“With that much land, he will, in effect, run the territory, just as he has been claiming.”
Fargo sat back. It all made perfect, horrifying sense. And Mike Durn did not care one whit that the loss of life on both sides would be frightfully high. “Why haven’t you reported this?”
“To who, exactly? We have no marshal. We have no sheriff. The only person in Polson with any authority is, ironically, Durn himself.”
“The army can take a hand when a civilian stirs up an uprising,” Fargo pointed out.
“Do you realize how far the nearest fort is? It would take me weeks to get there. And all I have are suspicions. I have no proof. Without that, what good would the army be?”
“They would send someone to investigate,” Fargo said. Which Colonel Travis had done on the strength of a few rumors. If she had gone, Travis would have sent a whole company.
“Maybe I should have,” Sally begrudged him. “But I doubt I would have made it out of Mission Valley. Durn has me watched day and night. Were I to rent a wagon, he would find out and want to know where I was going.” She shook her head. “No. I am fighting Durn as ably as I know how. Which is to do some stirring up of my own. A lot of people don’t like the way he treats the Indians. Especially how he is turning innocent maidens into doves. I fight fire with fire in the hope that if enough people see him for what he is, his scheme will fail.”
Fargo conceded that made sense.
“But even there Durn has outfoxed me,” Sally brought up. “He has been bringing in a lot of men, vermin who do whatever he wants. By now there are almost as many of his people as there are those who were here before Durn came. And more of his kind show up every day.”
Fargo saw where she was leading. It wouldn’t be long before Durn had enough backers to virtually do as he pleased. The realization sobered him. There was no time for him to go to Colonel Travis, not when it might take the colonel weeks to prevail on Washington to act. The army’s wheels of command turned exceedingly slowly. By the time soldiers were sent, Indians and whites could be slaughtering one another. All it would take was one massacre for the newspapers to whip their readers into a red-hating frenzy, with dire consequences for the Flatheads and others.
Fargo had to act, and act soon. But there was not much he could do, the condition he was in. Three more days went by. Days of frustration, and growing impatience. Fargo had Sally ask around to learn if Birds Landing had been caught; apparently, she had gotten away.
The next morning, Fargo was in the kitchen fixing coffee when the back door unexpectedly opened and in strolled Big Mike Durn. Fargo instinctively reached for his Colt and frowned when his hand brushed his empty holster. “This is a surprise.”
“It shouldn’t be,” Mike Durn said. Leaving the door open, he walked to the table and pulled out a chair. “I have a vested interest in Miss Brook.”
“Sally is in her store.” Through the open door Fargo glimpsed Kutler, Tork, and Grunge.
“It is not her I came to talk to,” Durn informed him. “It is you.”
Fargo leaned against the counter and folded his arms. “Me?”
“Surely you did not think I was unaware you were here? I know everything that goes on in Polson.
“It must be nice to be God.”
“It is,” Durn said with a smug grin. “I am a generous god, too. I permitted you to stay so you could recover and be fit to travel.”
“Permitted?”
“No one does anything in Polson without my say-so,” Durn bragged. “But enough about me. Now that you are on your feet, the time has come for you to move on.”
“What if I don’t want to go anywhere?” Fargo said.
“You do not have a choice. By tomorrow morning you will be gone. Say, by ten o’clock. One minute past ten, and if you are still here, well—” Durn did not finish the threat.
“You want me out of your hair,” Fargo said.
“I want you away from Sally,” Durn corrected him. “She can be a headache, but I have designs on the lady. The two of you living here doesn’t sit well with me.”
“Are you jealous?”
“What do I have to be jealous about?” Durn snapped. “If I thought for a second that you and her had—” Again he stopped, and indulged in a sinister smile.
“What about my Colt?”
“What about it? I gave it to one of my men. Hoyt is his name. He lost his fording a river a week ago.”
“And my rifle?”
“The Henry? I took a fancy to that myself. It is up in my room.”
“I want them back,” Fargo told him.
“Is there no end to your pigheadedness?” Mike Durn leaned toward him. “You don’t tell
But was he? Fargo wondered. He would not put it past Durn to have him ambushed on the trail. “Anything else?” he asked when the would-be lord of the territory did not get up and go.
“You impressed me the other night in the saloon. I have never seen anyone take the punishment you did.”
“Go to hell. You made it happen.”
Durn ignored the comment. “I doubt anyone in my employ could endure half of what you did. You are tough. Damned tough. Which is why I am willing to let you stay in Polson provided you abide by two conditions.”
Fargo was genuinely surprised. “Two seconds ago you wanted me out of here. Now I can stay?”
“The first condition is that you do not so much as speak to Sally Brook, ever. The second is that you come to work for me.”
All Fargo could do was stare.
“I can use a man like you. In your own way you are as famous as Jim Bridger and Kit Carson. Imagine if word got around that the famous Skye Fargo was riding for me. It would bring people over to my side who otherwise wouldn’t give me a second thought.”
“You’re serious?”
Durn made a teepee of his hands. “It is an either-or proposition. Either you leave, or you stay and work for me. And before you say no, bear in mind that I can make it well worth your while once I run the whole territory.”
“Do you walk on water, too?”
Big Mike Durn laughed. “I don’t need to. I’m not out to claim men’s souls. I just want everyone to think as I think, to see that there isn’t room for us and the redskins. That we must drive the red scum out or exterminate them.”
Fargo glanced out the back door. Kutler, Tork, and Grunge were watching and listening, ready to spring to Durn’s aid if need be. “You must need spectacles. From where I stand, there is plenty of space for both.”
Durn’s features hardened. “So you are one of those, are you? A red-lover? You care more about those who kill your kind than about those who are killed.”
“I have lived with Indians. They are not the rabid wolves you paint them to be.”
“Oh, no?” Durn half rose but sat back down. “Tell that to all the whites that Indians have slaughtered.”
“Whites have done their share.” Fargo could recite a long list. Whole villages wiped out, every warrior, woman, and child. Blankets tainted with disease given free to grateful Indians who died in the most horrible agony.
“They brought it on themselves,” Durn snapped. “I doubt there is a white man on the frontier who hasn’t lost a family member or a friend to those stinking devils, or knows someone who has.” His voice dropped to a growl. “I lost my own parents.”
“What?”
“You heard me. My mother and father were killed by hostiles. They were part of a wagon train bound for Oregon Country and the train was attacked. My parents were last in line. The Indians were on them before anyone could do anything. After it was over, the wagon boss found what was left of them.” Durn gazed out the window but
