Badlands Bloodsport

“Say, you’re playin’ the larks with me, but that is a comfortin’ thought. You do good work, Fargo. You’ll do it, straight-arrow?”

“Straight-arrow,” Fargo promised. “But I don’t expect it to go bad for us.”

“But what if it does and they pop you over first?”

“Do it yourself, you damn fool. You got the stones for it.”

Slappy clucked to the team. “A’course, but I ain’t sure I got the mentality. My Colt Navy is mighty small-bore, and that means I got to pick exactly the right place.”

“Maybe six months ago,” Fargo said, “I hired on with this doctor from St. Louis to guard a caravan of medical supplies going to the Indian Territory. He was all het up over some new book he was reading—by Darwood or Darwin or somebody. Anyhow, this doc—who seemed like a smart fellow—told me about something he called the primitive brain.”

“The hell’s that? I just want to know what spot to shoot in my brain.”

“And that’s what I’m telling you, knot-head. This primitive brain is about the size of a small plum, he claimed, and we all got one. A bullet that goes into that kills you quicker than a man can spit. He said it’s the original brain from when men were apes in the jungle.”

Slappy hooted with laughter. “Fargo, does your mother know you’re out? When men was apes? You don’t swallow that bunk, do you?”

Before Fargo could reply, Ericka’s pleasant, amused voice spoke up from inside the mud wagon. “Mr. Fargo, evidently you forget this wagon has no sides. Rebecca and I have heard your entire conversation. I must say, your advice about where to shoot the brain doesn’t inspire much confidence.”

Fargo actually felt himself blushing with embarrassment. “I beg your pardon, ladies. It was a fool thing to be talking about, anyway, but fool things are Slappy’s stock-in-trade.”

“Now, that’s God’s truth,” Slappy hastened to add, mortified himself. “Don’t you ladies worry none about Skye Fargo—he does nothing by halves. He means to win the horse or lose the saddle, and he’s had the same saddle ever since I knowed him. Don’t pay no never mind to our foolish talk.”

“We don’t mind,” Rebecca chimed in, her fair oval of face appearing outside the wagon to look up at Fargo. “It’s quite impressive that a rugged, handsome American backlander can discuss The Origin of Species. Many educated Londoners have never heard of it.”

“With me it’s all secondhand,” Fargo assured her. “Most of what I know is told to me by others.”

“Now, ladies,” Slappy scoffed gently, “don’t tell me you b’lieve this hokum about men being descended from apes?”

“Tell me, Mr. Hollister,” Erica said, “would you believe it of Derek?”

There was a stunned silence from up on the box. Then: “What was that feller’s name agin—Derwood?”

18

The night dragged on, cold, blustery, wearisome, with horses and humans starting to flag more noticeably. Fargo, who was used to going for long periods without sleep, nonetheless found himself nodding out in the saddle—a dangerous development with a murderer like Derek the Terrible watching him like a cat on a rat. It was time for an unpleasant but reliable ploy.

He dropped back beside the mud wagon. “Slappy, cut me off a little chaw, wouldja?”

“Since when do you eat ’baccy? I thought you favored them little black Mexer cigars like Montoya smoked?”

“Desperate situations call for desperate remedies, old warhorse. Slice me off a little hunk.”

Slappy fished out his plug and knife, cutting off a small wedge. Fargo parked it in his cheek and got it juicing good. Then he soaked the end of his finger in the juice and lifted each eyelid in turn, smearing the back of the lid.

“God’s trousers!” Slappy blurted out. “Boy, are you lookin’ to go blind?”

“It won’t hurt the eyes,” Fargo replied. “But it will sting like hell if the eyelids start to close for very long over the eyeballs. An old mountain man taught me this trick over in the Green River country.”

Fargo spat the tobacco out of his mouth, drawing an oath from Slappy. He was about to nudge the Ovaro forward again when Ericka called out: “Mr. Fargo? We have an entire night to distance ourselves from the Indians, but our pace is frightfully slow, is it not?”

“’Fraid so, ma’am. These horses are just about blown in. The terrain is easier now, just mostly flat grass, but the fodder is gone and we dare not waste time letting them graze. Naturally they want that grass, and they’re fighting the harness.”

“The coach horses have gotten some rest, haven’t they? Couldn’t they be—what is the phrase—switched out with the tired ones?”

“Yeah, I was thinking about that, and we’ll do it if we have to. But they wouldn’t be all that much better rested, and besides, it would cost us valuable time to harness them. And there’s another problem—we don’t have enough to switch out the fodder wagon team. That means the mud wagon would gradually pull ahead and we’d be separated when trouble comes.”

“Yes, I see. But didn’t you say the fodder is depleted?”