Six-Gun Vendetta by Jon Sharpe

Author:Jon Sharpe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2011-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

12

Santa Fe was a nocturnal city, and it was coming to bustling life now as the sun, a giant copper coin balanced on purple mountain peaks to the west, gave way to grainy twilight. The boardwalks were crowded with hawkers, lamplighters, and touts—young men who solicited business for saloons, gambling halls, and hotels.

In this pied flow of humanity, no one paid any attention to the two men who made an odd pair as they hugged the apron of shadows near the buildings. One was a barrel-chested mountain of a man with a broad, blunt-featured face. The other, skinny as a rail and nearly a foot shorter, wore a new floppy-brimmed hat that left much of his face in shadow.

“Hiram, for Christ sakes stop looking over your shoulder,” Baylis Ulrick snapped. “If Fargo is out there watching the streets, you’ll stand out like a Kansas City fire engine.”

“Easy for you to say. You didn’t have your nuts knocked up into your throat by that son of a bitch. He’s strong as horseradish. I still say we should dust out of New Mexico Territory.”

“He’s a first-rate tracker, remember? You can’t run from a man like him—not if you ever hope to sleep in peace. For us it’s now root hog or die.”

Steele pulled his new hat lower. “Whose fault is that? You’re the one who sliced up his old pard into chitterlings. And then to top it off, you go and leave that damn finger for salt in the wound. Hell yes he’ll track us down.”

“Your big problem, Hiram, is you ain’t got the mentality to take on a man like Fargo. Of course finding that finger will make him ireful—and ireful men get stupid and make mistakes. That’s why I done it.”

“Maybe you’re right. And it is crowded in this town.”

“That’s the gait, bo. I told all three of you boys, we can keep Fargo flummoxed best by staying right here. Half the jaspers in this city are using summer names, and the flow of strangers in and out never lets up. And if we play your rich cousin right, we can douse Fargo’s light, leave in style on a stagecoach and hole up in San Francisco.”

The two men were heading down the main street toward Frank Tutt’s Gilded Cage gambling house. Earlier they had used money stolen from the Sloan family to rent a lean-to room jutting off the back of Paddy’s tavern. But by day the men now planned to pair off—Jed Longstreet and Ray Nearhood would not be seen with Ulrick and Steele, a key part of Ulrick’s plan for dealing with Tutt, and eventually, Fargo.

“Yeah, old long shanks will get his comeuppance soon enough,” Ulrick vowed. “But I admit it was a mistake to have you dog his trail ’steada Ray or Jed. Now he’s seen your pan, but we need you to help palaver with your cousin Frank. That hat and them new duds should help some. Get you a bath and a shave, too. ’Course, can’t nobody do nothing ’bout them pockmarks on your face.

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