Death Devil (9781101559666) (7 page)

The scuff marks led deeper in.

Climbing on the Ovaro, Fargo tracked his quarry. Or tried to. After only fifty feet the marks ended. He rode in circles seeking to find sign again, and couldn't. Drawing rein, he said quietly, “It's one of those days.”

The Ovaro pricked its ears.

From out of the undergrowth came a maniacal shriek, part laugh, part scream. It was so close that Fargo gave a start and jerked the Colt up. He glimpsed a figure and went to shoot but the figure melted away. A jab of his spurs and he rode toward it.

Another shriek, from the left, warned him the figure had changed position.

Fargo shifted in the saddle.

There was the distinct
twang
of a bowstring and an arrow streaked out of the foliage toward his chest.

Luck favored Fargo. The arrow clipped a tree limb and was deflected instead of burying itself in his flesh.

Fargo fired at the vegetation where the arrow had come from and jabbed his spurs. He skirted several trees. Up ahead, a dark figure was bounding like an antelope. He fired again and the figure cackled and disappeared.

“Not this time,” Fargo said. He reached the spot and scoured the woodland. Whoever the man was—and Fargo had his suspicions—he was a damn ghost.

A thicket crackled. Fargo caught sight of a flying form. He sought to overtake it but there were so many trees and boulders, he couldn't gain.

A pair of spruce reared in front of him. Fargo plunged between them, their branches so thick, it was a wonder he didn't lose an eye. He burst into the clear—and hauled on the reins.

A steep bluff fell before him, a drop of sixty or seventy feet. In a slew of dirt he slid the Ovaro to a stop and gazed down at jagged boulders.

Fargo's skin crawled at how close he had come. He was sure the man had deliberately lured him there to send him over the edge. Another maniacal laugh caused him to rein around and resume the chase. The figure bounded and leaped with the agility of a jackrabbit. He saw flying white hair and what might be a brown coat.

“Hold on there!” Fargo hollered, but he was wasting his breath.

Once again the figure vanished.

Fargo had the feeling he was being played for a fool. The man he was after knew the woods well. He must be careful not to be tricked a second time.

Another screech keened, the demented cry of an earthbound banshee.

Fargo reined toward the sound and rose in the stirrups, hoping for another glimpse of his quarry. The undergrowth thwarted him; it was too heavy.

Acting on inspiration, Fargo drew rein. If he couldn't catch the bastard, maybe he could lure him out. Cocking the Colt, he held it close to his hip, ready to shoot. A somber quiet fell.

Fargo felt unseen eyes on him. Tensed to dive from the saddle if another arrow was let fly, he waited. The seconds dragged into minutes but nothing happened.

A bush thirty feet away moved.

Fargo pretended not to notice. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the stems part. There was the suggestion of a face.

The tip of an arrow slowly aligned with his body.

Fargo swiveled and fired twice, fanning the hammer. At the second blast the man bleated and rose and fled. Fargo saw white hair but not the man's face. Eagerly, he came to a gallop.

The fleeing form darted around a pine. Seconds later Fargo did the same. Too late, Fargo saw an oak tree—and a low limb.

He tried to rein aside but the limb caught him across the chest and slammed him out of the saddle. The pain was excruciating. He was dimly aware of flying and hitting so hard, the world spun. His world blinked to black for a few seconds; then his senses returned in a rush. He sat up. The blow hadn't done his ribs any favors. His side hurt worse than ever. He realized he had dropped the Colt and groped for it, and then a shadow fell across him.

An old man stood a few yards away. In his left hand was a bow, at his hip an empty quiver. His white hair and age-ravaged face were bespattered with dry scarlet drops from the animals he had killed. His bloodshot eyes glittered like quartz. The man laughed his crazy laugh, exposing yellow teeth.

“Sawyer?” Fargo said.

The man dropped the bow.

“I'm a friend of Doc Jackson's,” Fargo said. “Why the hell are you trying to kill me?”

Sawyer—if that was who it was—tittered and danced a little jig.

“Answer me, you damned lunatic.”

Suddenly the man went into violent convulsions, his arms and legs jerking spasmodically. Simultaneously, a white froth oozed from his mouth.

“What the hell?” Fargo blurted.

The foam continued to spill out, dribbling down the man's chin and over the front of his shirt.

“What in hell's the matter with you?”

The convulsions stopped. The man stood still. He stared blankly at the sky and at the trees and at Fargo. He gurgled, and reached under his coat.

“Hell,” Fargo said.

The old man drew a knife.

Fargo spotted his Colt. He pushed up and lunged but the man sprang in front of him. Cold steel sought his jugular. He rolled and came up in a crouch and the old man laughed and came at him again. There was a sharp prick on his shoulder.

Falling back, Fargo kicked him in the leg.

The white-haired loon howled and stumbled but he recovered in a twinkling.

Fargo dived for the Colt. His fingers touched the grips but he had to roll away to avoid another thrust of the man's knife blade.

The old man cackled and hopped up and down.

Pushing to a knee, Fargo slid his fingers into his boot. “Let's see how you like it,” he growled in fury, and drew the Arkansas toothpick. As it came clear the old man did the last thing Fargo expected—he whirled and ran.

Fargo scooped up his Colt, took several bounds, and stopped in disbelief.

The man was gone.

Fargo searched everywhere; behind trees, behind boulders, behind a log.

Nothing.

Fargo's fury climbed. He'd been made a fool of—again. Climbing on the Ovaro, he expanded his search. For half an hour he scoured the forest and finally had to admit defeat. It was as if the old man had vanished into thin air.

Fargo headed for the cabin. He didn't know what to make of his clash. He'd heard tell that people foamed at the mouth when they had rabies, and he wondered if the old man had been bit by a rabid animal and come down with the disease. He'd have to ask Belinda Jackson about the symptoms.

Flies were still crawling all over the carcasses. Half a dozen buzzards had also arrived and were tearing at the mule, save for one of the big birds that was partial to pig meat. Flapping noisily when he came out of the woods, they rose into the sky and circled.

Fargo reined up and slid down. Yanking the Henry from the scabbard, he worked the lever to feed a cartridge into the chamber. Striding to the door, he kicked it and entered. Every article Old Man Sawyer owned had been broken, shattered, or torn. Clothes and blankets were in tatters. A wooden spoon and wooden fork had been snapped in half. A hatchet had been buried in the wall and left there.

Fargo tried to recall if he'd ever heard tell of rabies victims going berserk and destroying their personal effects.

Venturing back out, he made a circuit of the cabin. The stench of death was becoming abominable.

A bold buzzard about to alight took wing, hissing like a struck rattler.

Fargo didn't find what he was looking for: a dead coon or some other wild animal that may prove it was rabies.

A glance at the sun told him he had barely enough time to reach the settlement for his supper date with Belinda. Climbing on the Ovaro, he rode to the trail and was starting up it when crazy mirth erupted from the depths of the shadowed woods.

The old man was mocking him.

Fargo didn't stop. At the road he brought the Ovaro to a trot. He was so engrossed in trying to make sense of it all that when he neared the apple orchard, he didn't pay much attention to the lane that led up to the McWhertle farm. If he had, he might have noticed the two riders.

The pair gigged their mounts to the middle of the road and stopped.

“Hold it right there!” Orville bellowed.

“Just what I need,” Fargo said as he drew rein.

“We saw you go past earlier and waited,” Artemis informed him. “We knew you'd be comin' back this way.” He said it as if it were a brilliant deduction, and beamed.

Fargo deflated him by saying, “Can you count to twenty without taking your shoes off?”

“Enough of that,” Orville McWhertle snapped. “Where's your lady friend?”

“Safe from you,” Fargo said.

Orville jabbed a finger at him. “You listen, mister, and you listen good. You've got no call buttin' in to our affairs like you done. There's a lot of us who don't want that lady doc around.”

“So I gathered.”

“Then gather this,” Orville said. “If I want to, I can round up enough men to run you out of Coogan County.”

“It would be interesting to see you try.”

“I ain't scared of you,” Orville boasted. “You got the better of me once but it won't happen a second time.”

Fargo placed his hands on his saddle horn. “Are you scared of rabies?”

Orville and Artemis swapped puzzled expressions and the latter said, “Are you callin' us mad dogs?”

“I take it you haven't heard about Old Man Sawyer,” Fargo said, and jerked his thumb in the direction he had come from. “I've just come from his place.”

“What about him?” Orville asked.

“All his animals are dead. Everything in his cabin is in a shambles. And he's running around cackling at everybody.” Fargo didn't mention that the old man was shooting arrows at everybody, too.

“You're makin' that up,” Artemis said.

“What reason would I have?” Fargo retorted. “I went out there to try and find him for the doc but he's a crafty bastard. It wouldn't surprise me if he starts biting people soon.”

“You're serious, by God.” Artemis looked worriedly at his huge cousin. “Rabid folks do that, you know. They go around bitin' people and makin' others rabid, too.”

“Why warn us when we're out to bust your skull?” Orville asked suspiciously.

“I don't give a damn about either of you,” Fargo confessed. “It's the families around here I'm thinking of.”

“Damnation,” Artemis said. “We've got to find Charlie Dogood. I bet he has a cure for rabies like he does most everything else.”

“First we check this buckskin bastard's story,” Orville said. “We'll ride out to Sawyer's right this minute and have a look for ourselves.”

“Be my guest,” Fargo said, and reined aside.

The pair went past in a hurry.

Fargo smiled and waved and said under his breath, “Some days I scare myself.” Whistling, he continued on and reached Ketchum Falls as the sun was relinquishing the vault of sky to budding stars. He had no trouble following Belinda's directions to her house. It was one of the nicer ones, with a picket fence and a flower garden. He dismounted at the gate, tied the reins, and went up a path to the porch. The door had an oval pane of glass, and when he knocked, he saw her bustle down the hall with an apron around her waist. She had put on a fancy dress and done up her hair.

“You came,” she said cheerfully as she opened the door.

“Did you think I wouldn't?”

“I'm not the best cook in the world,” Belinda said, taking his arm and ushering him in. “There might be nothing worth eating.”

Fargo stared at the junction of her thighs. “I bet there will be,” he said.

Belinda Jackson needn't have worried. She was a damn good cook.

Their meal began with soup, an Italian soup, of all things, with a lot of noodles and a zesty sauce. Fargo had two bowls. The main course consisted of roast beef with thick gravy, potatoes, peas, and carrots. There was fresh-baked bread and salad. Fargo carved off a slab of beef that would choke a black bear and drowned it in gravy. He heaped so much butter on his potatoes, they dripped yellow drops. His peas and carrots he mixed together and sprinkled enough salt on them to make it look like snow. As for the bread, he cut each slice half an inch thick and smeared it with more butter.

“So you like my food, then?” Belinda asked halfway through the meal.

“I am in hog heaven,” Fargo said with his mouth full, and smiled. He wasn't one of those who thought the way to a man's heart was through his stomach. The way to his heart was by a woman lifting her skirts. But it was a close thing.

“Save room for dessert.”

“Don't you worry.” When it came to food, Fargo was the first to admit he was a bottomless pit. Part of it was he spent so much time deep in the wilds that fine meals like this were few and far between. When an occasion came along, he made the most of it.

“You sure do love to eat,” Belinda observed.

“I love other things too,” Fargo said, and gazed at her breasts. If she noticed she didn't let on.

For dessert she gave him a choice: a slice of cherry pie or a slice of apple pie. He couldn't decide so he had a slice of both.

“My word,” Belinda said. “Where do you store it all? I doubt there's an ounce of flab anywhere on that fine body of yours.”

“There's not,” Fargo took pride in saying. He grinned. “Been noticing that, have you?”

Belinda's cheeks turned pink. “Purely in a professional capacity, I assure you. Physicians do that.”

“I do something similar,” Fargo said.