Jim looked at Hank, who was nodding. Finally Hank said, “Sure, when do you need it ready?”
“Tomorrow sometime, but it may not get used for a few days. It depends on how soon I can track down our future guest.”
“Can I ask who that might be?” Hank said.
“No,” Fargo replied. “I’ll make it a surprise.”
Fargo smiled. The stage was set. Now all he had to do was what he did best—track down his future prisoner, Sarah Brant.
Anne couldn’t enjoy the train trip. She was worried about Fargo. She knew that he was in a battle he might lose. And pay for with his life. Friendship mattered to Fargo. Nothing would stop him.
The train offered the convenience of speed and the inconvenience of noisy children and irritating drummers who thought that their dubious charms just might get them a little fun when nighttime came and trysts were possible in certain parts of the passenger cars.
A man with a ginger mustache that extended at least an inch from both sides of his upper lip abruptly sat down next to her without permission or warning. His checkered suit and cheap cigar marked him as one of the standard-issue peddlers who roamed the West in pursuit of modest fortunes and immodest moments with as many women as they could get their hands on.
He looked over at her and smiled his cold rattle-snake smile and said, “Mind if I sit down?”
“Looks like you already have.”
“Well, I guess I have at that.” He tipped his derby. “Gil Fairbain. At your service. Very nice to meet you.”
She stared at him a moment, not matching his greeting. “There are other seats you could be sitting in.”
His smile revealed cheap false teeth. “But none with a beautiful woman in the seat beside me, madam.”
Then she sat watching the foothills go by in the late afternoon.
Fairbain said, tapping his chest, “I’ve got some good rye here. A whole pint of it. If you’d care to have some.”
“No, thanks.” Still looking out the window.
“Well, then I guess I’ll just have to drink alone.” Silence between them for a time. Rattle and sway of train. Cry of babies. Foot slaps of older kids running up and down the aisle. She concentrated on the scenery. Shadows were forming now, lending the land a purple beauty. He concentrated on his bottle of rye. She could almost hear his mind working like a vast machine, trying to come up with some approach that would make her throw herself into his arms.
Finally, his brain seemed to have settled on a tack to take with this woman who was treating him so coldly. The rye likely helped to convince him that he was about to reap the rewards of his ingenuity.
Her neck stiff from looking out the window, she had to sit back and face forward. This was his call to action.
“You probably couldn’t guess what I am.”
She laughed. “A drummer who doesn’t have the horse sense to quit pestering women who find him obnoxious?”
His inebriated state allowed him to brush away her nasty remark. He even smiled. “That’s the disguise I use. Looking like a drummer. That’s how I can travel around without the law getting me.”
Out of boredom, she decided to tease him some more. “You’re a famous bank robber?”
“Guess again.”
“An Indian chief?”
“You’re not being serious, madam. So I’ll tell you and save you the trouble. I’m a gunfighter.”
“That’s right,” he said, sitting up in his seat, stretching his shoulders as if his arms were massive and he needed more room. Pathetic. “A lot of men.”
“That must be a scary calling. Facing down killers that way.”
He touched the left side of his long mustache. “That’s one thing I gave up a long time ago.”
“Oh?”
“Being afraid. Nobody scares me now. Nobody.” She could have kissed him. Not because he was desirable but because he’d given her a way to get rid of him. “That’s quite a statement. Nobody scares you.”
“Well, you get that way after you’ve killed a lot of men.”
“It’s funny you’re a gunfighter.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“That’s what my lover is.”
Faint concern shone in his brown eyes. “Is that so?”
“You ever heard of the Trailsman?”
“Sure,” he said, “who hasn’t?” Then, realizing the name she’d just dropped: “You know the Trailsman?”
“We’re practically engaged. In fact, he’s waiting for me in San Francisco. I’ll introduce you to him when we get there. I’ll tell him all about all the men you’ve killed. I know most gunfighters would be afraid of him. But I’ll bet you’re not.”
He offered no good-bye. He jammed his pint of rye back into his suit coat, tamped his derby down, and headed for another empty seat. The rest of the trip she sat blissfully alone.
It took Fargo less than twenty-four hours to track down Miss Brant. The entire town had heard about Cain’s will, so he knew she and her father had heard the news as well. It appeared she had done exactly what Fargo had expected her to do. She had headed to Sacramento to hire more guns to work for her.
From a rock high on the ridge he watched her leave her ranch, riding in a two-seater black buggy with five guards. Ten minutes behind her, he and his Ovaro stallion hit the Placerville road to follow. Four miles down the trail, he cut off to a high ridge on the right, riding fast to get ahead of her.
The black buggy was pulled by two horses and she didn’t seem to be in any hurry, instead deciding to take the bumps and turns in the road a little slower to smooth the ride. She sat comfortably on a padded bench behind a driver, shaded from the sunlight by a fold-up roof. Two guards on horseback in front of the buggy, two behind.
Fargo knew every inch of the Placerville road, and knew exactly the best place to capture the woman. And he got there easily ahead of her.
He stood waiting patiently behind a tall rock near the edge of the road as the buggy and riders approached.
The two lead riders passed him, their guns in leather, their carbines in sheaths. Obviously, no one in this group had been expecting trouble.
As the buggy came level with him, Fargo stepped from behind the boulder and said, “Lot more of you than there are of me. But I can take at least two of you out before you can get your guns out of their holsters.”
“Fargo, you bastard,” Sarah Brant snapped.
“Fargo?” one of the men said. “You mean the Trailsman?”
“He’s not as tough as you’d think,” she said, “and anyway, I don’t pay you to be sissies.”
Fargo saw that he had the edge, at least momentarily. They looked impressed with the man confronting them. Or at least, as Sarah Brant had implied, impressed with his reputation.
“One at a time, drop your guns, starting with you.”
He nodded for the first lead rider to lift his six-shooter from his holster. Then he said, “Now the carbine.”
“Some man you are,” Sarah Brant said to the guard.
It took several minutes before the men were shorn of their weapons. Then Fargo said to the driver, “You stay.” Then to the others he said, “I want all the rest of you to get the hell out of here.”
“We’re comin’ back for you, mister,” one man snapped.
“Bring some guts when you do.”
Sarah Brant laughed at Fargo’s joke. She enjoyed seeing these cowed men humiliated even more.
But the men rode off.
Fargo spoke to the driver. “Move the buggy slowly off the road this way, then get down and tie off the horses.” Then he turned to the passenger. “Miss Brant, would you please remain seated and do not move. I would
