God, I have half a mind to—” Rooster stopped and shook his head. “No. You’re right. I shouldn’t have said what I did. You’re not entirely worthless as a bear hunter.”

“I’ve killed twenty-seven at one time or another,” Moose boasted, “and two of them were silvertips.”

“This one won’t be as easy as they were.”

“You don’t have to tell me.” Moose thrust his big hand at Fargo. “How about you, mister? Forgive and forget, as my ma used to say?”

“I never forget,” Fargo said, but he shook.

“Why, that’s what that British gent said about those ele-things he likes to hunt,” Moose said. “He claims they have two teeth as long as my arm and they wear a trunk on their face. But what would they need with a trunk when they don’t even wear clothes?” Moose guffawed as if he had told a joke.

Fargo decided to take advantage of the bear hunter’s friendliness. “You’ve been out after this griz before, I take it?”

“That I have,” Moose said somberly. “And he got the better of me every time.”

“Better how?”

“Brain Eater ain’t a normal bear. He’s got the painter gift of throwing a hunter off his scent. Hell, even hounds can’t bring him to bay.”

“How does Brain Eater throw you off?” Fargo keenly desired to know.

“He’s smart. He doubles back on himself. He sticks to rocky ground when he can. He goes up slopes too steep for a horse, knowing we have to go around. He sticks to water, too, and will stay in a stream for miles.”

“I’ve never heard of a bear doing all that,” Fargo admitted.

“Now you know why no one has caught him yet,” Moose said. “And why that bounty is as good as mine.”

“Putting the cart before the horse, ain’t you?” Rooster said.

“Listen. No one has been out after Brain Eater as often as me. And the more I do it, the more I learn of his ways and the more I get the feel of him. Won’t be long, I’ll know what he’s going to do before he does it. That’s the day I bring his hide into Gold Creek and collect the bounty.”

“If he doesn’t eat your brain first,” Rooster said.


They reached the site.

“Look at them all,” Moose said, and rode into the thick of them.

“It’d be funny if it wasn’t so damn pathetic,” Rooster remarked.

Fargo grunted in assent.

The small cabin and the ground around it literally crawled with bear hunters. Some were on their hands and knees looking for tracks. One man had climbed onto the roof and was looking for sign from up there. The woman with her three children had them poking around in some bushes that weren’t big enough to hide a turkey.

Moose dismounted and walked about bragging how Brain Eater’s days were numbered.

Fargo sat the saddle of the Ovaro and shook his head in mild disgust. Any tracks the bear had left would have been obliterated. He noticed that a finger of pines came close to the rear of the cabin, perfect cover for a stalking bear, and he was about to ride around and confirm his hunch when the Englishman with the fancy rifle that brought down elephants rode over.

“I say, Fargo, wasn’t it? Wendolyn Channing Mayal, remember? Although most people call me Wendy for short. What do you make of all these blighters?”

“They’re a herd of jackasses,” Rooster said.

“I quite agree, Mr. Strimm,” Wendy said. “They’ll bloody well spoil it for those of us who have a legitimate chance at this beast.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Rooster said. “That gun of yours, and your fine clothes and all. You don’t strike me as somebody who is in this for the money.”

“Most astute, Mr. Strimm.”

“Most what?”

“You are exactly right,” Wendy said. “I hunt for the thrill. For the sport of it. Elephants and water buffalo in Africa, tigers in India, jaguars in South America, I’ve hunted them all. I came to your marvelous country to add a grizzly to my tally, and as luck would have it, read in a newspaper about the bounty and this bear.”

“Maybe you do have a chance at him, then,” Rooster said.

“I can track and I can shoot and I have nerves of steel,” Wendy declared. “I should say I most certainly do.” He touched the cap he wore and rode toward the stream.

“Not a bad feller for a foreigner,” Rooster said.

Fargo motioned and circled around the cabin toward the pines.

Just then a farmer in bib overalls bawled that he had found a bear track near the outhouse and nearly everyone rushed over to see for themselves.

Moose was one of them, and got a laugh by bellowing, “Why, hell, you idiot. This ain’t no bear track. It’s a dog print, for crying out loud.”

Fargo glanced at Rooster. “Ira Stoddard had a dog?”

“Wouldn’t know. Never met the man.”

The pines closed around them and muffled much of the hubbub. Fargo bent his gaze to the carpet of needles and patches of bare earth. He hadn’t gone twenty feet when he came on the outline of a front paw. “I thought so,” he said, and pointed.

“Crafty critter,” Rooster said. “Snuck in close so he’d be on Ira before Ira could wet himself.”

“Or get off a shot,” Fargo said. Most meat-eaters did the same. They snuck as near as they could to their quarry before they pounced.

“You reckon this bear is gun savvy?”

“I’ve seen it before,” Fargo said. Bears and other animals were shot at or saw a man use a gun and equated firearms with danger and stayed away from those who carried them.

“We got us one smart bear here.”

“So everyone keeps saying.”

Fargo penetrated another hundred yards but didn’t find more prints. The pines rose in a series of slopes to a phalanx of firs. Above the firs reared a stark spire. “How about we go up and take a gander at the countryside?”

“I don’t have nothing better to do.”

The climb took two hours. Their horses toiled up steep inclines and they skirted deadfalls and rock outcroppings to finally reach a stone shelf. Drawing rein, they climbed down.

Fargo cast his eyes over nature in all her splendor. Peaks that slashed the clouds. Mountains abundant with timber, split by gorges and ravines. From that height the creek was a thin blue ribbon that contrasted with the greens and browns of the woodland. To the east a pair of bald eagles soared.

Rooster breathed in deep. “God, I love the wilds. Once they’re in your blood, you can’t ever get them out.”

“I wouldn’t want to,” Fargo said. He could no more take up city life than he could give up whiskey or women. About to turn to the Ovaro, he gave a start.

High on a mountain to the north was the green rectangle of a meadow. A creature was crossing it. Even at that distance, its bulk and ambling gait and color left no doubt what it was.

“Brain Eater,” Fargo said.

Rooster turned and blurted, “I’ll be damned! God, he must be huge.”

Fargo looked at him. “What do you say?”

“We go for it,” Rooster said eagerly.

They mounted and headed north. Fargo didn’t push. It wouldn’t do to exhaust their mounts to reach the meadow any sooner. Given all he had learned about Brain Eater, they had a long hunt ahead.

Rather than go all the way down to the creek and then up the next mountain to the meadow, they crossed a spiny ridge and wound along a switchback to a bench that brought them to within a quarter of a mile. A short climb and they were there.

“He’s long gone by now,” Rooster said. “But lookee here, hoss.”

Grizzlies ate plants as well as the flesh of anything they could catch, and Brain Eater had treated himself to some yellow violets. In the process he had torn at the ground to get at the roots, and there, as clear as could be, was the entire track of a forepaw. Fargo looked, and whistled.

“Know what you mean,” Rooster said. “It gives me goose bumps.”

Climbing down, Fargo sank to one knee. Typical grizzly tracks for a mature male were ten to twelve inches long and seven to eight inches wide. This track was nearer to twenty inches long and fifteen to sixteen inches across. He held his spread fingers over the print; it dwarfed his hand.

“Jesus,” Rooster breathed. “The thing is a monster.”

Fargo nodded. He had never seen griz tracks this huge. Hell, he’d never heard of griz tracks like this.

To the west the sun sat perched on the rim of the world. The shadows around them were lengthening.

“Looks like we camp here for the night and go after Brain Eater at daybreak,” Rooster said.

Fargo took a picket pin from his saddlebags and pounded it into the ground using a rock. Rooster hobbled his horse. They stripped both animals and Rooster set about gathering firewood. Fargo half filled his coffeepot from his canteen and after kindling a fire, put coffee on. He shared his pemmican and they sat chewing as the day gave way to the gray of evening and the gray gave way to the black of night. Above them a multitude of stars sparkled.

A coyote yipped but otherwise quiet reined.

“Peaceful, ain’t it?” Rooster said. “Almost makes me forget what we’re up here for.”

As if they needed a reminder, from out of the nearby woods rumbled a menacing growl.

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