Fargo wore fringed buckskins, some of the strings stiff with old blood. His crop-bearded face was tanned hickory-nut brown, and the startling, lake blue eyes had seen several lifetimes of danger and adventure. He cast a wide glance around the once-thriving town of Plum Creek.
“Boom to bust,” he muttered, amazed by the rapid change.
The last time the Trailsman, as some called Fargo, rode through Plum Creek, the place was fast and wide open. Seemed like everybody had money to throw at the birds. But he had watched plenty of boomtowns turn into ghost towns practically overnight, and clearly this berg would soon make the list. Last night a rough bunch of buffalo skinners had made enough ruckus to wake snakes. The hiders were gone now, and the sleepy little crossroads settlement seemed on the verge of blowing away like a tumbleweed.
There was still this hotel, though, Fargo reminded himself, even if it was the size of a packing crate. And even more surprising, a bank straight across the street. That was especially hard to believe—Fargo had played draw poker the night before with a few locals, and all but one had used hard-times tokens as markers, private coins issued by area merchants to combat the critical shortage of specie.
Again Fargo’s gaze cut to the livery, but the Ovaro was peacefully drinking from a water trough in the paddock. Fargo watched sparrow hawks circling in the empty sky. The only traffic in the wide, rutted main street was a despondent-looking farmer driving a manure wagon.
Until, that is, a fancy-fringed surrey came spinning around a corner near the bank.
Fargo whistled appreciatively when he’d gotten a good look at the driver. “Well, ain’t she silky satin?” he asked the four walls of his cramped room.
The surrey pulled up in front of the bank in a boil of yellow dust. The Trailsman forgot about the two Cheyennes, dumbfounded at this vision of loveliness. The young woman on the spring seat was somewhere in her early twenties with lush, dark-blond hair pulled straight back under a silver tiara and caught up under a silk net on her nape. Hers was a face of angelic beauty except for full, sensuous lips.
Fargo had an excellent view, and with his window open he heard everything that transpired.
“Yoo-hoo, young man!” she called out in a voice like waltzing violins. “Yes, I mean you. Come here, please.”
A slight, puzzled frown wrinkled Fargo’s brow. Her accent, he guessed, was supposed to sound French and might fly in these parts. He’d heard better imitations, though.
A boy of about twelve years of age, a hornbook tucked under his arm, was just then passing along the raw-lumber boardwalk. At the woman’s musical hail, he turned to look at her and his jaw dropped open in astonishment. Like Fargo, he seemed mesmerized by the gay ostrich-feather boa draped loosely around slim white shoulders, and the way her tight stays thrust her breasts up provocatively.
“Yes, you,” she said again, laughing at his stupefaction. “I don’t bite!”
“Hell, a little biting might be tolerable,” Fargo muttered.
“Please run inside the bank,” she told the awed lad, taking a coin from her beaded reticule, “and tell them an invalid lady requires help outside.”
“Yes, muh-muh-ma’am!” the kid managed, staring at the coin she placed in his hand.
Invalid? Fargo’s eyes raked over her evidently healthy form. It was early September—dog days on the High Plains—and the still air felt hot as molten glass. Yet, the mysterious woman’s legs were wrapped in velvet traveling rugs.
Fargo’s vague suspicion of the beauty instantly deepened. He was familiar with the ways of grifters, and it didn’t take him long to twig the game. No traffic outside, the bad French accent—and her noontime arrival when only one teller, probably the bank manager, would likely be on duty. Suddenly he recalled one of Allan Pinkerton’s detectives telling him about how the “beautiful invalid” scam worked with surprising ease at small-town banks. Gallant managers were eager to run outside and cash small bonds or redeem stock coupons, leaving the bank briefly unoccupied.
Sure enough, one dashed out now, resplendent in pomaded hair, a new wool suit, and glossy ankle boots.
“Your servant, Madame,” he greeted her, even tossing in a clumsy bow.
“Now I see which way the wind sets,” Fargo muttered, a grin touching his lips.
The sheep was about to be fleeced, but the Trailsman had no intention of stepping in just yet. This was going to be a good show and Fargo, mind-numbed by his long ride across the plains, needed the diversion. However, he resolved to recover and return the money later—the citizens of Plum Creek were poor as Job’s turkey and could ill afford a loss. Besides, that course of action allowed him to see the woman up close. In this territory, females like her were only seen in barroom paintings of Greek and Roman nymphs.
“Sir, you are so kind!” the striking young woman effused. “I have been in your wonderful country for only six months, and I am—how you say?—puzzled about bonds. May I ask a few no-doubt silly questions?”
“Madame, nothing you ask could be silly,” the bank officer assured her.
Fargo shook with mirth while the deceitful shill, as he assumed her to be, removed some papers from a wallet. As the two conferred, heads intimately close together, Fargo watched behind them for the woman’s partner. Yet, even knowing what was coming, Fargo’s eyes were almost deceived.
The sneak thief was impressively adept at swift, silent movement. Like a fast shadow he glided out of an alley and onto the boardwalk, soundless in the cork-soled shoes of his trade. He slipped inside the bank so quickly that eagle-eyed Fargo hardly gained an impression—only that the small, dapper man’s hair was silver at the temples and his fox-sharp face slightly puffed and lined.
“And what is this,” the woman’s lilting voice inquired, “about ac-cum-u-la-tive interest? Ciel! Such a difficult word!”
Fargo laughed outright, admiring the little sharper in spite of her criminality. Right now, while the bedazzled bank manager stood in a stupor, the sneak thief inside would spend less than two minutes rifling the open vault. If the vault was closed, or yielded little, he would leap to the cash drawers. Then he would unlock the rear door and make his escape.
The moment the woman reined her two-horse team around and headed back out of town, Fargo went into action.
He buckled on his heavy leather gun belt and palmed the cylinder of his single-action Colt to check the workings before he snatched up his Henry. He trotted down to the livery, tacked the Ovaro, and swung up and over, reining in the direction of the surrey’s dust trail.
Not surprisingly, the conveyance was making jig time as the couple tried to avoid capture. For the Ovaro, however, it was swift work to carry Fargo alongside. The “invalid” was no longer driving, that job falling to her male partner. Keeping his eyes on both, Fargo leaned out and grabbed the reins from the man, drawing back to halt the team.
The beauty’s nostrils flared in anger. “Sir! I protest! My father and I are in an urgent hurry!”
Fargo, grinning like a butcher’s dog, let his eyes sweep over her. “Well, pardon me all to hell. Sweet-heart, you really need to polish that phony accent. Sounds like you got a bad head cold.”
“Phony?” she protested. “It is the way we speak in Par-ee, but, mais oui, of course a benighted savage like you would not know this.”