High Country Horror

2

Fargo was furious. With a revolver jammed to the back of his head and another pointed at his face, there was nothing he could do as his arms were seized and his wrists bound behind his back. They brought the Ovaro over and he was boosted onto the stallion.

Harvey took the reins. Dugan and McNee kept their weapons on Fargo as Harvey led the stallion toward the trees on the east side of the clearing. Danvers snatched a burning brand from the fire and held it aloft to light the way.

Tom Wilson still hadn’t come around. The last two men stayed with him. They made it plain they wanted no part of the hanging.

“Last chance to tell us what you did with Myrtle,” Harvey said.

Fargo had one chance. But for him to succeed he needed to whittle the odds of taking lead. So he lied. “She’s in the trees yonder.”

Harvey stopped. “What?”

“She’s trussed up in the trees to the west,” Fargo said. “About ten steps in from the clearing.”

“Did you hear that?” Dugan said excitedly. “She’s alive!”

“You and McNee go see,” Harvey directed. “Be quick about it. We want to get this done before the marshal shows up.”

They hustled across the clearing.

Fargo tensed his legs. Danvers was watching the other two run off but Harvey was still holding the reins and looking up at him. He needed Harvey to look away. The next instant Harvey did. Hunching forward, Fargo jabbed his spurs and clamped his legs tight and the Ovaro burst into motion, tearing the reins from Harvey’s grasp. Harvey cursed and banged off a shot but by then the Ovaro was in the woods. Fargo bent as low as he could as branches whipped at his face and eyes.

The reins were dangling and he hoped they didn’t become snagged.

Behind him Harvey was bellowing for the rest to mount and give chase.

Usually the stallion could outrun most any horse alive. But it was night and the woods were thick and, worse, Fargo couldn’t control the stallion with his arms tied. He used his spurs again, his chest nearly flat on the Ovaro’s back. His cheek was nicked by a limb. His left shoulder seared with pain.

Fargo leaned to the right and the Ovaro veered in the direction he wanted. He was counting on enough of a quick lead to stay ahead of his pursuers. But when he glanced back they were in hard pursuit and closer than he liked. Revolvers boomed but they were shooting in the dark on moving horses and they were poor shots.

The Ovaro crashed out of the trees onto the road. Instinctively, it turned and raced down it rather than into the woods on the other side.

Fargo tried to hike his leg to get at the Arkansas toothpick in the ankle sheath in his boot but he was afraid of losing his balance so he lowered it again.

His pursuers reached the road and goaded their mounts to greater effort. He used his spurs. The road was straight, thank God, and he held his own. Then a sharp bend hove out of the night and the stallion went around it so fast that Fargo had to cling tight with his legs or be thrown violently off.

Someone was shouting. It sounded like Harvey, yelling for the others to shoot Fargo. A few more shots were sent his way to no effect. Few townsmen or farmers ever practiced daily at shooting. They might plink targets once in a while, and hunt now and then, but that was it.

Another bend, and the Ovaro veered dangerously near the trees. Fargo ducked under a jutting limb and felt it brush his hat. He began to think that maybe—just maybe—he would get away even with his hands tied when another branch loomed. He ducked but it caught him across the chest and lifted him clear and he was slammed to the ground with such force he felt it in his bones. The impact, the pain, dazed him. Dimly, he was aware of pounding hooves and then voices and hands grabbed his arms and the light from the burning brand splashed over him. They hauled him roughly to his feet. His head cleared just as Harvey punched him in the stomach.

“That’s for tricking us, you son of a bitch.”

Fargo kicked him between the legs.

Bleating in agony, Harvey clutched himself and folded at the waist. He cursed up a storm and staggered, his face dark with rushing blood.

“You bastard,” McNee said, and struck Fargo on the jaw, a backhand that didn’t hurt much.

“Let’s hang him and get this over with,” Dugan said.

Danvers had a rope as well as the brand. He waggled it and said, “All we need is the right tree.”

Harvey was slow to recover. Glaring at Fargo, he straightened and grinned his vicious grin. “Mister, I’m going to enjoy this. Whether you took Myrtle or not doesn’t hardly matter anymore.” He snatched the rope from Danvers and rigged a noose. Knocking Fargo’s hat off, he slid the noose over Fargo’s head and around his neck, and laughed. “Like your new necktie?”

They pushed Fargo toward the woods. He fought, planting a boot on Dugan and shouldering McNee. Before he could spring clear he was brought down by a sweep of Harvey’s leg. Dugan and McNee pounced and held him fast.

“Damn, he’s a wildcat,” Dugan said.

“He’ll soon be a dead one,” Harvey said.

Danvers pointed with the brand and exclaimed, “Look at this! His horse didn’t leave him.”

The Ovaro had come back. The stallion walked up to Fargo and Harvey gripped the reins. “Right obliging. Now we can hang him on his own animal and not one of ours.”

A tree at the edge of the road suited them. It had a thick limb, easily reached on horseback. Fargo fought but they got him up and on the stallion. Dugan and McNee each held a leg while Harvey climbed on his horse and tossed the other end of the rope over a higher limb.

The noose was so tight Fargo could hardly breathe. He didn’t beg or ask them to spare him. He glared and grit his teeth and wished to hell his hands were free so he could show these sons of bitches what he thought of them. He saw Harvey raise a hand to smack the Ovaro.

“I can’t wait to see your face turn purple and your tongue bulge out,” Harvey crowed.

“Just get it over with,” Danvers urged.

That was when hooves pounded, and from the other direction came another group of riders. At the forefront was the townsman who had gone off to fetch the marshal and beside him a dumpling of a man in a brown suit with a badge pinned to his vest.

“Hold on, there!” the lawman shouted. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Oh, hell,” Dugan said.

Harvey swore and raised his hand higher.

“Stop!” the lawman bellowed. “I mean it, Harve Stansfield. You hit that horse and I’ll by-God see you behind bars.”

To Fargo’s unbounded relief, Harvey muttered under his breath and lowered his arm.

The other group came to a stop.

“I don’t believe this,” Marshal Tibbit declared. “Fixing to hang a man without a trial. What the hell got into all of you?” Tibbit was overweight and pasty-faced and his voice had a squeak to it and squeaked more the higher he raised it. “I asked you a question,” he said when no one responded. “You’d better have a good explanation.”

“We think he’s the one who took Myrtle,” Harvey said sullenly.

“So you hang him?” Marshal Tibbit took off his hat and wiped a sleeve across his sweaty brow. He had curly gray hair and big ears the hat had partially hid. “I should arrest all of you.”

“Ah, Marion,” Danvers said.

“Don’t ‘Ah, Marion’ me,” Tibbit replied. “I won’t stand for shenanigans like this—you hear me?”

Fargo twisted his neck, scraping his skin on the rope as he did. “Cut me down, damn it.”

“Whoever you are, I apologize for this,” Marshal Tibbit said. “We are normally law abiding. But we have been plagued this past year with god-awful happenings and some of our good citizens have—”

“Cut me down now.”

“Oh. Certainly.” Tibbit gigged his mount next to the Ovaro and reached up and pried at the rope but couldn’t loosen it. His nails dug into Fargo worse than the rope.

“Don’t you have a knife?”

“A knife?” Tibbit said, acting befuddled. “Why, I think I do.” He patted his pockets and produced a folding knife, which he had difficulty opening. He pressed the edge to the rope and cut but the knife was so dull that it took forever for him to slice through a few strands.

“Oh, hell,” said a man with the new group. He brought his sorrel up on the other side of the Ovaro and drew a large bone-handled knife from a hip sheath. He was big and brawny and wore a homespun shirt, overalls with suspenders, and a floppy hat. He smelled of cow manure. “Let me, Marshal. You’ll be at it a month of Sundays.”

“Sure, Sam, go ahead,” the lawman said sheepishly.

A single slash of Sam’s knife and the rope parted above Fargo’s head. Another slash and Fargo’s wrists were free. Fargo rubbed them, then tore the noose from his neck and threw it to the ground. He brought his knees up on top of the Ovaro and launched himself past Tibbit at Harvey Stansfield. It caught everyone by surprise, Harvey most of all. Fargo slammed into him and smashed him to the ground. He slugged Harvey’s jaw, his cheek, his head. Harvey got an arm up but Fargo swatted it aside and punched him twice more. He cocked his arm to do it again and someone gripped his wrist to stop him.

“Enough of that, mister!” Marshal Tibbit said. “I don’t blame you for being mad but I can’t let you beat him to death.”

Some of Fargo’s rage faded. Some, but not all. He jerked loose and stood and stepped to Danvers, who recoiled in fear. Fargo held out his hand. “Hand over my Colt.”

Danvers fumbled getting it from under his belt and almost dropped it. “Here,” he bleated.

Fargo shoved it into his holster. He took several steps back and glared at Dugan and McNee and Danvers and the rest of them. “The next son of a bitch who lays a hand on me, I will shoot dead.”

“No need for talk like that,” Marshal Tibbit said. “You can’t let a little mistake sour you.”

“Little mistake?” Fargo couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He took a stride and jabbed the lawman on his badge. “Some of your good citizens almost hung me. Where I was raised they call that murder. Not a goddamned mistake.”

“Of course, of course,” Tibbit said, bobbing his double chins. “All I meant was, we can’t blow it out of proportion.”

Fargo looked at him—really looked at him—and realized that here was a man who had no business wearing that tin star. Overweight and out of shape and with little backbone to boast of, Tibbit was one of those good-natured souls who thought everyone else should be the same and always tried to reason with troublemakers.

“You should listen to yourself sometime,” he said.

“How’s that again? I hear perfectly fine, thank you. And I should think you’d be more grateful for me saving your life.” Tibbit held out his hand. “But what do you say we start over? Where are your things? How about we collect them and take you to town and put you up for the night? To sort of make up for how you were treated.”

Fargo stared at the lawman’s hand.

“What’s the matter? I’m trying to be friendly and mend fences. Can’t you meet me halfway?”

“How long have you worn that badge?”

“Why do you ask a thing like that? I’ve been the town marshal for going on fourteen months. And I do a good job if I do say so my own self.” Tibbit chuckled. “But then, Haven is a peaceful little community. Some would call it a stick in the mud with only a bank and a general store and the feed and grain and the houses. But it serves the needs of farmers like Sam, there. Doesn’t it, Sam?”

“I can’t complain,” Sam said.

Fargo grunted. “Peaceful little communities don’t go around stringing folks up in the middle of the night.”

“I grant you that, yes,” Marshal Tibbit allowed. “But Harvey and his friends had cause, of a sort. You see, a local girl has gone missing. The fourth in the past year. So you can’t blame them for being rough with you.”

“Care to bet?” Fargo said, with a pointed glance at Harvey Stansfield.

“All right. Let’s drop that, shall we? What do you say to my invite? Care to partake of Haven’s hospitality? I’ll even go so far as to put you up at the widow Chatterly’s for tonight. She rents out rooms.”

One of the townsmen snorted and grinned. “Hell, you can put me up at her place every night of the week. That there is one fine filly.”

“You’re married,” Marshal Tibbit said.

“Married ain’t dead, and you’d have to be dead not to admire the widow Chatterly.”

“Even if I was dead I would,” another man said, and some of them laughed.

“Well?” Tibbit prompted.

Fargo had half a mind to tell them to go to hell. But he wouldn’t mind sleeping in a bed for a change, especially if it didn’t cost him anything. Plus that talk of the widow had piqued his curiosity. “Does this town of yours have a saloon?”

“As a matter of fact we do,” Marshal Tibbit said. “It’s called the Leaky Bucket.”

Despite all that happened, Fargo chuckled. “That’s a new one. I don’t suppose it’s still open.”

“At this hour? I should say not. We’re a farming and ranching community, not a rowdy place like Saint Louis.” Marshal Tibbit paused and then asked hopefully, “Am I to take it you have decided to accept my offer?”

Fargo nodded.

“Good. You won’t regret it, I can promise you.”

“We’ll see,” was all Fargo said.