Black Hills Badman

At the crack there was a roar of pain. Owen’s rifle spanged, four, five, six times. He was a good shot. The trunk was struck again and again.

Fargo chuckled. He worked the Henry’s lever and leaned his shoulder against the tree. “Almost got you that time, didn’t I?” he mimicked Owen’s earlier taunt.

“You did get me, you son of a bitch! Nicked my leg. It hurts like hell.”

“Show yourself and I’ll try to do better.” Fargo scanned the nearest trees and spied a spruce that suited his need.

“Funny man. But this isn’t doing you any good. You might as well leave while you still can. By now Keever has the herd in sight. It shouldn’t take him long to pick out the white buff. Any minute now we’ll hear the shot.”

Flattening, Fargo crawled toward the spruce. Now if only Owen didn’t spot him.

“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue? You’ve gone to all this trouble, and for what?”

Fargo crawled faster. He went around the tree and rose into a crouch. The lowest limb was within easy reach. He pulled himself up, branch after branch, until he had climbed twenty feet.

“Answer me, damn you.”

Fargo parted two limbs. And there was Owen, on his belly in the grass. Snail-slow, Fargo slid the Henry’s barrel between the limbs and rested it on the lowest. He lined up the rear sight with the front sight and both sights with Lem Owen.

“What are you up to in there? Are you trying to flank me?” Owen turned his head right and left.

Fargo waited for him to stop.

Owen cast a puzzled look at the trees, then cupped a hand to his mouth. “Are you still there?”

Fargo fired. He jacked the lever and went to take aim again but Owen was prone, both arms flung out. Quickly, Fargo descended. He couldn’t see Owen. If he’d only wounded him, Owen might be waiting for him to show himself. But he couldn’t afford more delay. He sprinted out into the grass.

Lem Owen was still there, still facedown. There was no need to roll him over to confirm he was dead. Much of the top of his head was gone, and his brains were oozing out.

Fargo ran to the Ovaro. He mounted and rode past the body. Fifty yards on was a hollow and in it was Owen’s horse. Now all Fargo had to do was backtrack to where Owen had parted company with Keever.

The grass was dotted with droppings. There were scores of wallows. A lot of buffalo had been this way.

Fargo worried that he had miles to go and would be too late. Then he remembered. Owen said something about being able to hear the shot. Keever couldn’t be that far.

A low rise rose like a serrated saw. Fargo goaded the Ovaro up it but stopped short of the rim. Sliding down, he crept to the crest. He smelled them and heard them before he saw them: hundreds of shaggy brutes, most grazing. A few bulls pawed the ground. Calves gamboled playfully about.

Nowhere was there sign of a white one.

Fargo turned to the right and the left. The rise went for hundred of yards in both directions. He saw no one and was about to stand and walk to the Ovaro when a head popped up two hundred yards away. A head with white hair.

Stooping so low his nose practically brushed the ground, Fargo glided toward it.

It was Keever, all right, and his attention was fixed on the herd.

Fargo glanced in the same direction, and tensed. There it was—the white buffalo. If Fargo had to judge, he would say it wasn’t much over six months old. It was said that buffalo nursed until seven or eight months, and that was what this one was doing. It made a perfect target.

Fargo threw caution to the breeze, and ran. Keever would hear him but he didn’t give a damn.

Oblivious to its danger, the white buffalo continued to nurse.

The senator had his eye to the tube above the barrel. Any moment now and he would shoot.

Fargo took a few more bounds and stopped in his tracks. What the hell was he doing? he asked himself. There was an easy way to foil the bastard. Grinning at his inspiration, he pointed the Henry at the sky and banged off eight shots while whooping like a Comanche on the warpath.

Shaggy heads rose in alarm. Bulls bellowed and cows snorted, and the next thing, the entire herd was in motion. Every last buff wheeled to the south and joined the stampede, the white buffalo and its mother among them.

“Nooooo!”

Senator Keever was on his feet, staring after the fleeing buffs in consternation. He jerked his rifle up but he didn’t have a shot. So he ran after them, yelling at the top of his lungs. A crazy stunt, since he had no hope of catching them. He was almost to the bottom of the rise when a giant brown shape rose up out of a wallow.

“Keever!” Fargo shouted, but the senator couldn’t hear him over the din. Fargo snapped the Henry up but before he could shoot the bull was on its intended victim.

At the last second Keever must have heard it. He spun, directly into the bull’s path. A curved horn caught him full in the chest and he was swept off his feet as if he were weightless. A toss of that great head, and the senator went flying. He tumbled shoulders over heels and flopped to a stop. The bull didn’t slow. It ran to join its fellows, one horn black, the other horn glistening red.

Fargo went to see. There was nothing he could do. The hole was big enough to shove his fist through. Keever’s eyes were wide in terror and would stay that way this side of eternity.

The drum of hooves brought Fargo around in a crouch. This time it wasn’t a buffalo; it was Gerty, quirting her horse, her young face twisted in fury. She rode right at him, screaming, “I’ll kill you! Kill you! Kill you! Kill you!”

Fargo dodged, grabbed a leg as she swept by, and upended her. He felt no sympathy when she bounced a few times. She was unhurt and swearing like a river rat as he forked her under his arm and carried her to the Ovaro.

“Let go of me, you wretch! Where are you taking me?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

It took three nights of searching. The woman with the withered face was half a mile from the village, flitting among the trees. She gave a start when Fargo rode up and dumped the bundle at her feet.

“You!” she exclaimed. “I remember you.”

“I bring you a gift.”

She stared at the blanket. It was tied at both ends and bulged and moved as if alive. “What is this?”

“The girl you have been searching for.”

The woman titled her head. “She does not sound like Morning Dew.”

“Keep her anyway.” Fargo touched his hat brim and used his spurs. He didn’t look back.

LOOKING FORWARD!

The following is the opening

section of the next novel in the exciting

Trailsman series from Signet:

THE TRAILSMAN #334

COLORADO CLASH

Colorado, 1861—three men dead, a town filled

with ugly secrets and Fargo trying to stay alive long enough

to learn the truth.

Skye Fargo might not have found the body if he hadn’t decided to stop by the creek and fill his canteen.

Late September in Colorado was a melancholy time with the thinness of the afternoon sunlight and the snow-peaked mountains looking cold and aloof.