‘‘I am not talking about him. I have moved on and am talking about you.’’ Cleo ran her other hand through her copper hair. ‘‘When I say we are women, I mean we are no different than any other female.’’
‘‘Most females don’t go around blinding men with bullwhips.’’
‘‘Please stop. I accept I was hasty. I will send some money to his kin back East to atone.’’
‘‘How much is his life worth, do you think?’’
‘‘Fifty dollars should be enough,’’ Cleo said. ‘‘The important thing is that I still get to have my turn.’’
‘‘Turn?’’ Fargo said, momentarily confused.
‘‘You know.’’
‘‘Know what?’’
‘‘With you.’’ Cleo grinned and winked.
All Fargo could do was stare.
‘‘Don’t look at me like that. Myrtle says you are the best thing in pants she has ever come across. That is saying a lot. Now Mavis and me want to find out for ourselves. I came over to tell you we will abide by our promise if you are still of a mind to have us.’’
Fargo shook off his amazement. Killing Dawson meant no more to her than squashing a fly. ‘‘Is that all you think of?’’
‘‘There is no rush. It will take us ten days or better to reach Silver Lode. Any night you want me, you have only to say the word and I am yours.’’ Cleo patted his hand, stood and walked off.
‘‘I’ll be damned,’’ Skye Fargo said.
13
White men, as a general rule, rode shod horses. Indians, as a general rule, did not.
The tracks that Fargo found shortly after daybreak the next morning were of a horse that was not. Krupp had mentioned that Fraco was more Indian than white, and here was proof.
Stack rode with his hand on his pearl-handled Remington and was his usual taciturn self until about midmorning when he observed, ‘‘Fraco does not appear to be in much of a hurry.’’
Fargo agreed. The tracks showed that the half-breed had held his horse to a walk. They were doing the same, at his insistence. It would not do to come on the killer unexpectedly.
‘‘You would think he’d want to let Grind know as soon as possible that he found us,’’ Stack mentioned.
‘‘He has plenty of time. The wagons are as slow as molasses,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘Or it could be that Grind is closer than we think and Fraco does not have far to go.’’
But his guess proved wrong. Noon came and went, and no Fraco. The afternoon waxed and waned, and no Fraco. They stopped to rest their mounts twice. The second time, foothills lined the horizon.
‘‘He is making for the mountains,’’ Stack said while mopping his brow with his sleeve. ‘‘We will not catch up before nightfall.’’
‘‘We will keep on after dark,’’ Fargo informed him, and began to undo his bandanna to wipe his face. The heat was blistering.
‘‘You have something in mind, I take it?’’
‘‘We have stayed far enough back that he has no idea he is being followed,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘He will feel safe in making a fire.’’ And even a small one, at night, was a beacon that could be seen for miles.
‘‘Maybe he will make a cold camp,’’ Stack said. ‘‘Or make his camp in a wash or a hollow.’’
‘‘We should still be able to find him,’’ Fargo said confidently.
‘‘Then what? If he is as vicious as everyone says, trying to take him alive might end with us dead.’’
‘‘Who said anything about alive?’’ Fargo rejoined. ‘‘He tried to put an arrow into me.’’
Sunset saw them winding into the arid hills. Fargo was in the lead, as he had been all day, his gaze glued to the ground, and the tracks.
‘‘The Mimbres massacred a settler and his family in these hills just last month,’’ Stack commented.
Fargo knew what Stack was really saying; the farther they went, the greater the risk of encountering Apaches. ‘‘They do not stick in any one area too long.’’
‘‘Let’s hope they are elsewhere by now.’’
Fargo grunted. Apaches on a raid were always on the move, as much to confound pursuers as to hunt for prey.
Twilight descended, transforming the brown of the earth and the rocks and boulders into shades of somber gray. A few clouds scuttled in from the west but Fargo did not foresee a change in the weather. He wound along the base of hill after hill until he came to one that was higher than the rest, and climbed to the crown. He took his time. The Ovaro was tired.
To the west a few lingering streaks of pink decorated the sky but they were fast fading. To the east the black of night was crawling across the land.
Fargo leaned on his saddle horn and waited.
Stack looked at him quizzically but did not say anything.
Gradually the entire sky darkened. Stars sprinkled the vault above. Out of the northwest came a brisk wind. In the far distance a mountain lion shrieked.
Fargo scoured the foothills and the looming mass that betokened the mountains beyond. He might as well be peering into the depths of a well. There was not a glimmer of light anywhere.
‘‘I told you,’’ Stack broke their long silence. ‘‘Fraco is too savvy to make a fire that can be seen.’’
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a pinpoint of orange appeared amid the black.
‘‘There,’’ Fargo said, and pointed.
‘‘Fraco is getting careless, I reckon.’’
They made for the speck. Fargo picked his way with care, as much as for the welfare of their mounts as to ensure Fraco did not hear them coming. He drew rein often to listen. Several times they lost sight of the orange but it always reappeared.
Fargo’s nerves jangled at every sound. This was not like sneaking up on an outlaw. Most white men had the eyes and ears of a tree stump and were easily taken once they bedded down for the night. Indians, and half-breeds who were more Indian than white, were different. They had the senses of a wild animal. Their hearing was acute, their eyesight sharp. Taking them unawares was next to impossible.
The orange glow, as it turned out, was on the slope of the first mountain, a third of the way up the slope. It had grown in size from a speck to fingers of flame.
‘‘From here we go on foot.’’ Fargo shucked the Henry from the saddle scabbard and swung down.
The slope was steep, their footing at times made treacherous by loose rocks and soil. Fargo was glad when they stumbled on a gully that split the mountain like a scar. They could follow it toward the campfire.
Coyotes were in full chorus. Once something snorted and ran off, the clatter of small hooves hinting it was a deer.
Fargo was impressed by Stack. Unlike a lot of whites, who blundered around in the dark like blind bulls in a china shop, Stack was almost as quiet as he was.
The gully’s many twists and turns prevented Fargo from keeping the campfire in sight. He noticed that the glow had grown even more, and that troubled him. Indians usually kindled small fires to avoid discovery. Whites favored big fires, the better to keep warm and keep the dark at bay. This fire was proving to be bigger than any warrior with a shred of self-preservation would ever make.
Stack noticed, too, and when the fire was only a few hundred yards above them, he whispered, ‘‘If that is Fraco, I am a schoolmarm.’’
They continued to climb anyway and soon were near enough to see that two figures were next to the fire and several horses were tethered nearby. The pair were whites, as Fargo expected. But what he did not expect was that one of them would have waist-length brunette hair framing a baby-smooth face that could not have seen twenty years. The man she was with did not appear old enough to shave.
‘‘Oh, hell,’’ Stack said.