“You don’t,” Garvey said.
Draypool sighed. “What if I offer you your life, Trailsman? What if I let you leave with no hard feelings? Would you accommodate us?”
“And make it easier for you to murder Abe? After you lured me here to take the blame for assassinating him?” Fargo laughed in their faces. “Sure. I’ll turn my back on him, you mangy bastards, but only after all of you are worm food.”
Zeck had his rifle halfway to his shoulder. “Say the word, Mr. Draypool, and he’s a goner.”
“Not quite yet, if you please,” Arthur Draypool said. Then, to Fargo, “Which direction has Abraham Lincoln gone?”
“Do you honestly expect me to tell you?” Fargo marveled. Sometimes the man was too ridiculous for words.
“No, I suppose it was too much to ask,” Draypool acknowledged. “In which case we have nothing left to say to one another.” He nodded at Zeck. “If you would be so kind, Vern.”
Fargo’s hand was swifter than the nod. He had his Colt out before Zeck had the rifle level. Cocking the hammer as he drew, he squeezed off a single shot. The slug cored Zeck between the eyes, shattering his nose and blowing off the top of his skull in a spray of hair, bone, and gore. In spasmodic reflex, Zeck’s trigger finger tightened and his rifle discharged into the soil in front of his mount. The frightened animal reared, causing Bryce Avril’s horse to shy and throwing off Avril’s aim so that his shot whizzed harmlessly over Fargo’s head.
The rest were bringing their rifles to bear. Draypool, Harding, Garvey, and the other League member fired an uneven volley, peppering the air with lead. In their haste, they missed.
Fargo darted behind an oak, and flattened. They continued to fire at random even though he was lost to their view. He scrambled south a dozen feet, then west.
“Hold your fire!” Judge Harding commanded. “Can’t you idiots see that he has gone to ground?”
“Where did he get to?” Draypool asked anxiously. “Did we hit him? Fan out and find out!”
“No!” Judge Harding bellowed. “We stick together! Avril, watch to the south! Garvey, the west! Clifton, keep your eyes peeled to the north. If a blade of grass so much as moves, shoot at it.”
Fargo froze. He had wanted to slip behind them unnoticed, but the wily judge had thwarted him.
“What about Lincoln?” Garvey asked. “Shouldn’t some of us ride on ahead and get this over with?”
“Don’t worry. He won’t get far,” Judge Harding said. “We’ll catch him long before he reaches the Sangamon.”
“What makes you think he’ll head for the river?” Arthur Draypool asked.
“Because whatever else Lincoln might be, he’s not stupid,” Judge Harding said. “His only hope is to cross the river and get help, and he knows it.”
Fargo began to replace the spent cartridge in his Colt. In order not to give himself away he moved with painstaking slowness.
“I can’t stand just sitting here,” Draypool complained. “He can pick us off one by one. At least send Avril into the trees to look around.”
“No.” The judge was adamant. “Your man is good at killing, but in these woods Fargo has the advantage.”
Their squabbling had enabled Fargo to reload. Facing them, he slid backward until he had gone far enough to ensure they did not see him when he rose into a crouch behind a pine. For all their bluster, the secessionists did not possess much woodland savvy. He aimed at Bryce Avril.
“There!” Avril suddenly barked, and his rifle spat.
Fargo heard the slug bite into the pine. He answered in kind. His shot smashed into Avril’s face, dissolving the nose into fleshy pulp. Avril joined Zeck in a prone posture of death.
The others commenced firing, forcing Fargo to drop flat and crab to his left. Bits of vegetation rained down, clipped by the hailstorm.
Suddenly Clifton reined wide of the rest and galloped toward the pine Fargo had vacated, firing his rifle with admirable proficiency. Judge Harding shouted at him to stop, but Clifton did not obey.
Fargo heaved onto his knees and fired twice, fanning the Colt with practiced precision. At each blast Clifton rocked with the impact. His rifle drooped and he swayed. Fargo did not waste another shot. He threw himself flat yet again as the horse thundered by. Clifton’s body thudded to the ground.
Three conspirators remained. Fargo had three cartridges left in his Colt. He would rather have more, and went to reload.
“Rush him!” Arthur Draypool bawled, beside himself with fury. “All of us at once!”
“Don’t!” the judge yelled.
But Draypool and Garvey charged, firing on the fly. An invisible fist knocked Fargo’s hat from his head. Invisible fingers tugged at his left sleeve. Rising onto one knee, he shot Draypool squarely in the chest, then had to leap aside as Garvey nearly rode him down. Garvey twisted in the saddle and fired as Fargo fired, not once but twice. The bottom of Garvey’s jaw exploded and the overseer fell.
The Colt was empty. Fargo whirled, his hand flying to his belt. The click of a rifle hammer—and the muzzle trained on him—turned him to stone.
Judge Oliver Harding smiled. “Any last comments?”
Fargo was a statue.
“No? You gave a good accounting. I’ll give you that much. But it’s over. You’ve lost. As soon as I put an end to you, I’ll go after Lincoln.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
The voice came from so near that both Fargo and Judge Harding gave a start. A familiar lanky frame came out of the shadows into the sunlight, as inviting a target as anyone could ask for.
“You!” Judge Harding exclaimed. “I didn’t think you would make it so easy.” He drew a bead on the presidential candidate.
Fargo had to act. Only a few feet away lay a fallen rifle. In a bound he reached it and swept it up. He fired without aiming, as much to rattle Harding as anything else. The judge shifted toward him. Both of their rifles boomed.
The judge missed.
Fargo did not.
Abraham Lincoln came over and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I am forever in your debt.”
“It’s not over,” Fargo said. “There’s a man named Mayfair I plan to visit. He’s part of the League.”
“Let the army deal with him,” Lincoln suggested. “I will have Captain Colter take him into custody. With the help of Providence, we will uncover the rest of their sinister organization.”
“Whatever you think is best.”
Abraham Lincoln smiled warmly and offered his hand. “Can I count on your vote come the election?”
Grinning, Fargo shook. “I don’t usually bother. But in your case I might make an exception.”
LOOKING FORWARD!
The following is the opening
section of the next novel in the exciting
Trailsman series from Signet:
THE TRAILSMAN #301 HIGH PLAINS GRIFTERS
High Plains, Kansas Territory, 1860—
where Judge Lynch presides and
Fargo is invited to a social—a hemp social.
Skye Fargo stood in the shadow beside his hotel room window, keeping a wary eye directed outside on the ramshackle livery barn at the far edge of town.
Since entering the Kansas Territory three days earlier, he had been followed by two young Southern Cheyenne bucks. Because most Plains Indians were partial to pinto horses, and Fargo rode a top-notch pinto stallion, it seemed likely they meant to boost his Ovaro.
Cheyennes, he knew, were not town fighters. Sneaking into a livery in broad daylight, however, to steal a white man’s mount would count as a great deed and earn them coup feathers. So Fargo had slid open the sash and had his brass-framed Henry rifle propped against the wall nearby. He had no intention to shoot for score, only to kick up plenty of dust and send the braves running.