Grizzly Fury

Fargo had shot black bears and grizzlies. A few times when he had to in order not to be eaten, a few times when he was halfstarved and a bear made the mistake of wandering into his sights before a deer or a rabbit, and once when he needed a hide to make a robe for a Sioux friend who just happened to be female. “Do you still have your Sharps?”

“Wouldn’t hunt with any other gun,” Rooster said. “Last year I brought down a buff at five hundred yards.”

“That’s some shooting.”

“You’ve still got yours, I take it?”

“I took to using a Henry,” Fargo revealed.

Rooster was about to take another drink but stopped. “Why in Sam Hill would you part with your Sharps? You could outshoot me with that beauty you had.”

“A Henry holds more rounds.”

Rooster slapped down his glass, spilling some of the whiskey. “Rounds my ass. Why, those things are only fit for chickens and chipmunks.”

“I’ve dropped a few buffalo with it.”

“Hell,” Rooster said in disgust. “Bet you had to shoot the poor buff eight or ten times. You know and I know that when it comes to stopping a critter in its tracks, there’s nothing like a Sharps.”

“Sharps do come in larger calibers . . .” Fargo began.

“Damn right they do. Mine is a .52. It’s a regular cannon. What caliber is your chipmunk killer?”

“You know damn well the Henry is a .44.”

Rooster snorted. “When we find Brain Eater, what do you intend to do? Club him to death? A bee would sting him worse than your girlie gun.”

“Did you just say girlie gun?”

“You’d be better off using that kid’s slingshot.”

“You’re full of it,” Fargo said. But his friend had a valid point. A Henry could bring a grizzly down, provided its vitals were hit, but he wouldn’t care to stake his life on it.

“The hell I am. Look me in the face and tell me you’re going to go after a griz as big as a Conestoga with your pitiful .44.”

Fargo frowned.

“I didn’t think so.”

More than a little annoyed, Fargo said testily, “I never said I gave up the Sharps entirely. A friend keeps it for me. I use it now and then. And before you ask, yes, I left the Henry and brought the Sharps.”

“What’s her name?”

“Who?”

“Your friend.”

“Go to hell.”

Rooster cackled and smacked the bar. “That’s the spirit. Between your Sharps and mine, Brain Eater is fit to be skinned.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“No,” Rooster said. “I don’t.”

An hour later Fargo and Rooster had finished the bottle and Fargo was set to order another when a commotion broke out in the street. Shouts flew from one end to the other.

“I wonder what that’s about,” Rooster said.

The next moment the batwings parted and a townsman thrust his head in. “There’s been another one! They have him in a wagon down to the undertaker’s.”

An exodus ensued, with a lot of pushing and shoving before everyone made it out. Fargo held back and waited for the press to thin, then joined the scores converging on a building with a sign that read simply, MORTICIAN. He had to shoulder through the crowd to a buckboard. A man in the bed had pulled back a canvas and onlookers were craning their necks to see the remains. One glimpse was enough for most; it was all they could stomach, and they had to turn away before they got sick.

Fargo wasn’t as squeamish. He’d seen freighters after the Apaches got done with them, and settlers after they had been paid a visit by the Sioux. He’d seen a man who had been clawed to ribbons by a mountain lion, and another who had blundered onto a she-bear and her cubs. But he’d never seen anything like this.

The arms and legs were lined up in a row, the hands and feet at one end, the stumps at the other. One of the hands was missing several fingers. The abdominal cavity had been ripped open and torn intestines lay in grisly coils. The neck had been bitten nearly in half. The face was intact but the crown of the head was attached by slivers of flesh and where the brains should be was a cavity.

“Merciful heavens,” a woman blurted, and vomited.

“Who was it?” someone asked the man holding the canvas.

“Ira Stoddard,” the man said. “He had a claim about two miles out. They found him near the creek. Or this that was left of him, anyhow.”

Rooster nudged Fargo. “Maybe we should go have a look-see before the horde shows up.”

“The horde?” Fargo said, and laughed. He didn’t find it so funny when they were barely out of town and found dozens of others ahead of them.

“I told you,” Rooster said. “Each time there’s a killing all of these so-called hunters want to be the first there in the hope they’ll spot the bear.”

Fargo was content to take his time. The grizzly would be long gone, anyway. They followed a rutted track pockmarked with hoofprints and had gone about half a mile when a black horse came up alongside the Ovaro and a shadow fell across him. “What the hell do you want?”

“Prickly, ain’t you?” Moose said. “I wanted to tell Rooster and you there ain’t no hard feelings about earlier.”

“That’s generous of you,” Rooster said, “seeing as how you were the one chucked me through the window.”