Black Hills Deathblow by Jon Sharpe

Author:Jon Sharpe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2014-08-05T16:00:00+00:00

13

“Hear that, boys?” Stuart Brennan said. “Read ’em and weep.”

Another scream, muted by distance, reached them like a summons to their own graves. Brennan, Jack Stubbs and Waco Clayburn had met in a well-hidden cave just north of Blacktail Gulch—one of three they were using.

“Maybe one of us should go plug him,” Waco said uncertainly.

Brennan’s hard, flat, gunmetal eyes pierced Waco like a pair of bullets. “Are you volunteering?”

Waco frowned and averted his eyes. “Not me. Fargo might expect that and draw down on whoever comes to shoot Dobber.”

“You’re wising up, Waco. There’s no chivalry in our game, boys. It’s a rough, dirty business suited only for men willing to kill their own mothers. In the end it boils down to raw mentality, and I’m smarter than Fargo.”

The screams were getting weaker, but the awful, terrifying tone was brutally clear. Jack Stubbs was a hard man, and loyal to his boss, but realizing that was a human being making those sounds took the pith out of his legs and forced him to suddenly support himself on the wall of the cave.

“Boss,” he said, “I’d stack your gray matter up against any man’s. But Fargo always ’pears to be smart enough to deal us misery.”

“I told you boys right from the jump that Fargo would work on us relentlessly,” Brennan admonished them. “You think I talk just to hear myself speak? First a pack mule, now Dobber. And he broke up the second attack Swift Canoe meant to make on the French Creek camp although those renegade bucks did a good job of bloodletting at Spearfish Creek. Word about that will get out to the newspapers and stir up Indian fever. We need more of that.”

“I string along with Jack,” Waco spoke up, his sullen eyes showing a hint of rebellion. “Fuckin’ with Fargo ain’t such a bright idea. I say we just leave all the goods for the red arabs and the three of us split up and get shut of these hills.”

Brennan looked disgusted, as if he had stepped in dog shit barefooted.

“Is that the female in you talking, Waco?” he demanded. “You don’t cut off your arm at the elbow just to get rid of a hangnail.”

“Skye Fargo a hangnail? Is that what killed Dobber—a hangnail? I’d say Fargo is more like a six-inch spike in the liver.”

“Boss,” Jack threw in, “a fellow can lay a feather on a rock and call it a bed, but I ain’t sleeping in the son of a bitch. I ride for the brand, and I’m sticking if you are. But Fargo ain’t no damn hangnail. I’m thinking we need help.”

Brennan gave a curt nod of agreement. Despite employing Stubbs for almost a decade now, he despised him. The hard-knit hill man was deferential to money and power. But he was also a perpetual boaster just bursting at the seams to talk himself up mighty high. A know-it-all and trouble-seeking man by nature, good for Brennan’s purposes but definitely no match for Skye Fargo.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.