Fargo shrugged. “You’ll find out soon enough.” He gazed up at the high canyon walls. “They could be looking down on us even now.”
“You’re lying, I say.”
“I call it fitting that you come back after all these years only to end up like your friend.”
Victor Gore stood. Nervously fingering his derringer, he called out, “Mr. Stern, get over here.”
Stern came on the run. “What is it?”
“When you were up on the rim did you see any sign of the Nez Perce? Any sign at all?”
“Don’t you reckon I’d have told you if I did?”
Gore swung on him, balling his free hand into a fist. “Don’t take that tone with me. Did you or didn’t you?”
“Hell, no,” Stern said. “But I wasn’t really looking. I had my eyes on him.” Stern jerked a thumb at Fargo.
“I want you to take Larson and go back up. Scour the countryside for sign of the hostiles. And be thorough.” Gore glared at Fargo as Stern ran off. “God help you if this is a trick. I’ll have Slag stake you out and we’ll sit around and watch Perkins go to work on you with his knife. He’s vicious, that one. He likes to cut and carve on people.”
Fargo didn’t respond. His bluff had bought him precious minutes of life and now he had to make the most of them. But what could he do with Gore and the others right there? The ring of picks was continuous. “There’s something else you’ve overlooked.”
“Make it good,” Gore said skeptically.
“You were right about the army. They did send me. And when I don’t report back, patrols will be sent to look for me.”
“They won’t have troops come this far in. It would provoke a war.”
“Keep thinking that,” Fargo said. “I’ll visit you in the stockade.”
Gore drew back a leg as if to kick him but lowered it again. “My interest in you is wearing thin. Were I you, I’d keep quiet.”
Fargo took the advice. He’d planted seeds of doubt. Now he must get free. If they let him live until dark, he stood a chance of cutting himself loose. But that was a big “if.”
Only a few minutes went by when Stern and Larson came sprinting back around the bend. Stern let out a yell that brought the work to a stop as everyone gathered around to hear what he had to say.
“Smoke! We saw smoke!”
“Calm down,” Gore snapped. “Where did you see it? From the direction of the valley?”
“No. North of us, not south. It’s not the settlers.”
“Injuns,” someone said. “We’re in for it now.”
Most started to talk all at once and Gore silenced them with an angry roar. “A man can’t think with all this damn jabbering!” He rubbed his white hair, thinking. “Indians wouldn’t make camp this early. For that matter, whites wouldn’t, either.”
“A village, maybe,” Rinson said.
“Lordy, I hope not,” Larson said. “If they find us, we’ll be up to our ears in redskins.”
“Stay calm,” Gore stressed. “It could be an army patrol. Fargo, here, might be working with them. The only sure way to find out is to go see. Mr. Rinson, take Perkins and Slag and do just that.”
“Why us?” Perkins said. “Why not Stern or Larson or some of the others?”
“Because I picked you,” Victor Gore said ominously. “And I don’t like being challenged.”
Slag said, “I don’t mind going. It beats digging out ore.”
They ignored Fargo. He tried working his wrists back and forth to create slack but the rope was too tight. Arching his back, he slid his hands to his boots and pried at the knots. They wouldn’t give. He was so intent on freeing himself that he didn’t hear someone come over. But he saw the shadow that fell across him and felt excruciating pain in his ribs.
“What did I tell you?” Victor Gore said. “I should kill you where you lie but I might have need of you.”
Grimacing, Fargo spat out, “Oh?”
“On the off chance you were telling the truth. The army won’t dare do anything so long as I have you.”
“Use me as a hostage? It won’t work.”
“You place too little value on your hide. You’re a famous scout. They won’t want anything to happen to you.” Gore walked off.
Fargo eased onto his other side to spare his aching ribs. He hated to admit it, but he was helpless. All he could do was lie there. The minutes dragged and became hours.
Gore hadn’t forgotten about him. Every so often, he glanced over.
His ear to the ground, Fargo heard the rumble of hooves before anyone else. Perkins, alone, came flying back up the canyon and vaulted from his mount before the animal came to a stop. “It’s not the army! It’s Injuns! Rinson and Slag are keeping an eye on them while I came back to let you know.”
“Are they Nez Perce?” Victor Gore asked.
“Hell, I wouldn’t know a Nez Perce from a Blackfoot. One redskin looks pretty much the same as any other.”
“How many? And more to the point, were they wearing war paint?”
“I should say they were,” Perkins confirmed. “I counted seventeen but I might have missed a few.”
“How far off are they?”
“A mile, maybe a mile and a half. They were holding some kind of powwow.”
“Damn,” Gore said. “This complicates things. But we needn’t pull out. Not until we have every last ounce of gold.”
“We’re taking an awful chance,” Larson said.
Gore gestured at the burlap sacks. “But well worth it. Or would you rather spend the rest of your life miserably poor?” He began to pace. “At the rate we’re digging, if we stick at it all day and all night, we should have most of the gold out by tomorrow morning. Agreed?”
Someone said, “Yes.”
“Then all we need to do is keep the war party busy until then. Once we’ve loaded the gold on the wagons and disposed of the farmers, we can hightail it out of here.”
“By ‘busy’ you mean attack them?” Stern asked.
“Are you insane? No. I aim to distract them another way.” Gore glanced at Fargo, and grinned. “Yes, sir. I believe we can give them something to do that will keep them out of our hair. We’ll give them a gift, as it were.”
Fargo didn’t like the sound of that.
“I don’t savvy,” Larson said.
“You will.”
Gore crooked a finger at Perkins and they moved out of earshot. Whatever Gore said made Perkins cackle. As Perkins ran up the canyon to do Gore’s bidding, Gore came back, and hunkered.
“This will be our last talk. I want to thank you for showing up when you did. And for telling me about the war party you saw.”
“I didn’t see one,” Fargo confessed.
Gore laughed and slapped his thigh. “Then the joke’s on you, isn’t it? How fitting. The army will never learn what became of you. All they will know is that you rode off into the wilds to do their bidding and were never heard from again.” He chuckled. “Any kin you want me to send word to?”
“Your true nature is showing.”
“I have put on a bit of an act, haven’t I? And I’ve done quite well, if I do say so myself.”
Fargo almost told him he had lied about the army, too. “You’re not out of the woods yet.”
“True,” Gore agreed. “Every moment we stay, we’re in mortal peril. But my prospects are a lot rosier than yours.”
“You’re really going to do it? Kill all those women and children?”
“What are they to me? It’s no different than drowning a litter of puppies you don’t want.”
“You hide it well,” Fargo said.
Gore sobered, and frowned. “Save your insults. None of us are perfect. Except for Martha Winston.” He snickered.
“When your turn comes I hope you die screaming.”
“Now, now. Is that any way to talk to someone who has arranged a special surprise for you?”
“What kind of surprise?”