“What in the—” Clover cried. The rest of whatever she said was drowned out by the boom of a rifle behind them.
Another hillman had rounded a corner and was firing on the fly. But in his haste he was not taking aim.
Twisting, Fargo shot from the hip. His first round spun the man in his tracks, his second added a new nostril.
Shouts sounded from different quarters. More Jacksons appeared, some at windows, some in doorways, some from between buildings. It was a trap. Bramwell had tricked them to lure them out in the open. “Ride!” Fargo bawled at Clover, and gave her mare a hard slap on the rump that sent it galloping on ahead.
Porter Jackson was tittering like a lunatic while hopping up and down on his good leg and waving the broom as if it were a lance. “Kill him!” he screeched. “Kill the outsider, boys! Kill him dead, dead, dead!”
Fargo used his spurs on the stallion. Guns boomed on all sides, and lead sizzled uncomfortably close to his ear. His hat was nearly plucked from his head. To free one hand for riding, he shoved the Henry into its scabbard and drew the Colt.
The next moment a burly hillman loomed directly in his path, holding a double-barreled shotgun.
Instantly, Fargo fired. The man’s right eye burst in a grisly spray, and then the Ovaro was past and flying toward the north end of the street. But other enemies were waiting. Before he could reach the forest, he must run a bristling gauntlet of gun barrels.
Bending low, Fargo reined left and then right. Gun smoke billowed from several points, filling him with fear that the Ovaro would be hit. He spotted a man in a doorway and they fired simultaneously but it was the hillman who clutched at his throat and dropped. A rifle spanged from the mouth of an alley and Fargo responded in kind. He shot a man on a roof, shot another who foolishly rushed from the shadows swinging an axe.
Clover had reached the tree line and slowed to wait for him. “Keep going!” Fargo hollered, and emptied the last chamber in the Colt into the gray-flecked face of a Jackson with a squirrel gun.
A few more yards and Fargo was past the last of the buildings and crossing an open space. Rifles and pistols crackled like fireworks behind him. It was little short of a miracle that he and the pinto reached cover unscathed.
He had told Clover to keep going but she had gone only another ten yards and reined up. A horrendous risk on her part. Lead smacked into tree trunks and chipped slivers from branches and sent leaves flying. On top of that, riders were in pursuit.
Slowing as he drew abreast of her, Fargo gave the mare a harder slap, saying, “Are you trying to get yourself killed? Ride, damn it.”
Ride they did. For an hour Fargo pushed their animals ever deeper into the verdant Ozarks, over rolling mountains and across lush dales. They rode until he was convinced beyond any shadow of doubt that they had eluded the hill folk. Eventually, with the Ovaro and the mare lathered with sweat and the mare wheezing heavily, unaccustomed as she was to so much exertion, Fargo came on a small spring nestled among overhanging woodland giants and flanked on one side by a boulder-strewn hill. It was here he halted.
Clover stiffly dismounted and pressed a hand to the small of her back. “I thought I was a good rider but you put me to shame. I’m sore in places I’ve never been sore before.” She grinned. “I could use a back rub later.”
“We’ll see,” Fargo said as he began stripping the pinto.
“Is something the matter? You look mad enough to kick a puppy.”
“I am.” Fargo was sick and tired of being played for a jackass. Sick and tired of people trying to kill him because they thought he was someone he wasn’t. He had been accused of crimes he had not committed. He had been insulted and belittled and lied to. He had been poked, prodded, tied up, and chained. This last incident was the last straw. He was fed up. It was high time he showed the Jacksons that they didn’t have the god-given right to ride roughshod over anyone they liked.
Porter and Bramwell had tricked him, and tricked him good. That whole business about Porter wanting to beat his son for giving in had been a sham. Porter knew the whole time that Bramwell would never let them leave Jacksonville alive. It had been a ploy from start to finish.
Fargo never intended to get involved in their little war. He had seen a woman held captive and freed her, and if she hadn’t accidentally pushed him over that cliff and taken the Ovaro, he would have been long gone by now. But no. One misunderstanding had led to another, to where he had a whole settlement out to turn him into worm food and a mysterious rider in black who had outwitted him twice now, with nearly fatal consequences both times.
Enough was enough. For better or worse, whether he liked it or not, Fargo was involved. And he was not leaving until he settled accounts with all those who had wronged him.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Clover intruded on his somber thoughts. “You weren’t wounded, were you?”
Fargo forced a smile. “I’m fine. Why don’t you gather some firewood and I’ll tend to the horses?”
“I get it,” Clover said. “You want to be alone. Why didn’t you just say so?” She flounced into the undergrowth muttering something about men.
As Fargo worked, he reviewed the sequence of events since he first saw her. He went over everything everyone had said, weeding out what was true and what might not be. He needed to sort it all out before he could decide how best to deal with those who had wronged him.
Clover returned with her arms laden with dead limbs, whistling merrily. “I’ve forgiven you,” she said as she broke the limbs to make their fire. “I can’t stay mad at someone who has saved my life so many times.”
“Decent of you,” Fargo said, plopping her saddle next to his own.
“I’m serious,” Clover misunderstood. “I’m forever in your debt. Anything I can do for you, anything at all, you have but to ask.”
Fargo contemplated the twin mounds outlined under her shirt. “Maybe later. Right now I want you to tell me about Patrice’s farmhouse. How many rooms does it have?”
Clover stopped snapping limbs. “Whatever for? Surely you’re not thinkin’ of going back there? Argent has probably given orders to have you shot on sight.” But she did as he asked, and later, after they had spread out their blankets and were seated side by side, with the fire crackling and the tantalizing aroma of brewing coffee reminding Fargo of how hungry he was, Clover leaned against him and gave him the sultry look of a Denver dove.
“So what do you have percolatin’ in that mind of yours?” she wondered. “Where do we go from here?”
“You’re going somewhere safe,” Fargo answered. “We’ll meet up again after I’m done.”
“We’re splitting up?” Clover was hugely disappointed. “Why? I haven’t been a burden, have I? And what do you mean by ‘done’? Done what, exactly?”
Fargo gave her a piece of peanut brittle. “Here. Chew on this.”
“Now I’m askin’ too many questions, is that it?” Clover sat back, her spine as straight as a washboard. “Well, you sure have changed. One minute you can’t keep your hands off me, the next you want to get rid of me.”
The surest way to divert a woman’s anger, Fargo had found, was to stimulate their unquenchable female curiosity. “Who do you think that rider in black is?”
“Him? I don’t know.”
“Why a ‘him’ and not a ‘her’?” Fargo asked. “It could easily be a woman.”
“I disagree,” Clover said flatly. “None of them would kill their own relatives. Especially poor, sweet Harriet, who never harmed a soul in her life and never uttered a harsh word against anyone.”
Fargo still believed her death had been an accident. “You don’t know anyone who rides a big bay?”
After pondering, Clover shook her head.
“How about the teacher from Philadelphia?”
“Argent?” Clover laughed and slapped her leg. “Why, she can’t hardly climb on a horse without fallin’ off. She’s never ridden a day in her life.”
“Th
en how did she get to Jacksonville?”
“My, you have a suspicious mind. For your information, Argent hired a man with a buggy to bring her. And since the school is near town, she always walked back and forth. Patrice has been givin’ her lessons but she still can’t ride worth a lick.”
Fargo had a thought. “Patrice must be a good rider.”
“What are you suggestin’? That she’s out for revenge because of Elly? That she murdered Joe, her own husband, and has been on a killin’ spree ever since?” Clover shook her head. “No. I can’t see it. She loved Joe too much to do him in. And don’t forget, women as well as men have been killed. It makes no kind of sense for Patrice to kill those on her side.”
She had a point, Fargo conceded. Just as it made no sense for Porter to kill those on his side. But someone was sure as hell going around dispensing death. If he could figure out the reason, the culprit would not be hard to identify.
“Now suppose you tell me a little about yourself,” Clover said. “Where you were born, what you do, the things you like most in this world.”
“A glass of good whiskey and a friendly game of cards.”
Clover waited, and when she saw that was all he was going to say, she responded, “That’s it? There must be more to your life. Where are your kin? Where do you call home?”
Leaning back, Fargo nodded at the vault of trees and the oval of azure sky above the clearing. “You’re looking at it.”
“Huh?” Clover’s forehead creased. “Oh. You wander where you please, livin’ off the land? I envy you. We all have a secret hankerin’ to see more of the world but few of us ever have the gumption to make our hankerin’ real.” She broke off a stem of grass and stuck it between her teeth as she had done before, an unconscious habit that was quite endearing. “Take me, for instance. When I was little, my head was filled with visions of England and Europe and places like that. You know, where ladies wear fancy dresses and spend their nights dancin’ and courtin’ and havin’ the time of their lives.”
Fargo opened his saddlebags to take out a lucifer and light their fire.
“Truth is,” Clover said, “you’re the most excitin’ thing that’s happened to me since who flung the chunk. I never have taken to my kin all that much. Not one of them has the imagination of a goat.”
“Leave,” Fargo said simply.
“Would that it were so easy,” Clover sadly replied. “As much as they bore me, they’re my kinfolk. Porter might think I’m pond scum but I’ll never turn my back on my own. Or do them harm.”
“Is there someone in your clan who would?”
“Honest answer? No. Oh, sure, there have been spats from time to time. But it’s human nature to disagree. Until this terrible business started, all of us got along fairly well.”
“No one has ever made threats? No one ever came to blows?” In a settlement the size of Jacksonville, Fargo figured it was only natural there would be a few hotheads.
“The last fight I can remember was nigh on eight or nine years ago,” Clover related. “Two brothers, Barnaby and Melton, took to arguin’ over a girl. But they made up afterwards.”
“Have any other outsiders been through here recently besides me?” It was a long shot but Fargo had to explore every possibility.
“A patent medicine man came through the territory two months ago, but we don’t cotton to his kind so he took his fake medicines elsewhere. Before that, a drummer sellin’ ladies’ shoes stopped in Jacksonville and couldn’t understand why us women would rather spend what little money we have on things less frivolous.” Clover snickered. “Who needs more than one pair of shoes every four or five years, anyhow?”
Fargo fished a handful of honey popcorn balls from the burlap bag and offered some to her. She took some and popped them one by one into her mouth.
“I could eat a whole bear right about now.”
Flicking a popcorn ball into his own mouth, Fargo said, “I’ll go hunting for supper later.” Twilight was best. That was when deer were often abroad. Or he might come across a rabbit or squirrel.
“There’s no rush. I can hold out.” Clover stretched her leg to rub her foot against his. “Which gives us the whole afternoon to ourselves. Any idea how you would like to spend it?”
The invitation in her tone and hooded gaze brought to mind the magnificent swell of her bare breasts and the soft, silken texture of her inner thighs, and a stirring started below Fargo’s belt. “Women,” he said, and grinned.
“Am I being too forward? After last night, you have me cravin’ more,” Clover confessed. “You’re the kind of gent most gals can’t resist, and something tells me you know it.”
Fargo surveyed the surrounding woods. They were quiet and peaceful. He would stake his bottom dollar it was safe for them to enjoy themselves, but he had been wrong before and he did not care to be caught with his pants down around his boots. The last time that happened, about six months ago, he had been lucky to live to pull them up again.
“Cat got your tongue?” Clover asked. “Most men would be plumb flattered by my compliment.”
“I am,” Fargo assured her.
“Oh, really?” Clover moved his saddlebags and slid closer, her breasts jiggling under her shirt. Draping a slender arm across his broad shoulders, she traced the outer edge of his ear with a fingernail, and winked. “Talk is cheap hereabouts. If you’re so all-fired grateful, why don’t you prove it?”
Fargo grinned. “You want that back rub, is that it?”
“That, and a whole lot more.”
12
Fargo pulled her to him and molded his mouth to hers. She tasted of peanut brittle and popcorn balls. Her velvet tongue swirled in a delicate dance with his, then rimmed his teeth. She was a great kisser. He sucked on her tongue while his hands were busy sculpting the contours of her back, from her slender shoulders to her shoulder blades to where her spine met her hips.
Clover, meanwhile, had removed his hat. The Colt was gouging her side so she unhitched his gun belt and removed that, too. Prying at his buckskin shirt, she slid a warm hand over his washboard abdomen to his chest. There she lingered, lightly running her fingers back and forth. “You have a hard body,” she whispered in his ear. “Not flabby, like some. I like that.”
Something else was hard and growing harder by the second. Fargo ran his fingers through her silken blond hair, sucked on her ear, and planted kisses along her chin. With his other hand he undid her shirt and soon gained access to her marvelous breasts, so delightfully shaped, their nipples taut and inviting. He kissed one and then the other, and she shivered.
“I don’t know what it is about you,” Clover breathed heavily, “but you bring out the lust in me.”
“Lucky me,” Fargo said, and inhaled her right nipple. She gasped and entwined her fingers in his hair while he sucked and tweaked and licked until both her breasts were heaving with excitement and desire.
They had the rest of the day to themselves so there was no need to rush. After nuzzling between her globes, Fargo ran the tip of his tongue from her cleavage to her navel. Again she shivered, and uttered a tiny laugh.
Planting light kisses on her belly, Fargo unfastened her britches and slid them down her satiny legs. They caught around her ankles and he had to tug to get them off.
“Careful there, muscles,” Clover teased. “These happen to be the only pair of pants I own.”
Fargo placed his hands on her shoulders and pressed her flat on her back beside him. The wanton gleam in her eyes matched his inner craving. He removed the rest of her clothes and sat back to admire her ravishing figure.
Country girls were generally more active than their city counterparts, their bodies more lithe and fit. Clover was no exception. Sinewy but undeniably enticing, she was the sort of woman lonely men dreamed about when they had no woman of their own. She was also as impatient as most of her gender.
“Are you going to sit there all day? I’d be awful disappointed.”
Grinning, Fargo
kissed her full on her hot lips. This time she sucked on his tongue, hers so exquisitely soft it was almost liquid. Ripples of pleasure coursed clear down to the tips of his toes.
“Mmmmmmm,” Clover cooed when she drew back for breath. “You make my head swim.”
Fargo kissed her cheek, her ear, her neck. He kissed the soft skin at the base of her throat, kissed her right breast and her left, and as he kissed he slid his right hand across the downy muff at the junction of her thighs, and then lower, to her waiting slit, so moist and warm.
“Oh, yes!” Clover exhaled. “I want you. I want you so much.”
He parted her nether lips and stroked his forefinger across her swollen knob. It caused her to arch her body off the grass, her spine bent like a bow, her lips parted in a silent gasp. Her bottom moved, grinding into his palm with increasing vigor, while her thighs parted wider to grant him freer reign.
Fargo slowly slid a finger inside her and her inner walls rippled and wreathed him like a sheath. When he pumped his hand a few times, Clover suddenly clung to him and clasped her thighs tight while thrusting her bottom against him again and again and again. He felt her spurt, felt her whole body quake, felt her teeth sink into his shoulder.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Her cry wafted on the breeze. Out of habit Fargo looked up. The woods were as they should be: undisturbed and serene. The horses were grazing. He bent his mouth to her left breast and lightly nipped at her nipple.
His member was iron hard. As much as Fargo yearned to plunge it into her, he exercised sufficient self-control to wait, to hold off until the moment was right, until she wanted it so badly she was beside herself.
That moment was a long time coming. Clover matched the slow, sensuous rhythm of his thrusts, a wry smile curling her luscious lips. She contained her ardor so that they took forever coasting to the summit of pure and total passion. Her skin became as hot as fireplace coals, her moans rose nonstop to the leafy green boughs above, her nails raked his back and shoulders, occasionally drawing blood.
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