High Plains Massacre by Jon Sharpe

Author:Jon Sharpe [Sharpe, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780451419507
Amazon: 0451419502
Barnesnoble: 0451419502
Goodreads: 16043770
Publisher: Signet
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

24

The encampment spread over ten acres or more. Nearly thirty wagons and carts were parked randomly about, their teams unhitched. The wagons weren’t the heavy schooners preferred by emigrants. They were smaller and narrower.

Half a dozen cook fires were tended by women in full-length skirts and baggy blouses, many with scarves over their hair. Other women were doing wash in tubs or talking and lounging. Children played and scampered and laughed.

Large piles of firewood were near each fire. Something about them struck Fargo as peculiar.

“Anton Laguerre’s band,” Bear River Tom guessed. “But where are the menfolk?”

Fargo didn’t see any, either. Ducking, he jammed his hat on his head. “Follow me.”

It took a while to work their way to a bend in the near end of the valley.

“I’ll be double-damned,” Bear River Tom said.

There was another hole in the ground. Only this one was ten times as big as the one Fargo discovered on the other side of the mountain. A ribbon of water flowed into it, runoff from on high. Four men with rifles stood guard.

In the hole lights flickered and danced. Torches, Fargo figured. From out of it came the chink-chink sounds he’d been hearing.

“What the hell is going on in there, pard?”

“We need to sneak on down for a look-see.”

Fargo was about to when several men came out of the hole. In the lead was a man who towered head and shoulders over the rest. He was so big and so broad, he dwarfed them.

“Anton Laguerre!” Tom whispered. “I’ve heard he’s a he-bear.”

So had Fargo.

“God, look at him.”

Fargo was looking. He saw how the guards snapped straight and backed up as Laguerre approached. The men with Laguerre walked well back, as if wary of getting too close.

He remembered another story, how Anton Laguerre wasn’t in his right mind, and he wondered if that was true, as well.

“I wish we were closer,” Bear River Tom said. “I’d try to pick him off.”

“Not yet,” Fargo said. They had to find the settlers first.

Tom looked up at the mountains that ringed the valley. “I can understand why the Lakotas haven’t found them yet. This place is pretty well hid.”

Fargo was eager to see what lay down that hole. To try in broad daylight was out of the question. He’d be spotted before he got anywhere near it.

“What do we do now?” Tom asked.

“We wait.”

The afternoon crawled like a snail. Nothing much happened.

Tom curled on his side and fell asleep.

Fatigue nipped at Fargo, too, but he stayed awake.

Twice Anton Laguerre returned to the hole. Each time he stayed down half an hour or so, and when he emerged, he carried a large leather sack that bulged and appeared heavy even for someone of his immense build.

The women and the children, Fargo noticed, never came anywhere near the hole. Once several young boys tossing a stick to a dog ventured close and were shushed away by the guards.

The sun was about to relinquish its reign when a bell clanged down in the hole and shortly thereafter out filed a bedraggled line of exhausted humanity.

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