The killer’s tracks, Fargo saw, bore to the east. But whether to the farm or to town, it was too early to tell.
“Come to think of it, none of this would have happened if not for Argent,” Clover mentioned. “She stirred everyone up with that talk of hers about doing what was decent and right. But who is she to say her ways are any better than ours?” Clover gave his waist an affectionate squeeze. “Now that I’ve had a chance to look at things fresh, I can see I’ve been as wrong as wrong can be.”
“That’s nice.” Fargo wasn’t really listening. He was speculating on who the killer might be. Clover didn’t think it was Argent Meriwether because Argent wouldn’t shoot another woman. But maybe Harriet’s death had been an accident. Maybe the killer shot her by mistake when spraying lead at Bramwell.
Then there was the bigger question of why the killer shadowed them to the glade. Fargo had the impression the killer was after Clover, and only shot at him to get him out of the way. But why her? Why not finish off Bramwell?
“I’ll call them all together and propose we send someone under a white flag to the men to ask them to sit down with us and hash it out,” Clover said. “A peaceable solution is still possible.”
“Only if everyone wants one,” Fargo interjected, “and someone sure doesn’t.”
“Are you suggestin’ the same coyote has been behind all the murders?” Clover’s chin rubbed back and forth across his shoulder blade, as if she were shaking her head. “That can’t be.”
“Why not?”
“What could the killer hope to accomplish? Other than causin’ grief?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Fargo conceded. He needed to learn a lot more before he could form an opinion.
“I think you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree,” Clover said. “There has to be more than one person involved.”
Time would tell. Fargo was grateful when she lapsed into deep thought, freeing him to concentrate on the tracks. Soon he came to where the killer had stopped for the night. Crushed grass revealed where a blanket had been spread. At dawn the killer had been up and on the move again, continuing generally east, as before.
Soon a perplexing pattern emerged. The killer had gone up one slope and down another instead of skirting the high ridges as most riders would do. As if he or she were searching for something or someone.
Along about eleven the tracks climbed to a switch-back that afforded a sweeping vista in all directions. Although Fargo scoured the terrain as intently as a hunting hawk, he saw nothing other than a few frolicking sparrows and several vultures soaring high on the air currents.
The killer had reined up at the exact same spot, then gone off to the southeast at a trot. His sudden hurry had Fargo wondering if the killer had spotted them.
Toward the bottom was a belt of pines. Fargo was halfway through when a shot cracked approximately a quarter-mile away. A rifle shot that sounded a lot like the rifle the killer used.
“Hang on!” Fargo cried, and spurred the Ovaro. In his mind’s eye he saw another hapless victim lying prone in a spreading pool of blood. A second shot lent fuel to his worry, and by the time he reached flat ground, the stallion was at full gallop.
Clover’s cheek was tight against his back, her arms banded around his waist. When a low limb abruptly appeared, he shouted, “Duck!” They passed under it with inches to spare.
A man on horseback appeared. Fargo had only a brief glimpse and then the man was gone. But it was enough to send him flying toward the oak tree the man had been next to. Bending, he yanked the Henry out and levered a round into the chamber.
Beyond the oak was a clearing. Slowing to try and spot the killer, Fargo was taken aback when three men sprang out of nowhere. One grabbed the pinto’s bridle. His right leg was seized. Then his left. Instinctively, he aimed the Henry, or tried to, because in the blink of an eye he had been unhorsed and was flat on his back with the breath knocked out of him.
Fargo sought to rise but a rifle barrel was shoved in his face even as he was relieved of the Henry. He glanced up into the spite-filled features of Bramwell Jackson. Jackson’s right shoulder had been crudely bandaged. Samuel Jackson had hold of the Ovaro’s bridle while another man was pulling a furious Clover from her perch.
“Let go of me, damn you!”
“Watch your mouth, woman,” Orville hissed, “or so help me, I’ll slap some decency into you.”
Bramwell poked Fargo in the cheek. “Ask and ye shall receive. There I was, prayin’ we would meet again, and you come ridin’ right up as pretty as you please.” He hefted the Henry. “What was that shootin’ about? Were you after a deer or a rabbit? The shots led us right to you.”
“That wasn’t me.” With startling clarity, Fargo divined who had: the killer. Whoever it was had known they were in pursuit and had spent all morning searching for Bramwell’s party. That explained the killer’s fondness for high lines. The shots were to lure him toward Bramwell and Bramwell toward him. It was clever, damned clever, and Fargo had fallen for it like a rank tenderfoot.
“Yes, sir,” Bramwell crowed. “You blundered smack into our hands. By sunset we’ll be in Jacksonville, and tomorrow you’ll stand trial unless my pa decides to hang you right off.”
“I wasn’t part of the ambush last night,” Fargo said.
“Sure you weren’t,” Bramwell said, and laughed. “You just happened to show up at the same time and just happened to whisk Clover away. And I was born yesterday.” He nodded at the others. “Tie him.”
Fargo balked at having his hands bound but with two rifles gouging his sides, what choice did he have? He was thrown, belly down, over the Ovaro, and a lead rope was looped around the stallion’s neck. Sam held the other end. Behind them, another hillman led mounts bearing the blanket-shrouded bodies of Harriet and Jesse.
Clover had to ride double with Bramwell. She protested until she was red in the face but it did no good. She hit them and kicked them and called them names that turned their cheeks red, but they tied her hands and swung her up, then tied her ankles as well, linked one to the other by a piece of rope they slid under Bramwell’s mount.
They had been under way for an hour when Fargo noticed young Sam repeatedly glance at him. “What?” he asked, after about the sixth or seventh time.
“Oh, I was just wonderin’ how you’ll look when the noose tightens around your neck,” Sam said. “I hear some men turn purple and their tongues hang out.”
Fargo had seen more than a few hangings. He would rather be burnt alive.
“My pa has it all figured out. Why you helped Clover escape in town. Why you helped her escape last night.”
When the stripling didn’t go on, Fargo prompted, “Suppose you tell me so we’ll both know?”
“You’re pokin’ fun,” Sam said. “But that’s all right. I should humor you, this being your second-to-last day on earth, and all.”
“I’m waiting,” Fargo said.
“You’re a hired killer, mister. You rent out your gun for money. The women hired you because they know they can’t beat us without help.” Sam smiled. “Darned clever of my pa, wouldn’t you say?”
“Darned clever,” Fargo said, “but not true. I’m only passing through. Ask the women. They’ll tell you.”
“Save it for the elders. They’ll hear the case against you and decide on your fate.”
After that Sam would not say a word although Fargo tried several times to present his side of events. Soon he had something else to preoccupy him. A pain spiked his chest and would not relent no matter how many times he shifted position.
Then, crossing a rise, Fargo looked back and saw the silhouette of a rider against the backdrop of bright blue sky. The killer was shadowing them. He opened his mouth to tell Sam but closed it again. The killer had disappeared. Sam would think he was making it up.
Toward the middle of the afternoon Bramwell called a halt. Fargo was slung off the Ovaro like a sack of flour and dragged to a log. He scraped an elbow and both s
hins, and when he sat up, tasted bits of grass in his mouth.
“Was that necessary?” Clover demanded of Bramwell and the man who had helped him.
“No, but it made me feel good,” was Bramwell’s sarcastic reply. He sat on the log, opened a saddlebag he had brought, and passed out jerky to his son and friends.
“What about us?” Clover asked.
“You both can starve for all I care.” Bramwell bit off a piece and chomped with vigor. “I don’t care if you are kin. By takin’ up with that shrew, all the blood that’s been spilled is on your head as well as hers.”
“I haven’t killed anyone, cousin.”
“Maybe you haven’t. But you’ve done something worse. You turned your back on your own family. You chose an outsider over your own. There are sins, and then there are sins, and that’s the worst of any.”
Fargo felt compelled to speak in her defense. “You can’t blame her for doing what she thinks is right.”
“Sure I can,” Bramwell said, “especially when it costs the lives of those nearest and dearest to me.” He grabbed Fargo by the front of the shirt. “I don’t expect you to understand, but for us the clan is everything . We’re born to it, we live for it, we die in it. Nothin’ else matters. Nothin’ at all.” He shoved Fargo, hard. “The last time this much Jackson blood was spilled was twenty years ago, back in North Carolina before we packed up and came here. We had been feudin’ with the Harker clan for pretty near a century. Then one day we caught the head of their clan alone in the woods and held him in chains until his kin agreed to our terms.” Bramwell bit off more jerky. “We haven’t lost a Jackson since, except by natural causes.”
Sam wore a glum expression. “I wish there was some other way to deal with cousin Clover, Pa.”
“You still feel sorry for her, boy? After Jesse was shot dead right in front of your eyes?” Bramwell shook the jerky at him. “You’re a severe disappointment to me at times, Samuel. You think with your heart instead of your brain, just like your ma. That’s what I get for lettin’ her baby you when you were little. She was always makin’ excuses for you, you being the youngest and all.”
“Please don’t start,” Sam said.
“Afraid of the truth?” Bramwell asked. “You should know by now that I speak my mind, come what may.”
Bowing his head, Sam walked off to be by himself.
Clover watched him with sorrow in her eyes. “You’re a cruel man, Bramwell Jackson. That boy idolizes you and you treat him like pig droppin’s.”
“And you’re a hypocrite, cousin Clover. If you cared half as much as you pretend to about any of us, you wouldn’t have betrayed our trust.” Bramwell took a last bite and stood. “This jabber serves no purpose. Mount up.”
Once again Fargo was treated to the indignity of being slung over his horse. He willed his body to go limp so it would not be as uncomfortable and wondered what sort of reception awaited them in Jacksonville. As he hung there, head dangling, he happened to glance into the trees and his breath caught in his throat.
Dressed all in black, astride a black bay, the killer wasn’t more than fifty yards away, brazenly watching everything that went on.
Fargo opened his mouth to tell the others but the killer reined into high brush and was gone. From the way the rider sat the bay, Fargo would swear it was a woman. He didn’t have a good look at the rider’s face and he couldn’t say for certain that the rider had breasts, but judging by the rider’s profile and posture and how the rider handled the reins, Fargo would bet every penny he had that he was right.
And he could think of only one woman it might be.
8
This time it was a shed. A smelly, moldy tool shed with cracks in the roof, a pile of dirty rags in one corner, and an assortment of tools, some badly rusted. Space had been cleared in the center and a stool placed there for Fargo to sit on. Then they had shackled his wrists and ankles with chains.
Fargo wasn’t given food, he wasn’t given water. They left him to endure the heat of the afternoon, saying as they went out that his trial would begin the next morning promptly at nine a.m.
The last he saw of Clover, she was being hauled into the general store.
Now, hunkered on the stool, the chains rattling with every movement he made, no matter how slight, Fargo peered through an inch-wide gap in the front door at the two Jacksons chosen to guard him. One had to be in his fifties, the other not much younger. Both were burly and scruffy and armed with rifles and long knives. The older one had the keys to the shackles dangling by a metal ring from his belt.
How to get those keys, that was the question burning in Fargo’s brain. Somehow, some way, he must prevent them from stretching his neck. To that end, removing the shackles was essential.
His guards were talking. “It’s a cryin’ shame about Jesse,” the older one said. “Whoever did him in should be skinned alive.”
“Bramwell thinks it was the Meriwether woman,” the other observed. “May she rot in hell for all eternity. We should lay siege to the farm, Asher. Those females won’t hold out for long without food and water.”
“It might interest you to know, Seth, that Porter has cooked up a plan to end this nonsense once and for all. He says we have to do it quickly, before they bring in more hired guns like this fella in the shed.”
“He claims he’s no such thing.”
“Wouldn’t you if it was your life at stake?” Asher asked.
Tools were stacked against the left wall: a shovel, a hoe, several rakes, a pick, and a sledgehammer. None were of any use to Fargo. The sledge might shatter the leg chains but the noise would bring the guards. Hanging from nails on the right wall were a hammer, a pair of pruning shears, a scythe, a coil of rope, and several trowels. None of them did him any good, either. What Fargo needed most was something to pick the locks with.
Seth cradled his rifle in his brawny arms. “I’m lookin’ forward to stringin’ this gent up. The smart thing to do was hang someone long ago to show the women we mean business.”
“We couldn’t very well string up one of our own,” Asher said.
“We can if they’ve killed kin,” Seth disagreed. “And we’d only have to do it once. Stretchin’ a neck would bring the others around, sure as shootin’.”
There was more but Fargo didn’t listen. He had spotted a small file on the floor under a bench. Only part of it was visible but it appeared to be thin enough to insert into the keyhole on the shackles. Maybe, just maybe, with a little jimmying it would do the job.
Holding the chains so they would rattle as little as possible, Fargo eased off the stool. He slid one foot as far as the chain allowed, then did the same with the other. Stooping, he palmed the file and discovered it was broken. The piece he had was only four inches long. One end tapered to a thin point that was ideal for his purpose.
Returning to the stool, Fargo slowly sank down. None too soon.
The door was yanked wide open and Asher ducked his grizzled head inside. “Thought I heard a noise,” he said suspiciously, eyeing the shackles and the four walls.
“I’m still here,” Fargo said. Beyond Asher the western horizon was ablaze with vivid hues of pink, orange, and yellow. The sun was setting.
“If you have a notion of leavin’ us, you can forget it,” Asher said. “We’re under orders to shoot if you set so much as your little toe outside this shed.”
“I’m not a hired killer.”
“Tell it to the elders tomorrow. Your fate is in their hands, not mine.” Asher leaned further in. “If it were up to me, I’d blow out your wick where you sit. Jesse was my sister’s son, and never a finer boy drew breath.”
“I had nothing to do with his death,” Fargo said, well aware it would go in one ear and out the other.
“So you keep sayin’, mister. But killin’ and lyin’ go hand in hand, so don’t be offended if I don’t believe you.” Snickering, Asher backed out and shut the door.
Fargo didn’t waste a second. Reversing his g
rip on the broken file, he twisted his right wrist so he could insert it into the keyhole to the shackle on his left wrist. It slid in easily enough but when he turned it, nothing happened. He jiggled it back and forth and up and down, jiggled it until his fingers were sore and raw, but the shackle wouldn’t open.
Night fell. The shed was mired in murk. Jacksonville might as well be a cemetery, it lay so quiet and still under the stars. Then chains rattled outside the shed and footsteps shuffled near and Asher exclaimed, “What do we have here?”
“Porter says I’m to feed him.”
Fargo recognized the voice and put his right eye to a crack. Clover’s ankles were shackled but her arms were free and she was holding a large pot in one hand and a plate and spoon in the other.
“He can starve for all I care,” Asher said. “It would serve him right for the misery he’s caused.”
“Then you go tell that to Porter,” Clover said defiantly.
Asher muttered something, then turned and opened the shed door. “All right. In you go. But I’m keepin’ the door open.”
“Worried I’ll try to run off, Uncle?” Clover hobbled inside, squatted, and set the pot on the ground. “Are you hungry?” She did not wait for an answer but removed the lid and began ladling a heaping portion of beans onto the tin plate. “I made these myself.”
Fargo accepted the plate and the spoon. “I’m obliged.”
“They have me doing all kinds of chores. Cookin’, cleanin’, mendin’, you name it. The work has piled up with most of the women gone.”
Considering that Fargo had not eaten in over a day, he was famished. The beans were delicious, and he commented as much.
“Thank you.” Clover’s teeth flashed white in the gloom. “My secret ingredient is five spoonfuls of brown sugar.” She glanced over her shoulder, then bent forward. “You have to get out of here. I don’t know how, but if you don’t, you’re as good as dead. The word is that Porter plans to make an example of you.”
“What about innocent until proven guilty?” Fargo asked with his mouth full.
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