Free New Mexico Madman (9781101612644) by Jon Sharpe

hands—a keg of blasting powder, he realized—and took three more giant strides while he brought it to his chest, then heaved with all the considerable strength of his arms, chest and shoulders.
    As soon as he released it, Fargo dropped to the ground face-first like a dead weight. Even before he landed, hell turned itself inside out.
    A crack-boom like the last ding-dong of doom threatened to shatter his eardrums. A blinding flash of white light was followed by a searing wall of heat. A giant, violent, invisible hand flung him back toward the house, which he slammed into before slumping to the ground.
    The last thing Fargo was aware of was dirt and grass and stones slapping down hard all around him and a woman’s bansheelike scream of terror from inside the station.
    And his last thought:
the
Great
Thing
at
last
. . . .
    * * *
    â€œIs he dead?” Trixie said anxiously.
    â€œI think he is breathing,” Socorro said, holding a lantern over the unconscious Trailsman.
    â€œHe has a terrible bruise swelling on his forehead,” Kathleen chimed in.
    â€œPerhaps this will help him,” Raul suggested, splashing a pail of water on Fargo’s face.
    â€œI fear he has departed this world,” the preacher said. “May his soul—”
    â€œOne world at a time, witch doctor!” Booger snapped. “A conk on the
cabeza
will not kill Skye goldang Fargo. Don’t get your bowels in an uproar, ladies—he’ll come sassy.”
    The acrid stench of spent black powder hung heavy around the station house, and patches of wiry
palomilla
grass still snapped and sparked in the yard. Kathleen rushed into the house and returned with her silk reticule, extracting a small vial of sal volatile.
    â€œSmelling salts should revive him,” she said, uncapping the vial and passing it under his nostrils.
    Fargo lay as inert as a stone slab.
    â€œHe
is
dead,” Malachi Feldman asserted, his pudgy hands fluttering like nervous birds. “The Eighth House has claimed him.”
    â€œPah!” Booger exclaimed. “You feckless ass. Only one thing can bring Fargo back from death’s door: the scent of a woman’s perfume. Give him your best toilet water, muffin.”
    Kathleen bristled like a feist. “
Stop
calling me muffin, you uncouth mudsill!”
    â€œBeg pardon, cupcake. Give him a whiff of your finest aromatic—the stuff that gives men bedroom notions.”
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous,” she snapped, but she did extract a small bottle labeled Eau de Ciel and pull off the silver stopper. She held the bottle under his nose. “This couldn’t possibly—”
    A smile eased Fargo’s lips apart as his eyes snapped open. For a moment he wondered if there was, after all, a heaven to which he had mistakenly been sent. Three pretty female faces hovered over his and—miracle to behold—Kathleen Barton’s actually deigned to show some concern.
    But this was not paradise—his head felt as if he’d been mule-kicked.
    â€œDon’t move yet,” Ashton advised when Fargo groaned trying to sit up. “You may have a serious injury.”
    â€œBuncha damn mollycoddlers,” Booger muttered. “Fargo, quitcher damn malingering.”
    He reached a brawny arm down and tugged Fargo roughly to his feet. “Come inside if you’re feeling puny—a ration of who-shot-John will brace you.”
    Doctor Booger was right—a pony glass of whiskey did indeed perk up Fargo although his head still throbbed like a war drum. He sat at the trestle table, the rest crowding around him.
    â€œWhy, his eyebrows are singed!” Trixie said. “What happened out there, Skye?”
    Fargo related what little he could about the powder cask.
    â€œPerhaps a chunk of the wood did that to your head,” Ashton surmised. “It was good work, Fargo. You saved the rest of us.”
    â€œNo,” Fargo