Apache Vendetta (9 page)

Of all the harebrained notions Fargo ever heard, hers was about the most ridiculous.

She wanted him to don the shawl and bonnet she had worn to work at the saloon.

“It wouldn't fool a blind person,” Fargo said, holding them in either hand.

She had brought him to a small house with a fence and a woodshed. A window glowed at the front and another at the back.

“Trust me, senor. They retire early. Both are in their bedroom by now. My father is probably reading. My mother, she likes to knit. Put those on and I will sneak you inside. If they look out their window they will only see the shawl and the bonnet.”

“You hope.” Fargo draped the shawl over his shoulders. It barely fit. He took off his hat and gave it to her, then pulled the bonnet on by its tie strings. “I must look silly as hell.”

“Keep your head down and we will do fine,” Erendira said.

They went around to the back and through a gate to a porch. The steps creaked but not very loud.

Erendira opened the door and listened, then beckoned. “Not a sound,” she whispered.

As if Fargo was going to give a holler. He was halfway across the kitchen when he realized he'd forgotten something. A spur jangled, and he stopped and began to take them off.

“We must hurry,” Erendira advised. “My mother sometimes comes for a glass of milk.”

A narrow hall brought them to a door. Fargo figured it opened into her bedroom, but no. A flight of stairs led down. “You live in the basement?” he whispered.

“Hush. And stay here.” She went down the dark steps with a confidence born of familiarity. Presently a lamp flared and Fargo joined her. The room was comfortably furnished with a wide bed and a dresser with a mirror and lots of female frills.

“You go through this every time so they won't catch on?”

Erendira had moved to the bed and was turning back the quilt. “I will be honest with you. I did not ask you to wear my clothes for my parents.” She folded the quilt with care. “My parents know what I do. They do not entirely approve but neither have they cast me out. The money I earn helps support us. It is a few of our neighbors who are not so open-minded. They complain if they see me bringing men in. That is why I pretend to bring in women.”

Fargo doubted anyone had been fooled. “So you lied to me.”

“A small lie, yes. Why do you look so bothered? I am sure people have lied to you before and about much worse.”

“Lately that would be just about everyone,” Fargo said.

“There. You see?” Erendira faced him with her hands on her hips and her body in a provocative pose. “Enough about falsehoods. Do you not see something that interests you more?”

Fargo didn't waste time with any more jabber. He got right to it.

Pulling her to him, he cupped a breast and squeezed even as he swooped his mouth to hers. Her lips parted and his tongue was enveloped in velvet softness. Gripping her bottom, he ground his manhood against her and felt himself rise to the occasion.

Erendira removed the bonnet and the shawl and plied his hair with her fingers. Her other hand molded his chest and his legs and slipped between them to cup him.

Fargo rose even more. He liked an aggressive female. They always made better lovers.

Suddenly scooping her up, Fargo deposited her on the bed. She smiled cattishly and crooked her leg in invitation.

“Hungry boy, are you?” she teased.

“I'm not no boy,” Fargo growled, and was on her like a starved bear on honey.

It took a while to shed her clothes. Too many tiny buttons and her chemise had six ribbons, which had to be untied. Fargo would have thought that someone in her profession would know better.

He'd long suspected that some married women wore clothes like armor and made it so hard for their husbands to undress them to discourage them from doing so.

Once he'd bared Erendira's charms, he caressed, he pinched, he sculpted her body as if it were sensual clay. She reciprocated in hungry kind.

The mutual stoking of their passion brought her to the brink. At the cusp she dug her fingernails into his shoulders and looked him in the eyes and her ruby lips parted.

“Yessssssss.”

Fargo's own explosion wasn't long in coming. Slick with sweat, he coasted to a stop and rolled beside her and did something he hadn't done since he arrived at Fort Union.

He had a good night's sleep.

As usual, he was up at the crack of daybreak. Beside him, Erendira snored lightly. He quietly dressed and left the amount she had mentioned on her dresser.

Yawning and stretching, Fargo hurried out the back and across the yard to the gate. He didn't see any neighbors peering from windows.

He came to the main street and turned up it. No one was abroad yet.

A dog was scratching itself under an overhang.

He was thinking of breakfast when the quiet was broken by a slight but unmistakable sound: the metallic click of a gun hammer.

Fargo's years on the frontier had attuned his ears to the sounds of danger. The click of a gun hammer, the twang of a bowstring, a barely audible growl. His reflexes were nearly always instantaneous. In this case, he threw himself flat even as he drew his Colt.

A gun boomed between two buildings and lead sizzled the space he had occupied.

Fargo fired at the muzzle flash, cocked the hammer, fired again.

A figure lurched into the open. The six-gun in its good hand spat flame and lead.

A slug kicked up dirt inches from Fargo's face. He fired two swift shots, the impact jolting the figure onto its bootheels. A six-shooter thudded to the ground.

“You damned jackass,” Fargo said.

Nearly dead on his feet, Half-Pint took a last tottering step. His eyes rolled up into his head so only the whites showed and he sprawled onto his side and convulsed.

Fargo stood and walked over, reloading as he went.

Up and down the street, windows and doors were opening and people were yelling back and forth.

“You couldn't let it drop, could you?” Fargo said.

Behind him someone replied, “No, he couldn't.”

Fargo spun and leveled the Colt.

“Hold on, mister,” Jenks exclaimed, throwing his empty hands in the air. “I'm harmless.”

“You weren't here to back his play?”

“Hell no.” Jenks came up and stared sorrowfully at his pard. “I spent half the night tryin' to talk him out of it. He was no gun hand. He shouldn't have tried to draw on you that first time and he sure as hell shouldn't have tried this.”

“Some people never learn,” Fargo said.

“Ain't it the truth.” Jenks sighed. “I finally fell asleep and woke when I heard him sneakin' down the stairs of the boardin'house. I came after him but I was too late.”

“I'll pay for his burial,” Fargo offered. Not that he wanted to.

“No need. Him and me were partners for goin' on six years now.” Jenks looked at Fargo. “I suppose I should be mad at you but I'm not. You were only protectin' yourself.” He gnawed his bottom lip, then said, “Half-Pint wanted me not to tell you but I reckon now it doesn't matter.”

“Tell me what?”

“About those prospectors. Samuels and the others. They were arguin' at one point, and me and Half-Pint were curious and listened to what they were sayin'.”

“And?”

“I heard one of them—Ostman, his handle was—say as how he was gettin' shed of the rest and headin' for Silver Creek.”

“I'm obliged.”

“Me, I'm goin' back to Texas. For cowpokes, that's as close to heaven as this life gets.”

Residents of San Lupe were appearing from all over, some bundled in bulky robes, others in various stages of undress. Fingers were pointed and whispers broke out.

Fargo decided to forget about breakfast. He was in the saddle and San Lupe was a cluster of shapes on the western horizon before the morning was an hour old.

It would take five days to reach Silver Creek. A wild boomtown, it was notorious for having more houses of ill repute than anywhere except Denver. Saloons were open twenty-four hours a day, and life, as the saying went, was as cheap as a plugged nickel.

Fargo's kind of place.

Twice that day he had a sense that unseen eyes were on him. Where most would shrug it off as nerves, he trusted his instincts.

That evening, sipping coffee at his fire, he pondered whether to go on or ride back to Fort Union and tell Colonel Hastings to find someone else to put their hides at risk.

He was sure that Cuchillo Colorado and Culebra Negro and the other Apaches were out there somewhere. He was equally sure they'd shadow him to Silver Creek. They wouldn't dare enter it, though. They'd be shot on sight.

Ostman needed to be warned. If he was smart, he'd flee the territory. So long as Cuchillo Colorado was breathing, he wouldn't be safe.

Of course, to warn him, Fargo had to go there, in effect leading Cuchillo Colorado to his next victim.

“Hell,” Fargo grumbled at the state of affairs.

New Mexico in the parched heat of summer was no place for amateurs. It was like riding in an oven. He didn't dare push the Ovaro too hard. As a result, the days passed much too slowly.

On the morning of the fifth day he came on a road rutted with wagon tracks that led him over a rise and down among the sprawling dens of iniquity that lined Silver Creek.

The town pulsed with violent life, like a heart gone bad. He hadn't gone a block when he heard a shot, and at the next corner two men were shoving and cursing each other.

A saloon called the Mesquite looked promising. He tied the Ovaro and strolled in. The place was only half full and he had the near end of the bar to himself. He asked for his usual bottle of Monongahela and when the gray-haired barkeep brought it, he said, “Mind if I ask you a question?”

“Askin' is free. The answer might not be,” the man replied.

“Fair enough,” Fargo said. “I'm looking for a prospector by the name of Ostman.”

About to set the bottle down, the bartender gave him a strange look. “Are you, now?”

“I just said so. There's five dollars in it for you if you'll tell me where I can find him.”

“Who might you be, if I'm not bein' too nosy?”

Fargo told him.

“Well, now. Got to admit I never counted on meetin' you face-to-face.”

Fargo figured the man had heard about him somewhere. Thanks to the newspapers, that happened now and then. “I'm just a man doing his job.”

“What you are,” the bartender said, reaching under the bar, “is a rotten son of a bitch.” With that, he raised a scattergun and pointed the twin barrels at Fargo's chest.

Fargo froze. There was a saying on the frontier: buckshot meant burying. “What the hell is this?”

“As if you don't know.”

A number of men at the bar had stopped talking and drinking and were staring.

“Harve,” the bartender said to one of them. “Fetch the marshal. And be quick about it.”

“What's going on, Poston?” Harve wanted to know.

“It's that feller from the newspaper,” Poston said. “The one everyone's been talkin' about.”

Harve gave Fargo a glance of disgust and ran out.

“Talking about?” Fargo said.

“As if you don't know.”

Men came down the bar and from some of the tables. The looks they gave Fargo were the looks they might give a leper.

Fargo didn't know what to make of it. “Someone want to explain this to me?”

“You're a traitor to your own kind,” a man with a cigar said.

“He ought to be tarred and feathered and run out on a rail,” spat another.

Fargo turned to Poston. “Suppose you lower that howitzer and tell me what this is about?”

“Suppose I blow you in half for bein' a cur,” Poston said. “No one here would blame me.”

Several of the men nodded.

“Do it,” one urged. “His kind ain't fit to live with decent folks.”

A square-jawed character grabbed Fargo by the shoulder. “I say we stomp him into the floor, boys. Learn him what it means to turn against his own blood.”

Fargo had had enough. He'd noticed that Poston hadn't cocked the shotgun, and none of the others had drawn their six-shooters.

“I'll start the stomping, boys,” the man said.

“Hit him good, Clark,” another said. “Bust him right in the mouth.”

Fargo exploded into motion. He slammed his fist into Poston and wrenched the scattergun free. Spinning, he swung it like a club, catching Clark flatfooted. The stock slammed Clark's forehead and he fell back, taking several others with him.

The next moment Fargo had cocked the twin hammers and was holding the scattergun level at his waist. “Lay a hand on me again,” he said. “Any of you.”

Poston was clutching the bar to keep from falling. “You son of a bitch,” he sputtered.

“You point a shotgun at people,” Fargo said, “you shouldn't be surprised if they don't like it.”

“He has a point, Poston,” declared a newcomer, and a tall man with shoulders almost as broad as Fargo's own shoved through the onlookers and hooked his thumbs in his gun belt. On his right hip was a Smith & Wesson. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and a black vest. Pinned to the vest was a tin star.

“He hit me, Marshal,” Poston rasped. “Arrest him and I'll press charges.”

“I saw the whole thing as I came in,” the lawman said. “He acted in self-defense.”

“So? You know what he's up to.”

“That's no cause to shoot him.”

“Like hell,” a pudgy man growled. “He sticks around, you'll be buryin' the bastard.”

“What the hell is this all about?” Fargo asked.

The lawman tilted his head. His brown eyes were lit with amusement more than anything else. Holding out a hand, he said, “I'll take that scattergun if you don't mind. And even if you do.”

Fargo pointed it at the floor, let down the hammers, and gave it over. “Now will you explain it to me?”

“You really don't know?”

“If I did I wouldn't ask.”

“I'm Marshal Adams, by the way,” the lawman said. He tossed the shotgun at Poston, who barely caught it. “Put that behind the bar and keep it there. You pull it without cause again and I'll throw you in jail.”

“Damn it, Adams,” Poston said. “How can you take his side?”

“See this?” Marshal Adams said, and tapped the tin star. “The only side I take is the law's. And the scout, here, isn't a lawbreaker. He's doing it for the army.”

“Army, hell,” Poston said. “That don't make it right.”

“Sure doesn't,” Clark echoed, and others nodded in agreement.

Marshal Adams looked from man to man. “Let me make it clear. Spread the word. Anyone lays a finger on him, they answer to me.” He frowned. “To be honest, I don't like it, either. But the law's the law.”

“It's a fine how do you do,” Clark complained, “when we have to kowtow to a damned Injun lover.”

“He's just doing his job,” Marshal Adams reiterated. He crooked a finger at Fargo. “You'd best come with me.” He motioned, and the men blocking his way moved aside.

Glares of spite followed Fargo out. One man over at a table raised a bottle to throw it but the lawman glanced sharply at him and he lowered it again. Two men at the batwings weren't disposed to move until Marshal Adams placed his hand on his Smith & Wesson. Then they reluctantly backed off.

Once on the boardwalk, the lawman remarked, “Thank your lucky stars, mister. It wouldn't have taken much to set them off.”

“What riled them in the first place?” Fargo wanted to know.

“You haven't figured it out yet? Then let me enlighten you. Right about now, you're the most hated gent in the territory.”