Her room was in a boardinghouse, at the rear. She asked him to take her in the back way so no one would see her face.
Fargo obliged her. He knew how some women were about their looks. No one was in the hall and he slipped her into her room and over to her bed. He went to ease her down but the moment he loosened his hold, she collapsed onto her side.
Candice groaned and uttered a slight sound, as if she might break into tears.
“You all right?”
“Be back on my feet in no time,” Candice said with her good eye closed.
“Anything I can fetch you?”
“All I want now is to sleep.”
Fargo turned to leave but she suddenly showed some life and snatched his hand.
“I want to thank you, again, for what you did. It was sweet.”
“I'm many things,” Fargo said, “but not that.”
“Still.” Candice mustered a lopsided smile. The half of her face that was swollen wouldn't move. “When I'm up to it, and if you're still around, I'll treat you to a night you won't forget.”
“Night, hell,” Fargo said with a grin. “How about a week?”
“Deal,” Candice said. She began to laugh, winced in pain, and closed her eye again. “I'll ride you until you chafe,” she said softly, and passed out.
Fargo touched her hair. “Quite a gal,” he said. He left quietly. In the hall he paused. Instead of turning to the back door, he walked to the front of the house.
A parlor on the left was occupied by a man and a woman in their middle years. The woman was in a chair, tense with fear. The man was staring out the front window and jumped when Fargo said, “Folks.”
“Who are you?” the man demanded in a tone that told Fargo he was more mouse than lion. “What are you doing in here?”
“You run this boardinghouse?” Fargo asked.
“We both do,” the woman said. “Harold works at the general store but this gives us extra money.”
“The woman, Candice . . .” Fargo began.
“Candice Phelps,” the woman said.
“She was beat by the Hollisters. She's in her room, hurt bad.”
“Oh God,” Harold said. “I was sent home and Mr. Ogilby closed the store, he's so scared of them.”
“Seems to be a lot of that going around.” Fargo focused on the woman. “I hear there's no doc in this town.”
“There isn't,” she confirmed.
“Candice is asleep now but in a few hours you should look in on her.”
“Don't you worry. I like Candice. We'll take real good care of her.”
To the man Fargo said, “You can stop trembling. The Hollisters have left.”
“Thank God,” the man said. “It's a wonder they didn't kill anybody.”
Fargo touched his hat brim to the woman and left by the front door. The sudden glare of the afternoon sun after the half shadow of the house made him squint. He turned up the street and happened to gaze its full length to the prairie beyond.
A flash of light gleamed far off.
Fargo flung himself at the ground. Hardly had he done so when something whistled over his head. The distant boom of the shot followed half a second later.
Rance Hollister was out there with his Sharps.
In the hands of a marksman, a Sharps could hit a target from half a mile off. But it was a single-shot and took a few seconds to reload.
Rolling, Fargo heaved up and ran between two buildings before Hollister could get off another. Hot fury boiled in his veins. The Hollisters would have been smart to leave it be. Now he couldn't just ride off.
Staying out of the open, Fargo reached the saloon.
Nearly everyone was drinking and talking excitedly and a couple of card games had resumed. They were making so much noise, no one had heard the shot.
The place fell as silent as a cemetery when Fargo strode in.
Rafer Crown and Dirk Peters were at a corner table, and Peters beckoned.
The bartender had just brought a couple of glasses over for them.
Going over, Fargo pulled out a chair and set down his bottle. “I'm obliged for the warning about Rance.”
“He tried?” the barman asked.
“He did.”
“They won't give up, you know,” the bartender said. “I put the rest of their weapons in the back room if you want them.”
“I don't.”
The bartender shrugged and returned to the bar.
“If it was me,” Rafer Crown said, “I'd gun them on sight the next time I see them. Whether they are heeled or not.”
Fargo chugged and let out an “Ahhh” at the welcome burning that spread from his throat to his belly. “I take it you gents are going after the bull?”
Dirk Peters nodded. “The hunt commences tomorrow. That rancher, Jim Tyler, sent circulars all over about a month ago. I saw one in Utah.”
“It was Denver for me,” Crown said.
“There's a lot of others who have shown up,” Dirk Peters said. “We're to meet at Tyler's spread tomorrow morning at ten.”
“Why all at once?” Fargo asked.
Dirk shrugged. “Tyler's idea. Word is he's got something he wants to say to those who go after the critter.”
“Sounds like a waste of time to me,” Rafer Crown said. “I'd have been off hunting it by now.”
“From man hunter to bull hunter,” Dirk Peters said with a grin.
“For five thousand dollars I'd hunt a damn frog,” Crown said.
“How long has this bull been missing?” Fargo wanted to know.
“About two months,” Dirk Peters said.
Fargo took another swallow. “It could be dead by now. Or clear up in Canada.” He was only joking about that last but the bull might have wandered anywhere.
“Word is that a couple of trappers spotted Thunderhead about two weeks ago not ten miles from the ranch house,” Dirk Peters revealed.
“Thunderhead? Tyler gave the bull a name?”
“He probably thinks it's one of the family,” Dirk joshed.
“Why didn't the trappers bring it back for the reward?” Fargo asked.
“They tried, but the bull didn't want to come,” the bounty hunter said.
“They lost a packhorse for their trouble and nearly got gored, besides,” Dirk said.
“So Thunderhead is no kitten,” Fargo said.
“More monster than cat,” Dirk declared. “Half the size of a stagecoach, or so folks claim. With horns out to here.” He spread his arms as wide as they would go. “And the temper of a rabid wolf.”
“Hell,” Fargo said.
“Yes, sir,” Dirk Peters said. “Any gent who goes after Thunderhead is taking his life in his hands.”
Fargo mulled that over the rest of the day.
Both Crown and Peters could track, and with them after the bounty, finding the bull first wasn't a sure thing.
He entertained second thoughts about joining the hunt. But there was Candice's promise of delights to come, and the Hollister brothers to deal with.
Fargo decided he might as well try while he waited for her to heal and for him to have his chance at the Hollisters.
His bottle was almost empty when he sat in on a poker game.
The townsmen seemed in awe of him. That anyone had had the sand to stand up to the Hollisters, especially Grizz, was a wonderment. Many wanted to shake his hand and thank him. And more than a few were eager to sit in on the game.
Fargo was happy to have them. Nearly all were piss-poor players and he liked taking their money.
By eleven or so that night, fatigue started to set in. Fargo raked in his winnings and added them to his poke and rose. “This is it for me, gents,” he announced.
Crown and Peters were already gone.
Fargo nodded to a few townsmen who had been particularly friendly, and pushed on the batwings. A breath of cool night air fanned him.
Fargo stepped from under the overhang and bent to unwrap the reins just as the Ovaro raised its head and looked above him. Simultaneously, there came a scraping sound from the overhang.
Instinct propelled Fargo into whirling and going for his Colt just as a dark form smashed into his chest. Knocked back, he lost his hold on the revolver.
Cold steel flashed in the light from the saloon window, nearly taking out an eye.
Backpedaling, Fargo saw who it was.
“I've got you now, you son of a bitch,” Kyler Hollister gloated. He wagged his antler-handled knife and grinned in glee. “Rance didn't want me to come but I snuck off and here I am.”
Fargo realized Kyler must have ventured into the back of the saloon and found their weapons. “I'm glad you did.”
“Glad?” Kyler said.
“One less of you I have to track down.”
“I by-God can't wait to kill you.” Kyler came on in a crouch, his knife held in a way that told Fargo he knew how to use it. “For what you did to Grizz, I aim to make you suffer.”
“Talking me to death is a good start.”
Kyler hissed and attacked. He thrust high, slashed low, and hissed again when Fargo avoided both. “I forgot how quick you are.”
“Quicker than you Hollisters,” Fargo goaded as his hand dipped to his boot. In the partial dark the youngest Hollister didn't notice. “Being turtles must run in your family.”
“I'll show you turtle,” Kyler growled, and closed.
By then Fargo had the Arkansas toothpick out. He parried, and at the ring of steel on steel, Kyler uttered an oath and leaped back.
“So you have a blade too.”
Fargo grinned.
“That little splinter against my big knife?” Kyler said. “I'll cut you to ribbons.”
“You jabber as much as a girl.”
That did it. Kyler swore and attacked, and while he wasn't the best knife fighter Fargo had ever tangled with, the boy was good, damn good, and damn deadly, and it was all Fargo could do to stay alive.
They thrust, they stabbed, they circled. Every move was countered. Kyler was a lot smaller, but he was a rattler on two legs.
Fargo had been in enough fights to know that the longer it lasted, the more likely it was that he'd be cut or worse. He had to end it fast. But try as he might, he couldn't get the toothpick past that oversized blade of Kyler's.
The boy grew cocky. He laughed. He smirked. When Fargo tried a cut to the neck that he nimbly evaded, Kyler chuckled and said, “You're not so much, mister. You stood up to Grizz and knocked him out but you won't get the better of me.”
“Says the infant,” Fargo said.
“Your goadin' won't work anymore,” Kyler said, dipping low to the ground. “I'm serious now, and you're dead.”
Poised on the balls of his feet, Fargo crouched, ready for anything. Or so he thought. The next moment, Kyler flung a handful of dust at his face. Fargo brought his hand up but some of the dust flew into his eyes.
And suddenly he couldn't see.
The world became a blur.
Fargo backpedaled and swiped at his eyes with a sleeve but Kyler Hollister was a vague shape and nothing more. He heard Hollister laugh and felt a sting in his arm.
Fargo was in trouble. He kept on retreating and blinking. They were in the middle of the street where the light barely reached.
Kyler lanced that long knife at Fargo's belly, and with a hairsbreadth to spare, Fargo sidestepped and continued to put distance between them.
“You can't avoid me much longer, mister.”
The hell of it was, the boy was right. Fargo still couldn't see. He was a blind goat waiting to be slaughtered.
Just then the batwings opened and out of the saloon came four townsmen who drew up short.
“Look there!” one shouted.
“It's that Hollister kid!” another exclaimed.
“What do you think you're doing?” a third hollered.
Kyler did the last thing Fargo expected. He swore and bolted.
“After him!” one of the townsmen shouted but no one gave chase.
Fargo furiously wiped at his eyes. Another blink, and his sight was back.
Kyler Hollister had disappeared into the night. Chasing him would be pointless.
Sliding the toothpick into its ankle sheath, Fargo unfurled and turned to his saviors. “I'm obliged, gents.”
“What did we do?” the first man asked.
“You saved my hash,” Fargo said. Fishing his poke out, he loosened the drawstring and plucked a coin and tossed it and one of them caught it.
“Why, it's a ten-dollar gold piece.”
“Treat yourselves.”
They looked at one another and then at the ten-dollar coin.
“We could buy a whole bottle,” one said.
“Hell, we could buy two,” said another.
“I didn't really want to go home anyhow,” remarked a third.
“A bottle it is, then.”
Laughing and clapping one another on the back, they reentered the saloon. Right before the batwings closed, one of them thought to holler, “Thanks, mister.”
Fargo was the one who should thank them. That dust in the face almost did him in. He reclaimed his Colt.
Climbing on the Ovaro, he reined to an alley and along it until he came to the prairie. He supposed he could go ask if there was a room at the boardinghouse but it was late and he was tired and sore as hell from his fight with Grizz.
And now Fargo had something new he owed the Hollister brothers for.
Dappled by starlight and a sliver of moon, he rode until he came on a dry wash. It would shunt most of the wind and hide him from unfriendly eyes.
Riding down into it, Fargo dismounted. He stripped the Ovaro, spread out his bedroll, and lay on his back with his saddle for a pillow.
Overhead, a myriad of stars speckled the firmament. He never saw this many when he was in a city or town. Only in the wilds, where the skies were clear as crystal and there were no lights to interfere.
Fargo thought about the missing bull. The five thousand was too much to pass up. Maybe he'd find it and maybe he wouldn't. All it would cost him was a few days. A week at the most, he reckoned.
Where others might rest fitfully after the day he'd had, Fargo slept soundly until the stamp of the Ovaro's hoof ended his slumber. Feeling sluggish and drowsy, he rose onto his elbows.
Dawn was on the cusp of turning the eastern sky pink, and the stallion was staring intently to the south.
Jamming his hat on, Fargo cast off his blanket and crept to the top of the wash.
A lone rider was making for town along the ribbon of road.
“You're turning into a worrier,” he said to the stallion, and set about throwing his saddle blanket on and saddling up.
Fargo liked to start his day with coffee and recollected a restaurant that had a sign in the window advertising “the best breakfasts this side of the Divide.” He was skeptical of the claim but he did like the idea of having food served to him rather than making it himself. He was on the go so much, he grew tired of his own cooking.
By the time he got there the sun was up.
Most of the dozen or so customers stopped eating to stare. Evidently words of his clash with the Hollisters had spread.
Fargo paid them no mind. It was a new day and he'd start it right. When a gray-haired woman in an apron came for his order, he asked for six eggs, scrambled, two slices of toast with butter and jam, enough bacon to “gag a horse,” and for her to keep the coffee coming until it poured out his ears.
“A gent who likes to eat,” she said, chuckling. “You're a customer after my own heart.”
The coffee was delicious. Fargo was on his second cup, and his meal had yet to show, when the door opened and in ambled Rafer Crown and Dirk Peters. Peters spotted him and they came over.
“Mind if we join you?” Crown asked.
“It's a big table,” Fargo said.
“We're on our way out to the Tyler spread as soon as we're finished,” Dirk Peters mentioned. “Care to join us?”
“Might as well.”
Rafer Crown sat so his right hand was close to his Navy.
“There's a rumor going around that you were in a knife fight after we left you last night.”
“Wasn't much of a fight,” Fargo said.
“The rumor says it was Kyler Hollister,” Dirk Peters said.
“It was.”
“That's the thing with these Hollisters, we hear,” Dirk said. “Rile them, and they keep coming at you until you're dead.”
“Worth keeping in mind,” Rafer Crown remarked.
“It surely is,” Fargo said.