Badlands Bloodsport

“Skye, is it now?” Derek the Terrible piped up. “You slattern! Pointing your heels to the sky for a common drifter wrapped in buckskins. Ain’t you the fancy lady, though? Lady Rub My Pearl.”

Fargo raised a weary hand to stop all this, his eyes slanting toward Montoya’s body. “You’re right, Aldritch. So far I’ve come a cropper on the wit-and-wile deal. You better hope like hell, though, that it ain’t just the line of blather you think it is because it’s priddy near all we got left.”

 * * * 

Fargo ordered Skeets back to sentry duty, then supervised a rearrangement of the conveyances to better protect the horses. Only then did he turn to the unpleasant task of burying Montoya.

Slappy joined him at the shallow grave. “Why, hell, he wa’n all that bad for a Mexer. Had him a few queer ideas, but hell, who don’t? Fargo, do you know he swore by the idea that birds migrate to the moon every winter? I caught him shootin’ at it one night, thinking a dead bird would drop at his feet.”

Fargo grinned. “Yeah, that’s Montoya straight enough. I came to his livery one day and caught him giving top-shelf whiskey, from his hat, to a fine white pacer. He insisted the viceroy of Sonora had died and come back as this horse. And everybody knew the viceroy drank only the best.”

Slappy glanced around and then lowered his voice. “Speaking of dead men . . . ’at fucker Derek tried to let daylight through you today. I seen it. He done it quick, and he missed on account you was moving fast toward cover. He can’t abide the fact that Jessica done the deed with you but prac’ly pukes at sight of him.”

Fargo studied Slappy closely. “You don’t like him, either. Are you flat-out sure he was aiming for me? I did cross his line of fire.”

Slappy rubbed his scruffy, grizzled chin whiskers. “Well, if you’re settin’ up as a damn Philadelphia lawyer—naw, I couldn’t rightly swear to it. That’s how I seen it, though.”

“Yeah,” Fargo said thoughtfully. “Same here.”

“He’s a worthless son of a bitch. If you don’t plant him, I will. Now, Skeets—he pulls his freight ever since he shot that herd spy.”

“We’d be in deep sheep dip without him,” Fargo admitted.

Fargo tossed the shovel aside and the two men lifted Montoya into his final resting place—an unmarked cavity in the heart of the desolate Badlands. Fargo was surprised when the rest of the party walked over to join them.

“He was a kind man,” Jessica said. “He treated all of us women with respect.”

“Yes, and he had the features of a noble face,” Ericka put in. “I’m glad now that I sketched it. It will be immortalized in my book of frontier America sketches.”

“If we ever leave this godforsaken country alive,” Aldritch said. He then felt compelled to add, “This Mexican—was his name Garcia?—wasn’t so bad as dark-skinned types go.”

Rebecca Singleton aimed a contemptuous glance at Aldritch. “I’m sure Mr. Garcia would treasure your unstinting praise.”

“He died bloody hard,” Derek summed up. “Choking in his own blood. Cor! I could hear him above all that blasted racket.”

“Thank you, pious mourners,” Fargo barbed as he began filling the grave. He hadn’t bothered with boulders to protect it from predators—there were none around.

Fargo instructed everyone to catch an hour or so of sleep and rode down their back trail to watch for the next attack. He had selected rough terrain that made attack from any direction but the northeast impossible on horseback. Fargo swept the desolate landscape with his field glass but spotted nothing in motion except the occasional dust devil.

He had allowed the women one pail of water each for a quick “whore’s bath” as Slappy termed it. Fargo was making sure no Cheyenne braves were flanking their position on foot when the pleasing form of Rebecca suddenly filled the lenses of his spyglasses. The slender blonde had walked about forty feet away from camp and ducked behind a rock tumble to bathe.

Fargo felt his breathing quicken as she pulled her floral-print dress over her head, completely naked beneath it. Her pointy breasts were large for such a slender girl, the nipples a delicate pink. Fargo had always been a bush man and gazed approvingly at the V of silky blond hair that pointed toward the delightful mystery tucked away at the apex of her thighs—slender but perfectly shaped thighs that streamed into supple calves and well-turned ankles.

Fargo had to shift in the saddle at this wondrous sight. Rebecca dipped a cloth into the pail, briskly rubbed it with a twist of lye soap, then began sudsing her sculpted tits. When those blue eyes like gems looked directly at Fargo, he knew she could easily see him. But when her lips eased into a teasing smile, he was damned if he would look away.