by Jon Sharpe
Judge Harding and Arthur Draypool did most of the talking, with the judge’s wife making occasional comments. Most of it was of no interest, having to do with recent cases the judge had presided over, their mutual friend Clyde Mayfair, and the general lawlessness.
Fargo suspected that last was for his benefit. He had seen no evidence of it on the way there. Everyone they met had been friendly and seemed law-abiding. But he kept his suspicions private. He would let them go on thinking they had pulled the wool over his eyes.
Midway through the meal a commotion arose in the hall, and presently Akuda ushered in a man who had the dust of many miles on his clothes and a quirt in his hand. The new arrival whispered in Judge Harding’s ear, and the judge excused himself, saying he must attend to personal business.
Fargo pretended not to notice the pointed glances Draypool and Garvey cast his way. He began to wash down his supper with a cup of piping-hot coffee, flavored with a pinch of sugar.
In due course the judge returned. His mood had completely changed. Where before he was reserved and cold, he came back in whistling merrily, a new spring in his step.
“Good news?” Fargo asked between sips.
“Yes, indeed,” Judge Harding replied. “A critical business arrangement has turned out better than we dared hope.” When he said “we,” he glanced out of the corner of an eye at Arthur Draypool. He did it so quickly, and so cleverly, that only someone whose vision had been honed to the razor sharpness of a hawk’s in order to survive in the peril-filled fastness of the mountains and the vast plains would catch it.
Darby was toying with her green beans. “So tell me, Mr. Fargo,” she ventured, “how do you rate your prospects of catching the killer?”
“I can track anything that lives,” Fargo said matter-of-factly.
“Then that terrible man is as good as caught!” Winifred Harding declared. “You will be doing the whole world a service by helping to eliminate him.”
“The whole world?” Fargo repeated.
Judge Harding waved a hand in his Winifred’s direction but did not look at her. “Forgive her. My wife has a flair for the dramatic. By the whole world she means Illinois, which is her whole world, in a sense.”
Fargo reminded himself that most judges were lawyers, and lawyers were masters of twisting phrases to suit them.
“Yes, that’s what I meant,” Winifred said, bobbing her double chins. “Please don’t read more into what I say than there is.”
Judge Harding made a tepee of his fingers. “I suggest it is time for the ladies to retire to the drawing room so the men can smoke their cigars.”
Winifred came out of her chair as if someone had poked her bottom with a pin. “Oh. Certainly. Whatever you want, dearest. Belda will bring us our desserts.”
The judge and Draypool slid cigars from inner pockets and proceeded to clip the ends and light them, an elaborate ritual that ended with both of them leaning back, blowing smoke toward the ceiling, and sighing contentedly.
“There is nothing quite like a good cigar after a hard day’s work,” Judge Harding observed. He offered one to Fargo, but Fargo declined. “You don’t smoke? Pity. You’re depriving yourself of one of life’s too few joys.”
“I don’t smoke, either,” Garvey said. The overseer had voiced only a few comments all evening.
“You should,” Arthur Draypool said. “Tobacco is God’s gift to humankind. Unlike alcohol, it doesn’t have any bad effects.”
“Unless you count accidentally setting your clothes on fire when you light up,” Judge Harding joked.
Fargo did not share in their chuckles. “Tell me more about the Monster,” he urged Harding. “Has anyone ever made a list of the names of all those he’s butchered?”
“I have the information right here.” Judge Harding tapped his temple. “His first victims were the Myrtle family, ten years ago next month. They were from Rhode Island. They came here to farm and were buried on their plot.”
“I remember them,” Arthur Draypool said. “In addition to the parents, there were two small girls and a small boy, correct?”
“That was the family, yes,” the judge said. “I presided at the burials. Little did we realize more atrocities would follow.”
Fargo had to hand it to them. They lied as slickly as patent medicine salesmen. “Who were some of the others?”
Judge Harding related the deaths of victim after victim, adding little touches about their appearance and what they supposedly did for a living to make it more believable. “As you can see,” he said, summing things up, “my wife was not all that remiss about how badly we need your help.”
It was well past nine when Harding and Draypool excused themselves and headed upstairs, the judge commenting, “It would be wise if you gentlemen did the same. Tomorrow may well be the day we receive news of the Monster’s whereabouts.”
Fargo left the dining room. The shadow that fell across him as he came to the upstairs landing was as big as the shadow of a redwood.
“I look forward to working with you,” Garvey said.
“I work alone.”
“Not against the Monster you don’t,” Garvey responded. “Mr. Harding and Mr. Draypool told me we are sticking with you.” He stopped at a room. “This is mine. See you in the morning.”
Fargo shook off a feeling of a net closing around him. His uneasiness resurfaced, and he latched his bedroom door. Sprawling out on his back, he was on the verge of dozing off when a light knock sounded. The clock on the wall said it was five minutes to eleven. Belda was early. He threw the latch and pulled the door wide, and could not hide his surprise.
“I thought you might like some company,” Darby Harding said.
12
A wariness came over Fargo. He was unsure why. Darby was not armed and posed no threat. Quite the opposite. She was dressed for bed, in a gown that clung to her as if it had been painted on, accenting her enticing charms.
Fargo remembered how eagerly Priscilla Mayfair had thrown herself into his arms at the Mayfair farm, and the feeling came over him that this was the exact same situation. Which suggested there was more here than met his eye. He had a sudden conviction that the two women did not necessarily cozy up to him by choice, which meant someone had put Priscilla and now Darby up to it.
“Are you going to let me in or must I stand out here making a horse’s ass of myself?”
Fargo glanced down the hall. He saw no one, but his instincts told him they were being watched and his instincts were seldom wrong. “It’s late and I’m tired.”
Darby’s features rippled in astonishment. “You would rather go to bed alone? Are you the real Skye Fargo or an impostor? The real Fargo, I’ve heard, has slept with more women than the entire Fifth Cavalry.” She laughed lightly and splayed fragrant fingers on his chest. “You’re not serious, are you?”
The cleavage she displayed would have weakened a monk’s resolve, and Fargo was no monk. “Afraid so,” he said, and started to close the door.
“No, you don’t.” Darby barged past him, her eyes flashing with anger. “I won’t have it thrown in my face.”
Fargo nearly grabbed her by the arm and shoved her back out. He did not like being used. He never had. “What?” he asked.
“The gift I’m offering you,” Darby said, and gestured at her soft, sinewy body with all its glorious attributes. “If you make me leave it will be an insult.”
“I’m not in the mood,” Fargo said, and smirked at the thought that he had never in his life said that to a woman before.
Darby stepped to the bed and turned, one leg visible in the folds of her robe, revealing velvet skin from her toes to her thigh. “Don’t give me that. Men are always in the mood. They are born randy and get worse as they get older.”
“Not all men,” Fargo quibbled. He left the door open and leaned against the jamb. “Besides, women like it just as much as men. They like to put on airs and pretend they don’t, but they do.”
“Is that so?�
�� Darby slid more of her leg out of the robe. She waited, and when he did not say or do anything, she gestured again, angrily. “If you know so much about women, you should know that we don’t like having our airs, or our needs, treated with contempt.”
Fargo wondered how far she would push. And was it her uncle, or Draypool, who was behind the charade?
Darby softened and forced a thin smile. “Let’s start over, shall we? I don’t suppose you have something to drink? I sure could use a brandy right about now.”
Fargo stretched, and yawned.
“Damn you. You’re making me mad.” Darby tapped her foot with impatience. “This isn’t what I expected.”
“Next time don’t take things for granted,” Fargo said.
“There won’t be a next time, mister,” Darby snapped. “I don’t care what they—” She caught herself, and stopped.
Fargo folded his arms across his chest. She had said “they.” He wanted to ask who “they” were, but he must not act too suspicious or they would guess that he knew they were up to something. He must continue to act the fool. “Look. It’s been a long day. I’m tired. I would like to catch some sleep.”
“What’s one more hour or so?” Darby asked suggestively. Her breasts jiggling like ripe fruit on a tree limb, she sashayed toward him. “I’ll make it worth your while. I promise.”
Her anger had faded, but now Fargo’s flared. He was sick and tired of being manipulated like a puppet on a string. The Secessionist League had a reckoning coming. But he could not make his move until they made theirs.
“Well, big man?” Darby stopped and taunted him with her gaze and her posture. She was a gumdrop and he was a kid staring into the jar in the general store. “See something you like?”
“These,” Fargo said, and reaching out with both hands, he covered her mounds and squeezed, hard. Really hard.
Darby stiffened and arched her back. She bit her lower lip to stifle an outcry, then covered his hands with hers and said throatily, “Not so rough, if you please. That hurts.”
“Does it?” Fargo pinched her nipples, none too gently.
“Ah!” Darby threw her head back and took half a step backward, but she could not escape his grasp. Her entire face reddened and she gasped, “Shut the door! We don’t want anyone to see us.”
“You shut it if you want,” Fargo said, but as she started to step past him he flicked a hand between her legs and up under her robe.
“What are you—?” Darby blurted. “Oh!” She tried to pull back, but his fingers were where he wanted them. “The bed, damn you. Carry me to the bed.”
“Why bother?” Fargo slowly lowered his mouth to her neck and bit her. As his teeth sank in, he thrust upward with his middle finger.
“Ah! Dear God!” Darby placed her hands on his shoulders and feebly attempted to push him away, but another thrust buckled her knees and she sagged against him, groaning deep in her throat. “Not like this,” she whispered.
“Why not?” Fargo lowered her left hand to his pants.
“Ohhhhh.” Trembling, Darby closed her eyes. Her forehead dipped to his chest and she panted uncontrollably, caught in the throes of lust. “This isn’t how I wanted it to be.”
“Didn’t you?” Fargo wrapped his free arm around her waist and lifted. She did not weigh much, no more than a hundred and ten or so, and he easily raised her high enough. She looked at him quizzically, not divining his intent until she felt movement below their waists.
“What are you doing?” Darby jerked at the contact. “Not like this! Not standing up when there is a bed right there!”
“I like to stand,” Fargo teased, and did with his hips as he had been doing with his fingers.
“No! No! No!” Darby protested huskily, but her body was saying yes, yes, yes! She enfolded him like a sheath and held herself still, scarcely breathing. “I don’t think I like you very much,” she said in a tiny voice.
“I don’t like you much either,” Fargo responded, and rose up onto the tips of his toes.
A whine issued from Darby’s full lips, a whine of commingled need and frustration. She thrashed from side to side as if she were in pain, but her expression betrayed the carnal truth.
Suddenly turning, Fargo pressed her against the wall. They were inches from the open door, and the hallway. Anyone coming down it could not fail to notice them. “Maybe we’ll have an audience,” he said.
“You are the worst bastard I have ever met,” Darby growled. “I should claw your eyes out.”
“You’re welcome to try.” Fargo rammed up into her with all his might. She choked off a shriek as her body went into a paroxysm of rapture. Her legs hiked upward and wrapped tight around him.
“I will hate you for this.”
“I’ll try not to lose sleep over it,” was Fargo’s retort. He cupped her breasts and kneaded them like clay he was trying to rip apart.
“That hurts!” Darby mewed, her eyelids hooded, her chest heaving.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“Yes! No! I mean—” Darby gasped. “I didn’t figure on this! I like tenderness. I like—Oh!” She shuddered, and at his next thrust, flung her arms around him and clung desperately to his shoulder. “No! Don’t stop! I want it! God help me, I want it, I want it, I want it.”
“Then you can have it.” Fargo unleashed the full power of his need, slamming repeatedly into her. His manhood and her womanhood were a fluid meld—his hard to her soft, his sword to her scabbard, his ram to her ewe. She no longer cared that the door was open, no longer cared that someone was secretly spying on them or that someone else might happen by. She was lost in the moment. He lost himself in it, too, giving himself entirely to his craving.
Fargo heard her whimper. Later she might harbor regrets, but he felt no prick of conscience. She had brought it on herself. He drove into her yet again and she sucked in a breath that seemed to have no end while quaking in the throes of raw abandon.
“I’m almost there!”
So was Fargo. His throat was constricted and his skin tingled. A tight sensation in his groin heralded his impending eruption, but he gritted his teeth and held off, thinking of the wall, the ceiling, the house, anything and everything except his body, and the throbbing.
“Ahhhhhhh!” Darby was at the pinnacle. Her eyes grew wide. She dug her nails in, and crested. Up and down, up and down, her body a lever, his the fulcrum. She gushed and gushed, and he did the same.
After a while Darby slowly disentangled herself and wearily stepped back. Her robe and undergarments were in disarray, her hair a mess. “I would like to put a bullet in your brain.”
Fargo adjusted his pants and his belt, and stepped aside. “Stop by anytime,” he said, and motioned at the doorway. Her hand was a blur, but he caught her wrist and held fast. “I don’t deserve that. You got what you came for.”
Tugging futilely to be free, Darby hissed, “I hate you! You’re a crude lout! A buffoon in buckskins!”
“Yet you made love to me.”
Darby’s features twisted into rage. She started to swing her other hand but thought better of it and with a visible effort of will, slowly relaxed, her venom subsiding but still there, just under the surface. “Let go of me, please. I would like to go to my room.”
Fargo did as she requested, but she stood there rubbing her wrist. “Do you want me to carry you?”
A sly smile came over her. “If you only knew what is in store, you would appreciate my gift.”
“I’m grateful for what you’ve done,” Fargo said, but he was referring to the slip of her tongue that confirmed his hunch about Priscilla and her.
Darby sidled past. She traced a finger across his jaw, saying, “When you are out there in the deep woods, think of me.” She paused to smooth her robe and fuss with her hair. “I will say one thing in your favor. If you track like you make love, then the man you are after is as good as snared.” She blew him a kiss and walked off.
Fargo watched her until she came to a
nother door. It was open a crack. As she reached out, the door opened, and there was shadowy movement. She smiled at whoever was inside, said something, and went in.
Fargo shut his own door and plopped onto his back on the bed. The long day in the saddle, the meal, the interlude with Darby, all conspired to fill him with lassitude. He succumbed, drifting into a deep sleep.
He was unsure of exactly how much time had passed when he suddenly found himself awake, his eyes wide open. Something had snapped him out of dreamland. He probed with his senses, trying to identify the cause, and heard sounds from the front of the house.
Rising, he padded to the hall. Other doors were opening. From one stepped Arthur Draypool in an ankle-length nightshirt. From another came Garvey, wearing pants and nothing else. Darby emerged next, stifling a yawn and blinking in the glow of the hall lamp.
“What’s all the ruckus?” Garvey asked. “It’s four o’clock in the morning.”
“I was having the most marvelous dream,” Draypool said. “I was back in South Carolina, revisiting the haunts of my youth.”
A loud, gruff voice rose to the rafters from downstairs. “Bring him in!” Judge Harding bawled. “I will speak with him immediately.”
Fargo followed the rest to the landing. At the foot of the stairs stood the judge in a bulky robe, Winifred at his side. The butler, Akuda, was hurrying down the entryway to the front door. There was a subdued exchange, and Akuda reappeared, leading a tall man in garb that marked him as a backwoodsman: a hat made from a raccoon pelt, including the tail, a buckskin shirt, and jeans. He removed his hat out of deference to Winifred.
“Bill Layton?” Judge Harding said. “What is the meaning of this outrageous disturbance at such an ungodly hour?”
Layton wrung his hat. “My apologies, Your Honor. Word is that you wanted to be informed right away if the Sangamon River Monster struck again. Any time of the day or night.” The man talked strangely, in a stilted cadence that suggested he was speaking by rote.
Fargo was puzzled, until it occurred to him that the whole incident had been concocted for his benefit.
