Outlaw Trackdown
Page 20
“Look at it this way, lady,” Cranky Man piped up. “Every time you whiteskins break one of them Ten Commandments of yours, you still got nine left.”
“Yes, well I’m sure you two ruffians manage to break all ten in one day.”
“Usually by noon,” Fargo assured her.
Marcella studied Fargo in silence for perhaps ten seconds. “Well, right now I need a ruffian. Are you interested in a job?”
“Oh, let’s do hire him, Sis,” Malinda spoke up in a lilting, musical voice she must have worked on. “He’s the most handsome, rugged man I’ve ever seen.”
“You’ll have to forgive my sister, Fargo,” Marcella said, anger spiking her voice. “I won’t call her a painted cat, but only because she doesn’t charge money.”
“Do tell?” Fargo said, raking his eyes over the comely lass.
“If I was paid what I’m worth,” Malinda put in to spite her sister, “I’d be richer than the Queen of Sheba.”
“Well, now,” Fargo said, “what a delightful girl.”
Cranky Man snorted and Marcella slapped her sister. Malinda smiled at Fargo.
“Fargo, you best con this over good,” the sheriff warned. “There’s considerable stink brewing around here, all right, and it ain’t all blowing off that Choctaw. I know how you are about women, but these two pert skirts will get you killed.”
The acid-tongued Marcella whirled on the lawman. “Nobody asked you, buttinsky! If you’d do your job I wouldn’t need to hire someone.”
“I’ll take the job,” Fargo told her, “whatever it is. But only if you hire on Cranky Man here, too. He’s not as worthless as he looks.”
“I’m desperate,” Marcella admitted.
“How ’bout it, Dub?” Fargo asked the sheriff. “Will you spring us?”
Gillycuddy pushed to his feet and snatched the cell key from a wall peg. “This time you get the breaks, Fargo. I’ll even drop the fine. These gals could use your help, all right. ’Sides, I’m glad to get shut of this stinking savage. But don’t go killing every living thing you see. I can only ignore so much, and if the hotheads around here get too riled up, all three of us could end up doing a dance on nothing.”
He clanged the door open, then looked at Marcella. “Why are you ladies here, anyhow? Just to aggravate my ulcers?”
Marcella’s pretty face turned grim. “I saved that for last. Please come outside.”
All three men trooped out behind the women. Marcella pulled out the pin to drop the tailgate of the buckboard.
The sheriff’s face turned fish-belly white. “K. T. Christ!”
The dead man lying inside, glazed eyes staring wide open at nothing, was missing at least a fifth of his head.