Beartooth Incident (20 page)

Fargo rounded a bend and drew rein. In the grass ahead lay something yellow and pink. Suspecting what it was, he dismounted and walked over, his spurs jingling. The girl’s doll grinned up at him. He picked it up. The blond curls and pink dress were a copy of the girl and the dress she often wore.

She had been there and dropped the doll. That worried him. She never went anywhere without the thing. She even slept with it. She wouldn’t run off and leave it.

A scream split the air.

Fargo was in the saddle before it died. He reined sharply in the direction the scream came from. Half a minute of hard riding and he found her at last. She wasn’t alone.

Gertrude Keever had her back to a dirt bank and was kicking at the creatures trying to sink their teeth into her. There were two of them: coyotes. Ordinarily their kind stayed well shy of humans, but this pair was scrawny. Either they were sickly or poor hunters, and they were hungry enough to go after Gerty.

Fargo drew his Colt and fired into the ground. He had nothing against the coyotes. They were only trying to fill their bellies. At the blast, one of them ran off. The other didn’t even look up. It kept on snapping at the girl’s legs and missed by a whisker.

“Kill this stupid thing, you simpleton!” the girl yelled.

Fargo almost wished the coyote had bitten her. He fired from the hip and cored its head.

Gerty glared at him. “Took you long enough.” She stepped to the dead coyote, squatted, and stuck a finger in the bullet hole. The she held her finger up and grinned as she watched the blood trickle down.

“What the hell are you doing?” Fargo asked.

The girl held her finger higher for him to see. “Look. Isn’t it pretty?”

Swinging down, Fargo walked over, gripped her elbow, and jerked her to her feet. “You damn nuisance. Wash your face with it, why don’t you?”

“I’m going to tell Father on you. He won’t like how you talk to me. He won’t like it one bit.”

Fargo sighed. For a thirteen-year-old, she was as big a bitch as some women three times her age. “I’ll do more than talk if you don’t start showing some common sense.”

“What do you mean?”

Fargo nodded at the dead coyote. “What the hell do you think I mean? You nearly got eaten. You can’t go wandering off whenever you want. It’s too damn dangerous.”

“Oh, bosh. You’ve been saying that since the first day, and nothing has happened.”

Fargo didn’t point out that nothing happened because he made it a point to keep them safe. Instead, he shook her, hard. “You’ll do as you’re supposed to, or I’ll take you over my knee.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Don’t try me.” Fargo hauled her to the Ovaro. He had put up with her shenanigans because her father was paying him, but there were limits to how much he’d abide.

Fargo had never met a girl like her. Gerty looked so sweet and innocent with her wide green eyes and golden curls, but she had a heart of pure evil. She was constantly killing things. Bugs, mostly, since they were about all she could catch. Although once, near the Platte, they had come on a baby bird that had fallen from its nest, and Gerty beaned it with a rock. Her father thought it was hilarious.

Not Fargo. He had seen her pulls wings from butterflies and moths, throw ants into the fire, and try to gouge out her pony’s eyes when it didn’t do what she wanted. He’d never met a child like her.

“What are you doing?” Gerty demanded.

“Taking you back,” Fargo said.

Gerty stamped her foot. “I don’t want to go back. I want to explore some more.”

“Didn’t that coyote teach you anything?” Fargo swung her onto the saddle and climbed on behind her. “Hold on to the horn.”

“The what?”

“That thing sticking up in front of you.” Fargo tapped his spurs and went up the side of the coulee, making a beeline for camp. The summer sun was warm on his face, the scent of grass strong.

Gerty swiveled her head to fix him with another glare. “I don’t like you. I don’t like you an awful lot.”

“Good for you.”

“My so-called mother does, though.”

“She said that?” Fargo liked the senator’s wife. She was quiet and polite, and she always spoke kindly to him. She also had the kind of body that made men drool.

“Forget about her. It’s me who can’t stand your guts.”

“As if I give a damn.” Fargo was alert for sign of the Sioux. Venturing into their territory was never the brightest of notions. But the senator had insisted on hunting in the notorious Black Hills.

“In fact, I’m starting to hate you.”

“I’m sure I’ll lose sleep over it.”

Gerty was fit to burst her boiler. She flushed red with fury. “Don’t you want to know why?”

“No.”

“I’ll tell you anyway. You’re mean. You stopped me from poking my pony with that stick. You wouldn’t let me kill that frog by the Platte River. And when I killed that baby bird, you called me a jackass. Father didn’t hear you, but I did, as plain as day.”

“You have good ears.”

Gerty cocked her arm to punch him.

“I wouldn’t,” Fargo advised. “I hit a lot harder than you do.”

“You wouldn’t dare. Father would be mad. He won’t pay you the rest of your money.”

“Then I’ll hit him.”

Gerty laughed. “You don’t know anything. Father is an important man. You hit him and he’ll have you arrested.”

Fargo motioned at the unending vista of prairie. “Do you see a tin star anywhere?” To his relief she shut up, but she simmered like a pot put on to boil. She was so used to getting her own way that when someone had the gall to stand up to her, she hated it.

Her father was to blame. Senator Fulton Keever was a big man in Washington, D.C. The senior senator from New York, Keever had made a name for himself standing up for what the newspapers called “the little people.” He was also reputed to be something of a hunter and had the distinction of bagging the biggest black bear ever shot in that state.

“What are those?” Gerty asked, pointing.

Fargo wanted to kick himself. He’d let his attention wander. He looked and felt his pulse quicken. Four riders were silhouetted against the western horizon. They were too far off to note much detail but there could be no mistake: They were Sioux warriors. A hunting part, most likely, but they wouldn’t hesitate to kill any whites they came across.

Fargo had to find cover before they spotted the Ovaro. A buffalo wallow was handy, and he reined down into it.

“Land sakes.” Gerty covered her mouth and nose and asked through her fingers, “What’s that awful stink?”

“Buffalo piss.”

“Buffalo like to roll in the dirt. Sometimes they pee in it and get mud all over them to keep off the flies and whatnot.”

“It smells terrible. Get me out of here this instant.”

“We’re not going anywhere just yet.” Not until Fargo was good and sure the warriors were gone.

Twisting, Gerty poked him in the chest. “My father will hear of this. I’ll tell him all about how you’ve treated me.”

“That threat is getting old.”

“You’re a despicable person—do you know that?”

There had been times, admittedly few, when Fargo wondered what it would be like to have a wife and kids. He made a mental note that the next time he began to wonder, he’d think of Gerty. She was enough to make any man swear off kids for life.

“Why don’t you say something?” Gerty said. “How can you stand the odor?”

“Quit flapping your gums and hold your breath and it won’t be as bad.” None of the buffalo tracks, Fargo saw, were fresh, which was just as well. It wouldn’t do to have a buff come along and take exception to their being there.

“Have I mentioned I’m starting to hate you?”

“Have I mentioned I don’t give a damn?”

“I hope a rattlesnake bites you.”

Fargo was commencing to regret ever agreeing to guide the Keevers. The senator was paying him almost twice what most guide jobs earned, but the money wasn’t enough for what Fargo had to put up with.

Fargo had been in Denver, gambling, when an older gentleman in a suit and bowler looked him up and asked if he would be so kind as to pay Senator Fulton Keever a visit at the Imperial. Fargo was on a losing streak anyway, so he went.

Keever had welcomed him warmly. It turned out the senator was on a hunting trip and needed a guide. Keever had heard Fargo was in town and sought him out. Fargo wasn’t all that interested until Keever mentioned how much he was willing to pay.

“I have a question, you lump of clay,” Gerty said, interrupting Fargo’s musing.

“Hush, girl.” Fargo was tired of her jabber.

“It’s important.”

“I doubt that.”

“Are buffalo friendly?”

“About as friendly as you are.”

“That one over there doesn’t look very friendly.” Gerty pointed up at the rim.

Silhouetted against the sun was a bull buffalo.