Hangtown Hellcat Read Online Free PDF

things.”
    This puny offer clearly angered the brave although his stoic face never altered. His eyes and voice hardened.
    “Hair face, it is the white man’s stink that scares away Uncle Pte, the buffalo. Your strong water makes women of our best braves. Even now the white dogs swarm the sacred Paha Sapa”—he meant the Black Hills to the east—“searching for the glittering yellow rocks. Why should we not kill you both and take everything you own?”
    Fargo always favored wit and wile over lead slinging. But he feared the worst option was now the only option. Buckshot considered his beloved double-ten an extension of his body, and no man—red, white, or purple—was taking Fargo’s Henry from him.
    Fargo’s thumb twitched, knocking the riding thong off the hammer of his Colt. “I hate to say it, Buckshot,” he said in a low tone, “but it’s come down to the nut-cuttin’. Get ready to let ’er rip.”
    But Buckshot had followed most of the exchange and now he spoke up. “Hold off, Fargo. ’Member what we done with them Arapahos up at Roaring Horse Canyon?”
    Fargo did remember and suddenly grinned inwardly. It just might work, at that.
    “You should take nothing from us,” he told the angry brave, “because your medicine will go bad if you do. This man riding with me is We-Ota-Wichasa, a great medicine man. He has come to this country on a vision quest.”
    The leader’s voice was mocking. “Words are cheap, things of smoke. Especially in a white man’s mouth as he faces death. Let us see this great ‘shaman’s’ medicine.”
    Fargo nodded and looked at Buckshot. The latter lifted his arms like a priest blessing his flock. In a solemn, deep-chested voice he intoned:
    Had to take a shit so she squat on the floor;
    Wind from her ass blew the cat out the door;
    Moon shone bright on the tipples of her nits;
    Carved her initials in a bucket of shit.
    The Cheyenne understood not one word of this mysterious incantation, but, in spite of themselves, watched this supposed shaman with growing expectation. Buckshot whistled sharply and his cayuse performed a half turn, putting Buckshot’s back to the Cheyenne. His right hand moved up to his face briefly.
    He whistled again and the smoky turned back around. Fargo had never seen the color drain from a copper-skinned Indian’s face, but he witnessed it now when the braves saw the raw red socket from which Buckshot’s right eye had simply disappeared.
    To cap the climax, his lips curled back to reveal his eye staring at the bucks from his grinning mouth!
    The braves did not turn and flee—they were too astounded to even move. And every one of them forgot about the “stoic impassivity” of their faces as their jaws slacked open in astonishment when Buckshot made as if he were chewing.
    “We-Ota-Wichasa has plucked out his own eye and now he eats it?” the leader said to Fargo in a wondering tone. “And there is no pain?”
    Fargo shook his head. “A new eye will grow back by tomorrow.”
    “His medicine is indeed powerful.”
    The braves spoke rapidly among themselves. Then the leader raised his hand in the sign for peace before they raced off to the northeast at a gallop.
    “Jesus, Buckshot, you are a holy show,” Fargo managed before both men laughed so hard they almost fell off theirmounts. Then Buckshot worked his glass eye back into the socket.
    But as they gigged their horses forward again, Fargo added, “You know, Cheyennes are superstitious, right enough. But they’re also smart. They might figure out they were bamboozled somehow and pay us another visit.”
    “That’s all right,” Buckshot replied from a deadpan. “I’ll keep an eye out for ’em.”

4
    A hot westering sun had soon baked the mud into hard folds and wrinkles. But the recent downpour had made reading sign more difficult and slowed down the two trackers. Fargo still had to worry about the terrain, too. Rock spines, gulches, and thick brush provided excellent cover for