by Jon Sharpe
Pickleman tinged the glass again. “There are a few other conditions of which you must be aware. First, you must conduct the hunt on foot. No horses or mules allowed.”
“Leave it to Father to make it as hard as possible,” Charles said.
“Second, no weapons are allowed. No guns of any kind. No knives or anything else. All weapons are to be left here in the lodge.”
Cletus Brun wasn’t happy. “The hell you say! I never go anywhere unarmed. Only a fool does.”
Fargo didn’t like it, either. He would feel naked without his Colt or the Henry or the Arkansas toothpick. They were as much a part of him as his clothes, hat, and boots.
“The third condition is one I argued against,” the attorney was saying. “I told your father that it is immoral and unethical. Inhuman might be a better word. He refused to rescind it.”
“What is it?” Tom demanded.
Pickleman coughed. “Should any of you come to harm, no charges are to be lodged against whoever is responsible.”
“What?” Samantha said.
The siblings sat there in silence as the full import slowly sank in. Finally Charles placed his hands on the table and cocked his head at the attorney. “Did we hear you correctly? Our father is encouraging us to attack one another?”
“That would be illegal,” Pickleman said.
Tom was livid. “Don’t try to hoodwink me. I’m no simpleton. What Father has done is set up a hunting contest where we are the game.”
“He wouldn’t,” Samantha declared in horror. “Not even he would go that far.”
“But he has,” Charlotte said.
Cousin Amanda broke her long silence to say, “You’re going to try and kill each another?”
“Only if we want to,” Tom said, and laughed.
“There was no mention of anything like this,” Amanda said. “I don’t want any part of it.”
“Nor do I,” said Charles’s friend, Bruce Harmon.
“That is entirely up to you,” the lawyer told them. “In fact, the same applies to the principals.” He looked at each of the siblings in turn. “Any of you can bow out if you so desire. Keep in mind that those who do are eliminated from the hunt and won’t receive a cent of the inheritance.”
“Our father,” Roland said. “The devil in disguise.”
Tom turned to Cletus Brun. “What about you? Are you as cowardly as our cousin and Bruce? Or will you see it through?”
“You’re payin’ me,” Cletus replied.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Samantha focused on Fargo. “And you, Skye? Please think carefully before you answer. I don’t want you to come to harm on my account.”
Fargo fully realized the danger he was placing himself in as he said, “I gave my word I would take part.” He turned. “But there’s something all of you are overlooking.”
“What would that be?” Pickleman said.
“Emmett. Whoever hired the man who shot him isn’t done. Any one of you could be next.”
“Which would please our deceased father no end,” Tom said. “Or haven’t you gotten it yet? He wants us to murder one another. He wants his own sons and daughters to kill one another off.”
“Someone should report this to the sheriff,” Amanda said.
Charlotte spun on her. “Don’t you dare. This is a family matter and will be settled by us, not the law.”
“You can settle it without bloodshed,” Amanda persisted. “Each of you can give his or her word that you won’t try to harm anyone else during the hunt.”
“We could,” Tom said, nodding, “but I won’t.”
“Why in God’s name not?” Charles asked.
“Because I agree with Father. This is the best way. We’ve been at one another’s throats for years. Fear of being thrown behind bars has always held us back but now we can give free rein to all the hate bubbling inside of us.”
“You have a warped mind,” Samantha said.
“As did Father.” Tom chortled. “Ironic, is it not, that I’m more like him than any of you, yet I’m the one he thought was the fruit of someone else’s loins?”
“So Charles and Charlotte will hunt by themselves?” Pickleman asked to have it clarified. “Amanda and Bruce have dropped out?”
Both their cousin and Harmon nodded.
“Just so you know,” the lawyer told them, “you have until the actual start of the hunt to change your minds.”
“I certainly won’t,” Bruce Harmon said.
Pickleman gazed along the table. “At six o’clock tomorrow morning I expect everyone to be out front. I am to fire a pistol to start the hunt. Remember, no mounts, no weapons, and no food or water.”
Samantha straightened. “Father made that a condition, too? Twenty-four hours without anything to eat or drink smacks of cruelty.”
“Our father’s middle name,” Tom said sarcastically.
Pickleman walked to the doorway. “I bid you good night. Since I am to oversee the hunt, I must remain awake the entire twenty-four hours. In order to do that I need all the sleep I can get tonight.” He smiled and left.
“How can any of us sleep knowing what’s in store?” Charlotte played her part as the innocent.
Fargo could use some rest himself. The lovemaking and the huge meal had left him sluggish and tired. He pushed back his chair and was about to excuse himself when Samantha placed her warm hand on his.
“Does all of this trouble you as much as it does me?” She didn’t wait for him to reply. “We need to talk over our strategy for tomorrow.”
“I’m listening.”
“Not at the table. The others will overhear us. We need somewhere private.” Samantha’s cherry lips curled and her fingernail traced a delicate line across this hand. “Why don’t you come up to my room with me?”
Oh hell, Fargo thought.
11
Samantha Clyborn was as attractive a female as Skye Fargo ever met. Her gorgeous hair, her piercing eyes, her hourglass figure were enough to make any male drool. But Fargo was tired and feeling sluggish from the big meal. He’d also bedded her sister not more than two hours ago. As he followed Sam’s sashaying form down the hall to her bedroom, he hoped to God his body could rise to the occasion.
Samantha paused at the door. “Thank you for waiting at the table a couple of minutes before you got up and followed me. I didn’t want my sister and brothers to suspect.”
Fargo looked at her bosom and at the swell of her hips, and nodded.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with me inviting a man up to my room,” Sam quickly added. She opened the door and motioned for him to enter but Fargo shook his head and gestured for her to go first.
Her bedroom smelled of lavender. Thick purple carpet covered the floor. Her bed was bigger than Charlotte’s and covered with a purple quilt. The fringed canopy was purple, too.
“Your favorite color?”
Sam had stepped to a full-length mirror and was fluffing her air. “What? Oh, yes. I’ve liked it ever since I was little and learned it’s the color of royalty. I always thought that fitting.”
Fargo didn’t savvy and said so.
“I should think it obvious.” Sam smoothed her dress, then faced him. “In Britain and Europe the ruling class is royalty. Kings, queens, dukes, princes and the like. Over here the ruling class is the class with money. The class my family belongs to. We hold all the power. We control the conditions under which those who don’t have money live.”
“You think of yourself as royalty?”
“In a way, yes.” Sam went to the bed and ran a hand over the purple quilt. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think I’m better than those who don’t have any. Quite the contrary. I see it as a great responsibility. Although”—she stopped and bit her lip—“it’s a moot point since by Monday morning I won’t have any money or any power if I lose the hunt.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I have no doubt you will.” Samantha turned and walked u
p to him, her hips swaying, her hands clasped to her bosom. “But I didn’t really invite you up here to talk strategy.”
“You said you did.”
“I lied.” Sam placed a hand on his chest and bored her eyes into his. Her voice grew husky as she asked, “Do you have any idea how long it has been since I’ve been with a man?”
“How would I?”
“Let’s just say I rarely permit myself the luxury. But I’ll confess something to you.” Her breath warmed his neck as she quietly said, “I’ve wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you.”
“Do tell.”
“There’s something about you.” Sam touched his chin. “It’s not just that you’re so damn handsome. There’s something else, some quality I can’t describe.”
“Don’t get carried away.”
“I’m serious.” A puzzled look came over her as she traced a finger from his beard to his cheek and over to his ear. “I’ve puzzled over it no end and I can’t explain why I feel the way I do. I’ve met other men just as handsome who didn’t affect me the way you do.”
“Lucky me.”
“Please. I’m being serious and you’re being sarcastic.” Sam pursed her strawberry lips. “When a lady compliments a man the least the man can do is accept the compliment graciously.”
“My manners aren’t what they should be,” Fargo enlightened her. “And I don’t give a damn that they’re not.”
“Ah. The rough-hewn frontiersman. You don’t care for society or its rules. Is that how it goes?”
“I don’t much care for buffalo shit no matter what others call it.”
Samantha drew back. “I beg your pardon?”
“All the airs that you and those like you put on don’t count for a hill of beans. Nothing you do will live on after you. You’ve spent your whole life thinking you’re special because your family has money, but in the end you land in the ground like all those who don’t have any.”
“All is vanity, yes.” Samantha looked him up and down. “Frankly, I didn’t expect that of you.”
“I’m too dumb to think?”
“No, no, it’s not that.”
Fargo noticed that she didn’t offer a better reason. “I’ll make it plain. I like you but I don’t like your airs.”
Sam’s face colored and she fingered a button on her dress. “And I don’t like how you talk to me sometimes. But please. Let’s forget all that. We can’t help how we are. I didn’t ask for this life of privilege.”
“But you sure eat it up.”
Samantha turned her back to him. “This isn’t how it was supposed to go. I had other things in mind.”
Fargo saw her reflection in the mirror; she looked sad. Walking up behind her, he molded his body to hers, reached around, and cupped her mounds.
Sam gasped and arched her back. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“What you invited me up here to do.” Fargo squeezed and was rewarded with a soft groan and the grinding of her bottom against his manhood. He felt himself twitch, and smiled.
“I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to.”
“Airs or not, you’re female.” Fargo bent and kissed her neck and she twisted half around and cupped his chin.
“Is that all I am to you? You don’t care for me even a little bit?”
“I told you I like you. It’s not true love, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“It’s just that a woman likes to think she means something.”
Fargo could have told her that the hunger she stirred in him was no different from the hunger that stirred him to eat or the thirst that stirred him to drink. He could have said that she was putting on yet another air. But he didn’t. He said, “Every woman means something in bed.”
Sam blinked and cocked her head. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.”
“You’ll talk it to death if you’re not careful.” Fargo drew back. “Make up your mind.”
“I want to. I really do.”
“Then shut the hell up.” Fargo kissed her, hard, and thrust his tongue into her mouth. With his one hand he squeezed a breast while with his other he caressed her thighs and cupped her mound of Venus. Another moan escaped her, and she sucked on his tongue as if it were honey.
Pushing her back, Fargo eased her onto the bed. Her hair spilled about her head as she looked up at him in raw lust.
“God, I want you.”
“Don’t talk.” Fargo covered her mouth with his and sank down beside her. He ran his hands over her body, probing, massaging, stroking. She took off his hat and ran her fingers through his hair, then worked at his belt buckle.
Fargo reached down, took her hand, and placed it on his pole. She uttered a tiny mew and melted against him, her fingers wrapped around his member.
“Oh my,” she breathed.
Fargo began undoing the dress. A row of tiny buttons that ran from the nape of her neck to the small of her back took forever. He would as soon have ripped the dress off her. At last he slipped a hand underneath. A few tugs at the tie to her drawers and his hand brushed silken thighs. She squirmed as he kneaded them. Inching higher, he covered her nether lips.
“Yes! Ohhhh, yes!”
Fargo plunged a finger in. Her mouth became molten; she kissed and licked and sucked with abandon. A few moments more and he had her breasts free. Her nipples poked into his palms like tacks.
Samantha raked his shoulders with her nails and pushed against him. Her legs parted in invitation.
Fargo was so intent on their lovemaking that he almost didn’t hear the rasp of the latch. He was sucking on a nipple, and glanced over.
A young maid had entered and was staring at them. She wore the usual purple uniform and was holding a silver tray with a pitcher of water.
Fargo figured she would make a hasty exit but she stared at him with her lips curled in a strange sort of grin. He raised his head from Sam’s melons.
“What’s the matter? Why have you stopped?”
“We have company.”
Samantha twisted around. “What the hell? I gave instructions I wasn’t to be disturbed.”
Without looking behind her, the maid pushed the door shut with her foot.
“What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?” Samantha angrily demanded.
The maid threw the bolt.
“Are you insane? Leave this moment or you’re no longer in my employ.”
There was something about the maid’s face that triggered sudden alarm in Fargo. She had her hair up in a bun and it took him a few seconds to realize where he had seen her before—it was the female assassin who had tried to kill him on the Yancy and helped her brother slay Tobacco Man. He pulled at his pants and started to roll off the bed, his member jutting like a flagpole.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked.
The maid exploded into motion. In two bounds she was at the bed. She had hold of the pitcher and before Fargo could duck or dodge she swept it up and out. The water caught him full in the face, getting into his eyes and his nose. Blinking and backpedaling, Fargo swiped a sleeve across his eyes to clear his vision.
The pitcher and the tray hit the floor with a crash. The maid’s hands flashed behind her and flashed out again, each holding a knife. She slashed at Samantha, who recoiled, and then she was around the bed in a crouch, still grinning her strange grin, her eyes alight with glee.
Fargo stabbed for his Colt but it wasn’t there. His gun belt was lying on the bed.
The holy terror in the maid’s uniform never said a word. She was all business, and her business was slaying him. Her knives weaved figure eights in the air.
“My pistol!” Fargo shouted to Sam but she was frozen in shock. He avoided a stab at his belly and a slash at his neck. He had to let go of his pants and they began to slide down his hips. Grabbing hold, he shifted to the right but went left. The feint saved his life.
The assassin lost her grin. She speared a knife at his chest and when he jerked asid
e lanced her other knife at his jugular.
Fargo flung himself back and collided with the wall. Inadvertently he had backed himself into a corner. He held on to his pants to keep them from falling and tried to spring past her but she was much too quick. He had to jerk back again to avoid having his throat cut from ear to ear.
“No!” Sam cried, and threw a pillow.
The assassin swatted it aside and came at Fargo again. He tried to grab her wrist and pain seared his upper arm. She had cut through the buckskin sleeve and drawn blood. Before she could skip out of reach he whipped a backhand that sent her staggering. Then, dropping to one knee, he plunged his hand into his boot and palmed the Arkansas toothpick. “Try me now, bitch.”
In she rushed, her knives streaking.
Fargo parried, countered, parried again. He unfurled, moving back as he rose, and nearly tripped over his pants. He had forgotten to hold them up and they were bunching around his legs. Clutching them, he barely deflected a cut at his eyes. She was skilled, this woman, perhaps the best knife fighter he ever went up against, and that was saying a lot.
“I’ll stop her!” Sam cried, and lunged for the Colt.
Once again the sister did her imitation of a jackrabbit. Whirling, she vaulted high in the air. Her foot slammed against Sam’s head, knocking Sam back. As lithely as a cat, she alighted on the balls of her feet poised to renew their combat.
Fargo had never encountered her like. He slashed at her legs, at her ribs, but it was like trying to cut a will-o’-the-wisp.
She grinned her strange grin again. She held the right blade out from her side, the left blade low in front of her.
Fargo went for her face but she hopped out of reach. Her knives flashed and his middle knuckle was opened. Not deep but it hurt like hell. He went high, going for her throat, only to have her prance out of reach.
A revolver boomed. Sam had his Colt and fired from a distance of only a few feet—and missed.
The assassin spun. She leaped onto the edge of the bed and did an acrobatic somersault. Her right leg described an arc and her shoe caught Samantha on the chin and sent Sam tumbling.
Fargo sought to bury the toothpick in her back. So what if she was a woman? She had tried several times now to kill him and that was several too many. But as fast as he was she proved faster. She was halfway to the door before he came around the end of the bed. She worked the latch and threw the door wide, then paused in the doorway to look back.
