With a toss of his head, Fargo focused on the here and now. He made for a point where two mountains seemed to merge. Mary had told him that between them wound a strip of grassy flatland. It was the easiest way in and out of the valley, the way Cud Sten was likely to bring the cattle.
Once he reached the flatland, Fargo stayed close to the forest so he could seek cover quickly if he had to.
The snow had turned the mountains white. Here and there boulders added a splash of brown and pines a dash of green.
There was no sign of the outlaws.
The middle of the morning came and went. Fargo arched his back to relieve stiff muscles. He looked up at a pair of ravens flying overhead, their wings beating loud in the thin air. He looked down and drew rein.
Fresh tracks marked the snow, the prints of a single horse. A shod horse. It had come down off the mountain and set off across the flatland.
Fargo rose in the stirrups. The horse wasn’t in sight. He reckoned it had gone into the forest on the other side. Sliding to the ground, Fargo hunkered down. A tingle shot through him and he was back on the sorrel in an instant. Then he hesitated. He wanted to go after the other horse. But Sten might come along while he was gone. Did he dare risk it? he asked himself. The answer was no. He had to put Mary and her kids first. It bothered him, though. He rode on with a heavy heart, glancing often across the flatland in the hope that the other horse would appear.
The sun was directly overhead when, faint on Fargo’s ears, fell the lowing of a cow. Wasting no time, he reined into the snow-shrouded trees and behind a pine half bent from the weight. By craning his neck he could see over it.
Presently, here they came: seven riders herding a handful of cows.
Mary had told Fargo there would only be five or six men. Somewhere or other, Cud Sten had added new curly wolves to his pack.
Figuring out which rider was Sten was easy. He was the only one holding—of all things—a club. About two feet long, it was thick at one end and tapered at the other. Oak, unless Fargo missed his guess. Why in the hell anyone would tote something like that around, Fargo couldn’t imagine. A six-shooter killed a lot quicker. Sten also wore a revolver, butt-forward on his left hip. A Smith & Wesson.
Comparing the others to wolves wasn’t far from the mark. All were lean and sinewy with eyes that glittered with the promise of death. Five were white. The sixth, who happened to be in the lead, had some red blood, as evinced by a shock of raven hair and copper skin.
The outlaws were herding the cows along but they weren’t in any particular hurry. One man dozed in the saddle.
The half-breed was on a claybank. He came abreast of where Fargo was hidden and suddenly drew rein and leaned down.
Cud Sten stopped, too, rumbling “What is it, Rika? We’ve got us a ways to go yet and I want to be there by nightfall.”
Rika straightened and turned. “Tracks,” he said simply. “They puzzle me.”
“How can that be?” Cud said. “What you don’t know about tracking ain’t worth knowing.”
“A white man has come this way.”
“What’s that?” Cud said, and he and the rest glanced all about, most placing their hands on their revolvers.
“It’s a white man we know,” Rika said. “Or his horse, at least.”
“What are you babbling about, damn it?”
Rika pointed at the tracks. “These were made by the animal our friend Tull rides.”
“Are you sure?”
“As you say. What I don’t know about tracking is not worth knowing. And I know the tracks of our horses as I know my own.”
“But if it’s Tull, where did he get to?”
“I ask myself the same question.”
Cud gigged his bay up and the two of them climbed down and hunkered to examine the prints.
Fargo palmed the pearl-handled Colt. He knew what they would do next, and he was ready. They would mount and come after him. With luck he could drop half of them before they suspected where he was, and then it would be cat and mouse until he finished them off.
True to his prediction, Cud Sten and Rika whispered back and forth. They climbed on their horses and reined around to talk in hushed tones to the others. Then, drawing their six-shooters, all seven swung toward the forest.
They were so obvious Fargo had to grin. But he didn’t find what happened next the least bit funny.
The branches of the pine were laden thick with snow. Now and then clumps fell to the ground. But just as the outlaws reined toward the forest, a clump of snow the size of a washbasin fell with a loud thud, and the pine, relieved of the weight, suddenly whipped straight up into the air. The rest of the snow in its branches came raining down on Fargo. For a few seconds all he saw was falling snow. Then the whiteout ended, and he could see again.
The tree no longer hid him.
He was in plain sight.
For a few seconds the outlaws were riveted in surprise. Then Cud Sten bellowed, “That’s not Tull! Kill the son of a bitch!”
Fargo wheeled the sorrel and jabbed his spurs. Behind him six-guns blasted and lead sang a song of death. One buzzed his ear, another narrowly missed his shoulder. Then he was past more trees and at a gallop.
Cud Sten let out with another bellow. “After him!”
Fargo scowled. Thanks to a fluke he was riding for his life. He reined right to avoid a tree, reined left to avoid another. A few more shots were fired but none came close. Then the shooting stopped.
The outlaws were after him in earnest.
The snow muffled the thud of their hooves. Nearly everything was white, the trees so burdened that many hung low to the ground. Fargo hadn’t gone far when he discovered how precariously balanced they were. The sorrel brushed against one, and it snapped vertical as that first tree had done, raining snow all over him. .
“Don’t let that son of a bitch get away!” Cud Sten bellowed.
Fargo glanced back. Two of them were hard after him. One raised a revolver but lowered it again because he didn’t have a clear shot.
Minutes passed, and the sorrel’s lead began to widen. But Fargo could tell the sorrel was beginning to tire. The heavy snow was sapping its vitality.
Fargo had to try something. He looked for another large pine, bent low, and soon spied a huge one so covered with snow, it resembled a white hill more than a tree. Reining around it, he came to a stop and hunched low over his saddle. Now it was up to fickle fate, which had already betrayed him once.
Off to the right hooves drummed. One of the outlaws flew past without seeing him.
To the left, more hooves. That made two.
Tense with hope, Fargo waited. Another rider was briefly visible, staring straight ahead. He heard one crash through the growth and twisted his head. The man had bushy red hair and a bushy red beard and, like the others, didn’t notice him. That made four.
Only two to go and Fargo would be safe.
A man in a mackinaw went past.
Then it was Cud Sten himself, his club held high as if he couldn’t wait to bash in Fargo’s skull.
Fargo waited. He didn’t hear the seventh. After a bit he decided the man must have gone by without him noticing and he gigged the horse around the pine.
Rika was barely ten feet away, the stock of a rifle wedged to his shoulder. The instant Fargo appeared, he fixed a bead on Fargo’s head and said quietly, “It’s up to you.”
Fargo had the Colt at his side. He could jerk it up and fire, but he had no doubt that even if he got off a shot, he was as good as dead. Rika wouldn’t miss, not at that range. “Don’t do anything I’ll regret,” he said, smiling. Then, holding the Colt by two fingers, he slowly raised his hand and slid it into his holster. “There. How’s that?”