Badlands Bloodsport

“Hookey Walker!” Slappy exclaimed. “Right now, Baldritch, your bacon is in the fire. You best shit-can them high-hattin’ ways and do what Fargo tells you. When them war-whoopin’ Injins come swooping down on you, they won’t give a frog’s fat ass about social strati-whosis. They’ll—”

“I’ll drive the fodder wagon,” Jessica volunteered. “I sometimes drove my father’s coal wagon when I was a young girl.”

“A mere slip of a girl,” Slappy said sanctimoniously, staring hard at Aldritch. “At least she is a credit to her dam.”

“Chuck the flap-jaw,” Fargo snapped at his friend. “Let’s get this medicine show on the road.”

“You heard the ramrod,” Slappy bellowed, thrusting his chest out. “The hell we dillydallying for?”

Just before Fargo gigged the Ovaro forward, his glance slanted toward Derek. The hangman’s pale-ice eyes fixed on Fargo and pierced him like a pair of bullets. Then his liver-colored lips eased into a taunting smile that was both challenge and promise—promise of a hard death to come.

 * * * 

They pushed on hard for the next three hours, stopping only briefly to let the horses blow. A sky the color of wet slate flattened out the colors and shadows, making the grotesque terrain around them look even more forlorn and menacing. The temperature dropped until wraiths of steam rose when the horses pissed. A few large, wet flakes of snow pelted Fargo’s face and clung to his beard, and he hoped the blizzard would hold off one more day. With one hell of a lot of luck, they would edge out of the Badlands a few hours before nightfall and reach Fort Laramie by the following evening.

By now Fargo was making regular scouts along their back trail, watching for signs of the pursuing Cheyenne. Twice he scaled tall pinnacles and broke out his field glass, but no soap—all he could see was empty, desolate terrain.

“They decided to flank us,” he reported to Slappy when he rode back from his latest scout. “They took the buffalo plains to the south of the Badlands.”

“Didja spot ’em?”

Fargo shook his head, breathing on his hands to warm them. “You can’t see past Devil’s Ridge from here. But they’re out there, old son, pushing them tough mustangs full throttle. It’ll take ’em a bit longer to jump us, but it means we’ll be out on the open flats when they pounce.”

“Think they’ll hit us today?”

“Damn good chance. They know they have to close with us before we get in sight of that fort. I can’t even send mirror signals in this weather.”

Slappy hunched his shoulders forward against the bitter wind. “God-in-whirlwinds! And that chicken-fucker Derek had to kill our trick shooter. Don’t that knot-head know his tit’s in the wringer, too?”

“I don’t think he sees it that way,” Fargo mused aloud.

Slappy, miserable in the cold, missed Fargo’s point. “Damnation but I’d like to get outside of some hot grub,” he complained.

Despite the cold the lead pair of coach horses were blowing lather. Reluctantly, Fargo called for a thirty-minute rest. He gathered the others around him and explained their situation.

“I calculate they’ll launch at least two attacks before we can shake them,” he said. “If we use discipline, if we hold and squeeze, we might be able to repel the first attack with our remaining ammo. If we can pop over enough braves, Touch the Clouds will have to retreat. Indians don’t fight to the last man unless their main camp is attacked and women and children are in danger.”

“What is the point, Fargo?” Derek demanded. “You’ve admitted there’ll be a second go-round with the savages, and then all we have are sodding rocks.”

“A man’s got to match his gait to the horse he’s riding,” Fargo replied matter-of-factly. He glanced at Ericka as he added, “Who knows? Maybe we’ll pull a rabbit out of our hat. Anyhow, hangman, if you can come up with a better weapon than rocks and empty brags, let us know.”

“It’s no concern of mine, Trailsman. God rot all of you.”

“One other thing,” Fargo said. “Cheyennes like to unstring an opponent’s nerves before they attack in force. It’s likely they picked one or two of their best braves to cut across from the plains, sneak past us, and lie in wait for us. Keep a sharp eye out—there’ll be no warning.”

“Fargo,” Aldritch said in a querulous voice, “you have admitted that you’ve spotted no savages since the last attack day before yesterday. It is possible—is it not?—that you are mistaken? That the Indians have given up on us?”

“Sure, it’s possible,” Fargo conceded. “I’ve told you all along that Indians are notional, and trying to predict their actions is like trying to catch a falling knife. Hell, I hope I’m wrong. But on the frontier you don’t survive by counting on good luck.”

Fargo called an end to the rest, and everyone headed toward the conveyances. But Ericka hung back to get a word with Fargo. “Did you hear Derek just now? That rather peculiar comment, ‘It’s no concern of mine’?”

Fargo nodded. “So you noticed it, too?”