head into a bear trap, and if he wasn’t careful, the steel jaws would snap his head right off.
2
The farmers weren’t sheep. They were puppies. Puppies were friendly and innocent and eager to make new friends, exactly like the farmers and their families. They gathered to see Fargo ride up, all of them smiling and kindly and sincere. And bound to get their throats slit if they didn’t realize the frontier wasn’t Ohio and puppies didn’t last long.
Fargo shook hand after hand as Lester Winston introduced him. The lovely young hourglass in the blue bonnet hovered, watching him but too shy to come forward. Fargo had met most of the men and a few of their wives when he suddenly turned and held his hand out to the blonde. “Pleased to meet you.”
She stared at his hand as if it might bite her, then timidly offered her own. “How do you do. I’m Rachel Winston.”
“Lester’s daughter.” Fargo stated the obvious as he lightly clasped her warm fingers.
“Yes,” Rachel said, averting her eyes.
“You don’t have anything to be shy about, as good-looking as you are,” Fargo complimented her.
Rachel glanced at him and blushed a deep red. “My goodness. Do you always come right out and say what’s on your mind?”
“Sometimes I let this do my talking,” Fargo said, and patted his Colt. He said it not so much for her benefit as for the three men who stood to one side, listening and scowling. One was Rinson. The other two were cast from the same mold: hard, cold, armed for bear, their eyes daggers.
“We should be on our way, Mr. Winston,” Rinson addressed Lester. “We don’t want to fall too far behind Mr. Gore.”
“Yes, yes, indeed.” Lester raised his voice for the benefit of the other farmers and informed them that they should climb back on their wagons and get under way. “We have five hours of daylight left and we shouldn’t waste it.”
Ignoring the looks of the three curly wolves, Fargo stepped into the stirrups. When the Winstons’ wagon lumbered into motion, he swung in behind it. Winston and his wife were on the front seat; Rachel and a young boy were riding at the back, and she blushed again as he gigged the Ovaro up close and said, “Hope you don’t mind my company.”
“Not at all.” Rachel indicated her sibling with a bob of her chin. “This is my brother, Billy.”
The boy, who wasn’t more than ten, studied Fargo with keen excitement. “Are you a trapper?”
“No.”
“Are you a mountain man?”
“No.”
“Are you a cowboy?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” Fargo said. “And no, I’m not.” Although he had trapped some, and he had worked with cattle, and he did spend so much time in the mountains, he might as well be a mountain man.
“Are you an Indian fighter?”
“Only when they don’t leave me no choice.”
“What do you do, then?”
Fargo shrugged. “I scout. I track. I go where the wind blows me.”
“That must be fun.”
“It has its moments.”
Rachel patted her brother’s shoulder. “That’s enough. You shouldn’t badger the poor man so.”
“I’m just curious, is all,” Billy said, and showed Fargo his teeth. “When I grow up, I want to have a fine horse like yours. What do you call him?”
“A horse.”
“No, I mean his name.”
“I never gave him one.”
“Why not? A lot of folks do. When I grow up I aim to have a nice horse like you and I’ll call him Lightning because he’ll be the fastest horse there is.”
“Billy,” Rachel said.
“What? I’m only talking.”
Fargo waited for Rachel to say something to him, and when she didn’t, he came out with, “Has Perkins been bothering you?”
Amazement caused her jaw to drop. “How on earth?” Quickly composing herself, Rachel blushed anew and said, “I’d rather not talk about him, if you don’t mind.”
“Your choice.”
But curiosity got the better of her. “How can you possibly know a thing like that? Yes, he’s been a nuisance, always coming up to me and asking if I care to go for walks with him when I’ve made it plain I won’t and never will.” Rachel paused. “Why does he pester me so? Why can’t he be a gentleman?”
“You are honey and he’s a bear.”
Billy laughed, and Rachel did more blushing. “That’s hardly fitting talk, Mr. Fargo. Especially in front of a child.”
“I ain’t no child,” Billy said.
Fargo said to her, “You’ll run into a lot of men like Perkins out here. This isn’t back East, where men are mostly polite and tip their hats to ladies.”
“You’re polite,” Rachel said.
“I get more honey that way,” Fargo said with a grin, and damn if the girl didn’t blush the deepest red yet. She also grinned, which set his blood to racing. Her golden hair, her smooth skin, that body; she was a ripe cherry waiting to be plucked from the tree and tasted, and he always did like cherries.
“I’m starting to think you’re quite naughty.”
“That depends on the lady,” Fargo said bluntly.
Just then hooves drummed and Rinson came up next to him. “I don’t know as I like you talking to these folks.”
“I don’t give a damn what you like.”
“You keep prodding, don’t you? But when we meet up with Victor Gore, you’ll be leaving us whether you want to or not.”
“A regular he-bear, is he?”
“Victor?” Rinson laughed. “He’s more brains than brawn. But when he needs muscle, all he has to do is snap his fingers and he has plenty.”
“That would be you and your friends?”
“All eight of us.” Rinson grinned, lashed his reins and rode on ahead, his horse raising puffs of dust.
Fargo did the numbers in his head. Slag and Perkins were off hunting. Rinson and two others were with the wagons. That meant three more were with Victor Gore. Nine to one, altogether. Not great odds, but he had gone up against worse. He had to be careful, though. Play it wrong and the settlers would be caught in the cross fire.
“I don’t think he likes you very much,” Rachel commented.
“The feeling is mutual.”
“They aren’t very nice, Mr. Gore’s men. They treat us like we’re simpletons. I don’t want to have anything to do with them, but Pa says it’s only until we reach Payette River Valley.”
“What was wrong with Ohio?”
“Nothing,” Rachel said wistfully. “We had a small farm, with cows and chickens and a plow horse and some pigs. I loved it there. But Pa hankers after more land and he says Oregon has plenty just there for the taking.”
To Fargo it smacked of greed, and apparently he wasn’t the only one.
“Ma says we should have been grateful for what we had. But Pa got a lot of other farmers together, and sold our place.”
“You don’t sound happy about it.”
