High Country Horror

LOOKING FORWARD!

The following is the opening section of the next novel in the exciting Trailsman series from Signet:

THE TRAILSMAN #351

TERROR TOWN

The Smoky Mountains, 1861—where strangers

who aren’t careful wind up six feet under.

The two men with rifles came out of the trees as Fargo was filling his first cup of morning coffee. That they came up on him so quietly wasn’t a good sign. That he was still sluggish from sleep didn’t help, either. He should have heard them. He stayed calm and regarded them as if they were passersby on a street. “Gents,” he said simply.

One was older than the other by a good many years. Judging by their faces and builds they were father and son. Their clothes were homespun, their boots scuffed, their hats the kind farmers favored.

The youngest planted himself and thrust his jaw out. “What are you doing here, mister?”

“Having breakfast,” Fargo said. He set down the coffeepot and held the tin cup in his left hand while lowering his right hand to his side, and his holster. It was on the side away from them and they didn’t notice.

“You’re not from Promise?”

“Is that a settlement?” Fargo asked. So many new ones were springing up he didn’t bother to keep track.

“Did the marshal send you?”

“Boy, I just told you I don’t know the place,” Fargo said.

His right hand brushed his Colt.

“How do we know you’re not lying? How do we know you’re not here to arrest us?”

“Do you see a star on my shirt, lunkhead?” Fargo snapped. He was in no mood for this. Some mornings he tended to be grumpy until he had his coffee.

The young one colored red in the cheeks. “You shouldn’t ought to talk to me like that.”

“Then you should grow a brain.”

That did it. The young one turned entirely red and started to jerk his rifle.

Fargo had the Colt out and cocked before the rifle moved an inch. “How dumb are you?”

The young one froze, his eyes widening in fear.

“Simmer down, Samuel,” the older man said. “He ain’t no lawman. If he was here to harm us, you’d be dead.” The older man smiled. “I’m Wilt Flanders.”

“Means nothing to me.” Fargo wagged the Colt. “Have your son set down his rifle. Nice and slow.”

“I will not,” Samuel said. “And, Pa, how’s he know you and me are related if he’s not from Promise?”

“Use your head, son,” Wilt said. “Do like the man wants and maybe we’ll live through this.”

Sulkily, Samuel bent and placed his rifle on the ground and straightened. “I don’t like this.”

“Then you shouldn’t go around pointing guns at people.” Fargo trained the Colt on the father. “Now you, old man.”

“Be glad to.” Wilt did as his son had and held his arms out from his sides. “There. No need for lead chucking. Suppose we just talk.”

Fargo took a sip of coffee and savored the heat that spread down his gullet and into the pit of his stomach. “For nearly spoiling my breakfast I should shoot you anyway.”

“Pa!” Samuel said, and glanced down at his rifle.

“He’s joshing, son. Stand still and be quiet while I talk to him.”

“He treats me like I’m stupid,” Samuel pouted.

“Hush now, son.” Wilt gestured at Fargo. “Can I come close and sit?”

“No.”

“Fair enough.” Wilt cleared his throat. “We have a small farm down this hill and out on the prairie a piece. We’re up here after deer.”

“Why would you think I was a marshal?”

“We’ve had some trouble with the law in Promise,” Wilt said. “It’s to the north, about half a day’s ride.”

“What sort of trouble?” Not that Fargo cared. He just wanted them to be gone so he could finish his breakfast in peace.

“My Martha refuses to wear a bonnet when she goes into town.”

Fargo wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. “Martha being your wife, I take it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What the hell does a bonnet have to do with anything?”

“It’s against town ordinance for a female to be out in public without one on her head.”

Fargo would have thought the farmer was joking if not for his earnest expression. “That is about the damned silliest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Wilt smiled. “My Martha feels the same way. She says a woman should have the right to cover her head or not.”

“Why would they pass such a law?”

“You go into Promise, you’ll understand quick enough,” Wilt said. “But I wouldn’t advise it. They don’t cotton to strangers much.”

“Is that a fact?”

“My pa never lies, mister,” Samuel bristled.

“I wasn’t saying he did, peckerwood.” Fargo sipped more coffee.

“The last time we were in town,” Wilt went on, “the marshal told us we have to pay a dollar fine for Martha not wearing her bonnet. We had five days to pay. It’s been seven and we haven’t so it’s likely they’ll send someone to collect.”

“Over our dead bodies,” Samuel said.

“I won’t tell you again to be quiet,” Wilt said.

Fargo twirled the Colt into his holster. “You can pick up your rifles and go on with your hunt. I reckon I’ll fight shy of this Promise. There are enough nuisances in my life.” He gave Samuel a pointed glance.

“You’ll have to swing pretty wide,” Wilt said. “There’s the town and the farms and a few ranches around it. Could take you a day or two out of your way.”

Fargo didn’t like the idea of the delay. He watched closely as the pair reclaimed their long guns. Both had the presence of mind to keep the barrels pointed down. “Off you go,” he said.

They turned and went to the trees and Wilt paused to look back. “If you change your mind, be careful, you hear? I wasn’t kidding about them not liking strangers. Any excuse they can come up with to give you a hard time, they will.”

Father and son hiked off. Fargo kept his right hand close to his Colt until they were out of sight. He sat back, opened his saddlebags, and took out a bundle wrapped in rabbit fur.

Opening it, he helped himself to several pieces of pemmican.

He liked pemmican more than jerky. The berries mixed with the ground meat and the fat lent it a zesty taste.

The sun was half an hour high when Fargo got under way. He held the Ovaro to a walk until he was out of the hills and then brought it to a trot until he came to a rutted road and a sign.

He drew rein and read it out loud.

“Promise. Twenty miles. The cleanest little town west of the Mississippi.” Fargo scratched his beard. Frontier towns were notorious for the windblown dust that got into everything, and for droppings in their streets. To have one boast of being clean was a novelty.

Fargo rode on. Now and then he passed farmhouses and a few cabins. In ten miles he came on a fork and another sign. It said the same thing and added in smaller letters, “Stable service. Saloon open noon until midnight. Preachers welcome. Drummers and patent medicine men are not.”

“Well now,” Fargo said. He had a decision to make; go around or ride on through. Since he didn’t much like the idea of losing a day or two, he went on. The mention of a saloon helped persuade him. It had been a week since his last drink and he would dearly love some whiskey.

A mile out Fargo came on yet another sign, the biggest and grandest yet. It mentioned that Promise had a population of one hundred and twelve souls. Harry Bascomb was mayor. Lloyd Travers was marshal.

“Good to know,” Fargo said, and grinned. He’d seldom come across a town so full of itself. Gigging the stallion, he continued to the outskirts. He’d expected a quiet little hamlet with a few horses at hitch rails and not a lot of people moving about. Instead, to his consternation, the street was lined with parked farm wagons and buckboards and there had to be thirty horses tied off. Folks were everywhere, strolling about, peering in store windows and whatnot. A lot were families with kids.

A celebration of some sort, Fargo reckoned, and gigged the Ovaro. He was conscious of the stares thrown his way. But he was a stranger and that was normal.

The sole saloon was next to the general store. It was called Abe’s, and the rail out front was full. Fargo reined around to the side and dismounted. He arched his back to relieve a kink and let the reins dangle. The Ovaro wouldn’t go anywhere.

A stream of people flowed along the boardwalk. Fargo touched his hat to a pair of young ladies in bright dresses and bonnets who grinned and giggled and sashayed on by. He looked around and saw that all the females wore bonnets, even the smallest girls.

Fargo pushed on the batwings. The familiar scents of liquor and cigar smoke and the clink of poker chips made him glad he had stopped. The place was packed. He shouldered to the bar and smacked the counter and a bartender with a bushy mustache and a big smile came over.

“What will it be, stranger?”

“Whiskey.” Fargo fished a coin from his pocket. As the bartender produced a glass and poured, he motioned and said, “It’s not the Fourth of July, is it?” He didn’t make it a habit to keep up with the calendar.

The bartender chuckled. “Sure isn’t. All this to-do is because of the hanging.”

“The what?” Fargo said, although he’d heard perfectly well.

“Everyone is in town to see Steve Lucas strung up.” The bartender glanced at a clock above the shelves behind the bar.

“In about an hour. I’ll be closing so I can go. It’s not every day you get to see someone swing.”

“No, it’s not,” Fargo said. The times he had, he tried to forget. It was an awful way to die.

“The mayor is going to give a speech and there are booths where you can buy juice and cakes and pie.”

“Nothing like a hanging to work up an appetite,” Fargo said.

About to turn away, the bartender gave him a sharp look.

“I don’t know as I like your tone. The man being hung deserves it. He was caught red-handed.”

“Caught doing what?”

It wasn’t the bartender who answered. It was a tall, lanky man in a broad-brimmed black hat and a vest with a star on it.

“Rustling.”

Fargo turned. “Marshal Travers, I take it?”

The lawman nodded. He had a long, bony face and close-set eyes. “I found the cow myself in his barn.”

“One cow?”

“One or twenty, it’s all the same. Lucas stole it and he has to pay.” Travers leaned on an elbow. “You here for the necktie social or some other reason?”

Fargo treated himself to a swallow of Monongahela. “For this. Then I aim to be on my way.”

“Make sure you stay out of trouble. You won’t like what happens if you don’t.”

Fargo held his temper in check and said, “You’re not very friendly.”

“We have a nice town here and we like to keep it that way,”

Marshal Travers said, and smiled. “So no, we’re not very friendly at all.”