Badlands Bloodsport

Fargo did think about it for at least a full minute. The word “languorous” was too far north for him, but the rest of it was sounding better and better. And maybe someday he could even get to England and meet some of those stimulated ladies.

“Well,” he finally said, dropping his buckskins, “if it’s for the ladies of England . . .”

LOOKING FORWARD!

The following is the opening

section of the next novel in the exciting

Trailsman series from Signet:

TRAILSMAN #370

BLIND MAN’S BLUFF

The Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona, 1861—where gold and guns made for a deadly mix.

Skye Fargo heard the Apaches before he saw them, which was unusual. Apaches were as silent as wraiths when they wanted to be and they nearly always wanted to be.

Fargo could move silently, too. A big man, broad of shoulder and narrow at the hips, he wore buckskins, as did most scouts, along with a white hat turned brown from dust and a red bandanna that had seen a lot of use.

He heard yips and instantly drew rein. Some people might mistake them for the yips of coyotes or even the cries of a female fox trying to attract a male but he knew better.

They were made by human throats.

Fargo was crossing the northern edge of the Chiricahua Mountains. He was to meet in less than a week with an army officer to the east of Apache Pass. So far he’d been able to avoid being spotted by the most feared warriors in all the Southwest.

The yips were repeated. They came from over a rise to Fargo’s left. Common sense told him to ride on. But then he heard a cry of pain and he palmed his Colt and rode up the rock-and-boulder-strewn slope to just shy of the crest.

Dismounting, he flattened and crawled the last few yards and poked his head up for a look-see.

There were four of them. Stocky, muscular, bronzed, they wore breechclouts and headbands and the knee-high moccasins for which Apaches were noted. They were Chiricahuas. Only one had a rifle. The others had bows. They were smiling and enjoying themselves, as well they should be, since they were doing what Apaches liked to do just about more than anything; they were torturing an enemy.

In this instance it was a white man. His shabby clothes, the pack mule tied nearby, marked him as a prospector. An ore hound who had been brave enough, or stupid enough, to dare the haunts of the Apache in his search for gold and silver. And they had caught him.

The warrior with the rifle yipped yet again. The rifle, a Sharps, had a rope sling and was slung across his back. In his right hand was a knife with an antler hilt. In his left hand, held in his open palm, were the prospector’s eyes; the warrior had just pried them from their sockets.

The prospector wept and groaned and writhed. He was staked out, wrists and ankles. Blood and gore leaked from the dark holes where his eyes had been. He let out a loud sob. “Kill me, you bastard! Kill me now and be done with it.”

The warrior who held the eyeballs looked down at him and sneered, “Not yet, white-eye. You suffer much, eh?”

“You son of a bitch, Red Dog,” the prospector said.

Fargo focused on the warrior. The name was familiar. Red Dog hated whites with a red-hot hate. Rumor had it his wife had been raped and killed by freighters, and ever since, Red Dog had waged an extermination campaign against anyone with white skin. And since a lot of whites referred to Indians as “red dogs,” he’d chosen it as his name in defiance and contempt.

“You know not come our land, Peder-son,” Red Dog said.

He stuck the tip of his knife into one of the eyeballs and wagged it under the old prospector’s nose. “Want eye back, Peder-son? Here it be. Can you smell it?”

Pederson swore bitterly, then said, “Get it over with, you red wretch. I’ve never done you or your people any harm.”

Red Dog uttered a bark of a laugh. “You white. I red.” He dropped to one knee. “You hungry?”

“Eh?” Pederson said. He groaned and coughed. “What do you mean?”

“Have something you can eat,” Red Dog said, and poised the eyeball over the unsuspecting prospector’s open mouth.

“You wouldn’t.”

Red Dog laughed.

Fargo had seen enough. He extended the Colt, taking aim at Red Dog’s head.

Red Dog bent and lowered the eyeball until it was practically brushing Pederson’s lips.

Thumbing back the hammer, Fargo was set to squeeze the trigger when fate played a trump card. One of the other warriors must have caught the glint of sunlight off the Colt because he suddenly pointed and shouted a warning in the Chiricahua tongue.

Just like that, Red Dog exploded into motion. One moment he was hunkered next to the prospector, the next he was up and running, weaving as he ran to make it harder to hit him.

Two other warriors did the same but the fourth brought up his bow. He already had an arrow nocked and drew the sinew string to his cheek to let fly.

Fargo shot him.

The slug caught the warrior in the sternum and smashed him back. He tottered on his heels, flailed his arms, and crashed down.