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  Chloride Charlie was an old desert rat from Death Valley who was either one of the richest men in the world or else the greatest conman anyone had ever heard of.

  When Fargo signed up to work for Charlie, he found himself fighting every kind of varmint there was—from amateur bushwhackers to a professional army of hired killers. The only thing standing between them and the secret of Charlie’s fortune was ... Fargo.

  FARGO 17: DEATH VALLEY GOLD

  By John Benteen

  First published by Belmont Tower in 1976

  Copyright © 1976, 2017 by Benjamin L. Haas

  First Smashwords Edition: February 2017

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Cover image © 2017 by Edward Martin

  Check out Ed’s work here

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Series Editor: Ben Bridges

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Estate.

  One

  The wind had shifted. Blowing from the south, it ripped through alleys, across boulevards, and screamed hell-bent across the flat, gray expanse of Lake Michigan. And it picked up the smell of stockyards and plastered the stench across Chicago like glue.

  Fargo’s mouth twisted in distaste. The smell of range cattle was one thing; the odor of a half-million head jammed together at close quarters was another. But to the people of Chicago, it smelled like money. And, as Fargo knew all too well, a man could put up with a lot of stench if the money was big enough to make it worth his while.

  He jammed the old Rough Rider hat down farther on his head, buttoned his corduroy jacket tightly, not so much against the cold as to keep it from blowing open and revealing the .38 Colt tucked in a shoulder holster beneath his arm.

  He always went armed, even in a city like Chicago. A man in his line of trade had enemies everywhere and never knew when they might make a try for him. His business was danger: he was a soldier of fortune, a freelance fighting man, hiring out to anybody who could pay the stiff tariffs he charged. The best came high, and Fargo was the best; his still being alive proved that. On the day he turned out to be second best, he knew, they would bury him.

  Presently he reached the tall, gray office building that was his destination. Although the elevator was in use, he ran up the stairs, two steps at a time, easy, agile, like a big cat.

  A man well over six feet, he carried no ounce of fat on a body wide in the shoulders, narrow in the hips, with long, lean horseman’s legs. He was scarcely breathing hard when he reached the fifth floor.

  The door was just off the stair, burnished brass lettering proclaiming: Marshall A. Snell—Attorney at Law. Fargo entered after one brief knock, halted and looked around, impressed. Like the stockyards, the furnishings here reeked of money. Polished oak furniture, fancy pictures on the wall, enough potted plants to furnish a fair-sized jungle.

  A cadaverous young man in black sat behind a desk. Apprehension filled his eyes as he looked up at the towering figure that approached him, stared into a gray-eyed face battered and scarred by better than three decades of hard living. The nose had been broken more than once, one ear was cauliflowered, and the close-cropped hair beneath the old campaign hat was prematurely white as snow. A face so ugly it was nearly handsome, the face of a man full of violence and not to be trifled with.

  “I’m Fargo,” the big man said. “Snell sent for me.”

  Relief and comprehension chased some of the fright from the clerk’s eyes. “Oh, yes. Mr. Neal Fargo. Mr. Snell is busy right now. Would you mind waiting?”

  Fargo thumbed out a fat gold watch, the kind used by railroad men. “Ten minutes,” he said. “No more. My time comes high.”

  He had dealt with lawyers before; they ranked, with him, slightly higher than pickpockets and considerably below Mexican gunrunners. And one of their favorite tactics was to keep a man waiting, trying to gain the upper hand on him, making him acknowledge he was their inferior. Also, he had done some checking on Snell, and even for a lawyer, the man’s reputation was moldy around the edges.

  “But, surely, Mr. Fargo—”

  “Ten minutes,” Fargo said. “Go tell him.”

  “Yes, sir.” Hastily the clerk knocked at a door, disappeared into another room. Emerging in a minute, he squeaked: “Ah, Mr. Snell will see you right away. Please come in.”

  Grinning tightly, Fargo pushed by him. The clerk closed the door and disappeared.

  “Mr. Fargo.” The office was spacious; the large desk almost dwarfed the wizened little man in tweed suit and steel-rimmed glasses behind it. “You are an impatient man.” He stood up, barely reaching Fargo’s coat pocket. “I am Marshall Snell.” His hand was thin, moist, like a fish’s belly in texture. “May I present Mrs. Preston Rogers? Mrs. Rogers, Mr. Neal Fargo, of Texas and, ah, other points west.”

  Fargo’s eyes shuttled to the woman sitting in a chair by the lawyer’s desk. In her mid-thirties, she was past her prime, but only barely. Her brown hair glistened with auburn highlights above an oval face, and the black widow’s weeds had been cut as fashionably as any other kind of clothing, designed to emphasize her best points—which appeared to be a full, voluptuous bosom. There was no grief in the black eyes that raked slowly and with great interest over Fargo. Indeed, they warmed in a sultry way. Instinctively the woman moistened her red lips. “A pleasure, Mr. Fargo.” Her soft, warm hand lingered in his a shade too long. Fargo met her eyes, smiling faintly, wryly, and her gaze quickly shuttled away. But she did not blush. Fargo knew her kind, guessed that she was long past blushing.

  “Have a seat, Mr. Fargo,” Snell gestured to a chair. “Cigar?” He reached into a humidor.

  Fargo’s nostrils caught the smell of cheap tobacco. “Smoke my own,” he said, taking out a thin black cheroot, clamping it between white teeth. Snell replaced the top of the humidor, and instead of lighting one of the cigars reserved for clients, took a fine Havana from his desk, touched it with a match.

  Fargo watched him through a haze of smoke. That cheap gesture told him a lot about Snell. “Okay,” he said. “I’ve come a long way. What’s the proposition?”

  “Ah, before you, ah, joined us, I was just telling Mrs. Rogers something of your background. May I continue? She will be, after all, your employer if we come to an agreement.”

  “Sure, go ahead.” Fargo leaned back, listening closely.

  “Mr. Fargo,” the lawyer said, addressing the woman, “was born in New Mexico and orphaned by an Apache raid while still very young. He was put into a foster home, but didn’t seem to get along with his foster parents, ran away at the age of twelve, and has been a free agent ever since. Correct, sir?”

  “Correct,” Fargo said. “They wanted a slave on their ranch, not a son. I got tired of short rations, long hours, and regular beatings. So I laid a single-tree alongside the old man’s head and took off.”

  “Yes. Well, after that, you worked all over the West at one thing or another—cowboy, lumberjack, in the oil fields ... And when the Spanish-American War started, you joined Roosevelt’s Rough Riders and fought in Cuba. After that, you were in the cavalry in the Philippines, where you compiled a tremendous combat record during the Insurrection there. Afterwards, you left the Army and, so to speak, went, into business for yourself. Now you hire out as a gunman, soldie
r, and have been involved in, ah, various other somewhat shady enterprises.”

  “What you call shady might not be what I call shady. I’m legally clear, with no warrants out against me in the States. And I might as well tell you now, I aim to keep it that way.”

  “My dear sir, we’re not asking you to rob a bank or anything ... ”

  Fargo sat up. “Suppose you get to the point, Mr. Snell.”

  “Well, we do have a job for you—a fairly delicate job. In the West, of course, the kind of thing you’re used to handling. And we pay well.”

  “How well?”

  “Why, we are prepared to offer you a thousand dollars retainer and another two thousand upon satisfactory completion of the job.”

  Fargo laughed. “Three thousand dollars?” He started to rise. “Snell, I wouldn’t sweat up a saddle blanket or dirty up a gun for that kind of money.”

  “Wait a minute! Don’t you want to hear about the job?” Snell’s face twisted, his voice was a squawk as he stood up.

  “Not until you start talking real money. Anyhow, I don’t work in the blind. Suppose you tell me what the job is, and then I’ll tell you what I charge.”

  “Mr. Fargo, I’m not quite accustomed to doing business in such a—”

  “Well, I am,” Fargo said. “Good day, Snell. Mrs. Rogers.” He tipped his hat, started toward the door.

  “Mr. Fargo!” The woman’s voice halted him. He turned.

  As their eyes met, he saw her impatience with Snell’s approach. “Sit down, please. We’ll describe the job and then get into money.”

  “Mrs. Rogers, I’m not sure that’s wise—” Snell began.

  “I think it is,” she said. “Fargo?”

  Fargo looked at her a moment. “Yes,” he said, and then he took the chair again.

  “Very well,” Mrs. Rogers said. “Mr. Fargo, have you ever heard of a man called ‘Chloride Charlie’ Raines?”

  Neal Fargo sat up straight, alert now. Slowly he took the cigar from his mouth. “Chloride Charlie! Hell, yes!”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “A lot and a little,” Fargo said. “He’s a desert rat from Death Valley, California, and either he’s one of the richest men in the United States or one of the biggest con men. Thirty years ago, he started out driving borax wagons in Death Valley, and he’s been there ever since. Every once in a while, he shows up in Los Angeles or Frisco, spends money like it was water on a binge that shakes up the town. Then he vanishes back into the desert.”

  “Precisely,” Snell said. “As a matter of fact, we know for sure that Chloride Charlie ran through fifteen thousand dollars in San Francisco in three days last week—insisting on paying for everything with hundred dollar bills. And, have you ever heard of what he calls his ‘shack’?”

  Fargo nodded. “They say he built a big house—a kind of castle, really—on the Nevada line, in the north end of Death Valley. I’ve never seen it.”

  “Well, it exists,” Mrs. Rogers said harshly. “And that old coot blew nearly three million dollars on it. Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous! A desert rat building something like that in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Well, they say Raines is crazy. Of course, the big question is, where does all that money come from?”

  Fargo was taut now; these people were playing in his league. “You hear all kinds of stories. Some say Charlie’s found the richest mine ever discovered in the West. That’s what he claims, too. But I’ve also heard that the money doesn’t come from the mine at all. He had a partner and a real good friend who was an Eastern millionaire. And there’s some who say that rich man just gave Charlie the money as a kind of joke—that maybe he was crazy, too. Anyhow, Charlie’s got the money, all right, no doubt of that. Whether he dug it out of the ground or conned it out of some Easterner ... ” Leaning forward, he ground out his cigar in an ashtray on Snell’s desk. “One thing is sure, a lot of people have gone into Death Valley trying to find Charlie’s mine. They try to follow him, and he shakes ’em off their trail—if they’re lucky. Those are the ones that come back. Plenty don’t.” He leaned back. “That’s what I know about Chloride Charlie Raines. So—?”

  “All right,” Mrs. Rogers said. “Well, now I’ll tell you something else. Charlie did have a friend who was an Eastern millionaire. But he’s dead now. And I can guarantee that he wasn’t the source of Charlie’s money.”

  “Can you, now?” Fargo asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Because the millionaire’s name was Preston Rogers, and he was my husband, who died last month. I’ve examined all his papers, and I’m sure he only gave Charlie money one time—and that was years ago when he grubstaked Raines. Charlie used that grubstake to find a mine in Death Valley, and—” Her eyes glittered. “Mr. Fargo, half that mine belongs to me. And so does half the money he throws away on his binges. I want it and I intend to have it. And we want you to get it for us!”

  For a moment, the room was silent. Then Fargo said, “All right. It’s getting interesting now. Keep talking.”

  “Yes. Mrs. Rogers, if I may ... ” Snell took over. “Well, Fargo, Preston Rogers started out in the West himself, in the mining camps. He made money, parleyed it into a financial and industrial empire. One of his enterprises, the Rogers Outfitting and Supply Company, remained in Sacramento. They supply miners and big logging outfits west of the Sierras.”

  “I’ve heard of it.”

  “All right. Well, in the 1880s, Rogers was just getting his start. Charlie Raines came to him, flat broke, spun a yarn about having found a rich mine in Death Valley, begged a grubstake. Rogers put up a little cash and a lot of supplies in return for half the profit of the mine—the usual arrangement out there, I understand. Then, apparently, he struck it rich.”

  “Well, since he and Rogers stayed friends, he must have kept his part of the bargain. Maybe that’s how your husband got to be a millionaire, Mrs. Rogers.”

  “He sent my husband money, yes,” the woman almost rasped. “But that’s not the point. The point is, when Preston died, Raines came to the funeral. And Mr. Snell here, working in my behalf, had a conference with him about ... about the future financial arrangements. And Raines had the gall to tell Mr. Snell point blank that, now my husband was dead, there weren't any future financial arrangements! That his deal with Preston only held while Preston lived, and that there’d be no more money coming from Death Valley to me!”

  “But of course,” Snell hissed, “Mrs. Rogers is her husband's heir. And she’s entitled to that money from Raines’ mine—” His eyes glittered, too; Fargo thought of a drooling coyote about to steal a chicken.

  “Why,” Fargo said, “seems to me all you got to do is take him to court and prove that ... ”

  “We intend to, believe me!” Snell snapped. “But even if we win, how do we make him pay? First, we must know where that mine is, so we can collect our share! And that’s where you come in, Fargo. Chloride Charlie Raines is in Chicago right this minute! And, as usual, pouring money down every rat hole! Wasting it on gambling, liquor, dissolute women—”

  Fargo could not help grinning. “For a man that lives in Death Valley most of the year, that seems natural ... ”

  Snell’s head shook angrily. “It’s our—Mrs. Rogers’ money, too! But that’s not the point. The point is, when Raines leaves Chicago and heads back to California, we want you on his tail, Fargo. We want you to follow him to Death Valley and stick to him like glue! We want you to find the source of all his money! And when you do, we’ll haul him into court and get what belongs to us!”

  “I see.” Fargo fished out another cigar. “That’s a tall order.”

  “Why?” the woman flared. “Surely a man like you can trail and outwit one gimpy old desert rat?”

  “Well,” said Fargo slowly, “in the first place, Charlie ain’t gimpy. The way I hear it, he may be pushin’ seventy, but he’s in better shape than most men a third his age. The gimpy ones don’t last long out there. Second place, I’ve only
crossed Death Valley once and that was years ago. Charlie’s lived there nearly thirty years, and he knows that country better than any man alive. Third place, Death Valley’s no picnic ground, Snell. It’s just what its name says, a place that if you don’t know what you’re doin’ can kill you off nearly as quick as a bullet. There’s nothin’ but sand, rock, poison water, jackrabbits, and a few frazzled out Shoshone Indians, except for one or two places like Furnace Creek. And the fourth place, nobody can prove it, but rumor goes that Charlie’s a dead shot and that anybody tries to trail him does so at his own risk. You put all that together and you’re not sendin’ me across the street for a newspaper.”

  “Maybe not. But ... you’ll do it?”

  Fargo looked from one to the other. “Let’s talk about the money.”

  “Well ... ” Snell hesitated. “Since our first offer wasn’t satisfactory, we might be willing to raise it somewhat. Of course, there’s a limit to what we can afford ... But possibly we could find a few thousand more, say two or three ... ”

  Fargo squinted through the smoke haze. It was only part of what swirled in the room. Greed was a much ranker taint, a thicker miasma. These two gave off the odor of it as skunks do the stink of musk. He searched Snell’s pinched face and the woman’s, with its glittering eyes and parted lips, her breasts heaving with the excitement of the greed that filled her. Then he stood up.

  “Forget it,” he said harshly.

  “What?”

  “I said forget it. In the first place, I wouldn’t take a job like this except on a percentage—and a big percentage. Ten at least, maybe twenty.”

  “What?

  Snell squawked. “That’s outrageous!”

  “And in the second,” Fargo said, “I wouldn’t work for you two anyhow.” He stood there, lip curling in a wolfish snarl of contempt. “I don’t work for penny-ante people, and you two are penny-ante if I’ve ever seen any.” He addressed the woman. “Rogers must have left you well fixed, and okay, maybe you earned it, a young woman married to an old guy like him. That was between you and him. But you’re bound to have inherited millions, more than you could ever spend, and here you are slobbering and drooling like a two-dollar whore that’s just spotted a drunk cowboy with a five-spot.”