Border Bravados by Jon Sharpe

Author:Jon Sharpe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2007-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

9

The tribal feathers adorning the Indians’ rifle barrels, and the bone-handled knives sheathed on their waists or strapped to their leggings indicated they were Chiricahua Apaches.

No wonder the Rurales had caught up to Fargo so quickly. They had the best guides in the Southwest. Those guides stared at the Trailsman now, their glinting, coffee-colored eyes daring him to lift his rifle.

Fargo turned back toward the Rurales staring up at him, and slowly lowered the Henry to the boulder. The lieutenant laughed. “I thought you would see it my way, El Oso Loco. Now, get your ragged ass down here. You are going to prison, my friend. And then, without a doubt, the firing squad!”

Before Fargo could respond, the lieutenant ordered the three Apaches behind him to lead the prisoner down the hill and to shoot if he tried to escape. The one nearest the Trailsman grunted and muttered in a pidgin Spanish mixed with Chiricahua, indicating Fargo’s cartridge belt with his rifle barrel.

When the Trailsman had removed the belt and set it atop the rifle, he leaped down from the boulder, hoping in vain the Apaches wouldn’t check his boot for the Arkansas toothpick. But they weren’t Apaches for nothing.

Relieved of all his weapons, he was ushered down the hill, the Apaches flanking him on three sides about ten feet away, one leading the Ovaro, their rifles aimed for killing shots.

Below, the Rurales had dismounted. While one private collected the reins of the eight horses, three others scrambled up the slope toward Fargo. The three young Mexicans, barely twenty, approached haltingly, shifting their weight from foot to foot and staring fearfully down their muskets or rifles.

One of them blocked Fargo’s path. Holding his hands shoulder high, the Trailsman stopped, cocked a brow at the young man. The young Rurale swallowed nervously and scrambled aside, stumbling over a stone. He and the others fell back as Fargo scrambled the last twenty yards down the hill, bounded off a boulder, and landed on the trail before the lieutenant.

“You’re making a mistake,” he said, first in Spanish, so the man was sure to understand, then in English, to prove he was a gringo. “I’m not the man you’re looking for. Name’s Fargo. Skye Fargo.”

The lieutenant, holding a big Patterson Colt at Fargo’s belly, puffed a fat stogey snugged in one corner of his mouth. He scowled at Fargo from under heavy brows. His fat, sweat-slick face was covered in heavy stubble.

Behind the man rose a loud clattering, and Fargo edged a look around the Rurale lieutenant.

Down the canyon, a wagon crested a rise and started down the other side, heading toward Fargo and the Rurales. It was a barred rig with a roof constructed of brush and chicken wire—a jail wagon. Two young Rurales sat the driver’s seat, hoorawing the two mules in the traces. The wagon was a good sixty yards away, but Fargo thought he saw a couple of prisoners slumped in the box.

Fargo looked at the lieutenant, who grinned around his cigar.

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