New Mexico Madman (9781101612644) by Sharpe Jon

Author:Sharpe, Jon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA
Published: 2012-12-21T05:00:00+00:00

11

Russ Alcott lowered his spyglass and loosed a sharp whistle. “Boys, that’s what you call painting the landscape with blood. Them was Apaches they just routed, and them red sons ain’t no cracker-and-molasses Injins. Two of ’em whipped a force that was ten to one against ’em.”

Alcott, Cleo Hastings and Spider Winslowe were well hidden in a river thicket beside the Rio Grande. Alcott, picking his teeth with a twig, was silent for a full minute, thinking hard.

“Well, that flat out does it,” he finally announced. “It’s open country ahead and we ain’t got a snowball’s chance to kill Fargo and snatch that woman anytime before they hit Albuquerque.”

“Why don’t we give Fargo the go-by and just grab the woman?” Spider suggested.

“You been grazin’ locoweed? Fargo’s a jobber and his job right now is to protect that pert skirt. Even if we could do it, it’s no use taking her withouten we kill Fargo. They say he can hold a trail in windstorms that blow even insect tracks away. We’d never shake him.”

Thus reined in by logic, Spider tried another tack. “What about the station at Peralta just south of Albuquerque? Maybe we could—”

Alcott waved this off. “Nah, we’d just be barkin’ at a knot. We bollixed it up back at San Marcial and now Fargo will be on guard at the stations. Good ambush country starts just past Rio Rancho. I use to ride with Jack Dancy’s gang up that way; I know the country good.”

“Yeah, Russ, but hell,” Spider protested. “This is already the fifteenth of June. By the time they hit Rio Rancho, it’ll be the seventeenth before we can make another play. That gives us only three days—ain’t that paring the cheese might close to the rind?”

“What cheese?” Cleo put in, confused, but the other two ignored him.

“Too damn close,” Alcott agreed. “But, see, we got us another problem in the mix—that goddamn driver.”

“Yeah. ’At sumbitch is a big grizz, ain’t he?”

“Size ain’t nothing to the matter, Spider. That bastard is crazy-brave, and that’s the worst kind. Just now—bullets was humming in nineteen to the dozen, and did you see him laughing while them Apaches attacked? Hell, he enjoyed it. We ain’t never gonna whip the pair of ’em together.”

“You mean we’re just gonna give up?” Cleo demanded.

Alcott gave him a pitying look. “Here’s a man knows gee from haw,” he replied scornfully. “When you ever seen Russ Alcott get icy boots? I’m just telling you, lunkhead, we got to kill the big grizz first if we want even odds at Fargo.”

“Sure,” Spider said, “but how we gonna play a deal like that?”

“I ain’t got a foggy notion in hell,” Alcott admitted. “Unless . . .”

“Unless what?”

“Unless,” Alcott said, thinking out loud more than speaking, “we can maybe rub him out in Albuquerque. That’s an Overland stagecoach hub and more in the way of a saloon than a station house. Spider, are you still in thick with that pretty Mex’can whore, what’s-her-name?”

“Conchita? Sure, I trimmed her just before we took this job.

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