The Trailsman #388 (10 page)

“Yeah, you fell into a pretty good deal here,” Fargo said. “You know . . . what with their other spiritual leader just suddenly disappearing like he did? I wonder what happened to him?”

Parker shrugged impatiently. “Who cares? His loss was my gain. How 'bout it, Fargo? This pie is big enough to slice two ways.”

“Yeah, but why cut me in?” Fargo asked. “You rule the roost here.”

“Sure. But even a toothless dog will bite if you kick it hard enough. Some of these men are starting to bitch and grumble—some of the women, too. With the two of us, we'd really have the whip hand. The women are all hot for you, so
they
won't bitch. You could live like a rajah here.”

“And besides that,” Fargo said, “you'd know exactly where I was. That'd be really handy for Stanley Winslowe's plans.”

Fargo watched Parker's face closely as he pronounced the name of Stanley Winslowe. But unless Parker was the world's greatest actor, the only response he registered was puzzlement.

“Who in the hell is Stanley Winslowe?” he demanded.

Maybe, Fargo thought, he was simply wrong in his suspicion that Parker was connected to the Mexican land grab. After all, Parker's “proposition” did make sense from the criminal point of view. But then Fargo reminded himself: Men like Winslowe hid behind their high-paid dirt workers to keep the flies off themselves. If Parker had been hired, it would have been by the same man Santiago Valdez was trying to track down.

Fargo didn't answer Parker's question, and now deep suspicion glittered in those hard, scar-encased eyes. He swung his hairy, muscular legs over the edge of the bed as he sat up, looking ridiculous in his rumpled burlap sheath. Fargo watched him edge his left foot under the bed and hook the horse pistol.

“Safety tip,” Parker said in a flat, threatening voice. “Leave now by the door or you'll go out through the wall.”

“Safety tip,” Fargo replied amiably. “Stick to bullying the weak.”

Fargo's right leg shot out in a savage kick, the toe of his boot smashing into Parker's mouth and sending a spray of blood and broken teeth all over the bed. Parker grunted hard and snapped backward, sprawling on his back across the mattress.

Fargo's Colt leaped into his fist and he knelt deep, snatching up Parker's double-barreled horse pistol. While Parker writhed on the bed, moaning in pain, Fargo drew back the twin hammers and used his thumb to flick the percussion caps off the nibs. Then he flipped the weapon into the air, caught it by its long barrel, and brought it down hard on the headboard, snapping off both hammers. He tossed the useless weapon into a corner.

Parker managed to sit back up, his bloody lips already swelling. “You white-livered son of a bitch,” he said in a tone blending homicidal fury and abject pain. “Lay that gun aside and prove your manhood
then
.”

“Your name's on my dance card,” Fargo replied, unbuckling his shell belt and dropping it aside. Two seconds later he dropped the Arkansas toothpick atop it.

Parker surged off the bed like a cannonball, intending to head-butt Fargo. But the Trailsman managed to pivot a half turn, and Parker would have brained himself on the door if he hadn't gotten his hands up at the last moment to stop himself.

He recovered, turned around, and moved in at Fargo, using fancy footwork and holding both fists high in the British boxing style.

Fargo, a frontier brawler with no interest in “scientific fighting,” merely stood still with his hands out from his hips, awaiting his chance. Parker was impressive, feinting and ducking, keeping Fargo confused. He suddenly bridged the gap in a blur of speed and stung Fargo hard with a left jab to the sternum.

“How you like them apples?” Parker taunted, following up with a hard right that rocked Fargo back on his heels.

Before Fargo could set his feet, Parker waded in and clocked the Trailsman with a roundhouse right that sent him into a Virginia reel. He teetered, almost lost his balance, then regained it again.

“You know,” Fargo said, “for a man wearing a dress, you're pretty handy with your fists. Can you cook, too?”

“You won't be joking,” Parker promised, moving in again, “when I finish pounding you to paste.”

“You just finished,” Fargo replied, sending his left leg out in a sweeping hook that sent Parker onto his ass. Before Parker could push to his feet Fargo gripped his head in a viselike hold, locking it in place while he smashed a bruising right knee into his face and broke his nose for a third time with an audible snap.

Parker fell onto his side howling at the pain. Fargo kicked him with savage ferocity in the chest, feeling at least one rib snap.

“You lissenup, rapist,” Fargo said. “I killed three men yesterday, and I'll be killing more before I move on. These silly shits in this Phalanx may be fools, but they work damn hard and they ain't hurting a soul. You've murdered one of them and you're stealing their money. I'll be back, and if you're still around I'm going to sink an airshaft through your brain. Savvy that?”

When Parker didn't answer, Fargo kicked him again and broke another rib. “I said, savvy that?”

“I savvy,” Parker gasped, blood spurting from his nose. “Jesus Christ, Fargo, I savvy!”

As he buckled on his shell belt Fargo's eyes again returned to the shelf and the Indian kachina. He didn't know a hell of a lot about tribal black magic, but he did know that the secrets of the “dark arts” were never revealed to white men. Such an evil fetish as that wooden doll would never be given to any outsider, especially an enemy who could then use the evil magic against them. And Ripley Parker hardly struck Fargo as the Indian-lover type interested in collecting such things.

Interesting, Fargo thought. Mighty damn interesting.

When Fargo emerged from the building, he found a nervous Carrie Stanton and Abigail Bartlett waiting nearby.

“My stars and garters!” Carrie said. “It sounded like somebody slaughtered a hog in there! Are you all right, Skye?”

“He got a few good licks in on me,” Fargo said. “Seems like my head has taken a helluva beating in the last couple days.”

“Well, you didn't kill him,” Abigail said. “I can hear him groaning.”

“I'm hoping that little visit brought him to Jesus,” Fargo said. “At least, as far as the Phalanx is concerned. He's wearing the no-good label, and if he doesn't clear out like I told him to, I advise you folks to close ranks against him. All this peace and love may work back in Massachusetts, but it won't go on the frontier. Haven't you figured out by now that this Danny Dexter fellow he replaced didn't run off?”

“
I
have,” Carrie said. “Parker murdered Danny.”

Fargo nodded. “You've got a nice farming operation going here. I suggest you folks get shut of the burlap and the spiritual advisors, elect some good, practical leaders, and continue to thrive. Then you two won't have to run away.”

“We wish you'd stay,” Abigail said. “At least for a time. You'd be a fine leader.”

Fargo chuckled. “Sorry. This placid, punkin-butter existence isn't for me. If I stay too long in one place I get holed-up fever.” Fargo's eyes swept appreciatively over both beauties. “Not that there aren't certain temptations.”

“Where are you going now, Skye?” Carrie asked as Fargo tightened the girth on his saddle.

“Into El Paso to see a man about a river.”

The two women exchanged puzzled glances. “Whatever does that mean?” Abigail asked.

For a few moments Fargo gazed past the irrigated fields, past the muddy brown meanders of the Rio Grande, and focused again on those low ridges on the Mexican side. He had no evidence whatsoever that Stanley Winslowe intended to grab them just as he had the ones a few miles upstream.

But if not, why was his blast team still roosting in El Paso—along with the rainmaker Valdez was trying to hunt down? Perhaps to kill the Trailsman, but Fargo had a gut hunch it had to be more than that. If Fargo's hunch was right, a second blast would destroy the irrigation system that made possible this farmland in the middle of parched desert. It could even destroy many of the farmers themselves.

“I don't rightly know
what
I mean,” he admitted. “But I'm working at finding out, and when I do I'll enlighten you.”

“Are you too busy,” Abigail said coquettishly, “to stay around just a little bit longer? Carrie showed you the cornfield. Now it's my turn.”

Fargo grinned. “Well, I did just suggest that you get shut of the burlap, didn't I?”

Abigail took his hand and led him toward the corn, Fargo leading the Ovaro.

“Have fun, Abby,” Carrie called out behind them. “I certainly did.”

“Skye,” Abigail said, her voice rising an octave in her gathering excitement, “Carrie told me about the size on you. I can't wait to see it.”

“If you're trying to make me walk funny,” Fargo replied, “you just succeeded. You've got J. Henry mighty angry all of a sudden.”

“I'll calm him down real quick,” she promised, tugging him even faster.

They entered the tall rows of corn and Fargo hobbled the Ovaro.

“I'll show you mine,” Abigail said in a voice just above a whisper, “if you'll show me yours.”

It took her only a second to whip the burlap sheath over her blond-curled head. Although she was slim and fine-boned, her tits were surprisingly hefty. The fine gold thatch above her slit looked almost exactly like the corn silk all around them.

“Pretty as four aces,” Fargo remarked.

“Now you,” she demanded.

Fargo grounded the Henry and dropped his shell belt, then his trousers, eliciting an admiring gasp from Abigail.

“I figured Carrie was exaggerating,” she said in a breathless voice. “I've got to put that big thing in my mouth—as much of it as I can, anyhow.”

She dropped to her knees, gripped Fargo's shaft to control its powerful leaping, and took him into the wet heat of her mouth. She began by rapidly swirling her tongue around the sensitive glans, shooting powerful currents of pleasure deep into his groin.

When she had Fargo groaning, she upped the ante, beginning to plunge him deep into her mouth as she raked the underside with her eyeteeth. She pumped her fist on the part she couldn't fit into her mouth, all the time grinding her tits into his thighs. Fargo felt the strength starting to sap from his legs as surges of hot, tickling, ever-increasing pleasure took over his body.

Her expert ministrations soon had Fargo on the threshold, and she began to whimper with uncontained excitement when she felt him swell to an iron hardness in her mouth. Now her head moved quickly back and forth like a steam-driven piston, a rapid blond blur, and Fargo was forced to brace himself on her slim shoulders when his explosive release drained the last strength from his legs.

A couple of minutes later, with Fargo just returning to normal breathing, she felt between his legs and exclaimed, “My lands! You still have a big old boner! Let's not waste it.”

“Let's not,” Fargo agreed, pushing her down gently onto her back and separating her satin-smooth thighs.

•   •   •

Around the middle of the hot, lazy, sun-drenched afternoon Fargo left his stallion at the livery on the eastern approach to El Paso. On high alert he hoofed it to the Del Norte Arms hotel on Paseo Street. It didn't seem likely that an Apache would be foolish enough to venture into the city in broad daylight, but there were still two talented gringos champing at the bit to free Fargo's soul.

He dusted himself off as well as he could and approached the huge mahogany door of the lobby. A doorman in gold-braided livery and a ridiculously tall shako hat stepped into his path.

“One moment . . .
sir
,” he said, his tone mocking the last word. “May I see your room key?”

“That would be a nifty trick, general,” Fargo replied, “seeing's how I haven't got a room yet.”

“I'm sorry. I'll have to see a key.”

“May I see yours?” Fargo countered.

“I don't have a room here.”

“Well, neither do I,” Fargo said, “so that makes us even. Make a hole so I can get by.”

The doorman's liver lips compressed in contempt. “The Del Norte Arms is beyond the means of the indigent. You will find some more affordable accommodations along Paisano Street.”

Fargo's face hardened. “That monkey suit doesn't impress me. Now stand aside or I'll unscrew your head and shit in it.”

The doorman dropped the haughty manner and said in a more reasonable tone, “I can't let you in or I'll be cashiered. And I have a wife and kid to support.”

“I definitely don't want to cost you your job,” Fargo said truthfully. “Tell me, would you be fired if someone overpowered you and forced his way in?”

“Well, no. But—
unh
!”

Fargo tossed a quick punch that caught him in midsentence, landing it perfectly on the sweet spot. The doorman slumped. Fargo caught him under the arms and lowered him the rest of the way to the ground. He entered the marble-floored lobby, well-dressed patrons goggling at sight of this hard, buckskin-clad frontiersman invading their inner sanctum of opulence.

Fargo crossed to the black slate front desk. A fashionably dressed clerk watched him with a mixed expression of disdain and fear.

“Which room is Stanley Winslowe in?” Fargo demanded.

“I'm not allowed to give out that information . . . sir.”

Fargo expelled a weary sigh. “Here we go again with the sirs. Look, Gertrude, I've got a knife with a twelve-inch blade tucked into my boot. Would you like to see it?”

“No, sir, I would not.”

“I don't like to chew my cabbage twice. Just answer my question and we'll forget about the knife.”

“I can't . . . that is . . .”

Fargo began to stoop.

“Mr. Stanley Winslowe is in the Lone Star Suite on the fifth floor,” the clerk hastened to say. “But you're wasting your time. El Paso deputies guard his door at all hours.”

Fargo definitely didn't welcome that news. Pushing around soft-handed boardwalkers was one thing. But he wasn't about to try bluffing any Texas lawman. He had come this far, however, and decided to play this hand through.

“Sir?” The clerk pointed to a sign on the wall behind him:
ALL GUESTS AND VISITORS MUST CHECK THEIR WEAPONS AT THE DESK.

“I can't read,” Fargo said, striding toward the stairwell. When he emerged into the thickly carpeted fifth floor hallway he groaned inwardly.

Deputy Sheriff Jim West sat on a ladder-back chair outside the door of the suite. The moment he saw Fargo approaching, he drew his intimidating Colt Walker pistol.

“Well goddamn well,” he greeted Fargo. “The bad penny turns up again. The hell are you sniffing around here for, Fargo? I thought I told you to light a shuck out of El Paso.”

“Actually,” Fargo corrected him, “you only
advised
me to leave. I'm here to pay my respects to Mr. Winslowe.”

“Toting all that iron? More likely you're here to kill him, huh?”

“Me, I'm a lovable cuss. This is a friendly visit.”

“Yeah, I saw your
lovable
nature in action three days ago when you turned Magoffin Avenue into a shooting gallery.”

“I only fired in self-defense, Deputy.”

“All right, I'll give you that much. But for such a lovable son of a bitch, you sure seem to have a shitload of enemies. G'wan, beat it. Winslowe wouldn't give you the sweat off his balls, assuming he has any.”

“This is pretty cozy,” Fargo said. “City law officers serving as private lapdogs for King Silver. I guess he's bought off everybody.”

West's jaw muscles bunched tight. “Keep that snappy patter going and you'll be picking lead out of your liver. This is a
private
detail, Fargo, not city time. I get ten dollars a shift for sitting on my prat and counting roses on the wallpaper. You know how much a deputy earns every month?”

“About thirty dollars give or take a bribe.”

“You got it in one, bright boy. Plus a dollar for every puking drunk I haul off to the calaboose. Look, drifter, what the hell business could you have with a big muckety like Winslowe?”

“Just tell him Skye Fargo wants to see him for a few minutes.”

“Would you like to send in your card?” West said in a tone laced with sarcasm.

“Just tell him I'm here to see him about a wandering river.”

“A wandering—?” West narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing Fargo. “Tell me . . . do you smoke it or take it with a spoon?”

“About a wandering river,” Fargo repeated.

West heaved his big bulk out of the chair and tapped out “shave and a haircut” on the door before disappearing inside. In less than a minute he came back into the hallway, studying Fargo curiously.

“I'll be damned,” he said. “His Nibs said to go on in. But pile all your weapons out here. And the door will be wide open. You try to pull any sneaky shit and I'll blast you into the middle of next week.”

“I'll be a good boy,” Fargo promised, piling his weapons on the floor.

He entered a huge, luxurious room replete with heavy teak furniture and plaster busts of great American capitalists. A portly, balding man wearing a suit with satin facings on the lapels stood waiting in front of French doors leading to a balcony.

“Mr. Fargo, I'm a very busy man and my time is money. Now, what is this nonsense about a wandering river?”

“Let's skip the parsley,” Fargo replied, “and get right to the meat. Are you planning another blast at Tierra Seca?”

Winslowe wore a monocle dangling on a gold chain. He raised it to his right eye and studied Fargo as if he were a curious specimen of insect. “Are you daft, man? I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.”

“There's no virgins at this party, Winslowe. I just want to know if you plan on stealing more of Mexico.”

“I've heard of you, Fargo. A womanizing drifter whose exploits are ballyhooed in the newspapers and penny press. Perhaps that cheap reputation of yours has gone to your head. To me, however, you're just one more stinking part of the steaming dungheap. Were I you, I would clear out of these parts at once.”

“You mean before the Apache finds me?”

Winslowe flinched as if he'd been slapped. “How do you—?”

He caught himself in the nick of time. Fargo grinned. “You just can't get decent help nowadays. I know you'll never go to jail, Winslowe, not with your money. But I'm going to make sure you never pull any of that silver out.”

“Ahh . . . now casements are flung open. So this is a shakedown? All right, I'll play along. How much are you demanding?”

“Two million dollars and a night in bed with your wife,” Fargo answered promptly. “If the butler doesn't mind giving her up for a night.”

Winslowe's face turned beet red. “You arrogant mudsill. Do you realize that for a thousand dollars I can have that deputy in the hallway shoot you dead right now and claim you attacked me?”

“Let's ask him,” Fargo suggested. He raised his voice. “Hey, West? Porky here claims you'll kill me for a thousand dollars. Is that right?”

West, who was watching the two men from out in the hallway, replied in a bored tone, “I'd prob'ly negotiate for a higher fee. But for two bits I'd beat the shit out of you and throw away your buckskins.”

“Deputy,” Winslowe hastened to say, “that was a libel on me. I told Fargo no such thing.”

“Technically,” Fargo said cheerfully, “it would be slander.”