Texas Timber War (18 page)

The skid road led to a large clearing, in which a long, low building had been constructed from logs. That would be the logging crew's bunkhouse, Fargo knew. A few shacks were scattered around. One of them would be the cookshack; the others probably were used for storage of tools and supplies. Shots came from inside the bunkhouse as the loggers defended the place. More muzzle flashes from the surrounding woods gave away the positions of the attackers.

‘‘Stay here,'' Fargo told his companions in a low voice. ‘‘I'm going to try to pick off some of those pirates before they know what's going on. The rest of you hit the others from behind when I give you the signal.''

Isabel clutched at his arm and said again, ‘‘Be careful, Skye.'' This time she reinforced the warning by tugging him closer and giving him a hard kiss on the mouth.

Burnley chuckled. ‘‘If that don't give a fella a good reason to stay alive, I don't know what would.''

Fargo knew exactly what he meant. He was looking forward to a time when all this trouble would be over, when he and Isabel could be alone together again.

But for now there was deadly business to take care of. He squeezed her shoulder and then moved off into the night, disappearing into the shadows of the trees at the edge of the skid road.

This wasn't the first time Fargo had engaged in such clandestine warfare. As silently and swiftly as an Indian, he slipped through the forest, letting the sounds of gunfire guide him. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and he was able to make out the shape of a man crouched behind a pine tree, firing at the bunkhouse. Fargo stepped up to him, lifted the Henry, and slammed the rifle butt into the back of his head with one smooth, powerful stroke.

The blow had enough force behind it to knock the man senseless but not enough to shatter his skull. Fargo didn't kill in cold blood unless he was absolutely forced to. The man went down without uttering a sound. Fargo knelt beside him, felt for a belt, but didn't find one. He used his Arkansas toothpick to cut strips from the man's shirt and used those to bind his hands and feet tightly enough so that he couldn't get loose. Then he crammed another piece of shirt in the man's mouth as a gag.

From there it was on to the next man. Fargo slipped up on him and knocked him out and tied him up the same way. He had just taken a third man out of the fight in the same manner when a sudden flare of light caught his attention. He twisted toward it and saw a torch spinning through the air toward the bunkhouse. It was a crude affair, just a broken branch with dried moss wrapped around one end, but the moss burned easily and the torch made an effective weapon. It landed on the bunkhouse roof and continued to blaze.

Several other torches joined it a moment later, then a half dozen more rained down out of the night and landed on the roof. The pirates were going to burn the loggers out, force them to flee from the burning building and shoot them down as they tried to escape from the flames.

Fargo couldn't do anything about the fire. It was too late for that. The only chance the defenders had was for Fargo and his companions to provide them with a distraction so they could get clear of the building.

‘‘Now!'' Fargo shouted toward the skid road where he had left the others. ‘‘Hit them now!''

Not too far off, a man yelled, ‘‘What the hell! Fargo!''

That sounded like one of the McShanes, Fargo thought. He pivoted in that direction, brought the Henry to his shoulder, and fired twice, aiming at the sound of the voice. An orange flower of muzzle flame bloomed in the darkness as whoever it was returned the fire. Fargo threw himself to one side and triggered the Henry again as bullets whipped past him.

He heard a strangled cry, and a second later, as he surged to his feet again, Linus McShane stumbled into view. The roof of the bunkhouse was on fire now, and the glare from the fire reached into the trees, lighting them up like a nightmarish scene from some crazed artist's vision of a woodland hell. Linus pawed at his throat as blood spilled darkly from the wound that one of Fargo's bullets had torn there. Gargling and choking on his own blood, Linus pitched forward and shuddered his way into death as he lay on the ground.

Half of Tillie's goal had been accomplished. One of the McShane brothers was dead.

The woods were full of gunfire and confusion as the rest of Fargo's group joined in the fight. Fargo glided through the trees. Another of the river pirates suddenly loomed up in front of him. The gun in the man's hand blasted, so close that it practically singed Fargo's eyebrows. He rammed the barrel of the rifle into the pirate's midsection, causing him to double over in pain. Fargo lifted the Henry and brought the butt down on the back of the man's neck. He didn't hold back any this time, and the sharp crack as the blow landed told him that he had just broken the pirate's neck. The man fell and didn't move again.

Another gun roared behind Fargo. He dived forward, twisting as he fell. The hot breath of the slug fanned his bearded cheek. Flame gouted from the Henry's muzzle. The man who had just taken the shot at Fargo was thrown backward by the bullet that slammed into his chest.

Fargo scrambled up and ran toward the skid road. He wanted to find Isabel and the others and make sure they were all right. As he came into the cleared area, he saw Caleb Thorn, Rollie Burnley, and Jasper Milton kneeling behind stumps and firing toward the trees. In the clearing where the walls of the bunkhouse were now on fire, men ran from the burning building and joined the fight, sometimes grappling hand to hand with the pirates. One of the loggers, instead of using a gun, had an ax in each hand and used them to lay into a knot of pirates. The slaughter was a bloody one and ended with the ax-wielder sinking to the ground with several bullets in his chest, but not before he had chopped a half dozen of the pirates into pieces.

Fargo spotted Isabel and saw her use her pistol to gun down one of the attackers. But an instant later, Red Mike McShane lunged up behind her, slammed the barrel of his gun across her wrist, and knocked the pistol out of her hand. Even with all the noise and confusion going on, Fargo heard Isabel cry out in pain as the blow landed. Rage welled up inside him.

Before he could take a shot at McShane, Red Mike had grabbed Isabel and looped an arm around her throat. ‘‘Fargo!'' he shouted as he twisted around, maintaining his cruel grip on Isabel with one arm and brandishing a revolver in the other hand. ‘‘Fargo, where the hell are you?''

‘‘Right here,'' Fargo called as he stepped out into the open.

Red Mike swung toward him, jerking Isabel with him to use her as a shield. ‘‘Fargo,'' he said as he jutted the gun in his hand at the Trailsman. ‘‘How the hell did you get loose?''

‘‘Your girl let us go,'' Fargo said, giving McShane a slightly simplified answer.

Red Mike stared at him over Isabel's shoulder. ‘‘Tillie?'' he exclaimed in disbelief. ‘‘Why the hell would she do that?''

‘‘Because she wants you and your brother dead. Because of the way the two of you treated her.'' With his left hand, Fargo touched his cheek, indicating the terrible scar that Red Mike had inflicted on Tillie.

The leader of the river pirates sneered. ‘‘The bitch had it comin','' he said. ‘‘She wouldn't do what I told her. She should've known she couldn't get away with that.'' He raised his voice and shouted, ‘‘Linus! I got Fargo! Linus!''

‘‘He can't hear you,'' Fargo said. ‘‘He's lying back there in the trees with his throat shot out.''

‘‘You bastard! You lyin' bastard!''

Fargo shook his head. ‘‘No. It's the truth, Mike. And this is all over. Your men are beaten. You might as well throw down that gun and give up while you still can. The scheme that you and your sister and Dirkson cooked up will all come out in the open now.''

The gun shook in Red Mike's hand. ‘‘Go to hell!'' he screeched at Fargo.

Captain Andy Russell stepped up behind him and said, ‘‘No,
you
go to hell, Mike.''

McShane twisted around, taken by surprise, and at that moment Isabel tore free of his grip. She had the sense to fall straight to the ground at his feet, and as soon as she was clear, Fargo and Russell both fired.

Their bullets tore through Red Mike from different but equally deadly angles. He staggered and managed to stay on his feet for a second as blood welled from his mouth. When he tried to lift the gun in his hand toward Isabel, Fargo shot him again, this time through the head. McShane went down hard, dead before he hit the ground.

As Fargo lowered the Henry, he realized that silence had fallen over the woods, broken only by the crackling of flames from the burning bunkhouse. He looked around and saw that Kiley's loggers had gotten the best of the other pirates, killing most of them and capturing the others. Caleb Thorn was talking to one of Kiley's men, pointing out Fargo and explaining the situation.

The logger came over to Fargo and stuck out his hand. ‘‘We're much obliged to you, mister,'' he said. ‘‘Those damned pirates would've wiped us out, more'n likely, if you hadn't come along and helped even the odds a little.''

Fargo shook hands with him and said, ‘‘Sorry we didn't get here in time to keep you from losing your bunkhouse.''

‘‘Don't worry about that,'' the logger said with a grin. ‘‘We can build another one. If there's one thing there's plenty of in these parts, it's logs!''

He turned to shout orders to the rest of the crew. They began pitching buckets of water from a nearby slough onto the flames, not in an attempt to save the bunkhouse, since it was too far gone for that, but to keep the blaze from spreading. Forest fires were rare in these piney woods because of all the rain in the area; the trees seldom got dried out enough for a conflagration to spread rapidly. But fire was still a deadly danger in any forest, so the men moved quickly to bring this one under control.

‘‘Are you all right?'' Fargo asked Isabel. He had already seen that Russell, Thorn, Burnley, and Milton had come through the battle without any new injuries.

‘‘I'm fine,'' she told him as she hugged him hard for a brief moment. As she stepped back, she looked up at him and asked, ‘‘What are we going to do now, Skye?''

‘‘We're going back to Jefferson,'' Fargo said as a grim expression appeared on his weary face. ‘‘I want to break the news to Francine Baxter that her brothers are dead . . . and her scheme to make her husband the biggest timber baron in these parts and then take over his empire is dead, too.''

The boss of the logging camp had his men hitch up a team of mules to one of the supply wagons, and Fargo and the rest of the group from the
Bayou Princess
took it back to Jefferson. The hour was late when the wagon rolled into the settlement with Fargo handling the reins. He brought the vehicle to a stop in front of Dr. John Fearn's house.

‘‘You'd better have the doc see to that arm of yours, Cap'n Andy,'' Fargo told Russell. The frenzied activity of the night had finally caused the wound on Russell's arm to start bleeding again.

‘‘I'd rather go with you and see the showdown with the Baxter woman,'' Russell complained. ‘‘And what about Nick Dirkson?''

‘‘He'll be dealt with in good time,'' Fargo promised.

‘‘Please, Cap'n Andy,'' Isabel said from the driver's seat beside Fargo. ‘‘You have to take care of yourself so you can see to the repairs on the
Bayou Princess
.''

Russell grimaced. ‘‘Don't know if that poor riverboat will ever float again, but I guess I owe her a good try.'' He climbed down from the back of the wagon with Caleb Thorn's help.

‘‘I'll make sure this old pelican behaves himself,'' Thorn said.

Russell snorted. ‘‘Old pelican, is it? You fit the description better than I do, you peg-legged scarecrow.''

Fargo grinned as the two old-timers went up the walk toward the doctor's front door.

Burnley and Milton got out of the wagon, too. ‘‘If it's all right with you, we're gonna go over to the Snappin' Turtle and have a drink,'' Milton said.

‘‘Or a dozen,'' Burnley added.

‘‘Go ahead,'' Fargo told them. ‘‘Sorry the trip down the bayou didn't go like we planned, boys.''

‘‘Don't worry about that. Are you sure you'll be all right?''

Fargo nodded. ‘‘I'm sure.''

Isabel linked her arm with his. ‘‘Anyway,'' she said, ‘‘he won't be alone when he confronts that witch.''

Fargo shook his head. ‘‘You've done enough. I'm dropping you off at the Excelsior House.''

‘‘Skye! No!''

He had expected her to argue. ‘‘You've risked your life enough tonight,'' he told her. ‘‘You could've been killed half a dozen times over.''

‘‘So could you!''

‘‘That's different,'' Fargo said.

Isabel sniffed. ‘‘I don't see why.''

Fargo flapped the reins and got the mules moving again. As the wagon rolled toward the hotel, he said, ‘‘I've worried about you enough tonight, Isabel. I want a clear head and no distractions when I confront Francine Baxter and her husband.''

‘‘So you're saying I'm just a worry to you—is that it?''

Fargo chuckled. He should have known better than to think that he could win an argument with her. ‘‘I'll lock you in your room at the hotel if I have to.''

‘‘You would, too, you . . . you
man
!''

‘‘Guilty as charged,'' Fargo said.