Free High Plains Massacre by Jon Sharpe

center.”
    â€œYou know what that means, don’t you?”
    â€œLike hell it does.”
    Fargo roved in a circle that brought him back to the stream and the waiting troopers.
    â€œYou don’t need to tell me if you found anything,” Lieutenant Wright said.
    â€œI saw it, sir, and I don’t believe what I saw,” Private Davenport said.
    â€œWhat’s the matter with all of you?” Private Benjamin said. “It’s a spook of some kind. It has to be.”
    â€œI told you to stop with that kind of talk,” Lieutenant Wright snapped.
    â€œYou saw it, sir,” Benjamin persisted. “Did it look like a man to you? No. There was nothing human about it. It’s a spook, I tell you. Some kind of thing from the other side.”
    â€œYou try my patience, Private,” Lieutenant Wright said. “Honest to God you do.”
    Fargo might have stood there longer, probing the woods, except he realized that they’d left their mounts and the remaining pack animal untended. “We have to get back.”
    â€œShouldn’t we conduct a search?” Lieutenant Wright asked.
    â€œThe horses, damn it.”
    Wright gave a start and ordered his men to recross at the double.
    To Fargo’s relief, the Ovaro and the other animals were perfectly fine. The dead one had been dragged off far enough that it wouldn’t bring scavengers into the settlement, and to spare them from the reek when it began to rot.
    Back at the fire, Fargo refilled his tin cup and hunkered.
    â€œWell, that was exciting,” Bear River Tom said.
    â€œI should post men on the other side of the stream,” Lieutenant Wright proposed. “They can alert us if the thing returns.”
    â€œOr have their throats slit in the middle of the night like that man yesterday,” Fargo said.
    â€œWhich reminds me,” Lieutenant Wright said. “We’re so caught up with this spook, we’ve forgotten why we’re here.”
    â€œI haven’t,” Fargo said.
    Wright gestured at the empty cabins and tents. “Where can they be? How can so many people disappear without a trace?”
    â€œThe spook got them,” Private Benjamin said.
    Lieutenant Wright put his hands on his hips and glared. “Enough. So help me, if you bring it up again, when we get back to the fort I’ll bring you up on a charge of insubordination.”
    Fargo was pleased to see Wright show some backbone. But it didn’t go over well with the other troopers.
    â€œAnyone else want to disobey an order?” Wright addressed them. “I will have discipline, gentlemen. Whether you like it or not.”
    â€œYou sound like my father, sir,” Private Davenport remarked.
    â€œI thank you for the compliment.”
    â€œIt wasn’t intended to be, sir,” Private Davenport said.
    â€œIf you don’t like taking orders,” Lieutenant Wright said, “you picked a damn poor profession.”
    Their petty squabbling was getting to Fargo. He stood and carried his cup around the cabin to where he could see the wall of forest on the other side of the stream. He wasn’t alone long.
    â€œThese pups have a lot to learn,” Bear River Tom grumbled.
    Fargo grunted and sipped.
    â€œHow about if I go with you tomorrow? I told you before, I’m not cut out to be a nursemaid.”
    â€œAs fond as you are of tits?” Fargo joked.
    â€œGo to hell. You probably won’t believe it but I haven’t thought about tits all day.”
    Fargo looked up at the sky and then at the settlement and at the ground at their feet.
    â€œWhat?” Bear River Tom said.
    â€œI’m waiting for the world to end.”
    â€œI do have days when I don’t, you know.”
    â€œWho are you and what have you done with the real Bear River Tom?”
    â€œGo to hell twice. I’m not so—” Tom stopped.
    From the settlement behind them rose a piercing shriek of