by Sharpe, Jon
“Yes.”
“Get it off her.”
“In front of everyone?”
“She’s dead. She won’t hardly care.”
Benton the banker was twitching as if he was about to throw a fit. “Well, I care. I don’t know as we can trust you any more than we could Mr. Oster.”
“I agree,” Lacey said, attempting to sit up. “That’s my money, damn you.”
“So you keep telling us.”
“If I wasn’t hog-tied I’d shoot you.”
Vin Creed chuckled. “I should thank all you folks. This is more entertaining than the Orpheum Theater.”
“You’re so drunk, you don’t know what’s going on,” Lacey said scornfully.
“On the contrary, madam,” Creed responded. “I can drink all day and half the night and not be affected.” He paused. “I always know exactly what I am about.”
Deerforth, with great reluctance, was unfastening his wife’s buttons. “I’m sorry, dearest,” he said to the corpse. “It has to be done.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Benton said. “I am strongly against this, Marion. What do we know about this man other than his reputation for gambling and womanizing?”
“Fargo likes women?” Creed said, and cackled.
“You’re despicable, sir,” Benton said.
“At least I’m not a tub of lard.”
Benton grew red. His twitching became worse. “I simply cannot permit this.” With that, he spun toward Fargo, swept his jacket aside, and grabbed for his revolver.
43
Fargo had expected him to try something. He took two strides and slammed his Colt against the banker’s temple and Benton staggered. Relieving him of the six-shooter, Fargo tripped him and Benton fell onto his backside. “Stay there,” Fargo said.
Vin Creed clapped his hands. “Well done. While you’re standing there, why don’t you kick Lacey in the teeth?”
“Go to hell, Creed,” Lacey said. “What did I ever do to you?”
“You won the money I wanted.”
Benton groaned and put a hand to his temple. “You hit me, damn you.”
“I’ll do it again if you try to get up,” Fargo warned.
The banker looked at the marshal. “Are you just going to sit there? Arrest him for assaulting me.”
“You went for your gun,” Moleen said. “You brought it on yourself.”
“Marion?” Benton appealed to the senator. “Say something. Do something. I’ve been hurt. Demand that our marshal be true to his oath of office.”
“I’ll say something,” Deerforth said, continuing to undo buttons and stays. “Shut up, Stanley. You’re making a nuisance of yourself.”
“I’m trying to protect your interests.”
“The money is no longer mine. My only interests, as you call them, were my wife and my daughter. My wife is gone, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let my daughter share her fate. So shut the hell up and let Fargo try to save her. He’s her only hope.”
“I never,” Benton said.
“As old as you are?” Creed said. “There’s a whorehouse over to Dallas you should visit. The ladies there will curl your toes.”
“Why would I want to bed a whore?” Benton asked.
Lacey hadn’t taken her eyes off of Fargo. “Listen to me, you bastard. If you don’t bring my money back, I’ll hunt you down. I’ll find you and I’ll do to you what I did to that stupid cow.”
Senator Deerforth looked up, scowling. “I’ll thank you not to insult my wife.”
“It’s her fault we’re here,” Lacey said. “She was the one who slept with your foreman. She was the one who had the idea to steal my winnings. This is all her doing.”
“Maybe so,” Deerforth said, “but I won’t have her name besmirched.”
“It already is, you jackass.”
“The money belt,” Fargo prompted.
Deerforth nodded and finished undoing the dress. Parting it just enough that he could see under but no one else could, he slipped his hand inside. In a minute he fumbled the money belt free. “Here you go.”
Fargo had seen money belts before. He’d worn one, once, years ago, when he’d been hired to carry an army payroll to a remote outpost. He’d never seen one like this. For one thing, it was made of soft cotton and not leather. For another, it was pink.
“I can’t wait to see you put it on,” Vin Creed said.
“All that money,” Benton lamented.
Fargo twirled the Colt into his holster. Hiking his shirt, he wrapped the money belt around his waist. It overlapped by a good foot and a half.
“That gal sure had a belly on her,” Creed remarked.
“Please show some respect for the dead,” Deerforth scolded him.
“Sorry, Senator. Sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my head.”
By twisting the extra around the belt, Fargo fit it snugly enough that it wouldn’t come off. He lowered his buckskin shirt and patted the bulge.
“Better go on a diet,” Vin Creed said.
“Will someone please shut him up?” Benton requested.
Marshal Moleen cleared his throat. “We should all turn in. I’m planning to get an early start back to town.”
“Wouldn’t it be wiser to remain here until Skye returns with my daughter?” Deerforth asked.
“There’s no telling how long it will take him,” Marshal Moleen said. “And with a prisoner, and Comanches about, we’re asking for trouble if we stay much longer.”
“I don’t feel right about leaving,” Deerforth said. “Roselyn will think I’ve deserted her.”
“I’ll tell her how it is,” Fargo promised. “She’s a smart kid. She’ll understand.”
“It’s settled then,” Marshal Moleen said. “In about fifteen minutes I’m putting out the fire. Anyone wants to stay up, they do it in the dark.”
Lacey Mayhare shook her bound wrist at him. “What about me? How can I sleep trussed up?”
“It’s real easy,” the lawman said. “You close your eyes.”
Lacey switched her anger to Fargo. “And you. Nothing better happen to my winnings, you hear? When and if you rescue that kid, bring the money straightaway to me.”
“And here I was looking forward to a wild spree in Saint Louis.”
“Men,” Lacey snarled. “You’re all a bunch of bastards.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Vin Creed said.
44
Fargo couldn’t say what woke him. Without raising his head he checked the other sleepers. In the pale starlight they were mounds of blankets and bodies. To his left were the senator and the banker. Creed was next. To his right were the marshal and one of the deputies. The third deputy was supposed to be keeping watch. Moleen had told them to take turns and Moleen would sit watch last. Fargo saw the man—but he was lying on his side. Evidently he hadn’t been able to stay awake.
Fargo sat up. All was quiet. Rising, he stepped to the deputy to wake him. “Clifton?” the man’s name was. Fargo shook his shoulder. “Wake up, you lunkhead.”
The deputy didn’t stir.
“Clifton?” Fargo shook harder and the limp form rolled onto its back. Fargo bent, and swore.
The man’s eyes were wide and glazed. His throat had been slit from ear to ear with so much force, it was a wonder the head was still attached.
Palming the Colt, Fargo turned. The quiet took on ominous meaning. He went to Moleen and the other deputy. The marshal’s chest was rising and falling and the deputy was snoring. He nudged Moleen with his boot, hard, and the lawman’s eyes snapped open.
“Fargo?”
“Your other deputy is dead,” Fargo related. “Throat cut.”
Just like that, Moleen was on his feet with his revolver out. “Comanches?” he whispered.
“Why only him and not the rest of us?” Fargo nodded at the string. “And the horses are still here.” To the Comanches, good horses were as valuable as gold.
“Oster then?”
“Again, why only your
deputy?” To Fargo’s way of thinking, if Oster wanted anyone dead, it was him. Or was it? “Hell,” he said, and ran to where Lacey Mayhare had been tied.
The lawman came with him. “She’s gone!”
Fargo looked at the string again and this time he counted them. “Damn. I didn’t notice. So are two of the horses.”
“Why would Oster take her?”
Fargo looked at him.
“Oh,” Moleen said. “We should wake up the others.”
Fargo didn’t see any need for it. Oster was gone, and there was nothing they could do until daylight.
Moleen disagreed. “He might deal with her and come back for the senator or someone else.”
To say no one was particularly upset by Lacey’s disappearance was an understatement.
“Serves her right, the way she behaved,” Benton declared.
“She brought it on herself by shooting my wife,” Senator Deerforth said.
Vin Creed raised his flask. “To the sweet and adorable Miss Mayhare. May she rest in peace.”
“That’s not funny,” Marshal Moleen said.
Fargo was growing tired of the whole bunch. If not for Roselyn, he’d be long gone. He tried to get back to sleep but he didn’t drift off until a few hours before dawn. He was up before sunrise and had the Ovaro saddled and ready.
Moleen was up too, drinking coffee by the fire. “One of us should go with you,” he said, with a nod at his remaining deputy.
“You need to protect them,” Fargo said, motioning at the others.
“We’ll be heading back as soon as the sun is up. Catch up when you can.”
Fargo found where Garvin Oster had led two horses from the far end of string. Oster had gone only about fifty yards to where his horse, and presumably Roselyn, bound and gagged, were waiting. Fargo figured that Oster had put Roselyn on one horse, thrown Lacey over the other, and climbed on the last animal. Their tracks pointed south.
For half an hour Fargo pushed at a trot. He wanted to overtake them quickly but it wasn’t to be. Oster had been pushing, too.
He reined up when he saw buzzards. How they gathered so quickly was a mystery. He counted six, circling with outspread pinions.
Clucking to the Ovaro, Fargo covered another half a mile.
He suspected what he would find—Lacey Mayhare, dead. He didn’t foresee how grisly it would be.
Garvin Oster didn’t simply shoot her. He cut off her fingers. He cut off her ears. He cut off her nose and stuffed it into her mouth. He cut open her belly, too, from hip bone to hip bone, and her innards had oozed out. The stink of the blood and her stomach juices was abominable. The buzzards hadn’t been at her yet and her eyes were open and mirrored the horror that seized her at the end.
Fargo dug a shallow grave. He owed her that much. As he wiped his hands on his pants he said by way of a eulogy, “You were good in bed.”
The tracks continued to the south—in the direction of town. Fargo kept expecting Oster to bear to the east or the west but after a while he realized that, as incredible as it seemed, Garvin Oster was going back. It made no sense, unless Oster wasn’t satisfied with killing just Lacey.
Fargo pressed on. He was startled when he spied more buzzards. A jab of his spurs brought the Ovaro to a gallop and he swept over a low rise to behold another body lying off in the grass.
It was Roselyn.
45
Fargo was out of the saddle before the Ovaro came to a stop. He ran to her and knelt. “Damn it to hell.”
The girl was belly down, her arms out-flung, blood trickling from a bullet wound to her head.
Certain he wouldn’t find a pulse, Fargo pressed a finger to her wrist. He nearly whooped when he felt the beat of her heart. He carefully rolled her over. The wound he had taken for a bullet had been inflicted by a blunt object. A gun butt, possibly. He got his canteen, took off his bandanna, and moistened it. Gingerly, he dabbed at the blood.
Roselyn groaned.
Fargo sat and cradled her in his lap and went on cleaning the wound. It was another minute before her eyelids fluttered and opened.
“Skye?”
“Hush. I’m doctoring you.”
“He hit me.”
“No fooling.”
Roselyn started to reach up.
“Lie still. It’s not too deep. Your head will hurt for a few days and then you should be good as new.”
“He hit me,” Roselyn said again, “and left me for dead. After what he did to that poor woman—” She stopped and shuddered. “I begged him to stop. I pleaded with him to leave her be but he went on carving, and grinning.”
“Grinning?”
“He’s not in his right mind. You should have seen him when my mother was shot. He took me off a ways and made me sit while he paced and talked to himself. It was as if he’d gone mad. Every other word was a swear word, and he kept growling and hissing like an animal.” Roselyn closed her eyes and smiled. “That feels nice, what you’re doing.”
“How did you end up here?”
Roselyn shuddered some more. “After what he did to Miss Mayhare, he took off my gag and asked me how did I like what he had done?” She looked up at him. “Why would he ask such a thing?”
“Go on,” Fargo said.
“I told him he was terrible, that even if he is my father, I wanted nothing more to do with him. We argued, and everything I said made him madder and madder until he drew the six-gun he took from that deputy, and hit me.”
“You were lucky.”
Roselyn touched her head. “You call this luck?”
“He could have shot you or cut you up.”
“No, I don’t think he would go that far. He doesn’t love me in the way my real father”—Roselyn caught herself—“He doesn’t love me in the way the man I thought was my father does, but he does feel a certain fondness because he sired me.”
“Where did he get to?”
“He didn’t say where he was going. Frankly, I hope he disappears and we never see him again.”
Fargo stepped to the Ovaro. After undoing his bedroll, he slid the Arkansas toothpick out and cut a strip from his blanket to use as a bandage. He applied it despite her protests that she didn’t need one. “There. Now there’s less chance of infection.”
Roselyn raised adoring eyes. “I’m awful grateful for all you’ve done.”
“I’d do it for anyone,” Fargo said, which wasn’t entirely true. He tied on the bedroll, climbed up, and offered his hand. Once she was behind him with her arms around his waist, he reined around and tapped his spurs.
“We’re not heading for town?”
“The posse,” Fargo said. “The senator is beside himself with worry.”
“Is he sad over my mother?”
“What do you think?”
“To be honest, I don’t know what to think anymore. My life has been turned upside down. A lot of what I took as true, isn’t. I never would have imagined my mother having an affair with any man, let alone Garvin Oster.”
“Makes two of us,” Fargo said.
“Did she really love Oster or was it just . . . the other?”
“Sex?”
“I wish you wouldn’t say that word.”
“We’ll call it the other, then,” Fargo said, grinning. “It’s all some people think about. As for your mother, I can’t say.”
“Is it all you think about?”
“Talk about something else.”
“But I never get to talk about it, and I’m curious. My parents always acted embarrassed if I so much as mentioned kissing a boy.”
“You’ll find out about it yourself soon enough.”
“Is it as good as they say?”
“Some folks like it.”
“How about you?”
Fargo shrugged. “I can go without if I have to.” Which was about the biggest lie he’d ever told.
“But it feels nice, doesn’t it?”
“Some,” Fargo said.
“You’re not bei
ng much help. I’m trying to figure out why my mother was so attached to Garvin Oster.”
“It could be she cared for him and liked doing the other, both,” Fargo said.
Roselyn was quiet a while. Finally she said, “These have been the worst days of my life. What do we do when life kicks us in the teeth like this?”
“Kick back,” Fargo said.
46
The reunion was touching. Senator Deerforth held her and cried and she sobbed into his chest.
Everyone else stood around looking uncomfortable.
Fargo walked off a short way and squatted and plucked at the grass. A shadow fell across him and a silver flask was dangled in front of his face.
“Care for a sip?” Vin Creed asked.
“Don’t mind if I do.” Fargo swallowed and savored the warmth that spread through his gut. He passed the flask back. “I’m obliged.”
“Where do you reckon Oster got to?”
“No telling.”
“If he’s smart he’ll hightail it clear out of Texas. Only he hasn’t ever struck me as having a whole lot of brains.”
“He had enough to run the senator’s estate.”
“And bed his wife.” Creed sipped and let out a sigh. “I had my heart set on that one hundred thousand.”
“There’s always next year.”
“No, there’s not,” Creed said. “While you were gone the senator mentioned that this was the last of his poker tournaments. He couldn’t go through another. It would bring back painful memories.” He gazed across the prairie. “It’s just as well, I suppose. Texas is too rough and wild for my blood. I like New Orleans. It’s more refined, more elegant.”
“Elegant?” Fargo said, and laughed.
“Mock me if you will but I’m fond of my creature comforts.” Creed held out the flask again and Fargo shook his head. “Yes sir. As soon as we get back, I’m packing and heading for a more civilized part of the country.”
“I like the wild parts, myself.”
“That’s because in some ways you’re more Injun than white. You don’t mind spending days in the saddle. You like to sleep under the stars. You shoot and cook your own food.” Creed shook his head. “Me, I’m fond of a soft bed and the best restaurants. And as for riding, my ass is so sore, it won’t bother me a lick if I never sit a horse again.”
