Free Texas Timber War by Jon Sharpe Page A

longer. He still didn’t know which of the timber operations the man worked for, but clearly he was in league with the river pirates.
    Instead of following Linus and the other two, Fargo backed away and tried to orient himself. He looked around, tipping his head back so that he could search through the canopy of boughs for the sun. He knew that by now the afternoon had to be well advanced, so when he caught a glimpse of the sun through the trees, he knew which direction was west. That knowledge allowed him to cut across country toward the spot where he had left the Ovaro, instead of being forced to retrace the convoluted path that had brought him here.
    Once he was well away from the loggers and the pirates, he climbed part of the way up a tree to double-check his location. Satisfied that he was heading in the right direction, he shinnied back down and started off again.
    Fargo’s instincts proved to be trustworthy, as usual. He reached a stream he recognized as Alligator Slough. From there it was a simple matter to turn south, follow the stream, and get back to Big Cypress Bayou. The stallion might have wandered a little, but he would be somewhere close by the spot where the slough ran into the bayou.
    Fargo started in that direction, but he hadn’t gone very far before he heard voices coming toward him. Not wanting to run into anybody without knowing who it was first, he ducked deeper into the trees and crouched behind a thick-trunked pine to wait.
    Several roughly dressed men came in sight. They carried axes, and one of the men used his to mark blazes on some of the trees. Another commented, ‘‘There’s some good growth here. Mr. Kiley did a fine job gettin’ a lease to cut this area.’’
    So they were some of Kiley’s men, Fargo thought, scouting out timber for Kiley’s crews to harvest. The crew he had seen earlier was about two miles from here, so he suspected that they were working for Jonas Baxter.
    Fargo was thinking about stepping out and introducing himself to Kiley’s men, but before he could make up his mind whether to do that, several shots smashed through the humid air. One of the loggers let out a howl of pain, dropped his ax, and clapped his hands to his right thigh, where blood had suddenly appeared on his overalls.
    His companions grabbed his arms and hustled him toward the slough as more shots blasted and bullets whistled around their heads. The three men dived into the cover of a tangle of cypress roots at the edge of the water.
    Fargo didn’t know who the bushwhackers were, but since the men who’d been ambushed worked for Kiley, it stood to reason that the ones trying to kill them were some of Baxter’s men. He couldn’t see the gunmen, but he could hear where the shots were coming from. Drawing his Colt, he began working his way in that direction.
    The time that it took Fargo to close in on the bushwhackers must have seemed a lot longer to the men who were hunkered among the roots at the edge of the slough, trying to stay low enough that they wouldn’t get killed. Fargo came up behind the four men who were firing from the shelter of some pines. They were dressed like loggers, too, but right then they were working at the business of murder.
    The men were spread out, with ten or fifteen yards between each of them. Fargo moved up behind the closest one, reversed his Colt, and brought the heavy revolver’s butt crashing down on the man’s head. Without even a groan, the man dropped his rifle, fell to his knees, and toppled over onto his face, out cold.
    Fargo darted back, hoping the attack hadn’t been noticed by the others. They were so busy trying to kill Kiley’s men that that seemed to be the case. Fargo cat-footed toward the second man. He knew he couldn’t knock all of them out of the fight without alerting the others, but he wanted to cut down the odds as much as he could.
    Before he could strike again, though,