Badlands Bloodsport

Carlos Montoya, the wrangler and driver of the fodder wagon, sat near the fire nursing a tin can of coffee. Fargo caught his eye and both men grinned.

“Truly, Fargo,” Montoya said, “I regret sending this bunch after you. There’s a sweet outfit, eh? But when my livery stable burned to the ground, I could not pass up the money. And when I saw the women . . . ay, Chihuahua! I thought, give Fargo his meat.”

The camp circle was formed by two large tents, a fodder wagon, and two conveyances, one a fancy japanned coach with brass fixtures for Blackford, his young wife, Ericka, and her sister, Rebecca Singleton, a willowy young blonde with sapphire-blue eyes. The rest of the party—Aldritch, his two insolent “retainers,” and a lady’s maid for the Blackford party—rode in a doorless coach known as a mud wagon.

Just as Montoya finished praising the women, Jessica Tanner, the auburn-curled maid, emerged from one of the tents.

“My dick just moved,” Slappy said in a reverent tone. “Won’tcha look at the catheads on that wench! She ain’t no stable filly, eh, Carlos?”

“No, that lass is a pacer—smooth riding over a long haul. And she has set her cap for Fargo—her nightcap.”

Fargo agreed with this assessment, being experienced in the ways of willing women. And he had tried his damnedest to get Jessica off into the brush. Her bursting bodice, ripe-fruit lips, and pretty, coquettish face would stir even a dead man to life. But one of Aldritch’s two hired thugs had the same idea and hovered around her like a fly to syrup.

Jessica approached the men, flashing Fargo a come-hither smile. “Cook,” she said to Slappy, still watching Fargo, “would you please heat some water? Lady Blackford and her sister wish to bathe.”

Slappy’s moon face looked astonished. “Agin? Why, the Quality just had ’em a bath last week! Ain’t healthy to wash up more’n a couple times a year.”

“Don’t be daft.” Jessica’s emerald-green eyes sparkled in Fargo’s direction. “Rich British women take comfort in frequent baths. The warm water is . . . stimulating.”

Montoya was smoking a thin black Mexican cigar. At these words he almost coughed it out of his mouth.

“Stimulatin’, huh?” Slappy said, winking at Fargo as he hustled to fill a kettle from a goatskin of water. “Mebbe British men ain’t doin’ their job in that department.”

Jessica sent Fargo a coy smile. “They do tend to shirk, rather. And p’r’aps American men, too, are remiss?”

“Remiss?” Montoya repeated. “What does this word mean, ‘remiss’?”

“Let it go,” Fargo spoke up, strong white teeth flashing through his beard at Jessica. “Maybe American men can’t get past the British guard.”

Jessica’s cerise lips twisted into a frown. “Oh, God’s blood! You mean Skeets and Derek the Terrible. The pride of Cheapside,” she pronounced sarcastically. “As common as your uncle Bill, now, aren’t they?”

“Yeah? Well, I got my belly full of them two.” Slappy chimed in as he stoked the fire hotter. “Both of ’em, struttin’ around like they was cock o’ the dung heap. Them London airs don’t go here in Zeb Pike’s West.”

Jessica’s pretty face set itself in a warning frown. Her words were intended for all three men.

“Bethink yourself, Mr. Hollister. When I called them common, I meant only their manners. Sylvester Aldritch is a calculating man, and he hired the right two men indeed—for his purposes. Faith! Skeets was a champion marksman in the army—they say he can shoot the eyes out of a sparrow at two hundred yards.”

“He will prove quite useful,” Montoya said from a poker face, “when we are attacked by sparrows.”

“You mock, Mr. Montoya, but save your breath to cool your porridge. You jolly well know the human head is a far larger target than a sparrow’s. As for Derek, he is a former hangman at Tyburn Gate and a renowned pugilist around the London docks. Once he flies into a rage—well, God’s blood! He will give you the clouting of your life. Sometimes he does not stop when a man is beaten—only when he is dead. That’s how he earned the moniker Derek the Terrible.”

“This word, ‘pugilist,’” Montoya said in a perplexed tone, “what does it mean to say? And moniker, what—”

“Jessica!” rang out an impatient voice from the nearest tent. “You mustn’t tarry to gossip, dear!”

The maid turned to leave, but Fargo stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Speaking of Derek and Skeets, I haven’t seen them since I rode in. Where are they?”

“They left camp sometime this morning.”

Fargo felt cold needle points on the back of his neck. “Which direction?”

She pointed north—toward the buffalo and the Cheyennes.

“Christ,” Fargo muttered under his breath. Then: “Did they take their buffalo guns?”

“Yes, the long ones that make a frightful racket. They said you”—she faltered, then soldiered on—“you couldn’t locate your own ‘arse’ in a hall of mirrors. They said they would find the buffalo and show Jonathan Yankee how it’s done.”

A cold current of doom moved down Fargo’s spine, and he paled slightly above his beard.

“Is that bad?” Jessica asked.