Hannibal Rising tt-340

by Jon Sharpe

  “I certainly didn’t hire them,” Samantha said.

  “So you claim,” Tom rejoined. “But how can we be sure? Charles and Roland have both said they will play nice but how do we know one or both of them hasn’t paid to have the rest of us killed?”

  “The same applies to you,” Charles said.

  “That it does,” Tom agreed. “So it won’t do me any good to give you my word that the assassins aren’t my doing.”

  “As if we would believe you anyway,” Charlotte said.

  A strained silence fell, broken only when Sam turned to Theodore Pickleman. “I have a question about the hunt.”

  “Anything I can answer, I will,” the lawyer assured her.

  “Father said the chest is buried within half a mile of the lodge. Is that correct?”

  “It is,” Pickleman verified.

  “I’m not much good at judging distances. How will I know when I’ve gone half a mile? I could end up going farther and waste a lot of time I could put to better use.”

  “Ah,” Pickleman said. “I forgot to tell you, didn’t I?”

  “Tell us what?”

  “Your father, as usual, thought of everything. Since he couldn’t very well have a fence built to mark the boundary, he stipulated the next best thing. Yesterday, servants rode out half a mile in every direction and marked trees and boulders and logs with red paint. Spot those and you’ll know to turn around.”

  Charles said, “You can’t have marked every tree and boulder. We could easily miss them.”

  “True,” Pickleman said. “As an added precaution, servants have been stationed at various points along the perimeter and will yell to any of you they see going past the half-mile mark.”

  Charles gave a sudden start and blurted, “I’ll be damned.”

  “What?” Pickleman asked.

  “Nothing,” Charles said. “I was thinking of poor Emmett, is all.”

  The lawyer consulted his pocket watch. “Five minutes. Any of you who want a last drink or bite to eat should get it quickly.”

  No one moved.

  “Very well. Remember, the hunt is to last twenty-four hours. Not a minute longer. If none of you have found the chest by six o’clock tomorrow morning, I’m to fire another shot and that will be the end of it.”

  “What if we keep looking and find the chest five minutes after six?” Charles asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. Six is the deadline. After that, the money and the holdings are to be administered by the executor and there is nothing you can do to stop it.”

  “One of us will find the damn thing long before that,” Tom predicted.

  “That could very well be,” Pickleman said. “In which case I will fire four shots in the air, one after the other, to signal to the rest that the chest has been discovered.”

  Roland stepped up to Samantha and held out his hand. “I wish you luck, sister.”

  Sam looked at his hand and then at his face. She shook. “The same to you. Be careful out there.”

  “Watch out for snakes and bears,” Roland cautioned. “Although with Fargo to help you, you should do fine.”

  “How touching,” Tom said.

  Roland turned. “I don’t blame you for being cynical. But I want you to know something. I want all of you to know that if I find the chest, I’m sharing the inheritance. Each and every one of you will get an equal amount, both in money and in property.”

  “Always the noble one,” Samantha said.

  Tom chortled. “Oh, please. Next you’ll have him walking on water.”

  “Must you be so cruel?”

  “Must you be so gullible? Our dear brother says he will share now, but who can predict what he’ll say if he’s the one who finds the damn chest? He might change his mind.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Roland said.

  “No, not someone so noble,” Tom mocked him.

  Her jaw twitching, Samantha went down the steps two at a stride, her dress swishing noisily.

  Tom saw her coming. “Yes, dear sister? What’s on your mind?”

  Sam smacked him. She hit him so hard, she rocked Tom on his heels. Shocked, he put a hand to his cheek. Cletus Brun swore and started to reach for her but Tom swatted his hand away.

  “Don’t you dare. She might be a fool and she might be deluded but she’s still my sister.”

  Sam had her arm poised to slap him again. “I won’t have you talk like that to Roland. Do you hear?”

  “Whatever you say,” Tom said sullenly.

  Theodore Pickleman announced, “Three minutes.” Then he reached under his jacket and produced a pistol.

  Fargo had been watching Samantha and didn’t realize Charlotte was next to him until she touched his elbow.

  “Have you thought over what we talked about?”

  “I told you. I’m working for your sister.”

  “You can work for both of us. She doesn’t have to know. If you find the chest, inform me, not her. You’ll leave here with enough money to keep you in whiskey and whores for a year.”

  “A bottle a night adds up,” Fargo said.

  Charlotte gripped his wrist. “I’m serious.”

  “I already gave you my answer.” Fargo pulled loose. “And if I see those two killers you hired, gun or no gun, it will be them or me.”

  “I didn’t hire anyone, damn you. Certainly not that oafish Anders and not the brother and sister you say are trying to kill us.”

  Fargo almost believed her, she sounded so sincere. “If you’re telling the truth you’d better keep one eye behind you or whoever did hire them will get to gloat over your corpse.”

  Charlotte gazed at her siblings and said fiercely, “It’s turned out exactly as Father wanted. Here we are, at one another’s throats, with no one believing a word anyone else says. He truly was a devil.”

  “Stay with your cousin at all times,” Fargo advised. “Don’t separate for any reason.”

  “What’s this? Concern for my safety? When you just branded me a liar?”

  “I could be wrong.”

  “You’re a fool like all the rest,” Charlotte said in disgust, and walked back to where Amanda was waiting.

  “Two minutes,” Pickleman said.

  “I feel like a racehorse at the starting gate,” Charles observed.

  Fargo went down the steps to Samantha. She had moved away from the others and stood with her head bowed. “Are you all right?”

  “I shouldn’t have done that, lost my temper the way I did. Smacking him was wrong.”

  “He’s a jackass.”

  “True,” Sam agreed. “But he’s also my brother and I care for him whether he believes I do or not.” She sadly shook her head. “Father must be laughing in his grave.”

  “Maybe it will turn out all right.”

  “Listen to yourself. You know it won’t. I have the feeling I’m setting eyes on some of them for the last time.” Sam groaned. “If only we could call it off.”

  “One minute,” the attorney hollered.

  “I’ll do what I can to protect you,” Fargo promised. Not that there was a whole hell of a lot he could do when all he had was a knife.

  “If it comes to that, protect the others, too. I’ll pay you extra. I never expected anything like this when I sent for you.”

  “It’s not the money,” Fargo said.

  “It is to us.”

  Theodore Pickleman pointed the pocket pistol at the sky and thumbed back the hammer. “The time has come, ladies and gentlemen. Let the inheritance hunt commence.”

  The shot was like the crack of doom.

  14

  The Missouri woods were thick and lush, the dense tangle of undergrowth nearly always in shadow. Fargo glided through it as silently as an Apache. He couldn’t say the same about Samantha Clyborn.

  Sam had bolted for the woods the instant the pistol went off. Charlotte had done the same, in a different direction, Amanda at her heels. Tom hurried into the trees to the north, urging Cletus Brun
to go faster. Charles jogged to the south. Only Roland walked.

  Fargo called out to Samantha to wait for him but she didn’t listen. He ran to catch up and did so only after she stopped to get her bearings. “You’re fast on your feet,” he complimented her.

  “I was a bit of a tomboy when I was little.” Sam cast about, her face twisted in puzzlement. “Which way, do you think?”

  Fargo shrugged. “One is as good as another.”

  “You’re a big help.” Samantha walked in a small circle, scratching her head. “There’s so much ground to cover, I don’t know where to begin.”

  “I didn’t know your father. You did. Try to think like him,” Fargo suggested. “Where would you bury the chest if you had done it?”

  “Impossible to say,” Samantha said. “No one thought like he did. That’s why I sent for you. You’re supposed to be the great frontiersman. How would you go about finding something if this were the mountains or the prairie?”

  Fargo pondered. To the east the ground was mostly flat woodland. To the north and west were hills. To the south a creek ran close to the hunting lodge. Landmarks were few. The terrain was essentially the same—forest and more forest.

  Sam impatiently tapped her foot. “I’m waiting for an idea.”

  “I don’t have one.”

  Shaking her head in annoyance, Sam said, “I repeat. You’re a big help. There must be something we can look for.”

  “A mound of dirt where your father buried it,” was the only thing Fargo could come up with at the moment.

  “All the chest contains is a page from the will so it need not be that big. Still, a pile of dirt should stand out.”

  “Unless it’s under a bush.”

  They began the search in earnest. Samantha suggested they separate to cover more ground and Fargo reminded her of the assassins.

  “Damn them to hell, anyway. Whoever hired them should be hung.”

  Fargo put his hand on his hip where his Colt would ordinarily be, and frowned. He didn’t like not having a gun. He didn’t like it at all. He was about to bend and draw the toothpick from the ankle sheath and slide it under his belt when the undergrowth behind them crackled. He whirled just as the last person he expected stepped toward them.

  “Theodore!” Sam exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

  The attorney had a canteen slung over his arm and was carrying a valise.

  “Didn’t I mention I am the official judge? I must make sure everyone abides by the rules. I’ll be roving about constantly the entire twenty-four hours.”

  “You’ll be as worn out as the rest of us by the time this is done.”

  Pickleman set down the valise. “Not that I want to, mind you. It’s yet another of your father’s stipulations.” He mopped his brow. “I suspect it’s your father’s way of needling me. He knew I am not much for physical exercise.”

  “It sounds like something Father would do, yes,” Sam agreed.

  “How big is the chest?” Fargo asked.

  “I couldn’t say,” the attorney said. “I never saw it. He buried it before he came to me about revising the will.”

  “I wish he provided clues,” Sam said wistfully.

  “I would imagine,” the lawyer said. “I tried to get more information out of him but all he did was smile and make that silly remark about whoever found it not having cause to weep.”

  “An understatement,” Sam said.

  “Yes, well.” Pickleman picked up the valise. “I’m sorry but I must keep on the move. Good luck to you, Samantha. I have always liked you and I know you will treat your brothers and your sister more fairly than some of them would treat you.”

  “Thank you, Theodore.”

  Pickleman smiled and nodded and the vegetation swallowed him.

  “A dedicated little man,” Sam said. “He takes his responsibilities seriously and always performs them to the best of his ability.”

  Father was thinking about the chest. “Did your father get out in these woods much?”

  “Hardly ever. He was too busy conducting business day in and day out. He brought a few clients out to the lodge from time to time and once and once only he went hunting with Roland, but that was about the extent of it.” Sam paused. “Why did you ask?”

  “If he didn’t know these woods well,” Fargo mused, “then odds are he didn’t have a spot picked out ahead of time.”

  “So?”

  “So he probably buried the chest at the first likely spot he came to.”

  “Likely how? Clear? Soft? Easy to remember?” Sam shook her head. “That’s not much help.”

  Fargo was tired of being criticized. He felt he was onto something but exactly how it could help them eluded him. “Let’s keep looking.”

  “Didn’t I hear that you guide wagon trains from time to time? They must be in awe of your wood lore.”

  “Keep it up.”

  “I’m counting on you,” Sam said with passion. “More than you can ever possibly realize.”

  “I’ll do the best I can.”

  “Do better.”

  They resumed the hunt, Sam quiet and tense. As the minutes crawled into an hour and the hour into an hour and a half it became obvious, as Sam put it, that, “It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  “We have twenty-four hours.”

  “For once my father was being generous. Or was he? He would like for us to experience twenty-four hours of sheer torture.”

  “Nice gent, your pa.”

  “No,” Sam said sadly. “He was mean and cruel. To us, at any rate. I never did understand how he could blame us for Mother’s death. It was an act of God.”

  “God does that a lot,” Fargo said.

  “Does what?”

  “Kills people.”

  Sam chuckled. “What a strange thing to say. I doubt Father even believed. Mother died in a lot of pain, and I remember Father saying that any God who would let her suffer was either a lunatic or make-believe.”

  They poked into thickets. They checked behind boulders and around logs. They searched every shadowed nook. All with the same result.

  They came to a rise and Samantha plopped down, her chin sinking to her chest. “I’m tired already. How about you?”

  Fargo could go all day if he had to but he sat beside her and said, “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “So much is at stake.” Sam plucked at the grass. “I’ll never forgive Father for this. He couldn’t divide up the inheritance and leave it at that. He had to turn it into a circus.”

  “Enough about the bastard.”

  Sam stopped plucking and leaned back. “I guess I do tend to go on about him. But you can’t blame me under the circumstances.”

  Fargo scanned the forest: a mix of maple, oak and hickory. He was about to suggest they push on when he heard a faint cry to the south.

  “Did you hear that?”

  Nodding, Fargo stood. He listened but the seconds crawled by and the cry wasn’t repeated.

  “Did it sound like a call for help?”

  Fargo couldn’t say. It might have been. It might not. “Who else uses these woods besides your family?”

  “Hardly a soul. Most people know this is private property.” Sam moved to the end of the rise. “We should go have a look.”

  Fargo led. In over a hundred yards came out of the vegetation on the grassy bank of the creek. Here and there cottonwoods sprinkled the waterway, along with a few willows. “This have a name?”

  “Clyborn Creek. My father named it after our family. It’s a tributary of Bear Creek.”

  Fargo followed the bank west. The going was easier and they covered a lot of distance without seeing or hearing anyone.

  “That water sure looks inviting.”

  Fargo agreed. He stepped to the edge of a knee-deep pool, cupped his hand, and dipped it in.

  “I used to play in this creek when I was a girl.” Samantha knelt beside him. “At least we don’t have to worry about going thi
rsty.”

  Fargo sipped. Now all they had to do was find something so they wouldn’t go hungry. He went to dip his hand in again when from out of the undergrowth came a low moan.

  “Someone is hurt,” Sam whispered.

  Reaching up under his pant leg, Fargo palmed the Arkansas toothpick. On cat’s feet he crept toward a patch of briars.

  Samantha stayed at his side.

  Fargo hoped the moan would be repeated but all he heard was the breeze rustling the trees. He circled along the thorns and went only a few steps when he saw part of a leg and a man’s shoe poking out. From the way the grass was flattened and the briars broken and bent, it appeared the man had been heaved into them.

  “Who is it?” Sam whispered, aghast.

  Careful of the thorns, Fargo parted the branches. When he saw who it was, he quickly slid the toothpick under his belt, gripped the man’s ankles, and pulled him out.

  “Oh God!” Sam exclaimed, her hand flying to her throat. “Charles!”

  Someone had got at her brother with a knife. His face had been slashed, his throat sliced, his sleeves cut to ribbons where he had used his arms to try to ward off the weapon. He had also been stabbed in the chest and the belly.

  “Charles! Charles!” Sam threw herself down beside him. She touched his face and his chest and stared in horror at the blood on her hands. “Who would do such a thing?”

  Fargo had a good idea. He felt for a pulse. There was one but it was weak and erratic. It didn’t take a sawbones to know that Charles Clyborn wasn’t long for this world.

  “We must do something,” Sam urged. “Run to the lodge and have them send for Dr. Williams in Hannibal. Hurry before it’s too late.”

  “It already is.”

  “What? No, no, you’re mistaken.” Tears welled in Sam’s eyes. She bent and gently touched his cheek. “Charles? Charles? Can you hear me? It’s Samantha.”

  To Fargo’s surprise, Charles’s eyelids fluttered and opened. “Sam?” he croaked.