The Trailsman 317 Read Free Page B

He did the same with the Ovaro, then set to work kindling a fire.
    â€œWhat do you intend to cook?” Mabel asked. “You have not shot any game for our supper.”
    â€œYou can go shoot something if you want,” Fargo replied. “Me, I aim to have some pemmican.”
    â€œI am no hunter. Cyst and Welt took care of that. I would expect you to do the same.”
    â€œYou might want to lower your expectations,” Fargo suggested. Thanks to a fire steel and flint he always kept in his saddlebags, he soon had flames crackling and giving off tendrils of smoke.
    Mabel Landry’s brow was puckered in thought. “You don’t like me much, do you?”
    â€œFrom what I can tell you have nice legs.”
    Her cheeks colored. “Now see. The whole time I was with Cyst and Welt, neither ever made a comment like that. If you ask me, I am in more danger from you than I ever was from them.”
    â€œSo long as you don’t traipse around naked in front of me, you should be all right.”
    Mabel laughed.
    Fargo replaced the fire steel and flint and took out a bundle wrapped in an old rabbit hide.
    â€œWhat is pemmican? I have never had any.”
    â€œMeat that has been rendered fine and mixed with fat and berries,” Fargo enlightened her.
    â€œWhat kind of meat?”
    â€œBuffalo. I got this from a Cheyenne woman I spent the night with. You will not taste better anywhere.” Fargo offered her a handful.
    â€œSpent the night with?” Mabel repeated, and when he did not take her verbal bait, she frowned. She examined a piece, sniffed it, then tentatively nipped a sliver and chewed. “Not bad,” she said. “I thought it would be like jerky but it is different.”
    They ate in silence for as long as Mabel Landry could contain her curiosity. Finally she coughed and said, “I realize it is none of my business, but do you spend your nights with many Indian women?”
    â€œYou are right. It is none of your business.”
    â€œIt is my understanding that most white men want nothing to do with them,” Mabel said.
    â€œI have lived with Indians off and on,” Fargo revealed. “They are people like you and me. No better and no worse.”
    â€œBut to sleep with their women—” Mabel did not finish what she was going to say.
    â€œA female is a female.”
    â€œDo they do it the way we do?”
    â€œIt?” Fargo said, and was amused by how red she became.
    â€œYou know what I mean.”
    â€œThey like to do it standing on their heads. Except for Apaches, who always do it on horseback.”
    â€œNow you are mocking me.” Mabel’s brow puckered. “You certainly are peculiar. But so long as you help me find my brother, I will not hold it against you.”
    â€œHe should never have come out here.”
    Mabel started to spread out her blankets. “I agree. I told him not to come. I warned him he was asking for trouble but he wouldn’t listen.” She sat and wrapped her forearms around her knees. “Chester always did as he wanted, and the rest of the world be damned.”
    â€œWhy the Rockies, of all places?” Fargo wanted to know. “Why not Oregon or California?” That was where most Easterners with a hankering to live in the West went.
    â€œChester said they were too tame for him,” Mabel answered. “You see, ever since he was a boy, Chester has liked tales of mountain men and trappers. He read everything he could get his hands on about the likes of Kit Carson and Jim Bridger. It was his dream to become just like them.”
    â€œThe beaver trade died out long ago,” Fargo noted. “Most of the mountain men are old-timers who traded in beaver plews and stayed on when the demand died.”
    â€œImplying my brother was misguided for following his dream,” Mabel said resentfully.
    â€œHe has gone missing, hasn’t he?” Fargo said. That hushed her