Apache Vendetta Read Online Free PDF Page B

bandanna, and skirted the parade ground and the tramping soldiers.
    The orderly was behind his desk. Jumping up, he opened the colonel’s door.
    Hastings was over at the window, his hands clasped behind his back.
    In a chair sat a grizzled beanpole wearing a hat with holes in it and clothes that hadn’t been washed in a coon’s age. He swiveled and studied Fargo and said, “Who’s this?”
    â€œThe scout I told you about, Mr. Nestor,” Colonel Hastings answered. “I want you to tell him what you told me.”
    â€œThis is why your blue bellies dragged me here?” Nestor said. “Hell in a basket. You could have told him your own self.”
    â€œI’d like for him to hear it from you personally,” Hastings said. “Out of the horse’s mouth, as it were.”
    â€œAre you callin’ me a horse?”
    Hastings turned. “Were I to compare you to one, it wouldn’t be the mouth. Do you follow me, Mr. Nestor?”
    The beanpole in the dirty clothes scrunched his mouth and growled, “I don’t like bein’ insulted.”
    â€œFortunately, one of us doesn’t care what you like,” Colonel Hastings said. He didn’t say it in a threatening manner yet his tone spoke volumes. “You were a witness. Mr. Fargo, here, will soon put his life at risk to catch those responsible. He deserves to know all of it.”
    â€œIf you say so, General,” Nestor said sullenly.
    â€œNow it is you who is being insulting,” Hastings said as he moved to the desk. “Perhaps you think you can get away with it because you’re a civilian and I have no jurisdiction over you. But as I just pointed out, you’re a material witness to a crime over which the army has been given oversight, so it wouldn’t bother me in the least to have you thrown in the stockade for a month or so if you can’t be civil.”
    â€œYou would, wouldn’t you?”
    â€œDo you even need to ask? And keep in mind there’s a limit to my patience.”
    â€œWhatever you want,” Nestor capitulated.
    Fargo came around the chairs. “You saw the rape.”
    â€œNever said that, you silly jackass,” Nestor replied with as much antagonism as he’d shown to Hastings.
    Fargo bent and smiled. “You have a problem.”
    â€œSome folks have sunny dispositions. I can’t help it if I’m not one of them.”
    â€œNo,” Fargo said. “Your problem is me.”
    â€œHow’s that again?”
    â€œI’m not the colonel.”
    â€œIn what way?”
    â€œI don’t have a stockade to throw you in. Insult me again I’ll hit you so damn hard, those yellow teeth of yours will fall out.”

11
    Nestor drew back and gripped the chair arms. “Damn me if I don’t believe you would.”
    â€œTell him,” Colonel Hastings said.
    â€œFine,” Nestor snapped. He mumbled something, then said, “I’m an ore hound. Been prospectin’ these parts since before these bluecoats came. A while back I was pannin’ Antelope Creek. It’s lower down than most and I never reckoned it would show color, but Tobacco Charlie found some and me and some others were workin’ it that day hopin’ for more.”
    â€œHow many others exactly?” Hastings asked. “I don’t believe you’ve ever said.”
    â€œPretty near a dozen, here and there.”
    â€œGive me some names.”
    â€œThere was me and Charlie and that fella from New York who came west to strike it rich, and a couple from Missouri. And no, before you ask me, I never knew their handles.”
    Fargo interrupted with, “I want to hear about the Apache girl.”
    Nestor’s jaw muscles twitched. “Are you two goin’ to let me tell it or not?”
    Fargo gestured.
    â€œSo there we were, pannin’ or workin’ our slews, and suddenly down the creek a feller gives a holler