“My offer still holds,” Rooster declared, and led them to the next saloon, a place called Spirits. It had a painting of naked ladies on the wall behind the bar and a small chandelier.
Customers were playing cards and drinking but it wasn’t as rowdy as the Sluice.
Fargo chose a corner table. He held a chair for Fanny and Rooster fetched a bottle and three glasses. As soon as his old friend claimed a seat, he leaned back and asked, “What can you tell me about this bear?”
“Brain Eater?” Rooster grew grim. “He’s the worst man-killer I’ve ever come across, and I’ve got pretty near seventy winters under my belt.”
“You’re sure it’s a male?”
“So everyone says.”
“You’ve been out after him?”
“Twice so far,” Rooster said. “Each time I came back empty-handed. He’s like a ghost, Skye. And he’s so smart it’s spooky. To tell you the truth, I was thinking about calling it quits. But if you’re willing to partner up, I’ll stay and we can go after him together.”
“Brain Eater is as good as dead,” Fargo said, and grinned.
“You’re not listening,” Rooster said. “This bear ain’t like any other. We go after him, hoss, there’s a good chance neither of us will come back alive.”
3
Fargo discovered that when Fanny called it a circus, she wasn’t kidding.
Five thousand dollars was a lot of money. To some it was a fortune. So it was no surprise that the bounty had drawn would-be bear hunters from all over. That so many of them had never done any bear hunting didn’t matter. All they cared about was the money.
Rooster took Fargo on a tour of the saloons so Fargo could meet some of them and see for himself.
“It’s quite a collection,” Rooster said dryly.
Fargo agreed.
There were farmers. There were store clerks. There was a bank teller who admitted he’d never hunted so much as a chipmunk but who told Fargo, in all seriousness, “I don’t see where this bear will be a problem. All I have to do is point my gun and shoot.” There were buffalo hunters. There was a rancher who needed the money to keep his ranch afloat. There were mule skinners. There was a boy who couldn’t be more than twelve, who showed up with two cents to his name, toting a slingshot. Fargo was introduced to an Englishman who had brought a special rifle he used to bag elephants in Africa. There were several women, including a mother with three children who had lost her husband in an accident. Out of the hundred or so, only a handful had ever hunted bear.
“What do you think?” Rooster asked when they were at the last saloon.
“I think I need a drink.” Fargo bought another bottle and they planted themselves at the end of the bar. As he filled their glasses he remarked, “They have no damn notion what they’re up against.”
“It’s plumb ridiculous.”
“If the town council had any sense, they’d send these folks packing.”
“The council is hoping one of the hunters will get lucky and put an end to the killings.”
“That, and it’s good for business,” Fargo guessed. The saloons alone were taking in more money in an hour than they used to make in a week.
“Here’s to greed,” Rooster said, tipping his glass to his lips.
“Here’s to stupid,” Fargo said, and did the same.
“So the way I see it, hoss,” Rooster said, “is that you and me have as good a chance as anyone and a better chance than most of tracking this Brain Eater and splattering his brains.”
Fargo had shot black bears and grizzlies. A few times when he had to in order not to be eaten, a few times when he was halfstarved and a bear made the mistake of wandering into his sights before a deer or a rabbit, and once when he needed a hide to make a robe for a Sioux friend who just happened to be female. “Do you still have your Sharps?”
“Wouldn’t hunt with any other gun,” Rooster said. “Last year I brought down a buff at five hundred yards.”
“That’s some shooting.”
“You’ve still got yours, I take it?”
“I took to using a Henry,” Fargo revealed.
Rooster was about to take another drink but stopped. “Why in Sam Hill would you part with your Sharps? You could outshoot me with that beauty you had.”
“A Henry holds more rounds.”
Rooster slapped down his glass, spilling some of the whiskey. “Rounds my ass. Why, those things are only fit for chickens and chipmunks.”
“I’ve dropped a few buffalo with it.”
“Hell,” Rooster said in disgust. “Bet you had to shoot the poor buff eight or ten times. You know and I know that when it comes to stopping a critter in its tracks, there’s nothing like a Sharps.”
“Sharps do come in larger calibers . . .” Fargo began.
“Damn right they do. Mine is a .52. It’s a regular cannon. What caliber is your chipmunk killer?”
“You know damn well the Henry is a .44.”
Rooster snorted. “When we find Brain Eater, what do you intend to do? Club him to death? A bee would sting him worse than your girlie gun.”
“Did you just say girlie gun?”
“You’d be better off using that kid’s slingshot.”
“You’re full of it,” Fargo said. But his friend had a valid point. A Henry
“The hell I am. Look me in the face and tell me you’re going to go after a griz as big as a Conestoga with your pitiful .44.”
Fargo frowned.
“I didn’t think so.”
More than a little annoyed, Fargo said testily, “I never said I gave up the Sharps entirely. A friend keeps it for me. I use it now and then. And before you ask, yes, I left the Henry and brought the Sharps.”
“What’s her name?”
“Who?”
“Your friend.”
“Go to hell.”
Rooster cackled and smacked the bar. “That’s the spirit. Between your Sharps and mine, Brain Eater is fit to be skinned.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“No,” Rooster said. “I don’t.”
An hour later Fargo and Rooster had finished the bottle and Fargo was set to order another when a commotion broke out in the street. Shouts flew from one end to the other.
“I wonder what that’s about,” Rooster said.
The next moment the batwings parted and a townsman thrust his head in. “There’s been another one! They have him in a wagon down to the undertaker’s.”
An exodus ensued, with a lot of pushing and shoving before everyone made it out. Fargo held back and waited for the press to thin, then joined the scores converging on a building with a sign that read simply, MORTICIAN. He had to shoulder through the crowd to a buckboard. A man in the bed had pulled back a canvas and onlookers were craning their necks to see the remains. One glimpse was enough for most; it was all they could stomach, and they had to turn away before they got sick.
Fargo wasn’t as squeamish. He’d seen freighters after the Apaches got done with them, and settlers after they had been paid a visit by the Sioux. He’d seen a man who had been clawed to ribbons by a mountain lion, and
