“You’re not going to kill him?”
“Of course I am, you stupid son of a bitch. But I want to do it nice and slow. I’ll wait until the gal and her sprouts are asleep.”
Lear drew his six-shooter. “Let’s go, mister.”
Fargo held his hands up and moved toward the door. The skin on his back prickled as he passed Cud Sten. He half expected Sten to club him. He took another step, and suddenly his head exploded with pain. His legs gave out and he clutched at a chair to stay on his feet but missed. Rough hands grabbed his arms. He heard laughter, and then he was sucked into blackness.
The cold revived him.
Fargo opened his eyes and groaned. His head felt as if it had been split open. He was lying on his side, his wrists and ankles tied tight. He was in a cramped space. That much he could tell. He smelled musty earth under his cheek. Groggily, he tried to raise his head and nearly passed out.
Fargo remembered something being said about the woodshed. He’d ridden past it a few times and not paid much attention; it was on the side of the cabin, enclosed on three sides, with pine boughs for a roof. Only about waist-high, it was maybe five feet from end to end.
Gradually his eyes adjusted. Firewood was stacked in front of him. He extended his arms as far back as he could and touched snow, which explained why his back was colder than his front. Clenching his teeth, he twisted his head. All he saw was snow-shrouded trees.
He pried at the rope around his ankles. The knots were iron.
From inside the cabin came gruff mirth.
Suddenly Fargo remembered something else: Cud Sten was going to wait until Mary and the children turned in, then come out and beat him to death. Well, he would have a surprise for the bastard. Shifting his shoulder, he hiked at his pant leg and got it high enough to slide his fingers into his boot. For a few seconds he thought he had the wrong boot; the Arkansas toothpick wasn’t there. Then he felt the ankle sheath, and the terrible truth dawned. They had found the toothpick and taken it.
A new cold spread through Fargo, a cold that had nothing to do with the temperature. He tried to recall if he had seen an ax anywhere near the woodshed or anything else sharp lying around that he could use to cut himself free.
Fargo wondered what time it was. Mary wouldn’t stay up late. Any minute now Sten might come out to kill him. Fighting off waves of pain, he tried to roll over. He had to try twice to do it, and then he lay grimacing, his stomach queasy. One of the wolf bites was hurting, too.
Fargo sat up. He had an idea. Not much of one, but he was desperate, and desperate men grasped at straws. His straw lay down the valley. Hunching his shoulders, he got to his knees.
Now came the hard part. Fargo inched forward, moving first one knee and then the other. Once he was out from under the pine boughs, he lurched upright—and fell on his face in the snow. Spitting, he made it back to his knees.
“You can do this.”
Fargo heaved erect. Again he teetered but he kept his balance. He began to hop. By bending forward he was able to keep his balance. He made it to the pines and paused to catch his breath and get his bearings. Then he was off again, hopping like an oversized jackrabbit. He had to be careful and not try to hop too far and be sure to land with both boots flat. It was slow going at first. But the more he did it, the better he got; when he emerged from the trees, he was moving faster than he thought he could.
There was no moon. Pale starlight dulled the white of the snow so that it was almost brown.
Fargo hopped and hopped. He had a fair idea where to find what he was looking for, but it would take time to get there. The question was, how much did he have? How soon before Cud Sten discovered he was gone and the outlaws came looking for him?
To the north a lonesome coyote yipped. Up on the mountain an owl hooted.
Fargo hoped he didn’t run into more starved wolves or a hungry bear. Given how his luck had been running, he wouldn’t be surprised if either happened.
He shut everything from his mind and concentrated on hopping. His leg muscles protested but the pain in his legs was nothing compared to the throbbing in his head. Hunch, jump, land. Hunch, jump, land. He settled into a rhythm. Once, when he glanced back to see if anyone was after him, he was surprised at how far he had gone.
Fargo wondered if he would find it. He didn’t think it was that far, but he had been fading in and out of consciousness when they’d hauled him to the cabin, and maybe his memory of things wasn’t as it was.
He wondered, too, if maybe there was a better way, a smarter way. Maybe the knock on the head had jumbled it so bad he wasn’t thinking right.
The pain brought him to a stop. He needed to rest a minute. He looked back again. Was it his imagination or did he hear voices?
He definitely heard a footstep close by, the crunch of the snow as something moved toward him out of the dark. He tensed, dreading that the vague shape he discerned was a grizzly. He was helpless—totally helpless. All he would be able to do was scream, and he would be damned if he would do that.
The shape grew larger. It was easily as tall as a griz. But the proportions were wrong. He almost laughed when he recognized what it was.
It was curious. It came within a few yards and sniffed, trying to tell exactly what he was. Then it knew, and it snorted and raised its head and stamped, and suddenly he wasn’t as safe as he thought he was.
The bull elk stamped again. Its antlers were barely visible but they were long and sharp and formidable enough that if the elk decided to charge, it could gore him to death.
Fargo once heard of a hunter killed by an elk when the man walked up to it without making sure it was dead. Another man kept penned elk in a corral and sold elk meat at a good prices until one morning he walked into the corral to feed them and one of the bulls wanted out and went through him to escape.
So now Fargo froze and waited for the bull elk to make up its mind. It lowered its head and shook it. He braced for the worst but the elk swung away and went on by, snorting and blowing clouds of breath. He didn’t do anything or say anything and watched until it was out of sight.
Fargo resumed hopping. He cast about for a dark spot on the snow. It was in the open so it should be easy to spot. Then he realized the snow had done a lot of drifting since he was attacked. It could be the remains were covered and he wouldn’t find them. In which case, come daylight, Cud Sten would find him, and that would be that.
He looked back again and saw balls of fire moving about near the cabin. Torches. They had discovered he was missing and they were looking for him. His tracks would be easy to find. Soon they would mount up and come after him.
“Damn,” Fargo said out loud. He hopped to the right and then to the left. He went another ten yards, his frustration mounting.
Then, of a sudden, there it was, a dark patch of fur-covered bones. Most of the wolf was gone. The buzzards and coyotes and other scavengers had been at it. In another week there wouldn’t be anything left except for a few bones that hadn’t been gnawed down to the marrow or dragged off.
The thought chilled him. What if something had dragged off the head? He plopped down on his knees and bent low. The reek wasn’t as awful as it would be if it were summer but it was awful enough. He held his breath and bent lower and there it was, the skull, stripped of eyes and ears and tongues and almost all the fur. The part Fargo was interested in—the jaw—was intact.
Fargo turned so his back and his bound hands were toward the skull. Looking over his shoulder, he gripped the lower jaw and sought to pry it wider so there was room for his wrists. The bone refused to move. It was locked fast, or frozen.
He tried again, worried he might snap it. It moved, but only a little. That would have to do.
The balls of fire had left the vicinity of the cabin and were spreading out among the pines.
Fargo shoved his wrists between the razor teeth. He rubbed back and forth, sawing. It hurt his shoulders. His arms began to ache. He kept at it, counting on the rope to give before he did. He had the best of incentives: Men were out to kill him.
He accidentally brushed his wrist against teeth and winced when they dug into his flesh. From then on he
