The Trailsman #396 by Jon Sharpe

“Neither have I.”
    Grizz Bear stared right back from the face of a sphinx. “’At’s right, ain’t it? And me a fuckin’ cannibal.”
    â€œWhat’re we gonna do, Mr. Fargo?” Jude asked, his voice tight with nervousness. Nor could Fargo fault him after witnessing the gruesome fate of those six dead soldiers at the mirror station.
    â€œAh, hell,” Fargo said calmly, “we’re in a dirty corner, all right. But this is old hat. What’s army life without a good frolic now and then?”
    Fargo’s nonchalant manner calmed the kid. He mustered a nervy little grin. “Sure. This ain’t the first one. Who wouldn’t be a soldier?”
    â€œA monkey with half a brain,” Grizz Bear muttered.
    Fargo grinned at the kid’s pluck. “Stout lad. Now sift ­sand—­Sergeant Robinson is headed this way.”
    Jude scuttled off, hugging the sheltered side of the trail.
    â€œDidja notice Robinson when them arrows commenced to falling?” Grizz Bear muttered.
    Fargo nodded. The senior sergeant had wrung his hands like a helpless midwife.
    â€œThey’ve stopped firing on us, Fargo,” Robinson greeted them. “You think it’s safe to hit the trail again?”
    Fargo shook his head. “I’m pretty sure they’ve got a spotter up there on the rim who’s able to see us moving down on the trail. Right now he must know we’ve stopped even if he can’t see us under the shelf. But we’re still in their thoughts.”
    As if to verify Fargo’s experience with Indians a third volley of arrows shattered all around them. The expedition was safe for the moment but trapped.
    â€œWhat do you suggest?” Robinson demanded, his tone bitter and resentful.
    That tone, familiar to Fargo, spoke volumes about Sergeant Woodrow Robinson. When conditions truly deteriorated, when men’s belief in their own survival was shaken, Skye Fargo roseup as a natural leader. No inspiring speeches about God, duty and country, just grim good humor and a ­straight-­ahead determination to keep up the strut until the job was done.
    Robinson, like other petty and jealous men Fargo had been unfortunate enough to know, hated him for that natural ability. And hated him even more because Robinson himself was dependent upon it.
    â€œI’m going to climb up topside,” Fargo replied. “If I can kill that spotter we can make a fast ­bustout—­about a half mile and we’re shut of these mountains.”
    â€œThe first time you show yourself up there,” Grizz Bear said, “­you—”
    Fargo raised a hand to silence him. “Save it for your memoirs. What might happen ain’t nothing to the matter. The longer we sit here the worse off we are.”
    Fargo removed his hat and speared his fingers through his hair, noting that the new day’s sun was starting to streak the eastern horizon salmon pink. Then he stepped out from under the rock shelf to study the outcrops, gravel slides, talus and scree rising above him. He reluctantly decided to leave his Henry behind.
    Fargo clapped his hat back on and palmed the wheel of his Colt to check the action.
    â€œWell,” he announced, “back to the salt mines.”
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    Skye Fargo couldn’t swear this was the hardest climb he’d ever made. But he was damned if it didn’t rate among the worst.
    At first he had been protected by an abutment of hard granite. He had also found helpful ­hand-­ and footholds. But these quickly thinned out as he gained altitude. At times he was forced to haul himself up ­hand-­over-­hand with no footholds. This was the part of Fargo’s work the nickel novels and shilling shockers never mentioned: all the time spent watching, waiting or busting his hump moving into position.
    He was delayed as he searched for openings through the jumble of