Riverboat Reckoning by Jon Sharpe

Author:Jon Sharpe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2014-10-08T00:00:00+00:00

12

When the quicksand started to swallow him and Fargo instantly sank to his knees, he felt a ball of ice replace his stomach. But when he was sucked down farther to the middle of his thighs, his potent survival instinct mule-kicked his mind.

He knew that struggling was not only useless but would make him sink faster. There was only one tool available to him now, and it was in his hands and loaded with sixteen brass-cased shells.

Fargo, still sinking almost up to his crotch, quickly thrust the Henry forward and twined it through the entangled maze of vines and branches that formed the deadfall. His only hope now was to snug it in there deep so that plenty of those vines and branches trapped and supported it.

The Trailsman fully expected to someday be bucked out in smoke or pierced by that “ultimate arrow” the penny-dreadful hacks loved to mention. But suffocating helplessly in a godforsaken Louisiana swamp was not his notion of a fighting death.

At least, some morbid inner voice taunted him, you’ll die with your boots on, huh?

Fargo’s hips went under with a disgusting, frightening feeling as if hands were tugging him into the underworld. Heart pounding like a Pawnee war drum, he tested the rifle by starting a slow chin-up. At first it sank dangerously low, branches crackling, and he feared it wouldn’t hold at all.

But by the time Fargo had been sucked in up to his belly button, the rifle stopped sinking when the various branches were compressed like weaker twines forming a strong rope.

Relief flooded over him but only for a few moments. Only the strength in his arms and the reliability of that deadfall were keeping him alive, and if those thugs didn’t dust their hocks soon, Fargo could be ingested by the swamp after all. Pulling himself out now would shake and rattle the tangled, dead growth even more and end up soaking him in a lead bath.

Fargo was still fatigued from his surprise wrestling match with the gator. As the voices droned on, his arms grew hot and began to tremble. Huge, ravenous mosquitoes had turned his exposed skin into a free-lunch counter for miniature vampires and there was nothing he could do to stop their fierce biting.

Finally, realizing he was at the scrag end of his strength, Fargo decided to try pulling himself out and relying on the Henry’s firepower if Ace Gilmer and his Red Oak Boys opened up on him. But even as he flexed his aching biceps, he heard a group of riders gigging their horses into motion.

If Fargo had been Bible raised, he would have delivered up one lulu of a heartfelt prayer. Instead he pressed his lips into a grim, determined slit and started to pull himself up.

The tangled brambles and small limbs protested with loud crackling when Fargo exerted himself. For a few moments the Henry started to pull loose and Fargo felt the inevitable hopelessness of the doomed. This feeling was softened somewhat when “his life flashed before his eyes” and all he saw was a long parade of beautiful, naked women.

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