Badlands Bloodsport

Fargo was too absorbed in his own pleasure to count, but at least five or six times she “banged off,” crying out loudly each time and panting like a dehydrating animal. When she felt Fargo going for the strong finish, she cupped his ass and cried out in his ear, “Do me hard, Skye! Hard, hard, harder!”

By now they had left the chemise and were plowing through the grass as Fargo poured it to her. She climaxed one last time as he exploded inside her, her legs locked behind his back. For a few minutes they lay too dazed and exhausted to even know where they were.

Fargo felt himself floating to the surface of awareness. Finally he managed to speak. “You were right. You just lay there like an old biddy, gritting your teeth until I was done.”

She had opened her mouth to retort when a sudden gunshot, from the direction of camp, made both of them sit up.

Fargo didn’t wait for Jessica to dress, racing back toward camp with his Henry at a high port. When he arrived, everything was at sixes and sevens, everyone milling around the conveyances. Sylvester Aldritch stood about forty yards out to the east, aiming through the scope of his expensive German hunting rifle.

Fargo had no idea what was going on, but he didn’t like the stench of it. He jacked a round into the Henry’s chamber and tossed a snap shot toward Aldritch’s right foot. A plume of sand spouted up, only inches from his oxblood boot, and he spun around to stare at Fargo.

“What in bleeding Christ is that jackanapes up to?” Fargo demanded of Slappy.

“Ah, I was standing guard when that Cheyenne spy come drifting in closer to take a squint around. I was notched on him with Montoya’s rifle, so there weren’t no danger nor nothing. Then Aldritch gets up to drain his snake and has him a conniption fit when he gloms the feather-head. ’Fore I could stay his hand, he jerks that smoke wagon outta the coach and tosses a shot at the spy.”

“Did he hit him?”

“Shit! That prissy limey couldn’t hit a bull in the butt with a banjo. He was going for a second shot, but he’s too slow to catch a cold. By the time he got a round into the breech and figured out how to work the bolt, Red John was over the horizon.”

Aldritch, his muttonchopped visage scarlet with rage, had returned to camp. “Fargo, you impertinent scoundrel! How dare you shoot at me?”

“To chew it fine,” Fargo said, “I shot near you. If I’d shot at you, you’d be celestial by now.”

“The unabashed audacity! I was forced to do your job while you were out . . . out copulating with the Blackfords’ maid!”

“Better to copulate than never,” Slappy chimed in, and Skeets snickered.

“You’re sadly misinformed,” Fargo said, “if you think it’s my job to kill a Cheyenne spy.”

“How can you possibly know he’s only a spy? We were sleeping. Upon my word, Fargo! He could have sneaked in and killed one of us.”

Fargo hooked a thumb toward Slappy. “The camp was under guard.”

Aldritch slanted a contemptuous glance at the cook. “That hash slinger? He was cleaning his fingernails.”

“Next time I serve you up some hash, you highfalutin fop,” Slappy said, “look for a surprise in it.”

Aldritch was almost demented with rage. “Do you see how it is, Lord Blackford? These Americans are not just gutter trash—they’re out-and-out thugs no different from the plug-uglies at Five Points! If we survive the red aborigines, how will we survive them!”

It was Ericka who spoke up in the face of her husband’s silence. “Certainly not like this, Sylvester. You are not back in Dover. The Americans whipped the Crown soundly and established their own nation. They have a far different society from ours, one based on merit and not inheritance. I rather admire it although it has its rough edges.”

“Yes,” Rebecca chipped in, “and you shouldn’t have come here if you cannot accept it. Perhaps your anger about Mr. Fargo and Jessica has something to do with the fact that she has spurned your own advances.”

Aldritch puffed himself up with offended dignity. “That is a calumny!”

“Indeed? I was listening from the drawing room when you attempted to purchase her favors for five pounds. Will you call me a liar?”

Fargo had heard enough. “Look, folks, this isn’t the time or place for such piddling squabbles. I like England just fine and think the world of the queen—I wouldn’t have a country if it wasn’t for England. Let’s give over with all this truck and fix our thoughts on getting out of our present fix.”

“Hear, hear,” Lord Blackford said. “Bully for you, Fargo!”

“It looks like we’re all awake,” Fargo said. “Since we won’t likely be attacked on this first day, let’s push on and see can we find a better spot to make camp. About an hour’s travel will put us in the Badlands—there’ll be more places to fort up. We’ll be on the move all night, so we’ll stop to sleep around two hours before sundown.”