Read Death Devil (9781101559666) Online
Authors: Jon Sharpe
Death Devil (9781101559666) (24 page)
Fargo's Ovaro flicked his ears several times. Since there were no flies at this altitude, Fargo read it as a warning the stallion was picking up soundsâsounds that didn't naturally belong to the area.
“Trouble's on the spit,” he told Dundee. “But since they're up above us, there's no point in holing up. We'd be fish in a barrel. Our smartest play is to keep them back out of range until we hit the new federal road, then outrun 'em. Break out your spyglasses and glom that slope good.”
“If it's the Kreeger bunch,” Dundee opined as he pulled out his brass field glasses, “they'll likely have their stolen army Spencers. It's a good weapon at the short and middle distances, but that short barrel makes it unreliable over three hundred yards.”
Several minutes passed in silence, the only sounds the hoof clops of their mounts and the occasional moaning of wind funneling through the pass. But Fargo felt the presence of imminent danger, as real as the man beside him.
“You know anything about these three widows?” Fargo asked.
Dundee chuckled. “I wondered when you'd get around to them, Lothario. No, I don't know much. But all three are sisters, and my hand to God, they were married to three brothers.”
“Ever meet these brothers?”
“Nope. According to our records, they were named StantonâCort, Lemuel, and Addison Stanton. Hardworking and honest according to Overland.”
“How do you know for sure they were killed?”
“An express rider found the bodies, all shot in the head. Sounds like the payroll coach showed up at the station minus the driver and messenger guard. These three fellows went out to see if they could find the missing men.”
Fargo nodded. “Well, last I heard the Flathead tribe has very few barking irons. Besides, they like to take prisoners alive and bring them back to the village for torture. If a prisoner acts tough and stands up to it good, they'll generally let him go.”
“Mighty white of 'em,” Dundee said sarcastically.
“More than you'll get from an Apache or Comanche, soldier blue. So what about the strongbox?”
“Yeah, what about it? I agree with you that white men likely killed those teamsters, and that almost surely means Dub Kreeger and his two-legged roaches. I s'pose they got it.”
“I don't,” Fargo said flatly. “Not if that's the Kreeger gang watching us right now.”
Dundee, still watching through his glasses, let that remark sink in for a minute. “Yeah, all right, you've got a good point and I'm caught upon it. If that pack of yellow curs laid their paws on twenty-eight thousand dollars, why in blue blazes would they still be in this area, right? Sure as cats fighting they'd be on their way to San Francisco or Santa Fe.”
Fargo nodded. “So either they didn't get it or that's not them getting set to perforate our livers.”
“Fargo, you've got a poetical way of speaking,” Dundee said sarcastically.
Again the Ovaro pricked his ears, but this time Fargo wasn't so sure it was a danger signâhis own frontier-honed ears picked up faint sounds from the right side of the trail. Sounds remarkably like feminine laughter.
“Jasp,” he called out, “light down and hobble your mount. Bring your spyglasses, too.”
“Trouble?”
“Most likelyâsounds like females.”
Both men swung down, tied their horses foreleg to rear with rawhide strips, then wormed their way through the boulders massed along the trail. A minute later they emerged onto a large traprock shelf overlooking a small valley with a white-water stream churning through it.
Dundee stared, jaw slacked in astonishment, then brought his field glasses up for a better look. Fargo followed suit.
“Son of a splayfooted bitch,” Dundee said in a reverent whisper. “Are you seeing the same thing I am, Fargo?”
“Yeah. We can't both be dreaming.”
Below, in the center of the verdant valley, the noisy stream crashed over a rock lip, forming a small waterfall and a natural pool. Three young women, shapely, pretty, and naked as jaybirds, frolicked in the pool.
Fargo said, “There's our three widows, I'd wager. Don't appear to be mourning, either.”
“Well, keep up the strut! Two gorgeous brunettes and a blonde who looks like the youngest,” Dundee said. “The only place I've seen tits like that is on those French playing cards.”
“These ain't psalm singers neither,” Fargo said, glancing at the formidable cache of weapons at the edge of the pool. “These three nymphs are loaded for bear.”
“A woman should be well-heeled up in these mountains, Trailsman.”
“Actually, a woman shouldn't be up here at all.”
However, Fargo's words lacked all conviction as he watched one of the brunettes bend over to scrub her legs.
“Look at that, won'tcha?” Dundee said in a voice gone raspy with lust. “That sweet, firm ass baying at the moon. And look! The blonde is sudsing her tits! Jesus, Fargo, maybe we'll roll a seven, huh? They got no men now.”
“We're ordered to bring them down out of the mountains, Jasp, not to bed them.”
Still staring through his glasses, Captain Dundee made a farting noise with his lips. “You sanctimonious hypocrite! Christ, every morning you have to comb the pussy hair out of your teeth. You telling me you don't plan to tap into that stuff?”
Fargo grinned. “I'm a man likes a challenge, so I aim to hop on all three of 'em. Then I'll trim each one separately.”
Dundee laughed. “I'm ugly and going bald, so I'll settle for just one. Maybeâ”
Dundee never got his next word out. Fargo heard a sickening sound like a hammer hitting a watermelon followed a fractional second later by the reverberating crack of a cavalry carbine. The back of Dundee's head exploded in a scarlet blossom, and the officer folded to the ground like an empty sack.
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