Nevada Vipers' Nest Read Online Free PDF Page A

not letting you hit the trail, Duffy, without some hot chuck in your belly.”
    Fortunately the red sashes hadn’t gotten around to emptying his saddlebags. Fargo pulled out his blue enameled coffeepot and filled it with water from a goatskin water bag kept lashed to his saddle horn. He tossed a handful of coffee beans in it to boil. Then he mixed cornmeal with water and formed little balls with it, tossing them onto the hot ashes to bake into corn dodgers.
    â€œWhere you headed to in the Sierra?” he asked Duffy.
    â€œPlace called Hat Creek in Modoc County. Most of the easy color has played out in California, and the hard-rock operations has moved in, running the gravel-pan sourdoughs out. But my cousin Jed says there’s still some good nuggets in the stream beds thereabouts.”
    â€œYou got any money?” Fargo asked him.
    â€œOnly about twelve dollars in Spanish coins, but you’re welcome to it—”
    â€œI don’t want your money, you dunderhead.” Fargo cut him off. “You’ll need a better stake than that. Scully and his puke pails emptied my pockets, but they didn’t get my secret stash.”
    Fargo dug into the sack of cornmeal and pulled out two double eagle gold shiners.
    â€œHere’s forty dollars,” he said. “Prices will be high in a gold camp, but this might tide you until you pan some high assay. Sitch, pony up.”
    â€œHell, Fargo, they emptied my pockets too, and—”
    â€œDon’t hand me that shit. I never met a grifter yet who didn’t have money in his boots. Give. This man saved your life.”
    McDougall wore a pair of buffalo-skin boots with the hair inside. With considerable effort he pried one off and produced two half eagles. “Ten dollars is all I got, my hand to God. But you’re welcome to it, Duffy.”
    â€œThose boots don’t fit you very good,” Fargo remarked. “Did you kill the man you stole them from?”
    â€œThat’s a libel on me.” Sitch bristled. “I’ve never killed a man in my life. I won them in a crap game in Cheyenne.”
    â€œWith loaded dice, anh?”
    Sitch struggled to get the boot back on. “I don’t see no halo on you, Fargo.”
    â€œOh, I’ve still got my quota of original sin,” the Trailsman admitted. He looked at Duffy again.
    â€œThere’s a sheriff in Carson City, right? You know anything about him?” Fargo asked.
    â€œHis name is Cyrus Vance, and believe it or not he’s not your usual bribes-or-bullets lawman. He’s middling honest. But he couldn’t solve a one-piece puzzle. He’s gettin’ long in the tooth now, and mainly he just jugs drunks and naps in his own jail cell. The magistrate is crooked as cat shit, though. Any offense can be settled out of court for the right amount. If you don’t pony up the amount he demands, you’re found guilty.”
    â€œThis Sheriff Vance—how’s he feel about Scully and the red sashes?”
    â€œHe wouldn’t piss in their ears if their brains was on fire. They bullyrag him every time they get to town, but Vance ain’t got no deputies so there ain’t squat he can do about it. Matter fact, most folks in town can’t stomach them.”
    â€œInteresting,” Fargo said, tugging at his short chin whiskers.
    â€œYou’re not thinking about going into Carson City, are you?” Sitch asked. “Hell, you’d be a sitting duck.”
    â€œCarson City is where I sent the woman to, and she’s the only witness to what happened night before last. And maybe she can answer a few more questions that are biting at me.”
    â€œIt was dark, Fargo. It’s likely she didn’t see much.”
    â€œDark with a full moon. Besides, there’s a good chance she heard something.”
    â€œThat rings right,” Duffy agreed, picking his teeth with a twig. “But the sashes will likely try