Nevada Vipers' Nest (13 page)

Smirking at Fargo, Iron Mike Scully placed the poker chip on the back of his right gun hand, flipped his wrist to drop it, and then drew in a blur of speed and fanned his hammer, shooting three bullets into the floor before the chip plinked down. The saloon erupted in cheers and whistles.

Fargo, astounded, glanced at Sitch. “If I hadn't just seen that with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it.”

“Same here. Can you match that?”

“Sure, just like an oyster can walk upstairs.”

“Well, I can top it.”

Sitch stepped away from the bar and slid the fancy whip from his belt. “Hey, Romer,” he called out to the ferret-faced lackey, “grab five more chips off that table and flip 'em into the air.”

Romer glanced at his boss. Scully, curious, nodded permission. Romer flipped the chips up, and Sitch's whip cracked with amazing rapidity. All five chips flew behind Bob Skinner and clattered onto the duckboards behind the bar.

This amazing feat capped the climax, and the bar erupted in a thundering ovation.

“Don't be shy about passing the hat, boys,” Sitch said when the place had quieted down a bit.

Even the hard-bitten Iron Mike Scully was visibly impressed. “Runt, that's the damnedest thing I ever seen!”

A few moments later, however, realizing he'd just lost face, he shifted his attention to Fargo again. “So that's how it is? The great Skye Fargo hiding behind the skirts of a little gal-boy?”

Fargo calmly stepped away from the bar, flexing the fingers of his right hand. “I'm not a trick shooter, Scully—I'm a kill shooter. If you're feeling froggy, go right ahead and jump.”

Scully stared into that crop-bearded face and realized that Fargo had no more fear in him than a rifle. For the first time that night self-doubt revealed itself in the vigilante's eyes.

“I'm not calling you out, Fargo—not now. But the worm will turn.”

Fargo, on a sudden hunch, decided to run a bluff. It was an opportunity to test a theory and perhaps even take some of the heat off the woman who called herself Belle Star.

“It's a smart idea not to be in such a hurry to kill me, Scully. Just maybe I've got something you want real bad—something hidden so good that you'll never find it if you snuff my wick.”

Gratification surged through Fargo when he saw the startled look on Scully's face. It lasted only a few moments, but that was all the time Fargo needed to confirm a suspicion.

“You're off your chump, Fargo. You got nothing I want.”

Fargo continued as if Scully had never spoken, raising his voice so the entire saloon could hear him. “And I'm not ready to kill you just yet, either. Among other things, I'm gonna prove that you and those no-dick ass-kissers with you massacred the Hightower family. I'm also going to prove that it's you pus buckets who are ‘haunting' this valley and killing innocent people to do it.”

“Kill me? Is that threat or prophesy?”

The entire saloon knew exactly what Scully was asking. In the States a threat to kill a man was considered rhetoric; in the Territories, however, the threat was the same as an attempt, and the man threatened had the immediate right to kill in self-defense.

Suddenly the air in the bar fairly crackled with tension. The men behind Scully moved out of the ballistics path. Fargo coiled for the draw.

“It's a threat,” he replied in a calm, strong voice, “and before too long it will be a fact. Jerk it back if you've a mind to.”

Scully was silent for at least ten heartbeats. “Like you said,” he finally replied, “maybe you got something I want, and maybe this ain't the best time to kill you. But believe you me, you lanky son of a bitch—it won't be long and you're gonna buy the farm, bull and all.”

“That's mighty gaudy patter, all right,” Fargo said. “But like you said—the worm
will
turn.”

Scully and his companions thumped out of the silent saloon, spurs chinging.

“Didn't even pay for their damn liquor,” Skinner groused.

Sitch's knees suddenly gave out on him and he was forced to grab the bar to support himself. “Christ Almighty, Fargo! You were on the feather edge of a shootout with that lethal bastard even after seeing what he did with that poker chip? Why?”

“Because poker chips don't shoot back,” Fargo replied, taking a deep slug of his beer and wiping the foam off his mustache. “That's why.”

The two men retrieved their horses and rode west out of town, avoiding the stage road. Fargo used Ursa Major, the Great Bear, to locate the North Star and get his bearings from the two fixed points.

“What were you looking at in the sky?” Sitch asked. “It just looks like a million stars to me.”

“There's likely more than a million,” Fargo replied. “That's why you have to know which ones you're looking for. One will take you to a second, and then you're in business. Maybe later I'll show you how to pick out a half dozen or so that can be mighty useful.”

“Where we headed?”

“As close as we can get to that clearing we found yesterday, the place Scully is using for all the ‘haunting' around here.”

Fargo took a good whiff of the cool night air. “Rain's blowing in,” he said, “and the wind's picking up—we're in for a storm, but it won't last long in these parts. We need to hurry if we don't want to get soaked and freeze our asses off.”

Fargo found a good spot he estimated was about a mile from the clearing. There wasn't much shelter from the gathering wind, but the autumn-cured grass was plentiful and a little seep spring provided clean water.

“The only tree cover is scraggly jack pine,” he remarked as the two men dismounted and put their horses on long ground tethers. “We can't stay here very long—the red sashes will have vedette riders out looking for us once they realize we've left town.”

As they stripped the leather from their mounts Fargo felt the first wind-whipped drops of rain pelt his face.

“Shit,” Sitch cursed. “We're in for a soaking.”

“Like hell we are,” Fargo replied. “We're gonna make what's called a half-faced camp. Watch and learn, tenderfoot. Get the canvas groundsheet off my blanket roll and the pegs and rawhide whangs rolled up inside it.”

Fargo quickly used his Arkansas toothpick to hack a straight branch and two forked branches off the surrounding jack pines. He planted the forked branches firmly in the ground and laid the straight pole in the forks.

“The rain will be driven by the wind,” Fargo explained, “so you stretch the canvas out to windward at a forty-five-degree angle. Years ago I put eyelets into both sides of the sheet, and I tie it to the pole with the whangs. Then all I have to do is kick the pegs into the ground securely and tie off the bottom. We'll have plenty of room even with our saddles tossed in with us.”

By the time the rain was driving down in sheets, both men were under the shelter. The rain pelted the groundsheet in a steady drumming.

“Snug as two bugs in a rug,” Sitch remarked, gnawing on a hunk of jerky. “You know what I really miss, though? Sowbelly and corn bread.”

“Good fixin's,” Fargo agreed. “We'll be having corn dodgers for breakfast—closest we'll get to corn bread on the trail.”

“Fargo,” Sitch remarked after a minute of silence, “what was all that business in the saloon about you having something Scully wants?”

“It was a bluff, but it paid off. I've suspected for some time that Scully believes Belle Star, or whoever the hell she really is, has got something Scully wants bad—so bad he's been murdering to get it. I don't know if she does have anything, but I'm hoping Scully will believe I have it and leave her alone.”

“Yeah, but what is it?”

“Use your noodle, remember? If there really is anything, my guess would be it's a map or diagram of some kind showing where that silver vein is—something Hightower made before he went bust and had to leave the area around Rough and Ready. But these ‘treasure map' deals are usually just saloon lore. I got no idea if Belle really has anything at all, but Scully sure's hell thinks so.”

“Yeah, but whether she does or not, why is she staying mum and risking her life? You think maybe it's because she has no idea who the attackers were? If that's so, the law wouldn't know who to go after and she'd be in real danger.”

“The way you say. Damned if I know what's going on in that pretty little head of hers. Trying to figure out a woman is like trying to bite your own teeth.”

“She's more than just pretty,” Sitch said with conviction. “She's got sprites in her eyes like no woman I've ever seen. She's got the flame within her, that gal has.”

“The hell are you all of a sudden—a poet?”

“Nope. But I think you're gonna get lucky and trim her, Fargo. And when you do, you're going to find her to be one hot little firecracker.”

“That'd be hunky-dory with me. But somehow I doubt that I'll ever find out. I don't exactly stand in thick with her.”

“Yeah, well, I don't doubt it one bit,” Sitch insisted. “And for such a great Romeo of the range, you're reading her all wrong.”

“Oh, I am, huh? And I imagine you're about to enlighten me?”

“Sure. See, when a woman is just indifferent to a man, he hasn't got a chance to bed her unless maybe he's rich and she's a gold digger. But when a woman appears to go out of her way to despise a man, like Belle is treating you, he's already got her stirred up.”

Fargo considered that notion and realized Sitch was on to something—many a beautiful lass who had snooted the Trailsman at first had ended up writhing beneath him in sexual ecstasy. But he was reluctant to admit that a homely cuss like Sitch McDougall might be right.

“You know,” Fargo replied, “for a jasper who brags he only tops whores, you sure do claim to know plenty about the inner workings of a beautiful woman's mind.”

“So what? I know plenty about Paris, too, but I've never been there.”

Fargo chuckled in surrender. “Point taken. The lady acts like she's being forced to take nasty medicine every time I get near her. But here's hoping you're right, Mr. Philosopher.”

“Damn,” Sitch cursed after rummaging in one of his saddle pockets. “I have papers and matches, but I've got out of tobacco.”

“I forgot to buy smokes, too,” Fargo said. “But root around in my left saddlebag and pull out the little coyote-fur pouch. The stuff inside will make for a pretty good smoke.”

Sitch found the pouch and pulled the drawstring to open it, sniffing the contents. “It smells pretty good, but it's not tobacco.”

“You think a man riding the high lonesome can always get to stores? You'll get out of plenty of things on the frontier, and you have to learn to find good substitutes. That's red willow bark—go ahead, roll it up.”

“It rolls up pretty easy,” Sitch admitted.

“You have to strip off the outer bark and then you roast the inner bark good in a fire. Then it pulverizes real easy in your hand and it's ready to smoke.”

“Say! It's not got the bite of tobacco, but it's tasty.”

“You can substitute for almost anything,” Fargo said. “I always run out of salt and pepper, but if you burn the outside of your meat real crisp and sprinkle it with a little gunpowder, there's your salt and pepper taste.”

“Yeah,” Sitch joked, “but will my ass explode when I fart?”

“If
your
ass explodes,” Fargo quipped right back, “all it will do is singe your fancy hat. Listen—the rain has stopped and the wind's dying down. Told you it would just be a quick blow.”

Both men stepped outside of the shelter, Fargo watching the sky in the direction of the clearing.

“There!” Sitch said before five minutes had passed. “There's those queer lights again.”

Fargo grabbed his tack. “That's all I been waiting for. They're back in that clearing. You wait here—I'm riding in alone to take a squint. I still want to find out about those damn lights.”

“You best watch your ampersand, Fargo. If Iron Mike Scully's aim is matched by his speed—”

“No need to finish that sentence.” Fargo cut him off, heading out toward his stallion. “You think I'm some simple shit who just landed in Saint Joe with a crate of chickens? I catch your drift.”

•   •   •

Fargo knew right where he was headed, and it was a short ride. He held the Ovaro to a canter, the rain-softened ground muffling the hoofbeats. When Fargo figured he was a few hundred yards from the clearing, he walked his stallion in. He swung down and hobbled the Ovaro in a clump of hawthorn bushes about fifty yards from the clearing.

The strange, multicolored lights continued to hover and shimmer over the clearing, reflecting in a wide swath off the low, dense clouds. To cut reflection from his skin, Fargo blackened his face with gunpowder he kept in a flask in his offside saddle pocket. Then he slid his Henry from its saddle scabbard and continued to move in on foot. When he reached the circle of timber he leapfrogged from tree to tree until he was close enough to see the men in the clearing. He folded to his knees to lower his profile.

Their faces were etched in outline by a small fire built aboveground. As he had expected, it was Scully, Romer Stanton and Leroy Jackman. And his suspicion about the weird lights was confirmed when he saw what Jackman was manipulating over the deep fire pit.

It was a so-called “magic lantern” of the type sometimes used by theaters and dance halls, but much larger than any Fargo had ever seen. A large glass bottle was divided into several compartments, each one filled with a different colored oil. Jackman held this one over the fire pit while Stanton worked the bellows to keep the fire burning bright.

Each time Jackman rotated the bottle, the brightly reflected colors changed. When he spun it quickly, the colors overhead turned into a melting and shifting rainbow, a ghostly phantasmagoria that could be seen all over the valley—and especially by the miners at nearby Rough and Ready.

“All right, boys,” Scully said. “That's enough haunting for tonight.”

Jackman put the magic lantern into a canvas sack, then shimmied up a tree and tied it to a high branch—explaining why Fargo had missed it during his search.

“We've already driven off more than half of the camp,” Romer said in a self-satisfied voice. “And that stunt me and Leroy got planned should flush out enough to shut down the whole shivaree. The rest will have to pull out, and that'll leave just us sashes.”

“Sure,” Scully replied, “but will we have nothing but our dicks in our hands? All this work ain't worth spit withouten we get that damn map. I'm wondering now if we shouldn't've let Hightower live. Leastways we'd a got something even after giving him half the profits.”

“You really think Fargo's got it, boss?”

“The fuck you think I am, a soothsayer? He could be bluffing, all right. But by his talk tonight at the Sawdust Corner, he sure seems to know we're after something.”

Jackman had climbed down from the tree and now brushed off his trousers. “Yeah, but if he's got it, he had to get it from the woman. And we ain't even sure that new singer is Dora Hightower.”

Scully hawked up a wad of phlegm and spat it out. “That's her, all right. You boys seen how she acted when we asked her to sing another song. And lookit how Bob Skinner clammed up when I asked him about her.”

“I string along with Romer,” Leroy said. “I just ain't so sure she gave the map to Fargo—Christ, it's worth a fortune.”

“Why not give it to him?” Scully reasoned. “She's just a dumb frail like all pretty skirts. She'd turn to the big hero to protect her.”

“Jever see a bitch that good-lookin'?” Romer put in. “She hits you right bang in the eye and then right bang in the pecker. Man, what I'd give to have her playing bucking bronco on my rodeo pole.”

Scully cursed. “You assholes are worried about fleas while tigers are eating us alive. Forget the poon, wouldja? It's Fargo and that damn map we got to worry about. I nearbout burned him down in the saloon tonight, boys. But the thought of that map stayed my hand.”

“Yeah, and see, he
knew
you were a better shootist,” Leroy said. “I ain't trying to cross you, Iron Mike, but don'tcha see why he mighta made up that shit about having something you want? He said it on account he knows you could put six holes in his liver before he even cleared leather—twelve if you jerked back both of those Navies.”

Fargo watched Scully suck in his cheeks, mulling the idea. Leroy's kiss-ass flattery calmed Scully's voice when he replied.

“Naw . . . you boys are missing the point. Of course Fargo knows he can't win a call-down with me—ain't no man in the territory could do that. But if it was all swamp gas, why
that
partic'lar claim? Why would he know we're looking for anything at all unless the bitch at least told him about the map?”

Leroy looked at Romer. “Yeah, we didn't think of that.”

“That's why I do the thinking,” Scully said. “You boys are good men, but you ain't got the mentality to figure the percentages and angles.”

“Mike,” Romer said, “I been wondering about that pasty-faced fop siding Fargo. Man alive, he cracks a mean whip! I never seen the like in all my born days.”

“Damn straight,” Scully agreed. “But he's gotta get in close to be dangerous with it, and nothing's faster'n a bullet.”

“When I rode up to Virginia City and paid off Linse Lofley to put that story in the newspaper,” Leroy said, “he told me about that little cockchafer. He was with a medicine show, doing whip tricks. Lofley said he got into a poker game with Big Ed Shack and that bunch Ed hangs with, and they caught the runt cheating. But somehow that little shit got away, stole a horse and lit a shuck out of town.”

“I'll be damn,” Scully said. “Big Ed is about half rough, all right. If that soft-handed bastard done all that maybe we been selling him short, boys. Fargo don't seem like the type to take on a sidekick that wouldn't be of no use to him.”

Fargo, who had been concentrating close on this conversation, didn't hear the slithering in the leaves beside him until it was too late. A sudden weight moving onto the back of his legs and then stopping, however, turned his stomach into a ball of ice.