by Jon Sharpe
“You think you know someone,” Carmody said, more to herself than to either of them.
“I don’t want to die. I honest to God do not—” The townsman gazed at the sky, said simply, “Oh!” and breathed his last.
“He never told us his name,” Carmody said. “Do we bury him?”
Fargo had a more important matter to tend to. “I’m heading for town.”
Rising, Carmody clasped his arm. “What in hell for?”
“You heard him,” Fargo said. “She killed him with my Henry.”
“So?”
“So it’s my Henry.”
“What difference does that make? You can always buy another. Why risk your life going back there when you don’t have to?”
Fargo climbed on the Ovaro. It would be pointless to try and overtake Alice. She had too much of a lead. He held to a walk and chafed at having to do so.
Carmody quickly caught up. “You didn’t answer me.”
“What do you know about her?”
“Alice? She didn’t talk a lot. Not about herself, anyhow. She was raised on a farm, as I recall.”
“That’s all?”
“She hunted a lot when she was a little girl. Meat for the table, mostly. Rabbits and squirrels and such. Once she shot a black bear.”
“So she’s damn good with a gun.”
“And she can ride as good as a man. She bragged as much.”
“It gets better and better,” Fargo said.
“You wouldn’t know it to look at her,” Carmody said, “but she’s as tough as they come.”
“Is she as good as her word?”
“I never knew her to tell a lie, if that’s what you mean.”
“No,” Fargo said. “Will she carry out her threat to kill Stoddard and whoever else she has in mind?”
“I suppose. Again, what difference does it make? I won’t lose any sleep over it and neither should you.”
No, Fargo wouldn’t, but he continued to the east.
“Why are you doing this?” Carmody asked. “If they get hold of you, they’ll slap a leg iron on and you’ll be digging ditches and planting crops from now until doomsday.”
Fargo didn’t answer.
“Damn it,” Carmody snapped. “I don’t understand, and I’d like to.”
“I already told you.”
“Because she has your stupid rifle?”
Fargo grunted.
“What kind of reason is that? I refuse—you hear me? I refuse to go back there and be chained like some animal all over again.”
“No one is forcing you.”
“Please don’t.”
“Head west if you want. In six or seven days you’ll reach a settlement called Travis.”
“Go all that way by my lonesome? With Comanches and God knows what else out there?” Carmody glared. “I hate this. I pray you know what in hell you’re doing.”
Fargo didn’t say anything, but so did he.
15
Half a mile farther they heard more shots. Four blasts in quick cadence—bam, bam, bam, bam—which hinted to Fargo that the shooter was sure of his target.
They spied the bodies from a hundred yards out, four sprawled figures at the side of the road.
Fargo drew his Colt and they cautiously advanced. He didn’t need to examine the fallen to be sure they were dead. All four had been shot in the head.
Dismounting, he roved about, reconstructing the sign. Two horses were off in the grass, grazing. The other two had run off.
Carmody stayed on her mount, her features a mirror of disbelief. “Alice did this?”
“Appears so,” Fargo said.
“Sweet, quiet, little Alice?”
“It’s the posse that man we found earlier was with. He went on ahead while they stopped to rest and waited for him to report back, remember?”
“I don’t see the marshal.”
“Mako wasn’t with it.” Fargo rolled one of the bodies over. “This one was.”
“Deputy Clyde!” Carmody exclaimed.
The weasel had been hit smack between the eyes. In death he was even uglier than in life.
Fargo noticed something else. “See that watch lying there? And that folding knife? She went through their pockets and pokes.”
“She robbed them?”
Fargo came to the last man. A revolver lay next to him, but he wasn’t wearing a gun belt. The revolver was the same caliber as Fargo’s Henry. “She got hold of more ammunition.”
“And rode on to town?” Carmody gazed eastward. “Dear God. What does she think she can do?”
“Haven’t you been paying attention? She’s out for revenge.”
“Alice is one woman against a whole town,” Carmody said. “She doesn’t stand a prayer.”
“She’s killed five men in an hour’s time,” Fargo said. “That’s a damn good start.” Climbing on the Ovaro, he flicked the reins.
“Why wasn’t the marshal with them?”
“He’s probably overseeing the search for the rest and sent Clyde and those other four after us.”
“Too bad,” Carmody said. “If he’d been with them, he’d be dead, too, and Alice would have her vengeance.”
“You’re forgetting the mayor and Gwendolyn and whoever else she’s out to kill.”
“You don’t think—” Carmody stopped, as if her thought surprised her. “You don’t think she’s out to make the whole town suffer, do you? She wouldn’t do something like poison their water, would she?”
“What makes you say that?”
“She mentioned a few times how much she hated the town and everyone in it. Said as how she’d like it if all of them were dead.”
“Those were her exact words?”
“Pretty much.”
“Damn.”
“This is going to get a lot worse, isn’t it?”
“A lot worse,” Fargo predicted. He recollected how Alice had stood up to Deputy Brock in the barracks. At the time he’d thought she had spunk. Now he saw her defiance as a vein that ran deeper and darker. “Do you have a friend who could put you up for a while?”
“Excuse me?” Carmody said.
“Somewhere you can lie low while I hunt for her.”
Carmody considered and said, “There’s Jugs. You said you know her, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Fargo said. He didn’t expand on how or what Jugs had done in court.
“She’ll help me if anyone will. But we’ll be seen riding in.”
“Not if we wait until dark.”
The sun was well on its downward arc when Fargo veered into a stand of trees. As he swung down, his leg brushed his empty rifle scabbard. “Damn her,” he said.
In the distance loomed Fairplay.
“I wish there was some other way,” Carmody said.
“You can wait here.”
“With nothing to eat or drink?” She waved a hand, dismissing the notion. “No, thanks. I like a roof over my head at night. I’m fond of a soft bed. I’d rather stay with Jugs.”
Fargo leaned against an oak and folded his arms.
“I’ve been meaning to ask. How far are you willing to take this?”
“Far?” Fargo said.
“Let’s say you find her. What then? You ask her, pretty please, that she give back your rifle and come with us? What if she won’t? What if she’s hell-bent on killing? How far are you willing to go to stop her?”
“As far as I have to.”
In not quite an hour, bright reds and yellows and a splash of orange lit the western sky as the last sliver of sun was about to set.
Fargo took out his Colt. Normally he kept the chamber under the hammer empty, but he added a sixth cartridge. Something told him he’d need it, and more, before this was over.
A canopy of stars twinkled overhead when he once more climbed on the stallion.
Carmody was slow to do the same. “Any chance you’d change your mind?”
“No.”
“What’s so special about this damn rifle?”
“It’s mine.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s enough,” Fargo said, “when she’s using it to kill.”
“Last I heard, that’s what rifles are for.”
“Give it a rest,” Fargo said in annoyance.
To his relief, she did.
Staying clear of the road, they rode on.
“Do you hear that?” Carmody asked.
Fargo did. Shouts and whoops, as if a celebration were taking place. The racket was punctuated by a few shots.
“What the hell?”
Fargo didn’t know what to make of it, either. One thing was clear. They couldn’t ride in until the town quieted down. He drew rein.
“Figures,” Carmody said. “I’m dirty and hungry and thirsty. I need a bath and a hot meal. And I’m stuck out here with you.”
“I know how we could spend the time,” Fargo suggested with a grin.
“I’m not in the mood.”
They sat their mounts in the growing cool of night as the sounds of mirth continued.
“They’re having a grand time, whatever the hell they’re doing,” Carmody grumbled.
Fargo took a bundle wrapped in rabbit hide from his saddlebags and climbed down. “We might as well have supper.”
“It’s not jerky, is it? I don’t like jerky much.”
Fargo unfolded the hide and held out a piece. “This is pemmican.”
She sniffed it and scrunched her face. “Did you make this yourself? What’s in it?”
“Ground meat and fat and berries.” Fargo bit and chewed, relishing the tangy taste.
“I’d rather go hungry.”
Fargo was about to say, “Suit yourself,” when he stiffened.
Hooves drummed. A single rider was on his way out of town, heading west.
Keeping low, Fargo darted to where he could see the road. He wondered if Mako had sent someone to check on the posse. A night ride made sense in that Comanches did most of their raiding during daylight.
An elbow bumped his. “Who is it?” Carmody wanted to know.
The rider appeared, a man much larger than most.
“Deputy Brock,” Fargo suspected. His hunch had been right. He watched until the hoofbeats faded.
“Lucky you,” Carmody said. “One less tin star you have to worry about.”
Time crawled. So did the stars. It was pushing ten o’clock when the revelry died and Fairplay’s usual quiet returned.
“About damn time,” Carmody said.
They approached at a walk, Fargo with his hand on his Colt.
“It’s not too late to change your mind,” Carmody said hopefully as they neared the outskirts.
“You’re like a dog with a bone,” Fargo growled.
“I’m not hankering to die.”
Nearly all the buildings were dark. A light glowed in the second-floor window of a house and in the Tumbleweed and another in the window of the marshal’s office.
Concealed in black shadow at the end of the main street, Fargo surveyed it from end to end. He detected no evidence of an ambush.
He gigged the Ovaro. They went two blocks without incident.
In the distance a dog yapped and somewhere a woman was singing.
Up ahead, the saloon’s batwings opened and out came a pair of townsmen.
Fargo quickly reined between a feed-and-grain and a butcher’s.
Carmody wasted no time following him. “Do you think they saw us?”
Apparently not. The pair made off up the street in the other direction.
Fargo didn’t budge until they were out of sight. “Keep your eyes skinned.”
They’d only gone half a block more when Carmody whispered and pointed. “What’s that?”
At first Fargo didn’t see anything. Then he made out a hitch rail—and something else. It was too small for a horse, and it was under the rail instead of in front of it.
“What is that?” Carmody said again.
The short hairs at the nape of Fargo’s neck prickled, but he couldn’t say why.
They were almost to the hitch rail before they saw what it was. Both of them drew rein at the same instant and Carmody exclaimed, “God in heaven!”
16
It was one of the prisoners, stripped to the waist, his wrists lashed to the rail. His striped shirt lay in the dirt beside him.
Fargo didn’t know the man’s handle, but he remembered the face.
“That’s Tilly!” Carmody gasped. “His real name was Tillson, but everyone called him Tilly.”
The late Mr. Tillson had been shot between the eyes. Both had rolled up into his head, part of which was missing.
“Shot while trying to escape,” was Fargo’s guess.
“But why tie him to the rail like that?” Carmody asked, aghast. “How could they do such a thing?”
“A warning, maybe.”
“To who?”
“The other prisoners.”
“I bet it was the mayor’s doing,” Carmody said fiercely. “It’s something he would do.”
Fargo thought so, too.
Just then a loud creak caused both of them to stiffen.
“That sounded like a door,” Carmody said.
It did to Fargo, too. After a couple of minutes went by and no one appeared, he said quietly, “I reckon it’s safe enough,” and clucked to the Ovaro.
“Safe, hell,” Carmody said.
“You’re going to make some hombre a fine nag someday,” Fargo said.
“I get killed, I’m coming back to haunt you. I’ll make your life miserable.”
“You’re off to a good start and you’re not even dead yet.”
“You’re a coldhearted bastard—do you know that?”
“Says the woman who likes to bitch about everything.”
Carmody let a few seconds go by and said, “But you do know how to please a lady.” When he didn’t respond she asked, “How about me? How was I for you?”
“I didn’t fall asleep,” Fargo said.
“You really are a bastard.”
Fargo heard something but he wasn’t sure what. He drew rein and listened. Other than the squall of a baby, the town lay undisturbed under the canopy of stars.
“What are we waiting for?” Carmody griped. “I don’t like being out in the open.”
Fargo was tired of her carping. The sooner he was shed of her, the sooner he could be about the business of finding Alice Thorn.
Sticking to side streets, he led her to Jugs’s boardinghouse and on around to the rear.
Every window was dark.
“I just realized,” Carmody whispered. “The doors are probably bolted. How will I get inside?”
“You’ll see.”
They dismounted.
Fargo opened the gate to the picket fence and Carmody followed him to the side of the house.
Fortunately, Jugs’s room was on the ground floor. Fargo stood back and had Carmody tap on the window.
It took a while. At last the curtains parted and a face peered out and then fingers fumbled at the latch and the window scraped open.
“Carmody!” Jugs whispered in amazement. “Is that you?” She was wearing a nightdress that clung nicely to her breasts.
“I’m not alone,” Carmody said. “I’m with a friend of yours.”
Fargo moved to where Jugs could see him. “Remember me?”
Jugs’s hand flew to her throat. “You!” she said. “It wasn’t my fault. I had to testify the way I did.”
/> “I saw the bruises,” Fargo said. “Who beat you?”
“Deputy Brock,” Jugs said. “At the marshal’s bidding. He only hit me twice. It was enough.” She looked from him to Carmody and out at the neighboring houses. “What are you doing here? I heard you got clean away.”
“It’s not my idea,” Carmody assured her. “I need to lie low for a while and I was hoping you’d put me up. For old times’ sake.”
“It was wrong, what they did to you,” Jugs said. “I raised a fuss about it and the mayor said if I kept on, he’d come up with something to charge me with and I could join you.”
“I hate that son of a bitch more than I’ve ever hated anyone,” Carmody said.
“You and me both. I suppose the smart thing for me to do was leave town, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it with you behind bars.”
Carmody clasped Jugs’s hand. “I knew I could count on you.”
“We always said we’d be friends forever,” Jugs reminded her, her voice breaking.
“Ladies,” Fargo interrupted. “Shed your tears inside, if you don’t mind. I have a rifle to find.”
“A rifle?” Jugs said.
“Don’t ask,” Carmody said as she hiked a leg to slide over the sill. “If dumb was money, he’d be rich.”
Jugs helped her in and both bent and peered out.
“Something you should know,” Jugs said. “They sent a posse after you.”
“Their mistake,” Fargo said.
“One other thing,” Jugs said. “The marshal figures you were to the blame for the escape, and the mayor was fit to be tied. I heard him mention how he plans to put a bounty on your head, dead or alive.”
“The least of my worries,” Fargo said.
“You won’t think so when you hear how much. Five thousand dollars. Out of his own pocket, no less. He wants you to pay.”
Fargo turned to leave.
“Something else,” Jugs said. “Marshal Mako is out to nail your hide to a wall, too.”
“He would be. He’s the law.”
“It’s more than that. Mako thinks you made a laughingstock of him, and he can’t stand that.”
“That’s Skye for you,” Carmody said. “He charmed me right out of my clothes.”
