Grizzly Fury

“Actually, the total is eleven. But no. Only two of them were hunters. Another was killed in a drunken fight in a saloon and two more had a falling-out over how they were going to split the five thousand dollars and shot themselves dead.” Petty touched his bowler’s brim. “Good day to you, sir.”

Fargo digested the news as he rode to a hitch rail in front of one of the saloons and dismounted. Tying off the reins, he stretched. The saloon was called the Sluice. He pushed on the batwings. Although it was barely noon the place was crowded. He bellied up to the bar and paid for a bottle. Since he couldn’t find an empty chair, he went back out and sat on an upended crate and savored his first swallow of red-eye in more than a week.

“Well now, what have we here?”

Fargo cocked an eye over the bottle at a young woman in a gay yellow dress, holding a yellow parasol. Brunette curls fanned from under a matching yellow bonnet. She was appraising him as a horse buyer might a stud stallion. “Didn’t your ma ever warn you about talking to strange men?”

“She did, indeed,” the woman said. “But I always make exceptions for handsome men, and God Almighty, you are one handsome son of a bitch.”

Fargo laughed and introduced himself.

“I’m Fanny Jellico,” she said with a twirl of her parasol. “Let me guess. You’re here after Brain Eater?”

Nodding, Fargo said, “You too, I take it?”

Now it was Fanny who laughed. She leaned her back to the wall, closed her parasol, and surveyed the busy street. “It’s become a circus. I suppose I shouldn’t complain since we’ve got more business than we can handle but it’s almost as dangerous in town as it is out there in the woods with the bear.”

“We?” Fargo said.

“Me and a bunch of girls came all the way from Denver,” Fanny explained. “It was Madame Basque’s doing. She runs a sporting house. When she saw that flyer she knew there was money to be made. So she loaded eight of us into a wagon and here we are.”

“That’s a long way to come.”

“Maybe so,” Fanny said. “But we’re making money hand over thigh.”

Fargo chuckled. “The marshal and the parson don’t mind?”

“There isn’t any law,” Fanny revealed. “The town never got around to appointing one. As for the parson”—she gazed down the street at the church, then looked at Fargo and winked—“he’s as friendly as can be.”

“I hear there’s been a knifing and a shooting.”

“Hell, there have been twenty or more just since we came,” Fanny said. “The hunters spend more time fighting amongst themselves than they do hunting the bear. And I use the word ‘hunter’ loosely. Some of them couldn’t find their own ass if they were told where it is.”

Fargo was beginning to understand why Theodore Petty resented the influx of bounty seekers. Gold Creek had gone from a run-of-the-mill mountain town to a wild-and-woolly pit of violence and carnal desire. Just the kind of place he liked most.

“If you’re interested in a good time, you might look me up at the Three Deuces. Madame Basque made an arrangement where we use the rooms in the back. I’m there from six until midnight most every night.”

“I might just do that.”

Fanny brazenly traced the outline of his jaw with a finger. “I might just let you have me at a discount, as good-looking as you are.”

The next instant the front window exploded with a tremendous crash. Fargo sprang to his feet and simultaneously Fanny screamed and threw herself against him. Both watched a man tumble to a stop in the street and lie half dazed.

Through the shattered window strode a colossus. Seven feet tall if he was an inch, he wore a buffalo robe and a floppy hat. Tucked under his belt was an armory: two pistols, two knives, and a hatchet. He walked over to the man in the street and declared, “Get up and get your due.”

The man rolled over. Buckskins clad his wiry frame. He was getting on in years and had hair as white as snow. He had a lot of wrinkles, too. Propping himself on his elbows, he wiped a sleeve across his mouth, smearing the blood that dribbled over his lower lip. “You shouldn’t ought to have done that, Moose.”

“You say mean things, you should expect it,” the man-mountain declared.

Fargo pried Fanny’s fingers from his arm. “Hold this,” he said, and gave her the bottle. Moving out from under the overhang, he headed toward the old man. “Rooster Strimm,” he said. “It’s been a coon’s age.”

Rooster blinked and grinned. “Why, look who it is. Ain’t seen you since Green River.”

Moose didn’t like the interruption. “You know this feller?” he said to Rooster.

“I surely do,” the old man confirmed. “He’s a friend of mine. Skye Fargo, meet Moose Taylor.”

Moose turned. “Friend or not, you’d better back away. Rooster, here, was mean to me and I don’t like it when folks are mean. I aim to hurt him some and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“Care to bet?” Fargo said.

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