The Trailsman #388 Read Online Free

son of a bitch try to kill me and then just ride away like it’s none of my business.”
    â€œI’ve heard that about you.”
    â€œYou heard right,” Fargo replied, gigging the Ovaro toward the mouth of the arroyo.
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    El Paso was a rough frontier town hardly known for its luxurious accommodations. However, it was also a mining center visited by a limited number of ultra-wealthy capitalists. Thus, the one notable exception to its drab boardinghouses and fleapit hotels was the Del Norte Arms on Paseo Street.
    This impressive, five-story edifice was constructed of solid fieldstone and featured a parquet-floored lobby, wrought-iron balconies, plaster ornaments on the ceilings and deferential employees in gold-braided livery.
    One week before the massive blast that altered the course of the Rio Grande, Santa Fe mining kingpin Stanley Wins-lowe had reserved the huge suite of rooms that comprised much of the fifth floor. An adjoining room was now occupied by “businessman’s agent” Harlan Perry. Late in the afternoon on the day that Mexico had suddenly shrunk by thousands of acres, Perry was visited by three men he proudly referred to as his “intervention team.”
    â€œCongratulations are in order, gentlemen,” he announced as he handed around imported cigars banded with gilt paper rings and poured out four glasses of bourbon from a crystal decanter. “It’s true that we have a couple of flies in the ointment. But you did an exceptional job last night—perfectly executed. Mr. Winslowe has authorized me to pay all of you a generous bonus.”
    Perry was almost professorial-looking with his gold-rimmed spectacles, neat spade beard and slight, chicken-wing shoulders. Most men with callused hands dismissed him at first glance as a lavender-scented poncy, an impression he carefully cultivated to disguise the ruthless cunning of a man adept at “clearing the profit path” at any cost to innocent human life. His room reeked of eucalyptus fumigation, which he endured three times a week to treat his chronic congestion.
    â€œYeah, boss, Slim done a good job with that shaped charge,” agreed Deuce Ulrick. “But it looks to me like that half-breed Valdez might have help. I’m pretty sure that was Skye Fargo who sided him this morning. Dame Rumor has it that Fargo rode into El Paso yesterday with a caravan.”
    â€œIt was Fargo,” Perry said with certainty as he passed the drinks around. “He was indeed in town, and the description you gave me fits perfectly.”
    â€œFargo is a good man to let alone,” fretted Slim Robek. “I was up north when that son of a bitch tracked down and killed the Butcher Boys gang.”
    Perry nodded. “He and Valdez are both formidable men and we won’t take either one of them lightly. However, both men are known to be one-man outfits, and it’s too early to conclude that they’ve teamed up. Valdez, of course, is a permanent impediment that will have to be removed. But Fargo is a drifter, and the popular impression that he is a crusader is hogwash. I suspect he’ll move on.”
    â€œMaybe so,” Ulrick said. “But he might be a witness to what we done. And him being a newspaper hero and all, if he does decide to report what he seen, people will tend to believe him.”
    â€œI’ve considered that. But you say it was dark and he couldn’t have seen your faces?”
    â€œAin’t likely.”
    Perry shrugged. “No rose without a thorn, right? Assuming he even saw you last night, it’s good that he can’t identify anyone. Eventually someone around here may prove what happened, but Mr. Winslowe has taken steps on that score—the Chinese call it ‘gate money.’ At any rate, I have the utmost confidence in the three of you, and so does Mr. Winslowe.”
    Perry’s confidence in his carefully