by Jon Sharpe
Fargo had not realized she cared so much. “I am here and I am all right, thanks to you.”
Sally impulsively pecked him on the cheek.
“Do it right,” Fargo said, and kissed her full on the mouth. She stiffened, but then relaxed, parting her lips to admit his tongue. Her own was velvet sugar, swirling around and around in delightful arousal. “You can kiss,” Fargo commented when they broke for breath.
Sally giggled. “It doesn’t take a lot of talent.”
Fargo begged to differ. He recollected all the women he had run across whose idea of a kiss was to have their mouth clamped tight shut. He bent to kiss her again but suddenly it was his turn to stiffen.
The din had spread to the main street. Shouts and the pounding of heavy boots warned that Durn’s men were going from building to building.
Sally spun toward the door. “They will be here in a minute, and I would not put it past them to demand to search the premises.”
“I will hide in the back,” Fargo suggested, and turned to go.
“No.” Sally held onto his arm. “If I know Durn, they will look in every closet, and even under the bed. We need a hiding place they would not think to check.”
“If you can find a ladder I will climb up on the roof.”
“I have something better,” Sally said, and pulled him toward a corner. “It is perfect.”
Fargo did not know what she was getting at. In the corner stood a mannequin of some kind. The top half consisted of the carved wooden likeness of a woman; the bottom half, from the waist to the floor, was made up of wide hoops, each slightly larger than the one above it. Fine strands of wire linked them.
“I use this when I am sewing some of the dresses,” Sally said as she bent and gripped the bottom hoop. A slight pull upward, and the hoops folded in on themselves. She raised them as high the mannequin’s waist. “Crawl under them,” she directed.”
Fargo did not argue. The shouts and the pounding were louder. But there was barely enough room for him to sit with his knees tucked to his chest and his arms around his legs.
“That will do.” Sally lowered the hoops. She had to push on a few to get them to go down. Then she darted to a table and brought over a dress that she proceeded to slide over the top of the mannequin and down over the hoops so it hid Fargo from view. “What do you think?”
Fargo thought it was damn clever of her, and said so.
“Thanks. Now be still. I am going to open up, as I normally would, so they will not be suspicious.”
Fargo heard her move off. He did not like not being able to see. Hoping she would forgive him, he drew the Arkansas toothpick, reached between the top two hoops, and cut a slit at eye level. Prying the cotton apart, he peeked out.
Sally was lifting a shade. She hung an OPEN sign on the window, then smoothed her dress and went to the opposite wall and began arranging a shelf devoted to bonnets. She had barely begun when the door was flung open and in strode Kutler and two others.
Regarding them coldly, Sally said, “What is the meaning of this? Unless you are buying something for a lady friend, you will leave this instant.”
“Like hell we will, lady,” one of the curly wolves said.
Big Mike Durn filled the doorway. With a swift step, he seized the offender by the front of his shirt. “You will show her the respect she is due, Adams, or you will not like the consequences.”
Adams visibly paled. “Sorry, Mr. Durn. I meant no disrespect.”
As an oily smile replaced his scowl, Durn faced Sally. “My apologies, my dear. Some of my associates can be most uncouth.”
“Spare me the flowery talk,” Sally said tartly. “You are no better than they are.”
“How can you say that?” Durn said, acting stung by her remark. “Yes, I lived as a reckless riverman once. But I was born and raised on a farm in Illinois. My mother insisted I learn to read and write, and taught me manners.” He paused. “But you know all that. I have shared my life’s story with you.”
“Yes. I know you left home when you knifed a man over a trifle, and that you fled west and wound up on the Mississippi.”
“A victim of circumstance,” Big Mike said.
“But I also recall you saying that you were as wild as a child as you were on the river, and as you are now,” Sally said. “You constantly gave your parents a hard time. You hung a cat from the barn rafters just to see how long it would take to die.”
Durn’s smile disappeared. “I did not come here to discuss my past. I am searching for your friend, Mr. Fargo.”
“Why bother me?” Sally said. “I have just opened up, as you can plainly see.”
“So it would appear.”
Sally set down a bonnet and advanced on him. “Are you calling me a liar, Mike Durn?”
“Of course not,” Durn said. “But I am afraid I must insist.” He snapped his fingers at Kutler and the other two and they fanned out.
“I must protest,” Sally said hotly.
“Do so, my dear, by all means,” Durn said. “So long as you consent to have supper with me this evening.”
“You are something else—do you know that?”
Durn smiled and hooked his thumbs in his belt. “Thank you. Coming from you, I take that as a compliment.”
Sally shook her head. “Honestly. When will you take the hint? There will never be anything between us.”
“Never is a long time. And I can be most per—”
Fargo lost interest in their conversation. Kutler had drawn his bowie and was coming toward the mannequin. Inwardly, Fargo swore. He could not put up much of a fight, hemmed by the hoops as he was.
Durn and Sally raised their voices but Kutler paid them no mind as he stalked to within an arm’s length of the mannequin and reached out with his other hand.
Fargo balanced on the balls of his feet. He would try to throw the mannequin off and leap on Kutler all in one quick movement.
“Look at what I have found!” Kutler abruptly declared. “I sure do like the yellow and the green. How much is it, ma’am?”
Both Sally and Big Mike Durn stopped arguing and glanced at Kutler in surprise.
“I beg your pardon?”
Kutler gave Sally an awkward grin. “There is this girl. I want to buy her something, and this dress is right pretty. How much is it?”
Durn looked fit to explode. “What the hell is the matter with you? We are on a manhunt and you take time to admire a silly dress?” He gestured sharply. “Find Fargo, damn it!”
Sheepishly nodding, Kutler moved toward the hall to the back, beckoning for the other two to follow.
“I will thank you not to use rude language in my presence,” Sally said to Durn. “If you are going to pretend to be a gentleman, the least you can do is act like one.”
“Sally, Sally, Sally,” Durn said, and sighed. “I try so hard. But all you ever do is throw disrespect in my face.”
“I can’t help it if I am not interested,” Sally said. “A woman is not always master of her heart.”
“Is there someone else?” Big Mike growled. “Is that it? Tell me who, and I will have a talk with him.”
Sally glanced toward the mannequin, then back at Durn. “I have not been attracted to a man in so long, I have almost forgotten what it feels like.”
“Then there is still hope for me,” Durn said, his smile blossoming anew. “In time you will warm to me.”
“I could never open my heart to a man who forces himself on other women,” Sally said. “Or do you think I haven’t heard about your escapades with those poor Indian girls?”
“Rumors, my dear,” Durn said. “They apply to my men, not to me. I am above that sort of thing.”
“Even if I believed that, which I don’t, you are as much to blame as they are. You just called them your men.”
“You are nitpicking.”
“If they are answerable to you, you are answerable for their actions,” Sally said. “I hold you to account for all the wicked acts your m
en have committed.”
“Wicked?” Durn scoffed, and laughed. “And which acts would those be, pray tell? Other than having some squaws come work for me?”
“You force them—”
Mike Durn reared over her. “Not that again! I force no one! Those squaws are working off gambling debts.”
“Oh, please. You lure their fathers or husbands into the Whiskey Mill with cheap liquor. You trick them into sitting in on rigged card games. You extend credit, knowing they have no money, and when they lose, you insist they repay their debts by having their daughters or wives come work for you.”
“All perfectly legal.”
“But immoral, and outright wrong,” Sally said.
Durn closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “I am beginning to think that there is no reasoning with you. You will never change your outlook.”
“No, I will not,” Sally said, then seemed to catch herself. “But let’s say I did. Let us say I start to think favorably of you. What would you be willing to do as a token of your affection?”
Durn opened his eyes and cocked his head. “I do not follow.”
“If I were to take up with you, would you be willing to let all the Indian girls go back to their villages?”
“Are you serious?”
“Never more so,” Sally said. “You must have, what, close to a dozen girls in that hole you call a saloon? Give them back their lives. Send them back to their people, and I might start to think favorably of you.”
“Might,” Durn repeated.
“Am I not worth it?” Sally glibly asked.
“No.”
Sally colored in shock. “I beg your pardon? All this talk of how much you care for me has been a lie?”
“You are mixing personal with business.”
“Now I am the one who does not follow you,” Sally admitted.
“It is simple,” Mike Durn said. “I like you, yes, but that is personal. Those squaws are part of my business. They earn a lot of money for me. Were I to let them go, I would lose considerable income. Are you willing to take their place? To spread your legs for other men?”
Sally recoiled as if he had slapped her. “I have never been so insulted in my life! I would never stoop so low!”
“I didn’t think you would,” Durn said. “In which case, the squaws stay.”
A strained silence fell until Sally said, “You are being honest with me, and I appreciate that. So tell me something.” She paused. “You are degrading those poor women. You are stirring up sentiment against the Indians. You oppose the reservation. What is next, Mike? How far will you let your hatred of the red race drive you?”
Durn stepped to the window and gazed down the street. For a few moments Fargo thought he would not answer.
“By the end of the year I expect to have another fifty men on my payroll. The money, I should mention, will come from those squaws you are so concerned about.”
“And then?” Sally prompted when he did not go on.
“I will be ready for the next step,” Durn said. “I intend to burn down the mission and have it blamed on the savages. There is nothing like a massacre to whip people up, and before I am through, every last redskin in Mission Valley, and half the territory, besides, will either be dead or driven clear to Canada.”
“My God!” Sally exclaimed in horror. “I can’t let that happen! I will go to the authorities and report you.”
Durn turned. He was smiling again, but a sinister sort of smile. “No, you will not. Not if you want those squaws to go on living. Not if you want to go on living.” Reaching under his jacket, he produced a revolver. The click of the hammer was ominously loud.
“You wouldn’t!” Sally blurted.
“You have a lot to learn about me,” Mike Durn said. And without any warning, he pointed the revolver at the mannequin.
17
Fargo was caught off guard. Somehow or other, Durn knew where he was. He started to lower his hand to the Remington but Durn’s six-gun went off before he could touch it. Instinctively, fully expecting to take lead, he flinched. He felt the mannequin shake to the impact of the heavy slug followed by the patter of tiny bits and pieces raining down.
“Smack between the eyes,” Durn boasted.
“What was the point of that little demonstration?” Sally angrily demanded. “You have ruined a perfectly good dress model.”
“I will pay for a new one,” Durn said, sliding his revolver under his jacket. “As to the point, I should think it obvious.”
“At last you show your deepest, darkest nature,” Sally said. “Should I go to the authorities, you will have me shot.”
“No, my dear,” Durn said with mock politeness, “I will shoot you myself.”
Kutler and the others came out of the hall and Kutler shook his head. “No sign of him, Mr. Durn. And we looked everywhere there was to look.”
“Very well,” Durn said, unable to hide his disappointment. “We will keep searching.” He motioned, and they preceded him out. Durn went to follow, then paused in the doorway. “I trust you will not think ill of me, Sally. I am not as cold-blooded as you must think.”
“Says the man who just threatened to kill me,” Sally rejoined.
“Only if you force me,” Durn said. “I would rather we were intimate than enemies.”
“Intimate!” Sally snorted. “It will be a cold day in Hades before that happens, I can assure you.”
“We will see.” On that enigmatic note, Durn departed.
Fargo was out from under the dress the instant the door closed. A walnut-sized chunk of the mannequin’s head had been shot out, the shards littering the floor. “You had the right idea,” he said.
“About what?” Sally absently asked. Profound sorrow etched her features.
“Reporting him. Find someone to go with you, a townsman you trust. I will give you a letter to a friend of mine, a Colonel Travis, and he will send troops.”
“What about you?”
“I need to stay and keep Durn so busy he won’t send anyone after you,” Fargo said.
“I refuse to leave you,” Sally said.
Fargo went over and put his hands on her hips and kissed her on the forehead. “Fine sentiments. But what about those Indian girls you want to save? And all those who will die if Durn pits white against red?”
Sally gnawed on her lower lip. “It might take some doing to find someone to go with me. Most everyone is too scared to do anything that might rile Mike Durn.”
“There has to be someone.”
“Thaddeus Thompson,” Sally proposed. “Provided he isn’t so drunk he can’t sit a horse.”
“How will you get word to him?”
“He is due in for a bottle, and he usually pays me a visit. If he doesn’t show by evening, I will ride out to his cabin.”
Fargo had not taken his hands from her hips and she had not objected. He made bold to pull her close and liked the pink flush that tinted her cheeks. “I admire you in more ways than one.”
Grinning mischievously, Sally said, “And what ways would those be, I wonder?”
Lowering his mouth to hers, Fargo gave rein to his rising passion. She mewed like a kitten as her fingers entwined in his hair.
“Enough of those and my head will be spinning.”
“We have the rest of the morning and all afternoon to ourselves,” Fargo said with a wink.
Sally frowned. “Would that we did. I would have to close the shop, which might make Durn suspicious.”
“You have to eat. Can’t you lock up for a while at midday?” Fargo hopefully proposed.
“I do now and then,” Sally mentioned. “But usually only for an hour or so.”
“That is more than enough time,” Fargo said, and kissed her again as added incentive. He liked how she pressed her bosom to his chest and how her fingers strayed to his shoulders and kneaded his muscles.
“My goodness. You are made of iron.”
Fargo pulled b
ack so his growing bulge was obvious. “You don’t know the half of it.”
Sally glanced down, and gasped. “Mercy! You have a knack for flustering me.”
“The flustering has just begun.” Fargo went to enfold her in his arms but she pushed against his chest.
“No. Please. As much as I want to, I expect a few customers in this morning.” Sheepishly backing away, Sally smoothed her dress. “I will be back in my living quarters about noon. Wait for me in my bed if you want.”
Reluctantly, Fargo repaired to the kitchen. He was famished. After firing up the stove, he checked her well-stocked pantry and helped himself to several thick strips of bacon and half a dozen eggs. He also had a hankering for a couple of thick slices of buttered toast.
The aroma set his mouth to watering.
As Fargo cooked, he pondered. There had to be a way for him to put an end to Durn’s mad scheme. He considered a number of ideas, everything from sneaking back into the saloon to confront Durn to dropping Durn from afar with a rifle. That last was the safest but he had never much liked shooting from ambush.
A burp from the coffeepot let Fargo know the coffee was percolating. He had timed it so that the coffee and the food were done about the same time, and now he filled a cup to the brim and ladled heaping helpings of eggs and bacon onto a plate. Taking a seat, he rubbed his hands in anticipation and reached for his fork—and thought he glimpsed a face at the back window.
Fargo could not say for sure. The face had been there for only an instant. Pushing his chair from the table, he ran to the back door, threw it open, and almost blundered into the sunlight. Catching himself, he leaned out far enough to look in both directions. No one was in sight.
Nerves, Fargo reckoned. Returning to the table, he forked eggs into his mouth and hungrily chewed. The sizzling bacon was delicious; the toast had just the right crunch.
The hot food made Fargo drowsy. Four cups of coffee did little to help, so Fargo bent his steps to the bedroom. Not bothering to pull back the quilt, he tossed his hat on the dresser and sprawled out belly-down on the bed. It was wonderfully soft and warm.
The next thing Fargo knew, fingers were on his cheek. With a start he jerked his head up.
“Relax, silly,” Sally Brook said. “It is only me.”
