The Wildcatters Read online

  Fargo stepped back. Blood dribbling from gun-sight slashes, Clay sank, dazed, to his knees on the muddy sidewalk. He shook his head. “Apologize.”

  “Okay. From now on, you be careful who you knock down in the mud and who you grab.” Fargo jacked the cartridges from the Colt, tossed the weapon to the sidewalk before the kneeling man. He turned to Tess, who had one arm around the girl, Maggie. Maggie stared at Fargo with enormous eyes. “Take your girls on in before there’s some more trouble,” he said.

  “Don’t worry,” a man said behind him. “There won’t be.”

  Fargo whirled, hand instinctively reaching under his coat. Then it came away. The man who had come up behind him as soundlessly as a great cat was unarmed.

  He was huge, standing an inch taller than Fargo, his shoulders wide, his body thick; he looked as if he’d been built of oak. He was a few years older than Fargo and dressed all in black, that huge frame encased in black frock coat, black vest, black pants tucked into high black boots. A black slouch hat was tilted back on a massive head that reminded Fargo of a bull buffalo’s. His eyes were small, black as his clothes; a long, thick cigar was clamped between his teeth. He radiated strength, power, authority.

  “There won’t be, stranger,” he repeated, his voice deep, bass. “Clay got outa line. He’ll take his medicine and like it.”

  Fargo stared at him with narrowed eyes. “Who’re you?”

  “Brasher. Tull Brasher. And I know you. You’re Neal Fargo.”

  “That’s right,” said Fargo cautiously. “How—”

  Brasher grinned. His heavy, coarse face was likeable then. “Sabine, Texas, ten years ago. Three men came at you. You used a knife, a funny knife.”

  “A Batangas knife,” Fargo said.

  “Yeah. Made mincemeat out of ’em.” He put out a big, thick-fingered hand. “Always admire a man that knows his trade.”

  Fargo took the hand. His eyes went to Clay Samson, getting unsteadily to his feet, reholstering the empty gun, blood dripping from his slashed face to his flannel shirt. Samson looked at Fargo with a gaze of utter hatred. “Clay’s your man?” Fargo asked.

  “He’s my man.” Brasher turned to face Clay, a sardonic grin on his face. “If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t bother to tell him what I’m gonna tell him now. Listen, Clay, you got any thought of gettin’ even with Neal Fargo, you forget it. I know him of old; he’s way out of your class. You try anything with him, you’ll be buzzard bait before you know it.”

  Samson didn’t answer. He only shook his bloody head wordlessly, then turned unsteadily away and staggered into the saloon.

  “Clay’s good, but not your kind of good,” Brasher said. “I’ll have another talk with him when he’s calmed down. Come on inside, Fargo, I’ll buy you a drink.” He turned to Tess. “Well, honey, you came in a blast of fireworks, didn’t you? Glad to see you. Herd your chickens on in and they can go to work tonight.”

  “Sure, Tull. Come on, Maggie. You, Rose; Belle; Peggy. Let’s go inside before something else happens.” She faced the crowd that still ringed them in, smiled. “Boys, you’re all welcome at the Drillers’ Rest tonight. We’re lonesome gals, and we’re lookin’ for lonesome men!”

  A whoop went up from the crowd, a chorus of bawdy yells. Tess chuckled as she led the girls inside.

  Then Brasher clapped Fargo on the back. “Come on, buddy, and let’s have that drink.”

  Chapter Two

  The Drillers’ Rest was big, with a good crowd at the bar and tables. Men drank and talked, bent forward earnestly. Deals, deals, deals, Fargo thought; always that way in a new oil town. Get rich quick; buy this lease, swap that one, put up some money, take a flyer, big money, sure thing, big, big money. He grinned wryly as he walked with Brasher to the bar. Most of them had been broke when they came here. They’ll be more broke when they leave. But a few of them—a very few—would, indeed, make the millions they whispered about.

  The bartender was hustling, sweating, but he came straight to Brasher. “Let’s have a bottle of the good bourbon,” Brasher said. “Back in my office. Come on, Fargo.”

  He led the way through the crowd to a door, opened it, ushered Fargo in. The room was big, with a safe, file cabinets, maps on the wall, a roll top desk with its pigeonholes jammed with papers. There was a table, too, and a few chairs. Brasher and Fargo sat down at the table. The bartender came promptly with the bottle, a couple of glasses, and a pitcher of water.

  Brasher tossed his slouch hat onto a tree in the corner, poured two generous drinks, shoved one to Fargo. “Mud in your eye.” They drank.

  Fargo lowered his glass, staring at Brasher. “You got something on your mind?” he asked quietly.

  Brasher looked back; then his big face split into that warm grin. “Sure. You get to know me, you’ll find I always got something on my mind. Especially when a man like you shows up in my town.”

  “Your town?”

  Easily, Brasher nodded. “I brought in the discovery well here, Fargo. Six months ago, nobody would touch this country with a ten-foot pole; no oilman, that is. ‘No salt domes, no anticline, wrong formations, bound not to be any oil here.’ Me, I thought different. Hunch, you know, wildcatter’s hunch. That’s my business, always has been: wildcatter. Make a strike here, dry hole there, you’re in or out of luck. Rich or poor, man don’t care long as he’s got the action. I came in here broke, spotted all the signs of a stratigraphic trap everybody else had missed. I leased two sections for peanuts, but got a heavy royalty if there was a strike. Begged, borrowed, stole the money to bring in an old cable-tool rig. It was all I had left. I shot the works on one hole. Hit oil sand fifteen hundred feet down, two hundred more and the well came in like an express train. Blew the drill right up through the derrick. A real gusher, more barrels a day than you’d believe. Damnedest pool you’ve ever seen, millions of barrels in reserve. I’m rich, Fargo, filthy rich, now. Gonna be richer someday.” His eyes glittered. “Fargo, I’m gonna be so rich, John D. Rockefeller will look like a piker alongside me!”

  “Sounds good,” Fargo said.

  Brasher rolled his cigar in his mouth. “It is good, and there’s money enough to go around to the right people.”

  Fargo’s eyes narrowed. “Money’s why I came here.”

  “Figured that, knowing you. How much you want to work for me?”

  Carefully, Fargo fished out a cigar of his own, a long, thin, cheroot. He bit off its end, clamped it between his teeth, blew smoke, and looked at Brasher through the haze. “Doing what?”

  “Whatever I tell you to do.”

  “Which might include—?”

  “Most anything.” Brasher’s voice was hard. “Most anything at all. I don’t know, yet.”

  Fargo said, quietly: “I don’t hire out blind.”

  “Well,” Brasher sighed. He poured another drink. “You want me to be honest, I’ll be honest. I want you on my payroll before you do something foolish like getting hooked up with Curt Russell.”

  “Curt Russell? Who’s he?”

  Brasher stood up, went to the window, looked out, his enormous back turned to Fargo. “Anybody,” he said, “who tries to build himself an empire—and that’s what I’m up to, Fargo—has people getting in his way. Russell’s got in mine.”

  “How?”

  “It’s a long story, and not really your business. Russell’s a young feller, not much judgment. His old man, Tom Russell, and I were partners years ago in Texas. We went broke. Tom couldn’t take it and blew his brains out. His boy, Curt, somehow got the idea that I was responsible. He’s had a grudge against me ever since.”

  He shrugged. “That’s neither here nor there. What does count is this: Everywhere I go, Curt Russell shows up sooner or later. He’s like a damned vulture following me. When I came here and leased my two sections, he was right on my tail. There was one more quarter section I wanted but didn’t have the money to get right then. Curt tied it up instead, even though he didn’t have enough money to drill. He’s still
got it tied up, still ain’t got the money to put down a well, and still won’t sell the rights. He’s hanging on to ’em like a dog in the manger.”

  Brasher’s eyes turned hard. “I want that quarter-section, Fargo. Sooner or later, one way or another, I aim to get it. I’ve already offered Russell a deal that would’ve made him rich for life, and he’s turned me down. He won’t sell it to me or anybody else.”

  “So?” Fargo looked at him through the smoke.

  “So he’s scratchin’ around now, tryin’ to get up enough money to drill. There’s oil under that land, Fargo, and he’d have to be the unluckiest man in the world not to hit it if he’d try.” Brasher strode to the table, crushed his cigar, and looked significantly at Fargo. “I don’t want him to get that far. I don’t want him to ever put down a well on that land. If he does, and brings it in, he’ll never let go of that lease.”

  “Go on,” said Fargo.

  “There’s not much more to say. I aim to see that he never drills, no matter what it takes to stop him.” His eyes glittered. “I mean that, Fargo: no matter what it takes. Now, a man like you hits town; a prime fighting man, none better. If I ever had to get rough with Russell, I’d rather have you on my side than to find you on his. I’ve got the money to pay you with, anyhow, and he ain’t. So I’ll make a deal with you now; you work for me, nobody else. You do that, you’ll have a seat on the damnedest gravy train you ever saw. A first-class seat.”

  Fargo reached for the bottle, poured a drink. “Maybe I didn’t come here to hire out.”

  “What else? You’re no oilman. I mean, I know you’ve worked in the fields so you know that end. But leases, drilling, marketing, that ain’t your thing.”

  “No,” Fargo said, “it ain’t. But I might do a little gambling. There oughta be enough money in circulation for that to beat wages.”

  “Not the kind of wages I’d pay you. I aim to get Russell’s lease. And when I get hold of it, there’s a few others like it that I want, too. I discovered this field, Fargo, and these other people horned in on me because I was too broke to buy it all up at first. But I’m entitled to the whole thing, and I aim to get it. There’ll be lots of work for a man like you. Just knowing I got you on my side will make people a lot more willing to talk turkey with me.”

  “Maybe,” Fargo said. He stood up, setting down the empty glass. “Who’s your ramrod now?”

  “Samson. The feller you gun whipped.”

  Fargo grinned coldly. “You do need help.”

  “Don’t fool yourself. You caught Clay off balance. But he’s good, damned good. All the same, he ain’t the best. And I want the best.”

  “Maybe you’ll get it, maybe you won’t,” said Fargo. “It’s too early to tell, Brasher. I just hit town, haven’t had a chance to look around. Normally, I’m not much for working for wages, not even big ones. I like cuts, percentages, money in hunks. But we’ll see. Thanks for the drink.” He started for the door.

  “Fargo.” Brasher’s voice halted him, hand on knob.

  Fargo turned: “Yeah?”

  “I told you, I want you and I’m willing to pay. By the same token, if you was to wind up on the other side, which I hope you got sense enough not to do, you’d have to take the consequences.”

  Fargo’s eyes turned to slits. “You threatening me, Brasher?”

  “No. Just stating facts. Either hire out to me or stand aside, that’s all I ask. I’ve already got some good men and I can hire as many more as I want—they’re flocking in here every day. I aim to put together a bunch that nobody can fight, not even you. So I hope you’ll decide to ramrod ’em instead.”

  Fargo was silent for a moment. Then, tonelessly, he said: “We’ll see, Brasher. So long for now.” He turned and went out.

  ~*~

  Mounting the sorrel, leading the mule, he rode down the muddy street until he came to the only other two-story building in town: its sign said: GOLCONDA HOTEL. He swung down again, hitched up, went into the lobby. It was small and crowded. As Fargo edged toward the desk, a man in corduroys said, “Save yourself the trouble, buddy. The place is jammed, packed, and running over. They got men sleeping on the steps.”

  Fargo looked at him. “You got a room?”

  “More like a closet.”

  “What you want for it?”

  “Ain’t for sale.”

  “Pay you double.”

  “Hah.”

  Fargo shrugged, went to the desk. It took a long time to get to the clerk, a time during which he heard a half-dozen other men turned away. The clerk laughed in his face. “Mister, you better camp out on the prairie. That’s the last place left to sleep in Golconda.”

  Fargo nodded, turned away. He went back to the man in corduroys. “You a gambling man?”

  The fellow’s eyes lit; he was a boomer, drifting from field to field, always on the lookout for the main chance. Shabby, too; by the looks of him, he could use a stake. “Might be.”

  Fargo took out a silver dollar. “One toss. I win, I get the key to your room. You win, you get a hundred dollars.”

  The man stared, licking his lips. “You serious?”

  “Dead serious.”

  “Hell, with a hundred, I could buck the tiger, maybe run up a stake ... okay, mister, you’re on. First, lemme see that dollar.”

  Fargo passed it to him. The man turned it over, found it genuine, handed it back. “I call heads. Let her fly.”

  Fargo flipped the dollar high, spinning. It came down on his wrist; he covered it. Then he removed his hand. The man stared, then grunted an oath. “Hell. That the same dollar?” Loser, he snatched it off Fargo’s wrist, turned it over.

  “That’s the same. And it came down tails. I’ll take my key now.”

  For a moment, Fargo thought the man would renege. But their eyes met. And what the corduroyed man saw in Fargo’s made him think better of it. Slowly, grudgingly, he fished in his pocket, brought out a key. “Looks like I sleep in the damned street.”

  “Looks like it.” Fargo took the key. “Better luck next time. Come on, we’ll set your gear out.”

  ~*~

  As the man had said, it was hardly more than a closet. The bed was a lumpy horror. Fargo spread his own blankets out over it. Then, having carried the trunk from his mule upstairs, he put it on the bed. Alone in the room, the door locked, the former tenant having departed, Fargo took a key from his pants, opened the special padlock on the trunk, raised the lid.

  Then he began to unpack and check the tools of his trade.

  First, he took out a chamois-skin case. Opening it, he withdrew a Fox Sterlingworth ten-gauge shotgun, its barrels sawed off, converting it from a long-barreled fowling piece to a deadly short-range weapon, a riot gun. The shotgun’s hammerless receiver was beautiful, engraved and inlaid by a master craftsman. Worked in among the in lay was an inscription: To Neal Fargo, gratefully, from T. Roosevelt. Fargo’s hand caressed the weapon as another man might have stroked a woman’s flesh, lovingly, with sensual pleasure. His sensitive touch assured him that its coating of oil was exactly right, neither too thin nor too gummy. Then he adjusted the leather sling he had carefully affixed to the weapon and slung it over his right shoulder, so that its barrels hung down behind his back. He hooked his right thumb in the sling, then twitched it. The shotgun pivoted, and its barrels swung forward with lightning speed, between his arm and torso. In the same tick of time, his left hand shot across his body, made as if to trip both triggers. The whole maneuver was so quick it was a blur. If it had been in earnest, those barrels would have sprayed eighteen double-zero buckshot in a lethal barrage which, even unaimed, could not fail to riddle anything or anyone in its widespread path for twenty or thirty yards. At closer range, that double charge of blue whistlers would—had, more than once—literally cut a man in two.

  Fargo grinned privately, wolfishly. He transferred the gun to his left shoulder, then repeated the maneuver, twitching the sling with left thumb, right hand shooting across his body. He had been
born ambidextrous, equally swift and capable with either hand. It was a gift that had saved his life more than once. When he triggered the gun like that, it was upside down; but with such a weapon, that made no particle of difference. It needed no aiming, only pointing.

  Carefully, then, he unslung the shotgun and put it back in its case. Laying it on the bed, he fished the Batangas knife out of the trunk.

  “A funny knife,” Brasher had called it. But there was nothing funny about its ten inches of razor-sharp steel. The trick to it was that its handle was made of two hinged pieces of water buffalo horn that folded forward to sheathe the blade. When Fargo flicked a catch and flipped his hand, the handles whirled back into his palm, leaving the long shaft of steel exposed and dangerous. He had obtained this weapon in the Philippines, and it was so beautifully tempered that it could be driven through a silver dollar in a single ferocious blow without its point even dulling. Now, crouching, he made a pass or two with his right hand, tossed the knife to his left, and duplicated the exercise. His stance was that of the experienced knife-fighter, low, covered, on the balls of his feet, ready to move with the speed and grace of a ballet dancer. A few lightning passes; then he sheathed the blade with the handles again, restored the knife to its specially designed sheath, and put it with the shotgun.

  He had brought the Winchester from his saddle scabbard upstairs; he had already checked it and knew it was in good condition. Likewise with the Colt .38 revolver in the shoulder holster beneath his coat. It was the sort the Army used to issue until it adopted the .45 automatic. The .38 had failed to stop the fanatical Moros of the Philippines when, full of drugs and with loins bound tightly, they ran amok, jurimentado, cutting down with razor-sharp bolo any living thing in their path. But Fargo still preferred the revolver to the less accurate and more delicate automatic. He had compensated for its lighter slug by cutting a deep “X” into the nose of every bullet for the weapon. Upon impact, such a slug would expand with devastating effect, and Fargo had never met a man who the notched .38 bullet would not drop in his tracks.