High Country Horror

14

Skye Fargo had learned long ago never to take anyone as they appeared to be. A stranger might smile and be sociable, and the moment Fargo turned his back, plunge a knife into it and steal his poke. A painted warrior bristling with weapons might appear ready to slay any white he came across, yet turn out to be from a friendly tribe. Yet knowing that, Fargo still found the habit hard to break. He’d taken for granted that the old prospector was harmless and now the old man was about to blow out his wick.

“Any last words?” Badger asked.

“You’re not the one I’m after. Why shoot me when you don’t have to?”

“I like the bonnets and the dresses,” Badger said. “I like to fondle them at night.”

“You can get them at any dress shop or most any general store,” Fargo stalled. His right hand was low at his side and he inched it higher.

“I don’t like people, remember? I don’t like towns. Every time I go into one, people poke fun at me. Laugh at me behind my back. And now the folks in Haven went and threw me in jail.” Badger was growing agitated as he talked and his mouth began to twitch.

“It’s stupid to die over a bonnet.” Fargo’s fingers brushed the bottom of his holster.

“You shouldn’t have followed me,” Badger said.

“I told you about the missing women.” Fargo cupped his right hand around the middle of his holster and his left hand around his hip.

“They don’t mean anything to me.”

Fargo nodded at the charnel pit. “You don’t care that he chops them up when he’s done with them?”

“Why should I? I didn’t know any of those folks. To me they’re just body parts.”

Fargo sighed and slid his right hand up to the grips on his Colt.

“I don’t care about the women. I don’t care about you. I don’t care about anyone but me,” Badger said.

“I’ll ask you one last time to lower the Sharps.” Fargo tensed for the draw. He would sidestep as he shot in case the rifle went off.

“All I care about is gold.”

The idea that popped into Fargo’s head almost made him smile. Keeping his voice casual he asked, “Have you looked up there?” He nodded toward the black mesa.

Badger looked. The Sharps dipped a couple of inches and he replied, “Why would I want to do that?”

“That’s where the townsfolk in Haven say some was found.”

“What are you talking about?” Badger asked suspiciously.

“I heard about it from the marshal. There was a man called Wells who found nuggets. He told everyone it was a big strike and he bought provisions and went back out but they never saw him again.”

“I never heard of any desert rat named Wells.”

“He worked at the livery. Prospected in his spare time. He disappeared about the same time as the first of the women.”

Badger blinked and said, “Why, it could have been him who did it.”

“The Ghoul?”

Badger nodded. “You saw what’s down in that pit. He’s killed men before. I bet he killed Wells.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you ain’t clever like me.” Badger lowered the Sharps and turned and stared at the mesa. “So that’s why he’s up there. It’s not the women. It’s the gold. He wants it for himself.”

Fargo took his hand off the Colt. “That’s where the Ghoul is?”

“You’re awful slow,” Badger said. “He has a secret place. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I’ve seen him rubbing the women. He likes to rub and rub as if he can’t get enough.”

“You’ll show me where it is?”

“Find him yourself. All I want is the gold, damn it.” Badger walked down to Gladys and snagged the lead rope. “I can’t believe I never thought to look up there. All the times I’ve walked past it, and the times I snuck on up to spy on that fella you’re after.” He tugged on the rope and led Gladys up the other side. “We never see the nose on our own face.”

Fargo was quick to take the Ovaro’s reins and hurry after him. It didn’t nettle his conscience that he’d lied. It was either that or shoot the old prospector dead. “Wait up.”

Badger was pulling the burro as fast as he could walk. “Gold, you said. Nuggets. I wonder did he chip them from a vein or did he find them lying loose?”

“Can you at least tell me where you saw the Ghoul?” Fargo asked. “What part of the mesa?” It would help to narrow it down. The mesa had to be half a mile long and a quarter of mile wide.

“Up it a ways.”

“How far up? And on which side? The north? The south? The east? The west?”

“This is the one,” Badger said.

“What is?”

“I’m getting too old for this. I need a big strike so I can buy me a cabin somewhere and spend the rest of my days taking it easy in a rocking chair.”

Since Fargo had already made up a whopper of a story, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to add to it. “I’ll make a deal with you.”

“Keep your horse. I wouldn’t swap Gladys for anything.”

“Not that kind of deal,” Fargo said. “If you’ll tell me exactly where you saw the Ghoul, I’ll tell you the rest about Wells.”

Badger stopped. “There’s more?”

“Wells let drop a hint about where he came across the nuggets,” Fargo fibbed. “There’s a landmark he mentioned. It might help you find them.”

“If that’s so, how come no one else has gone after the gold before now?” Badger wanted to know.

“You know how people are. Most townsmen are too scared of hostiles to stray far from town. The farmers can’t take the time away from their crops and livestock. Others are just too lazy.”

“Are they ever. They expect the gold to jump into their pockets.”

“Not everyone has as much grit as you,” Fargo told him.

“I have grit?”

“You’re out here in the middle of nowhere all by your lonesome. It takes a brave man to do what you do.”

“I suppose it does at that.” Badger grinned. “I never thought of it like that but being a gold hound ain’t for cowards.”

By then they were in the mesa’s shadow. Badger stopped and said in earnest, “Meeting you was the luckiest day of my life.”

Fargo almost felt bad deceiving him.

“Now where is this landmark?” Badger turned toward the mesa. “Point it out.”

Fargo scanned the upper reaches. He had his choice of several prominent features. “Do you see that cleft near the top?”

“It reminds me of Andy Jackson’s chin.”

The remark was so ridiculous that Fargo laughed. “Wells found the nuggets somewhere below it.”

Badger beamed happily. “At last. This is the one I’ve waited my whole life for. I can feel it in my bones.” He looked at Fargo. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

The old prospector’s face exploded in a shower of blood and gore and his body arched as taut as a bowstring.

Fargo was in motion as the boom of the shot rolled across the wasteland. He spun and vaulted into the saddle. There in the open, he and the Ovaro were easy targets. He could try to reach the mesa but the rifleman was bound to drop the stallion before they got there and maybe put a slug into him, besides. The only other cover was closer. Reining around, he jabbed his spurs and galloped to the small basin the burro had been concealed in. He went down on the fly as another shot thundered, the slug passing within a whisker of his head. At the bottom he drew rein and swung down. The top of the mesa was visible but he didn’t think the shooter was that high up. Still, to be safe, he resorted to a trick he’d taught the stallion—he pulled on the bridle and pushed at a front leg until the Ovaro sank onto its side. He stretched out next to it, his head propped in his hand.

There was another shot, just the one, and a squeal followed by a thud and the clatter of pots, pans and tools.

Fargo took off his hat, set it down, and crabbed to the rim. Unless the man on the mesa had a telescope it was unlikely he would spot him. He dared a peek.

Gladys lay near her dead master. The slug had cored her head and scattered her brains over the hard rock. Her tongue poked from her mouth and a spreading pool of blood was already drawing flies.

Only one of Badger’s eyes was still in its socket and that eye was fixed on Fargo. “You should have told me everything at the start,” he said to it, and slid to the bottom and put his hat back on. He squinted at the sun. Plenty of daylight left but he wasn’t going anywhere. He eased onto his back and slid a hand under his head, and glowered at the world.

The sun crawled across the sky, scorching the earth and the basin and turning the rock into an oven. Fargo felt as if he were being baked alive. The heat got to the Ovaro, too, and twice the stallion tried to rise and each time he held it down and patted it and talked quietly until it settled down.

Fargo had seldom looked forward to a sundown as much as he did to this one. From the rim he watched the western horizon swallow it. The mesa’s shadow spread and was in turn swallowed by the darker shadow of advancing night. He didn’t move until the first stars sparkled. Then he brought the stallion up off the ground, mounted, and rode up and out the other side of the basin toward the gap through the cliffs.

It was pointless to search the mesa in the dark; the killer would be waiting for him. Fargo figured to rest up and return. He took his time, and by the position of the Big Dipper it was close to midnight when he reached Haven. The town was mostly dark and quiet, with only a few windows aglow. One of those was the parlor window in the boardinghouse. He stripped the Ovaro and went in, the Henry in one hand, his saddlebags over his shoulder. He expected Helsa to be asleep so he was surprised when he saw her in her long robe in the rocking chair, knitting.

She looked up. “Rough day, I take it?”

“I’ve had better.” Fargo set the saddlebags on the settee, wearily sat, and related the death of old Badger.

“That poor crazy man,” Helsa said. “And his burro too?”

“There’s more.” Fargo told her about the charnel pit and regretted it when tears filled her eyes.

“You say you saw the remains of men as well as women? One of them must have been my James.”

Fargo hadn’t thought of that, and inwardly cursed.

Helsa touched her robe sleeve to the corners of her eyes and composed herself. “The others puzzle me, though. We know of the four women who have disappeared. James would make five. But you saw nine skulls. Who were the other four?”

Fargo shrugged. “Travelers, maybe. Indians. Other prospectors. Who knows?”

“The killer does.” Helsa folded up her knitting. “I’d imagine you’ll inform Marshal Tibbit in the morning and lead a posse to the black mesa.”

“You imagine wrong.”

Helsa regarded Fargo as if he were a puzzle. “Why on earth not, may I ask?”

“He’s mine.”

“Oh, come now. You don’t want to see him hung? That is what would happen, you know. No jury would fail to convict him.”

“Maybe so,” Fargo said.

“But you still want to find him yourself and deal with him as you see fit? Why? Out of spite? For revenge?”

“Call it whatever you want.”

“Don’t be annoyed with me. I happen to like you. But if you go off alone again, maybe the next time you won’t come back. Maybe it’s the man on the mesa who kills you and not the other way around.”

“Could be,” Fargo conceded.

“You’re willing to gamble your life to settle a score?”

Fargo felt no need to answer that. He stood and reached for his saddlebags.

“Wait. You must be hungry. I made roast beef for supper and I can heat some up.” Helsa came out of the rocking chair and put her hand on his arm. “Please. Let me feed you. I promise to stop trying to persuade you that you’re making a mistake.”

“In that case,” Fargo said, and grinned.

Helsa had kept the stove warm so all she had do was add wood and soon the aroma of the beef and potatoes had Fargo’s empty stomach trying to eat itself. She also put coffee on. As she was placing a fork and knife at his elbow she commented, “I almost forgot. Marshal Tibbit has arrested Harvey Stansfield and his two friends.”

“Will wonders never cease?”

“I went straightaway to him after you left this morning and reported what they had done. He said enough was enough. He’s thrown them in jail. In the morning he is releasing them with the provision that they leave Haven and never return.”

“So that badge of his is good for something besides decorating his shirt,” Fargo said.

“That’s not quite fair. He does his best.”

Fargo let it drop. He had something else on his mind. “How long before the food is done?”

“Oh, five minutes, maybe a little more. Starving, are you?”

Fargo walked over behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He pulled her hard against him and cupped her breasts and she stiffened and gasped.

“In more ways than one.”