Nevada Vipers' Nest (11 page)

“No, I reckon not. But now I got pressure from the big toffs on the City Council to send you packing. Hell, I'm drinking so much milk that I'm afraid I'll start mooing soon.”

The sheriff banged open the top drawer of his desk and handed Fargo a few silver coins. “Here's some of that running-around money I promised you. You—”

The door to the office groaned open and Sitch entered, wearing a new conk cover of soft felt broad as a sombrero.

“Well, if it ain't Benito Juarez,” Vance greeted him sarcastically. “When you robbed that fellow of his hat, did you boost his horse, too?”

“I won it fair and square, Sheriff,” Sitch protested. “We drew for top card—he drew a queen and I drew an ace.”

Sitch avoided Fargo's eyes. The Trailsman had already seen that special deck Sitch carried for drawing cards—the top card was a queen, the other fifty-one cards were aces.

“Fargo,” the sheriff resumed, “I'm still backing you in this deal. And I'll buck the City Council as long as I can. But if they give me the boot, there goes my measly pension and that's all I'll have to live on. Son, for Christsakes, don't let no grass grow under your feet. If this thing drags on, they'll appoint a new sheriff and we'll both be shit out of luck.”

This aging lawman might have a weak stomach, Fargo thought, but he had a strong will to see justice done. Fargo admired that a hell of a lot more than bulging muscles. The frontier needed more men of conscience like this one.

“Sheriff,” Fargo assured him as he headed toward the door, “I'll work night and day to tie a ribbon on this deal. This town is starting to turn on me, and I know I've got damn little time and plenty of questions to answer. And I mean to get some of them answered right now.”

The moment the last piano notes of “Listen to the Mockingbird” fell silent, Fargo stepped in front of Belle Star and offered a dance ticket. The blonde looked stunning in a wine-colored dress trimmed with velvet, her hair swept back and held by tortoiseshell pins.

“Sorry, Deputy Fargo.” She brushed him off in that melodic, softly Southern voice like waltzing violins. “I'm due for my hourly break.”

She started to swerve past him just as the piano player launched into a lively rendition of “The Blue Tail Fly.”

Fargo gripped her arm and swept her back onto the dance floor. “This is one of my favorite tunes. We can't miss this one.”

“Let me go, you big ape!” she protested.

Fargo ignored her, manhandling her more than dancing. “There's no reason to insult me, Belle. I s'pose Belle
is
your real name?”

“Of course not. How exotic is a saloon singer and dancer named Samantha Urbanski? Let me
go
, I told you!”

“What will you do if I don't?” he goaded her. “Call in the law? After all, I'm a peace officer.”

“Yes, we all witnessed your version of ‘peace' when the undertaker dragged out that body from upstairs.”

“He required killing . . . Samantha. I didn't go up there to make the undertaker richer.”

She had finally quit resisting him and was now gracefully dancing. But Fargo could almost whiff her anger above the delightful odor of her honeysuckle perfume. And if this was the same woman Fargo had seen escaping from the massacre site several days ago, where did all her fine clothing come from? That frightened woman had not even carried a carpetbag.

Just then Fargo glanced toward the bar and saw Bob Skinner watching the woman from the sappy face of a fool in love. Libby Snyder had already told him the hopelessly ugly barkeep was in love with the woman who called herself Belle Star. That might explain the clothing—and perhaps the woman's unknown residence.

“You're a fine dancer,” Fargo told her, “and I'd rate you aces high as a singer, too.”

“I shall forever treasure that compliment in the locket of my heart,” she replied in a tone heavily laced with sarcasm.

“Is there some special reason why you act like you smell an outhouse when I'm around? I don't recall ever insulting or mistreating you. Or did somebody steal your rattle when you were a baby?”

“Just because loose women like Libby Snyder succumb to your supposed charms, don't expect me to,” she said archly.

“I'm flattered,” Fargo shot back, “that you follow my activities so closely.”

“Malarkey! The shameless hussy practically copulated with you right on the dance floor. I heard the other girls tittering about how she disappeared last night and then returned to her room in a state of pure bliss. Everybody knows about that deserted house on the edge of town.”

“Pure bliss, huh? Well, it's nice to have good references,” Fargo said slyly. “Say, I'm just a mite curious. Why would a haughty miss like you suddenly show up in Carson City working as a saloon girl? Don't tell me you plan to catch a husband here? The men who frequent boomtown saloons aren't exactly what you'd call the opera set.”

“If it's any of your business, Mr. Fargo, and it certainly isn't, I just
lost
my husband. His name was James Urbanski, and he was a lawyer. We were on our way to Sacramento so he could join some friends in a law practice there. We were attacked by Indians and he was killed. I had hidden under some quilts in the back of our wagon and somehow the Indians missed me when they ransacked it. A party of freighters rescued me and brought me to Carson City. I'm here only long enough to earn stagecoach fare to Sacramento.”

Her story sounded well rehearsed, but Fargo knew it was a crock. Indians didn't miss a damn thing when they ransacked, and they would never have left quilts behind. Blankets of any kind were highly prized.

“You're telling me that you and your husband were crossing the Nevada desert by yourselves?”

“It's a free country, isn't it? We were well equipped for the journey.”

“I'll tell you what,” Fargo forged on. “Sacramento isn't all that far from here. I know the best routes over the sierra. I'll take you myself.”

“Oh, I'm sure you would
take
me.”

“Lady, you're just whistling into the wind. You aren't afraid I'll rape you, but you
are
afraid of me.”

“Why don't you just quit skating around the edges, Deputy? Since when are rugged men like you so coy?”

“All right,” Fargo said, “I'll give it to you with the bark still on it . . . Miss Hightower.”

His use of that name struck her with the force of a slap. He felt her stiffen in his arms, saw a vein suddenly pulse in her slim white throat. But this lasted only a few seconds before she composed herself.

“My name is
not
Hightower,” she assured him. “I have no idea what you are fishing for.”

“I think you're trapped in one helluva dirty corner,” Fargo said. “Maybe your name isn't Hightower, but you were definitely with the Hightower family when they were slaughtered.”

She was a fine actress and back in full control now. The faint shadow of a smile touched her full, heart-shaped lips.

“Mr. Fargo, you have a fertile imagination. Instead of playing the hero of those cheap novels, perhaps you should be writing some.”

Fargo's voice hardened. “Look, lady, whatever the hell your name is—you're not half as smart as you think you are. It's easy to snow a love-struck fool like Bob Skinner. Once you start batting those pretty blue eyes at him, he doesn't care whether you're lying or not. That idiotic story you told about crossing the Nevada desert and surviving an Indian attack wouldn't fool a government mule.”

“You—”

“Shut up and listen to me. You've dyed your hair, but you're the woman I saw escaping from the massacre. I don't blame you for all the lies because you're scared out of your wits. You're afraid that if I prove your identity, those murdering jackals out at Rough and Ready will kill you to eliminate the only witness to their crime. But I've got news for you—they already have their eye on you, and they'll sure as hell be asking plenty of questions.”

“This is just—”

“Whack the cork,” Fargo snapped. “There's more to it than what I just said. I've turned this thing over and over, and you being afraid is not motivation enough to avoid seeking protection from the law. In fact you'd be safer if you did that. There's something else that's got you scared to reveal who you are. And I've also got a hunch that Iron Mike Scully and his bootlicks aren't searching for you just to kill you—they think you have something they want, something they didn't find after they killed the others.”

This time she managed to wrench free of his arms. Her nostrils flared in indignant anger.

“You've had your ridiculous say. You are either insane or completely misapprehending the truth. Now
you
listen to me. You did a fine job, earlier today, of intimidating the men in this saloon. But if you don't leave me alone at once, I'm going to start screaming my head off. And I'm going to accuse you of threatening to rape me. I think you know what that means in a Western town, especially as there is already talk that you are a rapist.”

She was right and Fargo knew it. While a soiled dove, for most men, did not fall under the code of frontier chivalry, this elegant beauty certainly did. If she carried out her threat, he would be turned into a sieve before he got ten feet away.

“I surrender,” he told her. “But if you think I'm your greatest danger, you've got it hindside foremost. You're going to need help before this is over, and if you wait too long help won't matter. You're going to have to take somebody into your confidence, and nobody keeps a confidence better than me.”

He tossed her a two-finger salute and turned away.

•   •   •

Fargo dutifully patrolled the streets of Carson City for the remainder of the day, ever mindful of Sheriff Vance's warning that time was quickly running out. That warning was also clear in the small groups of men now congregating at various points in town. There was no question whom they were talking about—all conversation halted anytime Fargo passed nearby.

Always one to take the bull by the horns, Fargo boldly approached one of these gatherings outside the Three Sisters Saloon, one of the rowdier establishments in town.

“You boys having a nice discussion?” he greeted them.

“Is there some law against men congregatin' on street corners?” demanded a straw-haired man with a North & Savage rifle clutched in his right hand.

“Didn't say there was, did I? But there is a law against inciting a lynching in a town that already has law.”

“Look,
Deputy
,” straw hair replied, obviously the mouthpiece for the group, “we all heard about your warning in the Sawdust Corner this morning—no need to chew your cabbage twice.”

Fargo's eyes, two hard gems, bored into the troublemaker until he glanced away. “Yeah, and that warning still stands. I'm just here to ask you good citizens a question: do you believe every damn thing you read in a newspaper?”

“They can't print nothing that ain't true,” another man volunteered.

“What turnip wagon did you just fall off?” Fargo demanded. “You know where those ink scribblers get their so-called ‘Wild West' stories? They hang around saloons and then print the most exciting bullshit that catches their fancy. It ain't but a couple hours ride between here and Virginia City. A piece of shit from that red-sash trash was sent up there, and likely all it took was a few drinks and a twenty-dollar gold piece to get some sweet-lavender pussy to concoct that story about me.”

“Those sashes are trash, all right,” a third man chimed in. “But all we got is your say-so it's a lie.”

“And all your talk about rope justice is based on the say-so of a liar who didn't print one damn fact to back his claims. Let's just cut down to the bone, boys—you're all bored. Ain't nothing too exciting going on, and a lynching is just the ticket. Just answer me this: If any of you were lowdown enough to slaughter an innocent family a few miles from here, would you ride into Carson City? Or would you hightail it to a safer place?”

A long silence ensued. But straw hair clearly did not like to lose a pissing contest.

“Let's turn that around, Fargo. If a man did murder all those folks, what better way to throw the crime on somebody else than to come into town and pin on a star? You wouldn't be the first murdering son of a bitch to hide behind a badge.”

Fargo nodded. “I can't gainsay that. But I'm going to give you about ten seconds to rethink that ‘murdering son of a bitch' crack before I turn this into a call-down.”

The loud mouth frowned. “It was just a way of speaking. I didn't mean you in especial.”

Fargo nodded. “We're square on that point. But I'll say it again: there ain't one soft-handed peckerwood among you who really believes I wiped out that family. You're just looking to create a little excitement. But far better men than you have tried to douse my wick, and I've sent every damn one of them over the range. So before you brave bastards get up your mob . . .”

Fargo pulled the spare cylinder for his Colt from his possibles bag. “I got twelve Kentucky pills for this short iron.” He hoisted his Henry higher. “And sixteen more in this fire stick. You can do the arithmetic—that's twenty-eight men who are gonna die screaming with gutshots. So you best ask yourselves—am I willing to bet that I'll be man number twenty-nine?”

Fargo spun on his heel and walked away. Sitch had emerged from a barbershop and listened to the end of this confrontation. He fell into step beside Fargo.

“What's the scam, Fargo? Think that'll keep the war kettle from boiling over?” he asked.

“Nope. Might bring it to a slower boil, though. It's too easy for hotheads like straw hair to stir up these town folk. But even if they decide not to jerk me and you to Jesus, this story about us being women and child killers will dog us like an afternoon shadow. We got no choice but to prove who really pulled that massacre.”

Fargo fell silent, his eyes carefully scanning for trouble while his mind conned this mess over, separating the known from the speculative. At least he was now certain that Belle Star was the elusive woman he was seeking. And almost certainly it was Scully and his red sashes who were “haunting” Carson Valley to scare off more and more miners although Fargo wasn't certain why.

More important, he was convinced by now despite the apparent illogic of it that Scully and his bunch had killed Clement Hightower and his family. But why? Hightower was the mining engineer they supposedly needed to locate that rumored big silver vein.

He had separate pieces but could not make them fall into place and provide the big picture. What secret was Belle Star hiding, a secret important enough to keep her from seeking protection? And what about Fargo's nagging hunch that the sashes wanted more from her than merely killing her to shut her up? By now they must have realized that she hadn't gone to the law, so why the intense interest in her?

“This shit's for the birds,” he told Sitch in a disgusted tone before he reported on his earlier conversation with Belle Star.

Unfortunately, more bad news awaited them when they stopped at the feed stable after dark to retrieve their mounts.

“Some unsavory type was watching the paddock today,” old man Peatross reported. “Seemed to have a special interest in the Ovaro and that sorrel.”

“He say anything to you?” Fargo asked.

“Yep. Made a point of asking me how's come them two horses was never stalled nights. He musta snuck into the barn while I was sleeping to know that.”