Badlands Bloodsport

“First I want the rifle reloads from your pocket,” Fargo ordered in a dangerous tone. “Then I want you to hand over that gun belt and the hideout gun.”

“In a pig’s ass, you sodding bastard!”

The Colt leaped in Fargo’s fist and Derek let out a hideous screech when the slug tore off half of his left ear.

“Unless you want that right head handle to make a perfect match,” Fargo said, “do what I told you. You try one fox play, I’ll drill you between the eyes.”

With scarlet globules of blood dripping off his injured ear, Derek complied.

“Fargo, I swear by all things holy that I will kill you,” he promised, breathing hard in his rage and pain.

“Yeah, that was your plan. To murder all the men, rape the women, and escape on my horse before the Cheyennes attack.”

Derek started at these words and averted his smoldering gaze. “That’s rubbish.”

“Is it, old bean? Skeets is proof it ain’t. But you just might prove useful yet—very useful.”

Fargo rode back and tucked the weapons into the diminishing pile of fodder. He smiled at Jessica, who shivered inside a knit shawl—none of the women had brought heavy coats.

“A mite frosty to be driving, isn’t it?” he greeted her.

“It is, quite. But thoughts of our little . . . biological adventure in the sand hills warm me up rather nicely. If we survive this, any chance for a return engagement?”

Fargo’s strong white teeth flashed through his beard. “Hell yes—we’ll need to celebrate, won’t we?”

She smiled back. But the corners of her mouth turned down in a frown when she asked, “Why didn’t you kill Derek?”

“Too merciful. If things work out right, he’ll be going to a new kind of hell that’ll make him beg for Satan.”

The swirling snow had abated for the nonce, and Fargo doffed his hat at her, riding forward again. His eyes closed to slits as he scoured the terrain on both sides, searching for sign of any Cheyenne outriders sent in to harass them. After examining an area head-on, Fargo quartered the Ovaro around and searched the same terrain from the corner of his eye. Sometimes peripheral vision showed shapes and motions frontal vision did not.

Another half hour passed, Fargo and the Ovaro squirting ahead and quickly returning to join the others. By now he knew trouble was coming: He had cut fresh sign on two unshod ponies about fifty yards back from the trail. But the riders had stuck to solid rock as much as possible, and the trail was too broken to pick up.

“There’s an ambush coming,” Fargo warned the occupants of the coach. “Keep your heads out of the windows.”

Sylvester Aldritch, whose contempt for Fargo had turned to raw hatred since the latter “walked out” with Rebecca, craned his neck to stare at Fargo through the window.

“Fargo, you aren’t half a show-off, are you? There are no newspaper writers here to impress. We all know you are ten inches taller than God, so why don’t you go sing to your horse and leave your betters in peace? There’s a good chap.”

“Shut your mouth and duck your head inside,” Fargo snapped.

“Blast it to hell, I’m sick of your cheeky arrogance!”

“Sylvester,” Lord Blackford advised, “I rather think Fargo means it. Do as he says.”

Cold air always transmitted sounds better, and just then Fargo’s frontier-honed ears heard two familiar sounds that sent his pulse exploding like hoofbeats in his ears. The first was the powerful fwip of a huge bowstring, followed instantly by the hard slap of that string against the leather band protecting the brave’s wrist.

Fargo was looking right at Aldritch’s face, twisted with insolence, when the arrow skewered him in the right eye so hard that it sank six inches into the brain. Blood shot out in a thick rope, spurting two feet beyond the window. Aldritch flopped sideways onto the passengers.

One of the women screamed. Fargo heard Blackford’s voice, reedy with fright. “Someone help him!”

Fargo had already whipped his Henry out of its scabbard. “Never mind, he’s past help! The rest of you get the hell down!”

Fargo heel-thumped the Ovaro around to the far side of the coach, his eyes carefully scanning. Another arrow thwacked into the coach, and Derek suddenly deserted the box, climbing to safety. Slappy and Jessica, too, had halted their conveyances and taken cover.

“Shoot the bloody bastards!” Derek shouted at him. His ear was tied up with a red handkerchief.

A third arrow streaked at them, passing through the windows of the coach and missing Fargo by mere inches.

By now Fargo had a good fix on the two braves. They were well protected in a clutch of boulders atop a low ridge. He could not possibly score a direct hit unless they showed themselves, and even if they did Fargo refused to waste the lead. But one well-placed shot, against a rock pinnacle a few feet to their left, might set up a dangerous ricochet path and rout them.