“Why don’t you say something? How can you stand the odor?”
“Quit flapping your gums and hold your breath and it won’t be as bad.” None of the buffalo tracks, Fargo saw, were fresh. Which was just as well. It wouldn’t do to have a buff come along and take exception to their being there.
“Have I mentioned I’m starting to hate you?”
“Have I mentioned I don’t give a damn?”
“I hope a rattlesnake bites you.”
Fargo was commencing to regret ever agreeing to guide the Keevers. The senator was paying him almost twice what most guide jobs earned, but the money wasn’t everything.
Fargo had been in Denver, gambling, when an older gentleman in a suit and bowler looked him up and asked if he would be so kind as to pay Senator Fulton Keever a visit at the Imperial. Fargo was on a losing streak anyway, so he went.
Keever had welcomed him warmly. It turned out the senator was on a hunting trip and needed a guide. Keever had heard Fargo was in town and sought him out. Fargo wasn’t all that interested until Keever mentioned how much he was willing to pay.
“I have a question, you lump of clay,” Gerty interrupted his musing.
“Hush, girl.” Fargo was tired of her jabber.
“It’s important.”
“I doubt that.”
“Are buffalo friendly?”
“About as friendly as you are.”
“That buffalo over there doesn’t look very friendly.” Gerty pointed up at the rim.
Silhouetted against the sun was a bull buffalo.
2
“Oh, hell.”
Fargo raised the reins but didn’t use his spurs. Movement might provoke the bull into attacking. He waited for it to make up its mind what it was going to do. The wallow hadn’t been used recently, and Fargo had seen no other sign of a herd’s recent passage. So the bull might be by itself. No sooner did the thought cross his mind than two more bulls appeared behind the first.
It wasn’t unusual. Bulls fought fiercely for their harems. Those that lost, or those not quite mature enough to do battle, often gathered in small herds of their own.
“There’s more,” Gerty said.
The total was now six. The first one stamped a hoof and shook its shaggy head, angry at the intrusion.
“Hold tight,” Fargo cautioned, and took a gamble. He reined away from the bulls and rode at a walk toward the opposite rim. He hoped the buffalo would let them be, but the brutes were temperamental and hard to predict.
Gerty giggled. “They sure are funny-looking.”
“Hush.”
“I’m tired of you telling me that. You’re not my father. I don’t have to listen to you.”
Fargo imagined the buffalo charging, and him throwing Gerty in its path, and he grinned. Not that he would. Sure, he’d done his share of what some folks would call wicked things in his life, but there was a line he wouldn’t cross and killing children was one of them.
“Why does that one keep stomping its foot?”
“It doesn’t like the sound of your voice.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re just saying that so I’ll shut up.”
Which was true, but Fargo would be damned if he would admit it. They were near the top of the wallow. Once they reached the grass he would give the Ovaro its head.
Then two more buffalo appeared—in front of them.
Fargo drew rein. He hadn’t counted on this. Like the others they were bulls. Hairy monsters, weighing upward of two thousand pounds when full grown, with a horn spread of three feet from tip to tip. They had few natural enemies. On rare occasions a wolf pack might bring down a crippled or old buff, and grizzlies were known to go after buffalo calves. But generally, buffalo were the lords of the prairie.
“They look almost as mean as you are.”
“They’re trying to decide whether to eat you,” Fargo said as he reined to the right to swing wide of the pair ahead.
“Buffalo don’t eat people, they eat grass. You’re nothing but a big old liar.”
“And you’re a pain in the ass, so we’re even.” Her chatter was distracting him and Fargo couldn’t afford to be distracted. He glanced at the other buffs across the wallow. They hadn’t moved.
“Why don’t you shoot one for our supper? You’ve shot others and I like the meat.”
So did Fargo. He liked it even more than venison but not quite as much as he liked the delicious flesh of mountain lion.
“You’re rude, do you know that? I asked you a question and you didn’t answer.”
Fargo resisted an urge to cuff her. They were almost out of the wallow. Another few moments and they could fly like the wind.
“Do you know what else you are? You’re what Father calls a lout. Do you know what that is? A lout is a person with no manners. You have no manners.” Gerty smiled sweetly.
“And you’re a brat, so we’re even.”
Without warning, Gerty let out with a shrill,
That was all it took; the two nearest buffalo charged.
Fargo used his spurs. The Ovaro exploded into motion and they were up and out of the wallow and flying across the flatland with the two huge buffalo in pursuit. Gerty clutched the saddle horn and squealed in fright. He gripped her arm to steady her and she bit his finger.
The buffalo were gaining. When they wanted to, the monsters could move incredibly fast.
Fargo used his spurs a second time. He held on to Gerty, intent on saving her despite herself.
For a while the issue was in doubt. The bulls stubbornly kept after them. Then the larger of the two came to a stop and the other followed suit, and the pair stood stomping and blowing and tossing their horns.
Fargo didn’t slow. Not until he had gone several hundred yards more and he was sure it was safe.
“Let go of me,” Gerty snapped. “I don’t like people to touch me unless I say they can and I didn’t say you could.”
“Would you rather fall off?” Fargo remembered the warriors he had seen on the horizon. He gazed to the west but they were gone.
“You squeezed too hard. It hurts.” Gerty rubbed her arm. “I’m going to ask Father to get rid of you. We don’t need you, anyhow. That other man, Owen, knows just as much as you do, and he’s a lot nicer to me.”
Fargo frowned. Lem Owen was a fellow frontiersman, but there any resemblance ended. Owen was short and stubby and never, ever, bathed. On hot days he stank to high heaven. Back East they had a saying that “cleanliness was next to godliness”; west of the Mississippi people were more fond of their sweat.
The real difference between Fargo and Owen was in their outlook. Fargo never killed unless he had to, even when it came to game. Owen loved to kill for killing’s sake. A while back Owen made headlines by taking part in a wager with another hunter over who could shoot the most buffalo in a single day. The other man shot 204, Owen brought down 263. They left the buffs to rot.
There were other incidents. Once, drunk, Owen roped a dog and dragged it up and down a street for the fun of it. The dog died.
Another time, Owen heard about a farmer who had raised a buck from a fawn so that the buck was as tame as a kitten and would eat out of the farmer’s hand. The buck also had antlers that were the talk of the territory. Owen decided he wanted the rack so he shot the buck dead one morning when the farmer called it in to eat, and when the farmer objected, Owen and a few of his friends beat the man senseless. The farmer was so scared, he
