Apache Ambush

Puffing for breath in the terrible heat, his shirt caked to his body with sweat, Fargo stopped and gulped breaths. All his hard effort had been for nothing.

He was about where the shooter had been when the shot rang out and he glanced about, not really expecting to find anything other than a smudge or two.

To his surprise, there were moccasin tracks. The killer had made no attempt to hide them. He saw where the man had knelt to shoot. He saw something else, too— something that caught his breath in his throat and sent an icy chill rippling up and down his spine.

‘‘It can’t be,’’ Fargo said out loud.

But it was.

In the dirt near the imprint of the killer’s knees was a human finger. It had been cut off at the third joint. Bone poked from the pink flesh at the severed end, and a drop of dry blood sprinkled the skin.

Revulsion gripped Fargo. He had seen worse, a lot worse, but this was so unforeseen, it shook him. Hunkering, he poked the finger with the Henry, rolling it over. The person who lost the finger had been white. The dirt under the fingernail suggested it was a white man and not a white woman; women tended to keep their nails cleaner than men.

Fargo straightened. He was not about to touch the damn thing. He turned to return to the Ovaro, and received a second jolt.

Another finger lay a few yards away, in the direction the bushwhacker had taken to reach his mount.

Fargo walked to the second finger. It was the same as the first, only bigger. The middle finger, he reckoned. He went a few yards farther on and there was a third. The little finger this time, right next to a clear set of moccasin prints.

‘‘Fraco, you son of a bitch,’’ Fargo growled. As if there was any doubt who was responsible. But who had lost the fingers? Howard and Harriet had all of theirs.

Wheeling, he retraced his steps.

Soon he was in the saddle again. He passed the spot where he had been shot at and continued on down the mountain to meet the freight wagons.

Cranmeyer, Krupp and Stack were riding point. All three were somber as they drew rein to await him.

‘‘Let me guess,’’ Fargo said before they could get a word out. ‘‘Someone is missing.’’

‘‘A guard,’’ Cranmeyer confirmed. ‘‘He was at the rear. He disappeared just a short while after you rode off. We couldn’t find a trace of him anywhere. The Mimbres, I suspect.’’

‘‘It was Fraco.’’

‘‘How do you know?’’ Krupp asked.

Fargo told them about his latest clash with the half-breed. ‘‘The fingers I found must belong to your missing man.’’

‘‘But how did Fraco and him vanish into thin air? We looked and looked and there wasn’t a trace.’’

Stack broke his silence. ‘‘Fraco lives in these mountains. He knows them inside and out. Every animal trail, every ravine, every shortcut.’’ He stopped and glanced at Fargo. ‘‘Damned peculiar, him missing you twice like he did. Makes me think he was not trying to hit you.’’

‘‘Cat and mouse,’’ Fargo said.

‘‘That would be my guess,’’ Stack replied. ‘‘Fraco has a mean streak bone deep. He is the kind to gut a puppy to watch it die slow.’’

‘‘Hell,’’ Krupp said.

Stack had more. ‘‘It could be he wants us to know he is out there. He wants it to prey on our nerves.’’

‘‘It will not prey on mine,’’ Cranmeyer declared. ‘‘I am getting these wagons through come hell or high water.’’ He reined around. ‘‘Come, Mr. Krupp. We will inform the others.’’

Fargo squinted up at the sun and tiredly rubbed his chin. It had been a long day and it wasn’t half over.

‘‘There is something you should know,’’ Stack said.

‘‘Not if it is more bad news.’’

Stack told him anyway. ‘‘About a year ago eleven members of a wagon train were picked off one by one. They never saw who did it. Only one man lived, and he was half dead when he was found. But everyone suspects Fraco was to blame.’’

‘‘You are saying he might try the same with us.’’

‘‘We are too big a train for him to wipe us out single-handed. But he might whittle us down some.’’

Fargo shifted to regard the long line of wagons, drivers and guards. Which one of them, he wondered, would be next?

‘‘Do you regret coming along?’’ Stack asked him.

‘‘No.’’ Fargo was glad he played poker a lot.

‘‘Oh? I would have guessed different. Or do you like having your ears buzzed by lead?’’ Stack pushed his hat back on his head. ‘‘It has been hell, and the worst is yet to come."

Skye Fargo agreed.

16

Much to Fargo’s surprise, the next two days passed without incident. The freight train wound like so many overfed sheep steadily deeper into the foreboding jaws of the Mimbres Mountains. The crack of bullwhips, the mule skinners constantly bellowing ‘Get along, there!’, the creak and rattle of the heavily laden wagons, filled the dusty air from dusk until dawn.

Stack shared his surprise. At one point he commented, ‘‘If Grind aims to stop us, he will have to do it soon.’’