evinced by a shock of raven hair and copper skin.
The outlaws were herding the cows along but they weren’t in any particular hurry. One man dozed in the saddle.
The half-breed was on a claybank. He came abreast of where Fargo was hidden and suddenly drew rein and leaned down.
Cud Sten stopped, too, rumbling “What is it, Rika? We’ve got us a ways to go yet and I want to be there by nightfall.”
Rika straightened and turned. “Tracks,” he said simply. “They puzzle me.”
“How can that be?” Cud said. “What you don’t know about tracking ain’t worth knowing.”
“A white man has come this way.”
“What’s that?” Cud said, and he and the rest glanced all about, most placing their hands on their revolvers.
“It’s a white man we know,” Rika said. “Or his horse, at least.”
“What are you babbling about, damn it?”
Rika pointed at the tracks. “These were made by the animal our friend Tull rides.”
“Are you sure?”
“As you say. What I don’t know about tracking is not worth knowing. And I know the tracks of our horses as I know my own.”
“But if it’s Tull, where did he get to?”
“I ask myself the same question.”
Cud gigged his bay up and the two of them climbed down and hunkered to examine the prints.
Fargo palmed the pearl-handled Colt. He knew what they would do next, and he was ready. They would mount and come after him. With luck he could drop half of them before they suspected where he was, and then it would be cat and mouse until he finished them off.
True to his prediction, Cud Sten and Rika whispered back and forth. They climbed on their horses and reined around to talk in hushed tones to the others. Then, drawing their six-shooters, all seven swung toward the forest.
They were so obvious Fargo had to grin. But he didn’t find what happened next the least bit funny.
The branches of the pine were laden thick with snow. Now and then clumps fell to the ground. But just as the outlaws reined toward the forest, a clump of snow the size of a washbasin fell with a loud thud, and the pine, relieved of the weight, suddenly whipped straight up into the air. The rest of the snow in its branches came raining down on Fargo. For a few seconds all he saw was falling snow. Then the whiteout ended, and he could see again.
The tree no longer hid him.
He was in plain sight.
For a few seconds the outlaws were riveted in surprise. Then Cud Sten bellowed, “That’s not Tull! Kill the son of a bitch!”
Fargo wheeled the sorrel and jabbed his spurs. Behind him six-guns blasted and lead sang a song of death. One buzzed his ear, another narrowly missed his shoulder. Then he was past more trees and at a gallop.
Cud Sten let out with another bellow. “After him!”
Fargo scowled. Thanks to a fluke he was riding for his life. He reined right to avoid a tree, reined left to avoid another. A few more shots were fired but none came close. Then the shooting stopped.
The outlaws were after him in earnest.
The snow muffled the thud of their hooves. Nearly everything was white, the trees so burdened that many hung low to the ground. Fargo hadn’t gone far when he discovered how precariously balanced they were. The sorrel brushed against one, and it snapped vertical as that first tree had done, raining snow all over him. .
“Don’t let that son of a bitch get away!” Cud Sten bellowed.
Fargo glanced back. Two of them were hard after him. One raised a revolver but lowered it again because he didn’t have a clear shot.
Minutes passed, and the sorrel’s lead began to widen. But Fargo could tell the sorrel was beginning to tire. The heavy snow was sapping its vitality.
Fargo had to try something. He looked for another large pine, bent low, and soon spied a huge one so covered with snow, it resembled a white hill more than a tree. Reining around it, he came to a stop and hunched low over his saddle. Now it was up to fickle fate, which had already betrayed him once.
Off to the right hooves drummed. One of the outlaws flew past without seeing him.
To the left, more hooves. That made two.
Tense with hope, Fargo waited. Another rider was briefly visible, staring straight ahead. He heard one crash through the growth and twisted his head. The man had bushy red hair and a bushy red beard and, like the others, didn’t notice him. That made four.
Only two to go and Fargo would be safe.
A man in a mackinaw went past.
Then it was Cud Sten himself, his club held high as if he couldn’t wait to bash in Fargo’s skull.
Fargo waited. He didn’t hear the seventh. After a bit he decided the man must have gone by without him noticing and he gigged the horse around the pine.
Rika was barely ten feet away, the stock of a rifle wedged to his shoulder. The instant Fargo appeared, he fixed a bead on Fargo’s head and said quietly, “It’s up to you.”
Fargo had the Colt at his side. He could jerk it up and fire, but he had no doubt that even if he got off a shot, he was as good as dead. Rika wouldn’t miss, not at that range. “Don’t do anything I’ll regret,” he said, smiling. Then, holding the Colt by two fingers, he slowly raised his hand and slid it into his holster. “There. How’s that?”
Using only his legs, Rika goaded his horse nearer. “Turn so your back is to me and hold our arms out from your sides.”
Fargo did so, chafing inside at his run of bad luck. He felt a slight tug on his holster. The pearl-handled Colt was gone.
“You can turn around now.”
Rika had moved back out of reach and lowered the rifle to his waist, but it was still fixed on Fargo’s chest. He hefted the Colt. “This belonged to a friend of mine. That horse is his, too. How is it you have them?”
“I lost my horse in the blizzard. I about died from the cold and the snow, and then I came on this animal and a man lying dead with a broken arrow stuck in him.”
Rika’s face showed no hint of whether he bought the story. “And why is it you were hiding behind that tree when we came by?”
Fargo shrugged. “I was on my way out of the mountains. I heard you and your friends coming and didn’t know if you’d be friendly.”
Again Rika showed no emotion. He wedged the pearl-handled Colt under his belt, pointed the rifle at the ground, and fired two quick shots, which echoed off the high slopes like so much thunder.
Fargo tried another smile. “What are you doing here, anyway? And with a bunch of cows? Is there a ranch nearby I don’t know about?”
“Cud Sten will ask the questions. He’ll be here shortly.”
Fargo wore his best poker face. He was in for it unless they believed him.
His nerves tingling, he heard riders approach. Soon they were all there, ringing him, their revolvers out and cocked.
Cud Sten hadn’t drawn his. He reined up next to Rika and listened to a brief recital of Fargo’s account. Then Cud fixed his dark eyes on Fargo.
“That’s your story, is it, mister?”
Fargo nodded.
“It could be you’re telling the truth. Then again, it could be you’re an egg-sucking bastard. And if you killed my pard to get his horse and gun, you’ll die in more pain than you can imagine.”
“I’ve never stolen a horse in my life,” Fargo said. “If I’d know your ranch was nearby, I’d have guessed the man rode for you and gone there to tell you I found him.”
