Badlands Bloodsport

“The night belongs to Wendigo, the red man’s Devil. After dark is when Great Rolling Head, and Rawhead and Bloody Bones, prey on the Cheyennes. Those are the Cheyenne bogeymen. A Cheyenne will face almost any danger during the day, but superstition cripples all of them at night.”

“Why, it’s primitive nonsense,” Aldritch put in. “Great Rolling Head, indeed.”

“Sylvester, they are primitive,” Ericka reminded him. “They subsist from century to century without ever changing their customs. They have seen the white man’s wheel, but they choose not to harness it.”

“They’re all murdering savages,” he snarled. “That’s not primitive—it’s criminal.”

“Most Indians are thieves,” Fargo allowed, “but very few are outright murderers. In fact, most tribes are peaceful. After the War of 1812 the American government set up the Indian Territory just west of Missouri and Arkansas. I’ve spent plenty of time there. The Cherokees, the Choctaw, the Delaware, Shawnee, Miami, Kickapoo, Seneca, Creek, Seminole, you name ’em—all once warlike but now peaceful. That’s in spite of the fact that they live on worthless land and eat rations that are moldy and full of weevils.”

“Those are not the free-ranging western tribes,” Aldritch protested. “Did not these Cheyenne hooligans try to murder us today?”

“You got that bass-ackwards,” Fargo assured him. “They didn’t send out the first soldier—only the second. Skeets and Derek opened the ball when they killed that herd spy. I’ll grant you that their sense of justice is mighty hard. But they aren’t just killing us for sport.”

“A distinction without a difference,” Blackford grumped.

So much for the Quality, Fargo thought as he dropped back to ride alongside the mud wagon driven by Derek the Terrible.

“Why, hello,” Jessica greeted him, looking out the open side at him. “I was beginning to wonder if I was too common for your company.”

Fargo touched his hat. “There’s only two classes in the American West, muffin. The Quality and the Equality.”

She tittered. “You aren’t half a liar, are you? But it’s kind chivalry.”

“No empty chivalry—it’s the truth.”

“Well, I might believe you. But Sylvester and His Lordship will not.”

Although there were plenty of horses on the lead line behind the fodder wagon, Slappy and Montoya had lost their saddles to thieves in Pueblo and now Slappy rode in the wagon.

“Speaking of His Lordship,” Fargo told Slappy, “I just found out his front name. It’s Percy.”

Slappy shook with laughter. “Percy? That’s what you name a cat, not a man!”

“Actually,” Jessica corrected, “it’s Percival.”

Slappy hooted. “Oh, well, then pardon me all to hell for snickerin’. There’s a manly handle, sure enough.”

Derek, who had a case on Jessica, now called back resentfully: “Percy ain’t a bit more sissified than Skye, if you cogitate on it. I have never met a man named Skye.”

“You ain’t never hanged one, neither, huh?” Slappy taunted him. “Derek . . . another weak-sister English name.”

“You’d best curb that rough side to your tongue,” Derek warned, “before I bloody well slice it out of your head.”

Fargo suddenly felt a wicked impulse. “What about Slappy—that can’t be your real front name?”

Fargo already knew the real name. Slappy was silent a few moments, gazing into the moonlit darkness on the other side of the mud wagon.

“It’s Eb,” he replied.

“Eb? That must be bobtail for something.”

“Damn you to hell, Fargo! It’s Ebenezer and you know it.”

Derek laughed so hard he almost fell off the box. “Ah yes, another good weak-sister name from England.”

Despite this moment of levity, Fargo knew the waters were boiling between him, Derek, and Skeets. Both men knew he would be dealing them misery for their dirty trick yesterday, and Fargo still wasn’t convinced they had ever intended to turn him loose. But for now they knew they needed him to survive just as Fargo needed their firepower. The moment they were out of danger, however, Fargo fully expected a bullet in the back—and Derek seemed most likely to pull the trigger.

“Skye?” Jessica called out to him. “Will we girls have a chance to stretch our . . . limbs before we make camp?”

“We’ll have to spell the horses,” Fargo replied.

“Well, I want to walk out a bit, but I’m afraid to go alone. Mightn’t you accompany me?”

“Seems the gentlemanly thing to do,” Fargo agreed.

“Do you have a pimp, Jess?” Derek called down, his voice tight with anger. “Or can I apply for the position?”

Slappy sniggered. “The position, hangman, ain’t yet been worked out.”

“Both of you coarse bumpkins,” Jessica snapped, “can just put a stopper on your gobs. I’m only talking about a walk.”

“With savages all about?” Derek pressed on. “Bull! You heard what that trapper in Santa Fe said about what they do to white women. They strip them naked, tie them to a tree, and stone them to death. Cor! And then the red buggers behead them and scoop the brains out to make soup.”

“If I was taking a stroll on the prairie with you, Derek, would you complain about this brain soup?”