by Jon Sharpe
“Get down!” Fargo rasped, and when the lawyer didn’t move, he reached up and hauled him out of the seat. A second shot blasted and the slug ripped into the victoria inches from his head. Ducking, Fargo turned Pickleman toward the vegetation and gave him a shove.
The lawyer unwittingly straightened and took a step.
Instantly, Fargo grabbed him by the shirt and threw him to the ground. “Are you trying to get yourself shot?” He hunkered beside the rear wheel.
Pickleman didn’t move. His mouth worked but no sounds came out. Then he gulped and bleated, “What is going on? Who shot James?”
“How the hell would I know?” Fargo raised his head to peer over the top and nearly lost an ear to a leaden hornet. Only this time the shot came from a different spot and by the sound was a revolver. He worked the Henry’s lever, feeding a cartridge into the chamber.
“This can’t be happening. It just can’t.”
“Tell that to your driver.” Fargo risked a look around the rear of the carriage. A black veil had fallen and was rapidly darkening.
Pickleman sat up. “Oh, God. Poor James. I don’t understand why anyone would shoot him. He was a good man. He’d never harm a soul.”
“They shot him first to keep us here,” Fargo guessed. “Now they’re waiting for one of us to try and climb up on that seat so they can do the same to us.”
“You keep saying they but I bet it’s only one man. It has to be Injun Joe.”
Fargo didn’t waste breath explaining. He edged away from the wheel and toward the Ovaro. He was worried the bush-whackers might decide to shoot the horses.
Across the road the undergrowth spouted flame and sound and lead smacked the victoria. Fargo answered in kind, banging off three swift shots. Spinning, he crab-stepped toward the driver’s seat. “We have to get out of here,” he whispered. “When I climb up, you jump in.”
“Not on your life,” Pickleman said with a vigorous shake of his head. “We’ll be killed before we go ten feet. They can see us but we can’t see them.”
Fargo remedied that. He shot the lamp. It burst in a shower of flame and whale oil, plunging them in darkness. It also spooked the team. With a strident whinny the near horse bolted and the other horse ran with it. Fargo lunged to try and grab hold of the victoria and swing up but he couldn’t get a firm grip and pitched onto his side. The carriage was a score of yards away—and taking the Ovaro with it—before he could get to his knees. “Damn.”
“Oh my,” Pickleman said.
In the woods a gun thundered.
Fargo saw the muzzle flash. He slammed off two shots while backpedaling. “Hunt cover!” he snapped, and Pickleman scrambled after him.
Across the road both the rifle and the revolver opened up, peppering the undergrowth.
The wide trunk of a maple offered haven. Fargo darted behind it and worked the lever. His elbow bumped the lawyer, who was practically clinging to his back. “When I said to hunt cover I didn’t mean me.”
“Oh, sorry.” Pickleman moved a bit back. “It’s just that I’ve never been involved in anything like this before.”
Fargo had, more times than he cared to count. “The first rule is don’t get shot.”
“Am I mistaken or is there more than one shooter?” the lawyer asked.
“The second rule is whisper.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Pickleman closed his eyes, apparently wrestling with his emotions, and when he opened them he was calmer. He whispered, “There are two of them, am I right?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s not Injun Joe. He works alone. But for the life of me, I can’t think who else it would be.”
“Hush.” Fargo was listening. The pair might be stalking them.
The brush remained still, the night quiet, save for the far-off hoot of an owl.
Pickleman didn’t stay quiet long. “The Clyborns do have enemies, though. Well, some of the Clyborns do. The youngest, Charlotte, doesn’t have any. She’s so nice and sweet that everyone in Hannibal adores her.”
Fargo looked at him. “There’s a third rule to follow.”
“There is? What would it be?”
“When I tell you to shut the hell up,” Fargo said, “you shut the hell up.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
Minute after tense minute followed one after the other until fully a quarter of an hour went by. The moon rose above the hills to the east, splashing the woodland with pale light.
“I think they’re gone,” Pickleman said.
Fargo was beginning to think so, too. Maybe they were afraid the shots would attract others. No sooner did the thought enter his head than hooves thudded out on the road, coming from the south. It was a single horse, coming fast. It stopped a pebble’s toss off. “I’ll be damned,” Fargo said, and grinned.
“What?”
“The best friend I have has four legs.”
The Ovaro had either pulled loose of the victoria or the reins had come untied. It stomped a hoof and nickered.
Fargo warily emerged from hiding. Pickleman tried to walk past him and he pushed him back. “The fourth rule is never take anything for granted.”
“How many rules are there?”
“The fifth rule is don’t ask stupid questions when the man who is trying to save your hide is busy saving it.” Fargo patted the Ovaro while probing the undergrowth. Nothing moved. No shots ripped the night. Quickly, he shoved the Henry into the saddle scabbard and forked leather, then reached down. “Come on. We’re lighting a shuck.”
The lawyer grasped his arm and Fargo swung him up.
“Goodness. I’ve never ridden double before. Do I hold on to you or the saddle or what?”
Fargo couldn’t resist. “What.” He reined around and tapped his spurs and brought the Ovaro to a trot. Thanks to the moonlight the road was easy to make out. He stayed in the middle, his hand on the Colt.
“I want to thank you for saving me back there.”
“We’re not safe yet.”
Fargo wasn’t convinced they could relax until a mile had fallen behind them. By then he had slowed to spare the Ovaro. As he felt the tension drain from his taut sinews, it suddenly occurred to him that this had been the second attempt on his life in twenty-four hours. There had been the man and woman on the steamboat and now two assassins in the dark of night in the forest. “I wonder,” he mused.
“You wonder what?”
“You’re going to make some woman a fine wife one day.”
Pickleman didn’t respond right away. When he did, he chuckled. “Oh. I get it. You’re quite the wit. I didn’t expect that of you.”
“Let me guess. You’ve taken the notion that my kind must be as dumb as tree stumps.”
“I’ve met very few frontiersmen, Mr. Fargo. Those I have struck me as uncouth louts only interested in three things. Liquor, women, and having a good time.”
“That’s me, sure enough.”
“No, it’s not. You might fool others but I suspect there is more to you. Much more.”
“If you say so.” Fargo rose in the stirrups. He’d heard the drum of hooves. Drawing rein, he waited.
“What are we doing?” Pickleman asked.
“Do you have ears?”
Presently three riders swept into view, riding hard. Fargo swung the Ovaro broadside so they couldn’t see his gun hand. It would give him a split-second’s advantage, should it come to that.
The three spotted him and slowed. The thick-shouldered man in the lead was holding a rifle and started to raise it but stopped at a bleat of relief from Pickleman.
“Roland? Is that you? Thank God.”
“Theodore?” The man gigged his sorrel up close and stopped. “My God, man. What is going on? The carriage came barreling down on us and we stopped it and found James dead. I remembered you had gone into town earlier and came straightaway to find you.”
“Highwaymen attacked us,” Pickleman said. “Had it not been for Mr. Fargo, here, I would no doubt be as dead as Ja
mes.”
The man turned to Fargo. He had bushy brows and fingers as thick as spikes and wore a tweed outfit with Hessian boots and a cap. Across his chest was a bandolier of cartridges and on his hip a knife with a stag hilt. “So you’re the man Sam sent for? I’ve heard of you. They say you’re one of the best scouts alive.”
“I get around,” Fargo said.
“Not that it will do you any good this weekend. I know these hills better than anyone.”
Pickleman coughed and said, “Mr. Fargo, this is Roland Clyborn, the second of Thomas’s four sons. His passion is hunting.”
“What was that about this weekend?” Fargo asked.
Roland glanced at the lawyer. “You haven’t told him yet?”
“Sam’s orders.”
“Figures.” Roland turned to Fargo. “A word to the wise: Stay out of this. If I were you, I’d turn around and head back to Hannibal and take the first steamboat downriver.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You will be in trouble up over your head.”
4
Someone once told Fargo that rich people were different from ordinary folks. Fargo found the notion preposterous. He’d met enough of the well-to-do to know there were smart ones and dumb ones, gabby ones and quiet ones, nice ones and bastards, generous ones and selfish sons of bitches. The only difference Fargo could see between rich people and ordinary folks was that rich people had more money.
The Clyborns had enough to buy their own state.
Their mansion covered four acres. Patterned after a European manor, it was three stories high. The walls were made of stone taken from a local quarry. A bewildering array of arches and eaves and minarets ran the length of each side. Windows were everywhere: big windows, small windows, square windows, rectangular windows, even a few round ones. A fortune had been spent on the glass alone. Pickleman casually mentioned that the mansion had fifty-seven rooms. Fargo marveled that it wasn’t more.
Over a dozen outlying buildings surrounded it. There was a barn, a separate stable for the horses, a blacksmith shop, servants’ quarters, a gardener’s hut, a woodshed, and more. A quarter-acre of rosebushes was a testament to the money lavished on the grounds.
An army of servants attended to the family’s needs. All the male servants wore the same purple uniforms as the dead driver, James. All the maids and cooks and cleaning ladies wore purple dresses that went clear down to their ankles.
Roland Clyborn escorted them back to the carriage. He was quiet on the ride but kept glancing at Fargo as if puzzled by something. The only time he spoke was when Pickleman asked him what he had been doing on the road so late.
“I was on my way to the hunting lodge,” Roland replied. “No one has been there in a while and Sam wanted me to be sure the servants have gotten things ready. I don’t think it’s necessary but Sam never has seen the hired help as entirely reliable.”
The two men with him wore purple uniforms. Neither reacted to the insult.
“Is everyone else ready for tomorrow?” the lawyer asked.
“They more or less hate the idea but it’s not as if any of us have a choice,” Roland responded.
“Don’t blame me. All of this was your father’s idea and he was a tad eccentric.”
Roland snorted. “That’s a polite way of saying he wasn’t sane. But we both know better, don’t we? My father was the sanest man alive. He never did anything without a reason.”
“True,” Pickleman said. “Which makes me believe his motive in this case was to make all of you suffer.”
Fargo interrupted with, “Suffer over what?” He figured it had something to do with his being sent for.
“You’ll find out soon enough. I don’t daresay. Sam has reserved that right.”
“And what Sam wants, Sam gets,” Roland said.
After that, not a word until they came to the victoria. Roland had stopped the runaways and tied them so they wouldn’t go anywhere while he and the servants raced up the road to find out what had happened to Pickleman.
The mansion was half a mile farther.
“How much land does the Clyborn family own?” Fargo asked over his shoulder as the lights came into sight.
Pickleman chuckled. “You’ve been on Clyborn property since we left Hannibal. Tom Senior laid claim to ten square miles of prime woodland, in addition to his other holdings.”
Light lit every window. From a distance it lent the illusion of being a small town.
As soon as they rode up, servants rushed to take their mounts and tend to the carriage. Roland gave orders that the driver’s body be carried to the springhouse and wrapped in a blanket until the carpenter could make a coffin.
“You have your own carpenter?” Fargo asked.
“We have our own everything,” was Roland’s reply.
“Someone will have to inform Marshal Lamar first thing in the morning,” Pickleman said.
Roland turned. “What for? His jurisdiction ends at the town limits. The one to report this to is Sheriff Edes.”
“I happen to know that the sheriff is off at the capital with his deputy and won’t be back for a week to ten days. By then we’ll have to bury the body or it will stink to high heaven.”
“I don’t like involving Marshal Lamar.”
“It can’t be helped. The murder must be reported,” Pickleman insisted.
A gray-haired servant reached for the Ovaro’s reins. Fargo motioned him away and said curtly, “No.”
The servant looked questioningly at Roland Clyborn.
“Your animal will be taken good care of, I assure you.”
“I’ll tend to my horse myself.”
“That’s what the servants are for,” Pickleman said. “Why do anything we don’t have to?”
“I’m not sure I’m staying.” Fargo didn’t add that, whether he took the job or not, he intended to track down whoever tried to make worm food of them.
Pickleman’s face puckered in worry. “Did I hear correctly? You’re thinking of turning Sam down?”
“I haven’t heard why I was sent for yet.”
“I told you. Sam wants to do that. But you can’t have come all this way only to refuse. It would upset Sam terribly.”
Fargo looked for a hitch rail but there was none. He led the Ovaro to the base of the mansion steps and let the reins dangle. The stallion was well trained; it wouldn’t stray off. The gray-haired servant had followed him so Fargo made it plain. Patting the saddle, he said, “Anyone touches him, I’ll crack their damn skull. Understood?”
Again the servant looked at Roland who motioned. The servant gave a slight bow and walked off.
Fargo shucked the Henry and cradled it in his left elbow.
“You won’t need that inside,” Pickleman said with an amused twinkle in his eyes.
“It goes where I go.”
“I must say,” the lawyer remarked. “You’re about the most strong-willed person I have ever met, and that includes Tom Senior.”
“Follow me,” Roland said.
The interior was as lavish as Fargo expected: polished floors, mahogany furniture, paintings, even a few sculptures. The servants who passed them always bowed their heads.
Fargo was led to a sitting room the size of most saloons. Roland indicated a divan and said he would go fetch Sam.
The lawyer began to pace.
“Nerves bothering you?” Fargo asked.
“Sam won’t like the attempt on our lives. Not one little bit. And when Sam gets mad—” Pickleman didn’t finish.
“I’m not fond of being shot at, myself.”
“Highwaymen, I tell you. Everyone knows that road is used almost exclusively by the Clyborns. They figured to kill us and rob us.”
Fargo had noticed a portrait. It showed a big man in his fifties or sixties with the same broad shoulders and bushy eyebrows as Roland. The artist had captured the man’s piercing gaze and a sense of brooding power. “Thomas Clyborn?”
“Senior, yes. As you can tel
l, he wasn’t a man to be trifled with. Sam is very much the same.”
“What about Tom Junior?”
“He’s the oldest of the four boys. But how shall I put this?” Pickleman scratched his chin. “Tom the younger isn’t exactly a chip off the old block. Fact is, there are some who suspect he’s not from the same block at all if you take my meaning.”
Before Fargo could reply, into the room swept a force of nature. That was the only way to describe her. She was tall and ravishing, with rich auburn curls, cherry red lips, sharp hazel eyes, and high cheekbones. Her dress had to cost hundreds of dollars. She swept in and stood poised like a monarch about to deliver a speech, those hazel eyes of hers flicking from the lawyer to Fargo and then raking Fargo from his hat to his boots.
Fargo grinned. She was undressing him and studying him and taking his measure all in that one look.
“Samantha!” Pickleman blurted.
It hit Fargo that this was the “Sam” everyone had been talking about. She was as fine a figure of a woman as he ever set eyes on. He caught a whiff of expensive jasmine perfume, and down low, he stirred.
“So you’re the famous scout?” Samantha Clyborn asked in a voice as husky as a caress.
“That he is,” Pickleman confirmed. “I’ve brought him from town just as you requested.”
Samantha focused on the lawyer. “I didn’t ask you to bring him. I told you to. But I don’t recall saying anything about having him shot at.”
Pickleman blanched. “Roland told you? Be reasonable, Sam. How was I to know outlaws were lying in wait?”
Roland and others appeared behind her. Since they weren’t wearing uniforms Fargo took them to be members of the family.
“Well?” Samantha Clyborn was addressing him. “Are you going to stand there mute or say something?”
“Why did you send for me?”
The vision of loveliness smiled. “Direct and to the point. I like that. I’ll answer your question shortly but first there’s this business of the attempt on your life.”
“Second attempt.”
“What?” Samantha said.
“What?” Pickleman echoed.
Briefly, Fargo recited the knife attack by the man and the woman on the steamboat. “I thought they were after my poke but maybe I was wrong and they were after me.”
