Free High Plains Massacre by Jon Sharpe Page B

do.”
    Fargo felt sluggish. He went to the stream, stripped off his shirt, and splashed cold water on his face and chest until he was shivering and awake.
    A trooper by the name of Arvil was preparing breakfast. “We’re having flapjacks,” he announced as Fargo came up. “But it will take a while.”
    â€œWe’re in no hurry,” Lieutenant Wright said.
    Fargo was. The sooner he resumed his hunt, the sooner they would learn the fate of the missing settlers.
    â€œExcuse me, sir,” Private Davenport said, “but has anyone seen Private Benjamin?”
    â€œHe stood guard over the horses last night,” Wright reminded him.
    â€œBut where is he now, sir?”
    The horses weren’t a stone’s throw away. Several were dozing, the Ovaro among them. But there was no Benjamin.
    â€œDon’t tell me he deserted his post?” Lieutenant Wright said angrily. “He’ll wind up in the stockade if he’s not careful.”
    Fargo spied a splash of color and beckoned to Tom. They went to the string and there in the dust between two of the horses lay Private Benjamin’s hat. Fargo picked it up and held it where Wright could see it. “The stockade is the least of his worries.”
    A frantic search ensued. Every cabin, every tent. Along the stream, along the granite bluff.
    â€œHe’s vanished, just like the settlers,” Lieutenant Wright summed up the result when they regrouped at the fire.
    Fargo saw fear on nearly every face. He didn’t blame them. The empty grave, the killing of the horse and now Benjamin disappearing, was enough to scare anyone. That made him think of the white thing in the trees and the moans.
    Put it all together and there was only one conclusion. Someone was trying to scare them off. But why? That, too, was pretty obvious. To keep them from finding out what happened to the settlers.
    â€œI’ll be heading out as soon as we’re done breakfast,” he told them.
    â€œBy your lonesome?” Bear River Tom said. “With all that’s going on, you should take me along to watch your back.”
    Fargo would like that but he had a greater worry, namely, the young troopers. They were so rattled, they weren’t thinking straight. “I want you to stay here.”
    Tom looked at the troopers, and sighed. “I should give up scouting and open a home for infants. Do you still have that bottle? I need a drink.”
    â€œWhat we need,” Lieutenant Wright said, “is an answer to all these mysteries.”
    â€œWe sure as hell do,” Fargo agreed, and with more than a little luck, by the end of the day he would have it.

19
    He’d already searched the far end of the gulch. He’d already searched the forest across the stream. Today he decided to try along the granite heights.
    There was a lot of granite in the Black Hills. It broke through the surface in the form of cliffs and bluffs and spirelike protrusions that sometimes rose hundreds of feet into the air.
    Fargo started at the mouth of the gulch and scoured the towering heights. He hoped to find a way up. Noon found him at the far end, without success.
    Damn, it was frustrating, he reflected. He had a sense that he’d missed something. That if he put his mind to the problem, the answer would leap out at him. He tried but it didn’t, which only frustrated him more.
    The sun was directly overhead when he made for the stream to let the Ovaro drink. In a grassy glade at the water’s edge he drew rein and swung down. He hadn’t had much sleep, and God, he was tired. He yawned and stretched and sat with his back to a juniper to ponder his problem.
    It took a while for the sound he was hearing to break through his concentration. It came and it went, a hissing like that he’d once heard when he was at the Pacific coast and watched breakers roll into shore. It came from upstream.
    About the fifth or sixth time, Fargo raised his