Backwoods Bloodbath

by Jon Sharpe

  “I wish—” Priscilla began, and suddenly stopped and stiffened. “Did you hear something?”

  Fargo shook his head.

  “Are you sure?” Priscilla whispered. “I thought I heard a footstep out in the hall. Maybe Avril came back.”

  Fargo leaned as far toward the door as he could, but it was not quite far enough. “Wrap your legs around me,” he directed, and when she had complied, he slid along the wall and peeked out. A maid was moving down the hall away from them.

  “What if she heard us?” Priscilla asked, aghast.

  “Unlikely,” Fargo said.

  They watched until the maid was gone. The woman did not glance back or in any way betray that she knew they were there.

  “Thank goodness!” Priscilla said. “Now where were we?”

  Fargo eased the door shut and braced both legs. He gripped her hips, tucked at the knees, and thrust, the first of many. He did not count them, so he could not say if it was the fortieth or the sixty-first when Priscilla bucked in a wanton frenzy of release. His own explosion was not long after.

  Breathless, they sagged against one another. Eventually Fargo stirred and began to peel himself from her.

  “What do you think you’re doing, handsome?” Priscilla asked, wearing an impish expression. “That was only the main course. I haven’t had dessert yet. Are you up for it?”

  Was he ever.

  9

  Much to Fargo’s annoyance, they did not leave the Mayfair farm until ten the next morning. He was up before daybreak, as was his habit, and ready to head out as a golden crown blazed the eastern sky. But Arthur Draypool wanted to have breakfast with their hosts, and breakfast for the Mayfairs was an affair almost as elaborate as supper. The family gathered around the big table and were waited on by the servants. The fare was worthy of a restaurant: coffee, tea, milk, or juice; ham, bacon, beef, or venison; eggs, flapjacks, johnnycakes, and cracklin’ bread.

  Fargo had no intention of eating a big meal, but once he sipped some orange juice and nibbled at a johnnycake, his stomach imitated an earthquake, prompting him to heap food high on his plate. He blamed Priscilla. She had been insatiable. They had stayed in the sewing room until nearly two in the morning.

  Now she sat across from him, as demure and prim and proper as a true lady was expected to be. She would glance at him every now and then, when she thought no one else was looking, and smile a quick secret smile that only the two of them understood.

  Toward the end of the feast, after Fargo had pushed his plate back and patted his overfull stomach, Clyde Mayfair tapped a glass with a spoon to get everyone’s attention and declared, “We wish you all the best in your hunt for the Sangamon River Monster, Mr. Fargo. It is a dangerous enterprise, and I trust you will not take it lightly.”

  “I never take killers lightly,” Fargo said.

  “You must be diligent in the hunt, merciless when you catch him,” Mayfair went on. “If you find your resolve waning, just think of all the poor people that fiend has murdered.”

  The man had gall, lecturing him, Fargo reflected. He nodded and responded, “I know my job.”

  Mayfair glanced at Draypool, then said, “I am certain you do. Yet Arthur tells me that you refuse to shoot the Monster on sight.”

  “I made it plain I don’t kill for money. If that’s what he wants done, he should have hired someone else.”

  “Please don’t be offended,” Clyde said. “Trackers of your caliber are as rare as hen’s teeth.”

  “What about that Hiram Trask your son told me about?” Fargo asked.

  It was Draypool who answered. “Trask never leaves the South, where he grew up. He is active mainly in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida.”

  “A true son of the South,” Jace Mayfair remarked.

  Both Draypool and Jace’s father looked at him sharply, and Clyde Mayfair said, “In these trying times, one should not make such distinctions. They might be misunderstood.”

  “What does he care?” Jace said testily, and bobbed his chin at Fargo. “How do you feel, exactly, about the coming conflict?”

  “I haven’t thought about it much,” Fargo admitted. He tended to fight shy of politics. “But I don’t like the notion of one man owning another.”

  “Slavery has been around for thousands of years,” Jace said. “It’s not as if the South invented it. Hell, there are Yankees who own slaves.”

  Clyde Mayfair smacked the table hard. “I will thank you not to use such language in the presence of your mother and sister. As for slavery, it is hardly a fit topic for our morning meal.”

  “I just wanted to know where he stood.” Jace was in a contrary mood. “Before long, Father, everyone will have to decide where they stand, whether they want to or not.”

  Clyde smiled at Fargo. “You must excuse him. He’s young, and the young are always too headstrong for their own good.”

  Priscilla set down her orange juice. “Why pick on Jace?” she said, coming to her brother’s defense.

  “You’ve said the same things he just did many a time.”

  “I repeat,” Clyde Mayfair sternly declared. “Slavery is not a fit topic for polite conversation.”

  Fargo thought Mayfair was making a fuss over nothing, but he did not say anything, and the family finished the meal in strained silence. Draypool sent Avril and Zeck to bring the horses around, and refilled his teacup one last time.

  “It will be a while before we eat this grand again,” Draypool said. “Please indulge me, Mr. Fargo, for a few minutes more.”

  Fargo shrugged.

  Clyde leaned his elbows on the table, then took them off at a disapproving stare from his wife. “Tell me about the Indians out your way. I am most curious. From all we hear, they are veritable savages, are they not?”

  “Indians are people like us,” Fargo said, and added, without consciously meaning to, “The same as blacks or any others.”

  Clyde reddened. “I beg to differ, sir. Indians are not just like us. They wear animal hides and live in squalor.”

  “I wear animal hides,” Fargo said, touching his buckskin shirt, “and most nights I sleep on the ground wrapped in a blanket.”

  “You didn’t sleep on the ground last night. Look around you, sir. You are seated in a sterling example of why we are superior in every way to every other race.”

  Fargo decided he disliked Clyde Mayfair. He disliked him a lot. “Indians couldn’t pack up and move a house like this, and they move often, to be near buffalo and for other reasons.”

  “You equivocate, sir. I am not an imbecile. Not all Indians follow the herds. Some live in villages year-round. Villages, need I remind you, ridden with filth and lice and barely fit for human habitation.”

  “That’s enough,” Draypool said.

  “I am only trying to make a point,” Clyde said to justify himself. “We are not like the Indians and never will be.”

  Fargo had listened to enough. He pushed his chair back and stood. “I’ll wait with the horses.” As he crossed the room to where he had deposited his saddlebags and rifle, Draypool gave an angry hiss.

  “That was a mistake, Clyde. You should know better. Need I remind you of the trouble we have gone to, or what’s at stake?”

  “Don’t lecture me.”

  Fargo was spared the rest of their petty bickering. He strode down the front hall and out into the morning sun and blinked in the bright glare. Another muggy day was in store.

  The Ovaro was saddled and waiting. Fargo slid the Henry into the scabbard and secured the saddlebags. The saddle creaked as he forked leather. An urge came over him to say to hell with the whole thing and head for the Rockies, but he stayed where he was, and shortly Draypool and the Mayfairs trickled out, the two men still squabbling.

  “. . . is that we have to stand up for our own kind,” Clyde was saying. “It is our obligation, if you will.”

  “There is a time and a place for everything,” Arthur said, “and this was neither.”

  A s
ervant held out the reins to his mount and Arthur took them and climbed stiffly on without so much as a thank-you.

  Margaret came down the steps and smiled up at Fargo. “Men and their silly spats. Yet they constantly poke fun at us women.”

  Priscilla sashayed to her mother’s side. “If you are ever back this way, be sure to stop by. You are always welcome to our hospitality.”

  Her hidden meaning brought a grin to Fargo’s face. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.

  Arthur raised an arm as if it were a lance and exclaimed, “Onward with our quest, gentlemen!”

  All that day they traveled hard. Draypool had a new urgency about him, which was puzzling to Fargo in light of their leisurely stay at the Mayfair farm. They left the main road and traveled to the northeast along byways and back ways that only someone completely familiar with the region would know. Zeck was that someone; he assumed the lead about noon. Toward evening, when Fargo asked how it was that Zeck knew every rutted track and path, the small man in black mentioned that he had grown up in the area.

  And what an area it was! Fargo had seldom seen such lush woodland, verdant forest abundant with vegetation and wildlife, not at all like the arid timberland of the Rockies. For one thing, there were more leafy trees than pines, more maples and elms and willows and oaks than firs or spruces. For another, the undergrowth was a jungle compared to the sparse brush of the mountains. Green, green, everywhere, a profusion born of rich soil and that most precious of all nature’s gifts, water. The annual rainfall was many times that received by the land west of the Mississippi, creating countless waterways.

  One of the largest in central Illinois was the Sangamon River. Draypool remarked to Fargo that the river flowed over two hundred and fifty miles. Rising in Champaign County, it eventually merged with the Illinois River, which, in turn, fed into the mighty Mississippi.

  Draypool had been right about the extent of Illinois wilderness. Somehow Fargo had gotten it into his head that the state was all farmland and towns and cities, but such was not the case. The southern third was largely settled, and more and more people flocked to the north end of the state, and Chicago, every year. But the rest was pristine woodland, as wild and untamed as anything on the frontier.

  Wildlife was everywhere. All kinds of birds, from tiny wrens and chickadees to catbirds and red-breasted robins to hungry hawks and turkey vultures. All kinds of small animals, from squirrels and raccoons and opossums to muskrats and even beavers. Predators, too, in the form of foxes and cougars and black bears.

  That night they camped in the woods by a small stream. Avril shot a rabbit for supper and roasted it on a spit.

  Draypool had been edgy all day, and now, as they were eating, he glanced at Fargo and said, “From here on out we must exercise extreme care. No one must learn what we are up to.”

  Biting into a rabbit leg, Fargo chewed the juicy meat with relish.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “I’m sitting three feet from you,” Fargo said with his mouth full.

  “Secrecy is of the utmost importance. We don’t want word to get back to the devil we are after.”

  “Who in their right mind would warn him?” Fargo asked. “After all he’s done?”

  “You know how gossip and rumors spread,” Draypool said. “And remember, we have no idea who the Sangamon River Monster is. It could be anyone.”

  “Which reminds me,” Fargo said. “How am I to track him? Do we wait around for him to strike and I pick up his trail?”

  “That is one option, yes. But the group I work with has been quietly trying to learn his identity. We have a network of informers at our disposal. And we have a description to go by. The Monster is a man in his forties, maybe early fifties. He is tall, over six feet, and rather thin. He has a beard but no mustache.”

  “That could fit hundreds of men,” Fargo noted.

  “True. But we also know he has black hair, a big nose, and big ears. That narrows it down some.”

  Still, it was like looking for a needle in a giant haystack, and Fargo said so.

  “Does that mean we give up before we begin?” Draypool responded. “I should say not! Think of all those this man has killed. Think of those he will slay in the future if he is not stopped.”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it.”

  “We are counting on you,” Draypool said. “More than you can imagine. The success or failure of our enterprise rests entirely on your shoulders. Are you up to the challenge? Have I made a mistake?”

  “I’ll do what I can.” Fargo would not make promises he could not keep.

  Draypool gave him a searching scrutiny and sighed. “We can only hope for the best. We will help you every step of the way as best we are able.”

  Later, Fargo lay on his back under his blanket, his arm pillowing his head, and gazed absently up at the sparkling myriad of stars. He felt uneasy, and he could not say why, which added to his unease. It wasn’t the risk he was taking in going after a butcher like the Monster. He had tangled with the likes of the Apaches and the Comanches, and certain white outlaws and badmen who were every bit as formidable. No, it was something else. But what? He racked his brain for over an hour. He reviewed all that had happened since he met Draypool. And when he was done, the unease still gnawed at him, and he still could not say why. Then sleep claimed him.

  The next day was a repeat of the previous one. Zeck stuck to the less-used roads. Whenever they came upon other travelers, Draypool visibly tensed and came up close to Fargo. Yet another puzzlement.

  At midday they stopped at the side of the road. The packs on one of the packhorses were loose, and Draypool instructed Avril and Zeck to tighten them. Dismounting, Draypool sat in the shade of a maple and dabbed at his perspiring brow with a handkerchief.

  “I have never gotten used to this damnable humidity.”

  “I need to stretch my legs.” Fargo pushed his hat back on his head and strolled into the woods.

  “Don’t be gone long,” Draypool called after him. “We have many miles to travel yet today.”

  A gray squirrel chattered at Fargo from high in a tree. Sparrows chirped and frolicked. Crows were active to the west, their caw-caw-caw borne on the breeze.

  Fargo breathed deeply of the dank forest scent and was at peace. He hiked another ten yards and unexpectedly emerged from the dense growth onto a clearly defined path that paralleled the road. Even more unexpected was the old woman walking down the path toward him. A faded homespun dress clung to her spindly frame, and she walked with the aid of a bent cane. She slowed in surprise, but only for a second.

  “How do you do, young man? You startled me, coming out of nowhere like that.”

  Fargo smiled and said, “I’m not the Sangamon River Monster, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Her gray eyebrows puckered. “The what?”

  “The Sangamon River Monster,” Fargo said. “The man who has been killing people in these parts for the past ten years.”

  The old woman tilted her head and regarded him as if he might be addlepated. “Sonny, as the Lord is my witness, I never heard of the fella.”

  10

  Arthur Draypool had an explanation. “I don’t know who the old woman was, but the elderly tend to be feebleminded.”

  “Her mind was as sharp as yours or mine.” Fargo had questioned the woman closely, and although she had lived in Illinois all her life, she could not recall so much as a single mention of the Sangamon River Monster.

  “Maybe so,” Draypool said. “But there’s also the fact we’re still well south of the Monster’s usual haunts. Besides”—he paused and gestured at the thick greenery on both sides of the road—“it’s not as if there are daily or weekly newspapers out here. Most news is spread by word of mouth.” He paused again. “And didn’t you say she lives all alone off in a cabin somewhere? If she doesn’t have much contact with the outside world, how can you expect her to know about the Monster?”

  Fargo supposed it was p
ossible. The woman had told him she lived like a hermit, and liked it, because she had little hankering for human company.

  “What exactly are you implying, anyhow?” Draypool demanded. “That there is no killer? That I went to considerable effort to find you, that I’m paying you a small fortune when you complete your task, as a lark?”

  Fargo had to admit the notion was preposterous.

  “Make no mistake,” Draypool said earnestly. “I have never been more serious about anything in my life. I have pledged my heart, body, and soul to bringing the man we are after to bay. Whether you help us or not, I won’t rest until I have accomplished what I have set out to do.”

  The rest of the afternoon was uneventful. They passed several cabins, and Fargo resisted an impulse to ask the occupants if they had ever heard of the killer. Draypool would not take it kindly.

  Another night under the stars.

  Fargo grew inwardly restive to find the Monster and get it over with. He reminded himself that for ten thousand dollars he could afford to be patient.

  The next couple of days were spent wending to the northeast through a backwoodsman’s paradise. A sign appeared, letting them know Springfield was ten miles ahead. Fargo was looking forward to a bath, a whiskey, and a woman, not necessarily in that order, and he was not happy when Arthur Draypool announced, “We will take the north fork when we come to it and go around Springfield, if you please, Mr. Zeck.”

  Fargo gigged the Ovaro up next to Draypool’s animal. “Give me one good reason why we’re not stopping.”

  “The fewer people who see us, the less likely that word will reach our quarry.”

  “No one knows who we are or what we are up to,” Fargo said, more harshly than he intended. Being cautious was one thing. Draypool was taking it to an extreme.

  “And I want to keep it that way. We are now in the heart of the killer’s territory. We must not leave anything to chance.”

  Fargo had seen few men in buckskins since crossing into Illinois. His attire was bound to draw notice in Springfield, and while he did not see where it would do them any harm, he decided he would go along with what Draypool wanted.