Wilson lifted his reins. “I think I’ll go back and ride with Sam and the others.”
“Fine. Be that way.” Tibbit shifted in his saddle toward Fargo. “Do you believe this?”
“Yes.”
“Hell in a basket. Everyone is against me. But you wait. They’ll change their minds after we catch the Ghoul.” Tibbit took off his hat and swatted it against his leg and put it back on again. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make them take me seriously. I’ll show them a man can be a good corset salesman and a good lawman, both.”
“Just so you don’t get anyone killed,” Fargo said.
17
The black mesa towered stark and remote in the dark heart of the cloud-covered wasteland. The wind was bringing a storm from the west and thunderheads framed the far horizon. Vivid flashes rent the black clouds, so far away that the consequent thunder was the faintest of rumbles.
“Just what we need,” Marshal Tibbit complained.
Fargo wasn’t happy about it either. They had half a mile to cover and the dust their mounts raised could be seen for three or four. The Ghoul was bound to have spotted them and would either be long gone or prepared to spill a lot of blood. Neither prospect was appealing.
To add to Fargo’s unease, the townsmen and farmers were much too lax.
They wouldn’t stop gabbing about everything from the weather to their families. It got so, he began to wonder if any of them fully realized what they were up against.
“Maybe we should turn around and come back tomorrow,” Tibbit suggested.
“We came this far,” Fargo said, implying it would be a shame not to finish it. Tippet took it another way.
“I’m not yellow, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I never said ...” Fargo began.
“I’ll show you.” Tibbit rose in the stirrups and faced the posse. “We need to hurry, men, to beat that storm. At a gallop, if you would!” And he whooped and used his spurs.
“No!” Fargo shouted, but the rest were quick to follow the lawman’s lead and went pounding past, many yipping and hollering as if it were some sort of child’s game, all save for Sam Worthington who stopped next to the Ovaro.
“What’s the matter?”
“The fools,” Fargo said, and lit out after them. They were charging across open land in plain sight. He dreaded what might happen.
The shod hooves of the posse’s mounts raised thunder of their own. They spread out, Marshal Tibbit at the center urging them on with waves of his arm.
They were caught up in the charge, oblivious to all else including Fargo’s shouts for them to stop.
The black mesa seemed to grow as Fargo drew nearer, an illusion enhanced by the darkening clouds that mantled it in shadow.
“Stop, damn you! You’re riding into his gun sights!”
Marshal Tibbit was whooping the loudest of all and lashing his horse with the reins.
To the west lightning split the sky and real thunder boomed.
It explained why Fargo didn’t hear the first shot. The posse was two hundred yards from the base of the mesa when a rider next to Tibbit threw up his arms and catapulted off his saddle and was nearly trampled by the horse behind him. Tibbit didn’t notice and kept going but a few others did and drew rein.
Fargo heard the second shot. A man in a bowler lost part of his face and fell headlong to the ground. The third shot lifted a farmer clear of his mount, a scarlet stain in the middle of his shirt. The fourth shot brought down a horse. By then the rest awakened to their peril. They broke right and left, some heading back the way they had come, others racing for the mesa, and cover.
Fargo galloped for the mesa. He listened to the rifle bang three more times before it went empty. A Spencer, he suspected, since Spencers held seven shots.
Two more bodies joined those already down.
Tibbit’s hat had been whipped off and he was riding bareheaded and bawling for everyone to follow him. A handful did. The rest made for boulders and patches of vegetation.
Maybe twenty, all told, reached the mesa, Fargo among them. He clattered into a stand of trees and drew rein. Worthington and another man were right behind them. Together they swung down, shucked their rifles, and moved to trees.
The Spencer was still silent but Fargo wasn’t fooled. It took only seconds to reload. The Ghoul was waiting for them to show themselves.
“What do we do?” asked the townsman with Worthington, his eyes wide with fear.
“We stay put.”
“But he’s killed a bunch of us.”
“Listen to Mr. Fargo, Timothy,” Sam Worthington said. “He knows what he’s doing.”
Timothy half rose from concealment. “So do I. I’ve hunted bear and deer. I’m going up whether you two are or not.” He took a step and his left cheek dissolved in a shower of blood and flesh.
Fargo dived to pull him to the ground but it was already too late; the exit wound was as big around as an apple. He rolled aside as the body crashed down and took up his position behind the tree.
“Tim always did think he knew better than other folks,” Sam Worthington said.
Fargo scoured the slope for sign of the others. They had all gone to ground and were well hid. Then a hatless head popped out from behind a boulder and Marshal Tibbit waved.
“Fargo! I’m over here! Do you see him?”
Fargo motioned for him to get down. “I am surrounded by amateurs,” he remarked.
“Most of us push plows or pencils,” Sam Worthington said. “We’re not man-killers.”
The bodies sprinkled over the wasteland were a testament to the farmer’s statement. Fargo almost regretted involving them. “Cover me the best you can,” he directed.
“What are you fixing to do?”
Fargo made sure a cartridge was in the Henry’s chamber.
“The Ghoul will pick you off the moment you step into the open,” the farmer remarked.
“He’ll try.” Fargo sank onto his belly and crawled to Timothy. He had to lift and tug to get the jacket off. Then, holding it in his left hand, he crawled to the last tree.
Worthington reached the next trunk over. “I’ll spray some lead to discourage him but without knowing where he is it might not help much.”
“Take care of my horse until I get back.” Fargo tossed the jacket into the open. The Spencer blasted, and simultaneously he pumped his legs for a cluster of boulders forty feet higher. The Spencer cracked again and a dirt geyser spewed next to his foot. Behind him the big farmer commenced shooting as rapidly as he could. A slug clipped a whang from Fargo’s buckskin shirt. Another nicked his hat. He dived and rolled and was up running and bounded the last few yards with his skin prickling.
Fargo flattened behind a boulder. He was caked with sweat. He looked at Worthington and held his thumb up. Worthington grinned and ducked behind the tree.
The next moment, to Fargo’s complete and utter amazement, Marshal Tibbit started up the slope after him. Worse, as Tibbit burst from concealment he shouted loud enough for all creation—and the Ghoul—to hear.
“Here I come! Cover me!”
Fargo swore and heaved up and fired shot after shot. The Spencer answered. Fargo sent four swift blasts at puffs of gun smoke he spotted and the Spencer fell silent.
Tibbit gained a nearby boulder and sank to his knees, rasping for breath. “Thanks,” he puffed.
“You’re a damned fool.”
“Here now,” Tibbit said. “Don’t start.”
Fargo studied the slope above them. It wasn’t as steep as it had appeared to be but climbing it would take some doing and he would have to cross a lot of open space.
“I’ve done pretty good so far,” Tibbit remarked.
“Besides getting six or seven men shot?” Fargo said. There might be more. He hadn’t counted them.