So much was taking place, so fast, that Fargo couldn’t take it all in, and didn’t try. He dropped flat as Harvey and the other farmer rushed to the aid of their brethren. Bodies were falling, some motionless, many continuing to squeeze off rounds.
Lester Winston ran up to Gore to finish him off. He never saw Perkins. He probably never heard the shot that blew off the top of his skull in a spectacular shower of gore.
Larson killed one of the women and in turn lost the lower half of his face to a shotgun blast.
Stern raked his spurs and tried to break into the clear, only to be brought crashing down by several farmers who all fired at the same time.
Screeching horribly, yet another farmer oozed to the earth, his hand clasped to the empty socket where one of his eyeballs had been.
Fargo couldn’t just lie there. A stray slug might claim him. Or one of the protectors might spot him and cut loose. He saw Victor Gore scrambling toward the next wagon, and crawled to intercept him. Gore had the Colt in one hand and a spreading stain high on his shirt.
Fargo was almost to him when Gore whipped around and pointed the Colt at his forehead.
“I’ve got you now, you son of a bitch.”
Fargo coiled to spring. He heard the click of the hammer and knew his time had come.
Then suddenly Rachel was there. She jammed the muzzle of her rifle to the back of Gore’s head, and fired. Grinning ear to ear, she yelled, “When this is over, you owe me!”
“Look out!” Fargo shouted.
Rachel didn’t see Perkins rein his mount up close. His first shot slammed into her side and sent her stumbling against the wagon. His second ripped through her bosom as she tried to turn. Her eyes flicked to Fargo’s, mirroring deep sadness, and regret. Then Perkins fired a third time and the heavy lead cored her temple and burst out the other side.
Hot rage exploded in Fargo. He launched himself at her killer. Perkins pointed his revolver but when the hammer fell there was a click. The cylinder was empty.
Perkins lunged for a rifle in his saddle scabbard.
By then Fargo reached him. Grabbing a leg, he sent Perkins toppling. But Perkins was up in a crouch in a twinkling, his knife in hand.
That suited Fargo. Drawing the Arkansas toothpick, he sprang. Steel lanced at his neck but he parried and opened Perkins’ arm from wrist to elbow. Perkins instantly switched the knife to his other hand and stabbed at Fargo’s belly. But Fargo was ready. Shifting, he plunged the toothpick to the hilt in the base of Perkins’ throat, then leaped back.
Blood spurted from the wound and gushed from Perkins’ mouth. He staggered, tripped, and crashed down. A few convulsions and it was all over.
The thunderous discharge of a shotgun reminded Fargo of the battle being waged all around him. Harvey was dead, drilled through the forehead. A woman had been shot through the heart. One of Rinson’s men flopped madly about with part of his face missing.
Fargo scooped up his Colt. As he spun, lead blistered his ear. Rinson was still in the saddle, and took deliberate aim. Fargo was quicker. His hands a blur, he fired from the hip, fanning the hammer. Holes appeared in Rinson’s face, in his neck, in his chest.
A blow to the shoulder jarred Fargo to his marrow. He swiveled to find Slag holding a rifle by the barrel, about to swing again. Fargo brought up the Colt, or tried to. His arm wouldn’t rise as it should. He was much too slow, and about to have his brains bashed out.
It was then that Martha Winston materialized out of the swirl of gun smoke, a double-barreled shotgun in her hands. She let Slag have both barrels full in the face.
Silence abruptly fell. Fargo’s ears rang as he slowly surveyed the slaughter. There was no other word for it.
Blasted, bleeding bodies were everywhere. Victor Gore was dead. All the killers had fallen; Rinson, Perkins, Slag, Larson, Stern, all dead, dead, dead, dead. There wasn’t a farmer left standing, either. Lester, Harvey, every last one of them, and the women who had helped them, all blown to hell. Only Martha was left, Martha, and the women and children at the other side of the circle.
“I tried to warn you,” Fargo said to the still form of her husband.
A sob escaped Martha. “Dear Lord, no,” she said, and shuffled over to Rachel. “Not her, too.”
“She saved my life,” Fargo said, but he doubted that Martha heard him. Tears trickling down her cheeks, she uttered a loud sob and sank to her knees.
“Not my girl. Please, not my girl.”
Fargo’s Henry lay partially under Stern, the brass receiver spattered with red drops. Fargo tugged it loose.
Martha stared at him, her eyes pits of horror. “It’s not as I thought, is it? All my life, and it’s not as I thought.”
“It never is,” Fargo said.
There wasn’t much more.
Fargo offered to take the survivors to Fort Bridger. Martha wanted to bury the dead, but Fargo was anxious to get everyone out of there before the Nez Perce found them. He looked back only once—the sky was thick with buzzards.
Fargo told himself he wasn’t going to, but he did. From Fort Bridger he headed straight back to the canyon. He intended to help himself to some of the gold and then treat himself to wild nights of whiskey, women and cards. But the sacks were gone. Every last one. Either the Nez Perce had found them, or Gore and Rinson hid them before heading for the valley and their date with death.
As for the O’Flynns, the family Fargo was searching for when the whole ordeal started, it turned out they had made it to Oregon, after all. The father paid Fargo for finding them, and Fargo promptly sought out the nearest watering hole.
He had a lot of forgetting to do.
LOOKING FORWARD!
The following is the opening
section from the next novel in the exciting
Trailsman series from Signet:
THE TRAILSMAN #328 TEXAS TRIGGERS
The hard land of the Pecos, 1861—where the Apache reigned, and the unwary paid for their follies in pain and blood.
The sun was killing him.
It hung at its zenith, a blazing yellow furnace. For weeks now, west Texas had been scorched by relentless heat. The land baked, the vegetation withered, the wild-life suffered. It was the worst summer anyone could remember in the desert country west of the Pecos River.
That included Skye Fargo. He had been through Texas before, plenty of times, and he had never experienced heat like this. Heat so hot, his skin felt as if it were on fire. With each breath, he inhaled flame into his lungs. Squinting up at the cause, Fargo summed up his sentiments with a single, bitter “Damn.”
His horse was suffering, too. The Ovaro was as good a mount as a man could ask for. It had stamina to spare, but the merciless heat had boiled its strength away to where the stallion plodded along with its head hung low, so weary and worn that Fargo had commenced to worry. Which was why he was walking and leading the stallion by the reins.
Any man stranded afoot in that country had one foot in the grave. Any man except an Apache.
The Mescaleros had roamed that region since anyone could remember. Tempered by the forge of adversity, they prowled in search of prey. The heat didn’t affect their iron constitutions. And, too, they knew all the secret water holes and tanks. They thrived where most whites would perish.