Beartooth Incident by Jon Sharpe

Fargo couldn’t imagine. A six-shooter killed a lot quicker. Sten also wore a revolver, butt-forward on his left hip. A Smith & Wesson.
    Comparing the others to wolves wasn’t far from the mark. All were lean and sinewy with eyes that glittered with the promise of death. Five were white. The sixth, who happened to be in the lead, had some red blood, as evinced by a shock of raven hair and copper skin.
    The outlaws were herding the cows along but they weren’t in any particular hurry. One man dozed in the saddle.
    The half-breed was on a claybank. He came abreast of where Fargo was hidden and suddenly drew rein and leaned down.
    Cud Sten stopped, too, rumbling “What is it, Rika? We’ve got us a ways to go yet and I want to be there by nightfall.”
    Rika straightened and turned. “Tracks,” he said simply. “They puzzle me.”
    “How can that be?” Cud said. “What you don’t know about tracking ain’t worth knowing.”
    “A white man has come this way.”
    “What’s that?” Cud said, and he and the rest glanced all about, most placing their hands on their revolvers.
    “It’s a white man we know,” Rika said. “Or his horse, at least.”
    “What are you babbling about, damn it?”
    Rika pointed at the tracks. “These were made by the animal our friend Tull rides.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “As you say. What I don’t know about tracking is not worth knowing. And I know the tracks of our horses as I know my own.”
    “But if it’s Tull, where did he get to?”
    “I ask myself the same question.”
    Cud gigged his bay up and the two of them climbed down and hunkered to examine the prints.
    Fargo palmed the pearl-handled Colt. He knew what they would do next, and he was ready. They would mount and come after him. With luck he could drop half of them before they suspected where he was, and then it would be cat and mouse until he finished them off.
    True to his prediction, Cud Sten and Rika whispered back and forth. They climbed on their horses and reined around to talk in hushed tones to the others. Then, drawing their six-shooters, all seven swung toward the forest.
    They were so obvious Fargo had to grin. But he didn’t find what happened next the least bit funny.
    The branches of the pine were laden thick with snow. Now and then clumps fell to the ground. But just as the outlaws reined toward the forest, a clump of snow the size of a washbasin fell with a loud thud, and the pine, relieved of the weight, suddenly whipped straight up into the air. The rest of the snow in its branches came raining down on Fargo. For a few seconds all he saw was falling snow. Then the whiteout ended, and he could see again.
    The tree no longer hid him.
    He was in plain sight.
    For a few seconds the outlaws were riveted in surprise. Then Cud Sten bellowed, “That’s not Tull! Kill the son of a bitch!”
    Fargo wheeled the sorrel and jabbed his spurs. Behind him six-guns blasted and lead sang a song of death. One buzzed his ear, another narrowly missed his shoulder. Then he was past more trees and at a gallop.
    Cud Sten let out with another bellow. “After him!”
    Fargo scowled. Thanks to a fluke he was riding for his life. He reined right to avoid a tree, reined left to avoid another. A few more shots were fired but none came close. Then the shooting stopped.
    The outlaws were after him in earnest.
    The snow muffled the thud of their hooves. Nearly everything was white, the trees so burdened that many hung low to the ground. Fargo hadn’t gone far when he discovered how precariously balanced they were. The sorrel brushed against one, and it snapped vertical as that first tree had done, raining snow all over him. .
    “Don’t let that son of a bitch get away!” Cud Sten bellowed.
    Fargo glanced back. Two of them were hard after him. One raised a revolver but lowered it again because he didn’t have a clear shot.
    Minutes passed, and the sorrel’s lead began to widen. But Fargo could tell the sorrel was beginning to