THE END

  In another minute he would be dead. A desperate measure was called for.

  Suddenly taking his right hand from the lance, Fargo streaked it to his holster. He tried to hold the lance at bay with one hand, but it felt as if his throat was being crushed. Frantic, he groped for his Colt.

  It wasn’t there.

  It had fallen out, probably when he was tripped.

  Fargo’s lungs were on the verge of collapse. His head was swimming. The Ute’s painted features kept blinking in and out. He had only moments to live, moments to think of something to save himself.

  The Ute reared to bring more of his weight to bear on the lance and yipped in triumph.

  Fargo’s life was fading.…

  MOUNTAINS

  OF NO

  RETURN

  by

  Jon Sharpe

  A SIGNET BOOK

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, April 2012

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  The first chapter of this book previously appeared in High Country Greed, the three hundred sixty-fifth volume in this series.

  Copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2012

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978-1-101-58023-3

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Printed in the United States of America

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  The Trailsman

  Beginnings…they bend the tree and they mark the man. Skye Fargo was born when he was eighteen. Terror was his midwife, vengeance his first cry. Killing spawned Skye Fargo, ruthless, cold-blooded murder. Out of the acrid smoke of gunpowder still hanging in the air, he rose, cried out a promise never forgotten.

  The Trailsman they began to call him all across the West: searcher, scout, hunter, the man who could see where others only looked, his skills for hire but not his soul, the man who lived each day to the fullest, yet trailed each tomorrow. Skye Fargo, the Trailsman, the seeker who could take the wildness of a land and the wanting of a woman and make them his own.

  The Mountains of No Return, 1861—

  where death lurks around

  every bend in the trail.

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  Trailsman #367: Texas Tempest

  1

  “We have to be careful how we go about this. It could turn violent,” Lieutenant Charles Rabitoy warned as they drew rein on a rise overlooking the lights of Hadleyville.

  Skye Fargo grunted. He wasn’t happy about being there. He’d signed on to do some scouting for the army, not to round up deserters.

  “Something the matter?” Lieutenant Rabitoy asked.

  “Don’t mind him,” said the third member of their party. “He hasn’t had any whiskey today and that tends to make him grumpy.”

  “Go to hell,” Fargo said.

  California Jim laughed. Like Fargo, he was dressed in buckskins. Only where Fargo’s were plain and well-worn, Jim’s were covered with red and blue beads and had whangs half a foot long. Jim’s hat wasn’t plain like Fargo’s, either. It was broad and high with a curl to the brim. A wide belt adorned with silver conchos was around his waist and his holster had silver studs. His bandanna, in contrast to Fargo’s plain red one, was bright blue and hung halfway to his waist.

  “Now, now,” Lieutenant Rabitoy said. “I expect you two to get along.”

  “Jackass,” Fargo said.

  “What did you just call me?”

  California Jim laughed louder. “Pay him no mind, Lieutenant. Skye and me go back a long way. We’re the best of pards.”

  “It doesn’t sound like you are to me,” Rabitoy said. “And I don’t appreciate his slur.”

  “It’s just his style,” California Jim said. “Ain’t that right, pard?”

  “You’re a fine one to talk about style,” Fargo said. “What was it the newspapers called you that time?” He pretended to be trying to remember, and snapped his fingers. “Now I recollect what it was.” He grinned. “The prettiest scout on the whole frontier.”

  “Here now,” California Jim said. “The scribbler who wrote that was a hack.”

  “Have you looked in a mirror lately?” Fargo asked.

  California Jim made a sound reminiscent of a chicken being strangled. “You can go to hell, too.”

  “And you two are pards?” Lieutenant Rabitoy said. “Half the time, I get the impression you’re ready to shoot each other.”

  “Shoot Skye?” California Jim said. “Why, I’d rather dig out one of my eyes with my bowie. And the same is true for him.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Fargo said.

  Lieutenant Rabitoy shifted in his saddle. “What are you so testy about?”

  “You,” Fargo said.

  The young officer sat straighter. “Me? What on earth did I do?”

  “You were born,” Fargo said.

  The pale light of the half-moon revealed Rabitoy’s scowl. “I swear. I don’t know why the colonel thinks so highly of you. You’re impossible to get along with.”

  “He’s not insulting you, Lieutenant,” California Jim said. “He’s concerned, is all, that you’re so—”

  “I don’t need a translator,” Fargo told him, and Jim fell quiet. To Rabitoy he said, “You’re green as grass. You’ve been at Fort Barker, what, two months?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Rabitoy said. “I was top in my class at the academy.”

  “Green as grass,” Fargo said again. “Colonel Williams had no business ordering you to bring these men in. You’re liable to get yourself killed.”

  “I’m perfectly competent, I’ll have you know,” Lieutenant Rabitoy bristled. “Besides, there are only four of them and three of us, and you two are supposed to be cocks of the walk.” He said that last part sarcastically.

  Fargo sighed. California had been right. He was grumpy, but only because he had a feeling in his gut that things weren’t going to go well. The deserters they were after weren’t about to go back quietly. Their leader was a man called Mace who had been in and out of the stockade more times than Fargo had fingers and thumbs. Mace was a bully with an especially mean streak, and had no respect for authority. “You do know that Luther Mace won’t go quietly?”

  “He will or else,” Lieutenant Rabitoy sniffed. “I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.”

  “You think you are,” Fargo said.
< br />   “Enough dallying,” Rabitoy said. “Let’s get this over with.” He gigged his mount.

  Fargo followed, and within moments California was beside him.

  “You’re being kind of hard on the boy, aren’t you, pard?”

  “Not anywhere near as hard as Luther Mace will be,” Fargo predicted.

  “That’s why the colonel sent us along. To see it doesn’t come to that.”

  “We can only do so much.”

  “Brighten up, will you?” California said. “Mace and those others have no idea we’re after them. We’ll get the drop, tie them good and tight, and take them back to the fort, as slick as you please.”

  “You’re not just a little bit worried?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “Liar,” Fargo said.

  California Jim chuckled.

  Fargo didn’t find it the least little bit amusing. The men with Mace hadn’t enlisted to serve their country. Two were forced to join the army when they got in trouble with the law. The last was a drunk who wouldn’t stop sucking down the bug juice no matter how many times he was reprimanded.

  Fargo looked up. The lights of Hadleyville were less than a quarter of a mile away. He’d been there before. Like many frontier towns, it had more saloons than churches. It also had no law to speak of; the last marshal was run out on a rail.

  “Let me handle this, gentlemen,” Lieutenant Rabitoy remarked as they neared the outskirts and slowed. “I’m their superior.”

  “We have your back,” California Jim said.

  Fargo would rather have a bottle. He had only a few days left on his latest scouting stint, and then he’d make up for lost time.

  Main Street was a riot of sights and sounds. Every hitch rail was full. Townsmen mingled with off-duty soldiers and cowboys from the nearby ranches.

  There were also a handful of Chinese workers from the railroad spur. The Chinese made up a third of the population but they knew better than to roam at night. The Anti-Chinese League, as they called themselves, had already lynched two workers for no crime other than being Chinese.

  “This place sure is lively,” Lieutenant Rabitoy said.

  “Lively as hell,” Fargo dryly agreed.

  The saloons were doing booming business. Liquor was only part of the attraction. There was gambling, with poker and faro and roulette, and there was the flesh trade, with more soiled doves than Saint Louis.

  It was Fargo’s kind of town.

  “Most of the troopers go to the Bella Donna,” California Jim mentioned. “That’s where we should stop first.”

  “Surely Private Mace wouldn’t be so obvious,” Lieutenant Rabitoy said.

  “I doubt he cares much one way or the other,” California Jim said. “He’s not afraid of being caught.”

  “That’s preposterous. He has to know there are consequences to his rash act.”

  “Seems to me, youngster,” California Jim said, “that you have the habit of assuming other folks think the same as you do.”

  “Well, don’t they?”

  “Lordy,” California Jim breathed.

  “What?”

  Probably to be polite, California Jim didn’t answer.

  Fargo had no such compunctions. “The worst mistake you can make is to put your head on someone else’s shoulders.”

  “I’d never be so foolish,” Lieutenant Rabitoy declared.

  “But you just—” California Jim began, and got no further.

  A gunshot crashed and a man in the clothes of a backwoodsman or farmer backed through the batwings of the nearest whiskey mill. In his right hand was a smoking Smith & Wesson. He kept it trained on the saloon as he sidled to a hitch rail, bellowing, “I’ll shoot the first son of a bitch who pokes his head out! Just see if I don’t!”

  “What’s this?” Lieutenant Rabitoy said, drawing rein.

  “None of our affair,” California Jim told him.

  A silhouette appeared in the doorway and the man with the pistol fired. He must have missed because there was no outcry. Spinning, he hurriedly reached for the saddle horn to pull himself up.

  The figure came through the batwings, panther-quick, and immediately glided to one side so his back was to the wall. He wore a frock coat and a wide-brimmed black hat and had a Colt in each hand. He fired as the man by the horse spun, fired as the man’s legs buckled, fired a final time as the man pitched to his knees and keeled over.

  “That will teach you,” the shooter said.

  Lieutenant Rabitoy reined over. “Hold on there. What’s the meaning of this?”

  “Who the hell is asking?” the man in the frock coat demanded, coming out into the street. “Oh. A blue belly.”

  “I’m an officer in the United States Army, I’ll have you know,” Lieutenant Rabitoy angrily declared. “And I demand an answer.”

  “Do you, now?”

  “Don’t trifle with me, sir,” Rabitoy warned.

  The man in the frock coat still held his Colts but he didn’t point them at Rabitoy. Instead, he said, “In case no one told you, pup, the army doesn’t meddle in civilian matters.”

  “Who are you that you presume to tell me how to conduct my business?”

  “Coltraine,” the man said. “Jonathan Coltraine.”

  “Oh, hell,” California Jim said.

  Lieutenant Rabitoy turned in his saddle. “Do you know this man?”

  “I’ve heard of him,” California Jim said. “He makes his living at cards.”

  “He’s a gambler?” the lieutenant said, and shook his head. “His name isn’t familiar.”

  “He was involved in that shooting fracas down to Oro City a while back. He shot three hombres dead and wounded a fourth. Something to do with a woman.”

  “One of them accused me of sleeping with his wife,” Coltraine said.

  “Did you?” Lieutenant Rabitoy asked.

  “A gentleman never tattles.”

  Rabitoy colored with resentment. “Your dalliances are irrelevant. It’s what you just did before our very eyes that counts. And while you’re right in that the army usually doesn’t meddle in civilian affairs, you just committed murder on a public street. I’m taking you into custody and turning you over to the federal marshal.”

  “Like hell you are,” Coltraine said. “I’d like to see one of you try.”

  Fargo had listened to enough. He reined his Ovaro past Rabitoy and said, “How about me?”

  2

  The man called Coltraine grinned. “As I live and breathe,” he declared. “Is it really you, you ornery son of a bitch? And playing nursemaid, no less.”

  “Doing what?” Lieutenant Rabitoy said indignantly.

  Fargo alighted and held out his hand. “It’s been a spell, Jon.”

  The gambler holstered his right Colt and shook. “We should have a drink and catch up.”

  “Hold on,” Lieutenant Rabitoy said. “You’re personally acquainted with this man?”

  “We met a few years ago,” Fargo revealed. Over a card game. They’d had a lot in common and struck up a friendship.

  “What happened?” he asked, nodding at the recently deceased.

  “I caught him cheating,” Coltraine said as he commenced to reload. “He started throwing lead. Everyone hit the floor and I came after him.”

  “You’re saying he provoked you?” Lieutenant Rabitoy said.

  “What would you call being shot at?” Coltraine rejoined.

  By now others were filing out of the saloon. Some moved to the body. Others huddled and whispered and regarded the gambler warily. Coltraine ignored them.

  Down the street, heads were poking out of other saloons and buildings.

  “Damn,” California Jim said. “This is the last thing we needed.”

  “What?” Rabitoy said.

  “Drawing attention to ourselves.”

  Fargo agreed. The deserters might spot them and light a shuck. He turned to the gambler. “You wouldn’t happen to have seen any sign of a soldier by the name of Luther Mace, would you?”

  “Can’t say as I know the gent.” Coltraine finished reloading the first Colt and began on the other.

  “Mr. Fargo,” Lieutenant Rabitoy said, “confiscate his revolvers and we’ll take him into custody.”

  Coltraine stopped and glanced up. “How dumb are you, boy?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The only way you’ll get these pistols is over my dead body.”

  People were converging from up and down the street. More than a few were soldiers.

 

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