The blast and her impact were simultaneous. The sunlight blinked out. Pain filled every particle of his body. He felt a crushing weight on his chest and pushed but it wouldn’t budge. Gradually he realized it was Brain Eater; she was on top of him. Her hair was in his mouth and nose, her blood on his neck. Spitting and coughing, he twisted his head so he could breathe.
A large shape blotted out the sky.
“Oh God,” Fargo said, thinking that the grizzly was getting up.
“No,” Wendy said. “Just me and the tyke.”
Fargo blinked. The large shape was the Ovaro. The Brit was dismounting, Bethany in his arm. “Where the hell have you two been?”
“You’re the one who told me not to stop until we reached town, remember?” Wendy set Bethany down. “I couldn’t do it, though. I couldn’t desert you. So we came back.”
Bethany squatted and put her hand on Fargo’s cheek. “You have the bear on you.”
“I noticed.”
Wendy was admiring the griz. “Look at the size of this thing. And you killed it without needing my elephant gun. I’m impressed, Yank.”
Fargo glared. “My ribs are about to cave in.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
The Brit tied one end of Fargo’s rope to the bear’s leg and looped the rope around the saddle horn and goaded the Ovaro. By gradual inches the grizzly slid far enough off that Fargo could wriggle out from under. Wendolyn and Bethany helped him to his feet.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, you look like hell.”
“Thanks.”
Bethany giggled. “You smell like bear pee.”
Fargo looked down at himself and sniffed. She was right. He handed his Colt to Wendy and waded into a pool and sat down. The water came as high as his chin. He let it soothe his hurts and aches.
“There’s a lot to do yet,” the Brit reminded him.
That there was.
They skinned Brain Eater, Fargo doing most of the work since Wendolyn was still weak. They didn’t have the salt to cure the hide but that didn’t matter. It wouldn’t rot before they reached town.
Since Wendy and Bethany had to ride, they couldn’t roll up the hide and tie it on the saddle. So Fargo rigged a travois.
It was slow going but they reached Gold Creek about half an hour after the sun went down.
Their arrival caused quite a stir. Everyone came to see the hide and finger the claws. Many snipped hairs as a keepsake.
Mayor Petty was especially pleased to hear that both bears were dead. He called a town meeting in the street and after a long-winded speech about how devoted he was to the public good and how well his plan had worked out, he somewhat reluctantly handed over the bounty.
Fargo and Wendolyn agreed to split it into three equal shares. They looked up the parson and explained the situation and the minister said he knew of a good family that would be happy to take Bethany in.
Fargo didn’t think it would be so hard. He squatted and she placed her little hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes.
“I’ll miss you.”
Fargo coughed.
Tears trickled down Bethany’s cheeks. “I wish I could stay with you. You’d make a good pa.”
“No,” Fargo said. “I wouldn’t.”
Bethany hugged him, his face buried against his shirt. She said something he didn’t quite hear.
“What was that?”
“I love you.”
Fargo pried her loose and nodded at the parson, who picked Bethany up. She was crying.
“Don’t worry, my son,” the parson said. “She’ll be cared for as if she was their own.”
Fargo walked out of the church without looking back. Wendy called his name but he kept on walking. He needed a bottle of whiskey. He planned to get drunk and stay drunk for a week or so.
That should be more than enough.
LOOKING FORWARD!
The following is the opening
section of the next novel in the exciting
TRAILSMAN #357 STAGECOACH SIDEWINDERS
A shot cracked sharp and clear from around the next bend in the winding mountain road.
Skye Fargo drew rein and placed his hand on the Colt at his hip. A big man, broad of shoulder and chest, he wore buckskins and a white hat turned brown by the dust of his travels. He heard shouts and the sounds of the stage that was ahead of him coming to a stop. Slicking his six-shooter, he gigged the Ovaro to the bend. He could see without being seen.
Four masked men were pointing six-shooters at the stage. A fifth had dismounted. The driver’s arms were in the air and the pale faces of passengers peered out the windows.
The fifth bandit swaggered over and opened the stage door.
“Get your asses out here,” he barked, “and keep your hands where I can see ’em.”
The first to emerge was a terrified man in a suit and bowler. He cowed against the coach and fearfully glanced at the outlaws and their guns.
The next was a woman who had to be in her eighties if not older. She held her head defiantly high and when the outlaw took hold of her arm, she shrugged free and said, “Don’t touch me, you filth.”
The outlaw hit her. He backhanded her across the face and when she fell against the coach, he laughed.
“Leave her be, damn you!”
Out of the stage flew a young tigress with blazing red hair. She shoved the outlaw so hard that he tottered back and then she put her arm around the older woman to comfort her.
The outlaw swore and raised his pistol to strike her.
“No,” said a man who wore a flat-crowned black hat and a black duster. “Not her or the old one.”
The man on the ground glanced up, swore some more, and lowered his revolver. “Hand over your valuables,” he commanded, “and be quick about it.”
Fargo had witnessed enough. He didn’t like the odds but he couldn’t sit there and do nothing. Staying in shadow at the edge of the road, he rode toward them at a walk. His intent was to get as close as he could before he let lead fly but he was still twenty yards out when one of the robbers pointed and hollered.
“Someone’s comin’!”
Fargo fired. His shot caught the shouter high on the shoulder and twisted the man in his saddle. Two others started to rein around to get out of there but the man in the black duster and the outlaw on the ground had more grit; they shot back. A leaden bee buzzed Fargo’s ear. The man in the duster fired again and Fargo felt a sharp pain in his right leg at the same instant that he put a slug into the outlaw standing by the stage. The man staggered, then recovered and ran to his horse and swung up. Fargo fired yet again but by now all the outlaws were racing up the road. He didn’t go after them. He was bleeding.
