Badlands Bloodsport

The arrow had rent the fabric as it grazed Slappy, and Fargo had only to separate the flaps of homespun. “Clean as a whistle,” he pronounced. “That arrow wasn’t smeared, and the point didn’t slice far. Your clover was deep that time, old son.”

Slappy threw out his skinny chest. “Luck, my lily-white. God don’t want me, and Satan’s afraid I’ll take over.”

“Uh-huh, you’re a real bravo, all right. Just slap some alum on it—there’s a can in my saddle pockets. Now let’s go see the real butcher’s bill.”

They rounded the fodder wagon to check on the horses. A weight lifted from Fargo’s chest when he verified that the Ovaro was unscathed. But three horses, including Lord Blackford’s fine chestnut, would have to be put down.

“Is it truly necessary?” the nobleman fretted. “It’s only a wound to the rump, and he’s a magnificent animal, now, isn’t he?”

“Worth a blue ribbon,” Fargo agreed regretfully. “But the point went in at least two inches, and it was smeared. You can see dung in the wound. His blood will putrefy and he’ll die hard.”

Lord Blackford sighed. “Blast the luck! Well, if there’s no help for it . . . I have my pin-fire pistol with two bullets. I’ll lead him off a distance and shoot him.”

“Sorry, Earl. I hate to pile on the agony, but you’ll have to let me throat-slash him. We just might need those bullets.”

The two team horses were down and blowing pink froth. Fargo had no choice but to kill them where they lay.

“Ladies, walk off a piece and cover your ears,” he said. “You’re not going to like what you hear.”

Fargo gave them a few minutes, then slid the Arkansas toothpick from his boot sheath and dispatched the two horses as quickly as he could. Immediately, an eerie trumpeting noise sounded as the horses’ huge lungs collapsed in death, blowing air through the neck slashes like powerful bellows. His lips set hard, Fargo loosened the hobbles on the chestnut, led him off fifty yards or so, and repeated the distasteful slaughter. He jabbed his knife into the ground a few times to clean the blade.

“There’s plenty of men who require killing,” he told Slappy when he returned. “And I don’t lose sleep when I pop ’em over. But I never yet met a larcenous horse. Counting those six Indian scrubs, this makes nine horses we killed today. I sure-God wish I woulda passed up this job. You got any of that wagon-yard whiskey left?”

Slappy grinned. “There’s medicine! I ain’t never tasted bad whiskey, nor seen an ugly woman.”

“Then you ain’t been wide upon the world.”

Slappy produced a bottle from his saddlebag, and both men knocked back a strong jolt. Fargo grimaced as the potent, strychnine-laced liquor burned a hot line to his gut.

“Care for a snort, Earl?” Slappy asked Lord Blackford. “It goes down pretty smooth if you put your fist through a wall.”

“Thank you, no. That look on Fargo’s face when he swallowed it unnerved me. I’m the cognac type. What we all truly need right now is fresh meat.”

“You’re gonna get it,” Slappy promised. “I’m gonna rough-gut your chestnut and carve us all out some steaks.”

Blackford paled. “I can’t eat my own horse!”

“Oh, you’ll eat it when you smell me frying it up with some wild onion. Horse meat is good fixin’s. Sells higher ’n beef in the big cities.”

The women had walked back to join them. Fargo trained his field glass in the direction the Cheyennes had ridden.

“Will they be back soon, Skye?” Jessica asked.

“’Fraid so. They don’t want us any closer to that fort. But I figure they won’t try another attack. They can’t know how low we are on ammunition.”

“But if they won’t attack,” Ericka joined in, “what threat can they be?”

“I’m guessing they mean to stake us out from a distance. They know we’re likely out of water. And they can see that our horses are done in. They’ll hem us and only attack if we try to walk out.”

“What about the mirror signals we sent earlier?” Rebecca said. “Somebody at Fort Laramie might have seen them.”

Fargo nodded. “Maybe. But I’ve scouted out of Fort Laramie, and it’s a bad-luck post. Gets the sorriest officers and men, and at any time half the troopers are dead drunk or hors de combat from dysentery. There’s times when they only got enough healthy men for post security and can’t even put a raggle-taggle detail in the field. I’m not counting on them.”

Fargo and Ericka exchanged a long look. She had guessed his desperate last-ditch plan. Lord Blackford saw this exchange and frowned.

“Fargo, either you and my wife are secretly courting or some game is afoot.”

Ericka smiled at her husband. “Oh, there is an unspoken secret between me and Mr. Fargo, Percival. But I assure you it’s not romantic, drat the luck.”

“Percival,” Slappy repeated, sputtering with laughter.

Blackford harrumphed. “Ericka, I daresay you were never this cheeky before.”

“Perhaps not. But then, I’ve never been this close to death before, either, now, have I?”

 * * *