by Jon Sharpe
“You sure as hell did.”
“I’ve never . . .” Gretchen let the revolver drop, and shuddered. “Oh, God. What have I done?”
Fargo stood and enfolded her in his arms. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You did it to save my hide.”
“I saw the gun and I wasn’t thinking and I grabbed it. . . .” Gretchen sobbed. “I don’t know how much more of this I can stand.”
“You’re doing fine.”
“There’s no one to trust. James plans to deceive Mr. Moon and Mr. Moon plans to deceive him. And what was that business about Esther?”
“You can trust me,” Fargo said.
Gretchen raised her face to his. “I sensed that from the very beginning. There’s something about you.”
“Do you still want to go back?”
“Now more than ever. I have to know. I have to talk to her myself and hear her with my own ears.”
“You won’t like what you hear,” Fargo predicted.
“I dare say I won’t. But I won’t believe it if I don’t. I owe her that much. You see that, don’t you?”
“I take it you don’t want to wait until daybreak?”
“I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you.”
Fargo held the Ovaro to a walk. Gretchen sat straight and didn’t utter a word the entire ride. He reined off the road when Kill Creek came into sight and went a few yards in among the trees before drawing rein. “We go on foot from here.”
Gretchen slid off. “In case I don’t have the chance later, I want to thank you for doing this for me.”
Fargo pulled the Henry from the scabbard. He levered a round into the chamber, cradled the rifle in his arms, and said, “I told you before. I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for me.”
“You want to pay them back. Yes, I remember.” Gretchen put her hand on the Henry’s barrel. “Wait a minute. Surely you don’t intend to march in there and shoot them all dead.”
“No,” Fargo said. “I aim to sneak in and shoot them all dead. Except maybe for one.” He was thinking of Serilda.
“Does that include Esther and the redhead? What was her name again? Maxine?”
“They’re on the list.” Fargo turned to go but she gripped his sleeve.
“Hold on. That would be murder.”
“No. That would be stopping them from murdering us.”
“But don’t you see? If you shoot them, you’re no better than they are.”
“I never claimed I was.” Fargo went to go but she stepped in front of him, blocking his way.
“Please.”
“Don’t do this. Damn it.”
“Do what you want with Moon and James and the others but don’t harm Esther.”
Fargo stared at her.
“As a personal favor. I want to deal with her.”
“She’ll stab you in the back.”
Gretchen refused to give up. “If she does it’s on my shoulders. So will you or won’t you?”
Fargo sighed. “I won’t make any promises. But if you want her, she’s yours so long as she doesn’t come after me before you get to her.”
“Thank you.” Gretchen gazed toward Kill Creek. No light glowed in any of the buildings. “How can people do this to one another?” she sadly asked. “Killing is wrong. It’s evil.”
“Tell that to the Almighty.”
“Excuse me?”
“I was on a stage once with a parson. It rained, and after the rain stopped there was a rainbow. The parson went on and on about how it was a sign from God. How God once drowned every last person on the face of the Earth except for Noah and his family, and the rainbow was God’s promise that God wouldn’t ever do it again.”
“I’ve read that, yes. A wonderful tale.”
“Except for all those people God drowned. I asked the parson how many it was and he said he didn’t rightly know. Maybe hundreds of thousands. Maybe millions.”
“What’s your point?”
“You say it’s wrong to kill. Yet the Almighty is the biggest killer of them all.”
Gretchen smiled. “You’re forgetting. One of the Ten Commandments is that we should never, ever kill.”
“And who gave us those Commandments?”
“God did, through Moses.”
“The same God who drowned all those millions?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“No buts about it. If killing is good enough for God, it’s good enough for me.”
“You trouble me at times.”
“Let’s get this over with.” Fargo walked around her. The wind had died and the night was still.
His elbow acquired a shapely shadow. “When this is over I’d like to talk to you some more.”
“When this is over the last thing I’ll want to do is talk. Now hush. There are still two of those dogs left and they have good ears.”
Fargo slowed as he neared the stable. He wasn’t going to be taken by surprise again if he could help it. Sidling along the wall to the double doors, he peered in.
Gretchen was behind him. In the dark she misjudged and bumped his arm.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“If I asked you to wait in the stage until I say it’s safe, would you?”
“You can’t get rid of me. Sorry.”
The saloon was next. Fargo didn’t go in; it appeared to be empty. He moved on.
“Where is everyone?”
Fargo was wondering the same thing. He passed the general store and a house and suddenly Gretchen grabbed the back of his shirt.
“What’s that?”
Ahead, a four-legged form stood in the middle of the street. A form that was all too familiar.
“One of the dogs.”
“Look behind us,” Gretchen said.
Fargo did. The other mastiff was in front of the saloon.
“What will they do?”
“Die.” Fargo raised the Henry but he didn’t shoot. Not yet. It was too dark to be sure he would bring them down. He might wound them and a wounded animal was twice as dangerous.
“What are you waiting for?”
“For them to come closer.”
“Is that smart? That dog in the woods got close and it almost killed you. Shoot now while you can.”
“When they rush us, run into that house.” Fargo pointed. “Slam the door and find a place to hide.”
“Maybe we’re fretting over nothing. Maybe they won’t attack.”
As if they had heard, both mastiffs started toward them.
18
Fargo sighted on the dog coming from the direction of the stable. He took a deep breath and held it to steady his aim. The dog was in a crouch and gave out a menacing growl.
“Skye,” Gretchen said anxiously. She had her revolver pointed at the other one.
“Let them get closer,” Fargo advised. “So close, we can’t miss.”
A sharp whistle pierced the air, seeming to come from everywhere at once, and instantly the two dogs whirled and ran between buildings. Within moments they loped out of sight.
“Thank goodness,” Gretchen said. “The teeth on those things. They could rip us to pieces.”
Fargo suspected that Maxine was watching them and had called off her darlings to spare them from taking lead. But she was well hid.
“Where could everyone have gone? You don’t suppose that awful Bromley has killed all of them, do you?”
“Not likely.”
“Should we go down into the tunnels and look for them?”
“Not if we can help it.” Fargo had been lucky to escape the tunnels alive the first time. He wasn’t eager to tempt fate again.
“What then?”
“We do as I wanted to do in the first place. We wait until daylight.” Fargo moved across the street toward the bluffs but only went a dozen feet and stopped. “Right here will do.”
“Out in the open like this?”
Fargo faced the buildings and sank down cross-legged. “No one can get at us without me s
eeing.” Especially not the dogs.
“But the wind. It will get quite chilly before the night is done. I’d rather we were in the dress shop.”
“The same dress shop Esther was taken from?”
Reluctantly, Gretchen folded her legs under her and glumly placed her elbows on her legs and her chin in her hand. “I won’t be able to stay awake all night. I’m exhausted.”
“You don’t have to. I will.” Fargo patted his lap. “Here’s your pillow when you’re ready to sleep.”
“My noble protector,” Gretchen said, and grinned.
“Noble, hell.”
“Do you mind if we talk?”
“About what?” Fargo asked while scanning the shadowed nooks and crannies. He could practically feel unseen eyes on them.
“About you. About why you say you don’t ever want to settle down. About what it would take to change your mind.”
“Pick something else.”
“You’re prickly about your feelings. Or is it that you’re afraid to admit you need someone to love as much as the next person?”
God spare him from women who believed they had all the answers, Fargo reflected. He decided to set her straight. “That’s just it. I don’t. I’m content with my life as it is.”
“Oh, come on. Endless wandering can’t compare to having a loving companion to warm your bed at night.”
“I meet plenty of bed warmers. Most I like. But love hardly ever enters into it.”
“Wait. Did I understand you correctly? You would go to bed with a woman you didn’t like?”
“If a female wants to part her legs for me, I’m more than willing to oblige her.”
“Is that all we are to you? Don’t you feel guilty afterward?”
“Why should I? It’s not like I rape them. I never bed a woman who doesn’t want me to bed her.”
“How gallant of you,” Gretchen said wryly. “So where do I stand in your scheme of things? Did you do it with me because you like me or because I happened to be handy?”
“You chatter like a chipmunk, but other than that, you’re a right fine lady,” Fargo hedged.
“Thank you. I think.” She fell silent.
Fargo could feel the wind on his skin through the rips and tears in his buckskins. He had a spare shirt and pants in his saddlebags but he wouldn’t change until this was over with.
After a while Gretchen yawned and said sleepily, “I think I’ll take you up on that offer of your lap.”
Fargo shifted and held his arms up. She curled on her side and placed her cheek on his thigh and smiled up at him.
“You’re a decent man at heart. Do you know that?”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m serious. You act all tough but here you are safeguarding someone who by your own admission doesn’t mean much more to you than a toss in the hay.”
“You keep forgetting I owe them.”
“Ah. You want me to think you’re out for revenge and nothing else. All right. I’ll play along.”
Fargo sighed. It had been his experience that most people would think what they wanted to think, even when what they were thinking was dead wrong. They went through life with blinders on and nothing anyone could say or do would make them take the blinders off.
“I heard that. You’re a typical man.”
“Never claimed to be anything else.” Fargo caught a hint of motion in a window. No face appeared, though.
Gretchen closed her eyes and placed her hand under her cheek and the other on her leg. “This is more comfortable than I expected. You have a nice lap.”
“Women say the damnedest things.”
“Wake me if the dogs show up. I’ll cover your back so they can’t jump you from behind.”
Fargo stroked her hair. That one comment made up for much of her silliness. “Sleep, wench.”
“Yes, sir.” Gretchen giggled. “I’m afraid you have spoiled me, though. When I get back to civilization, I’ll be much more selective.”
“What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“Men. Refined gentlemen like James and Roy can’t hold a candle to you. They’re like infants who were never weaned. You, on the other hand, are strong and forceful and confident. Everything a woman looks for.”
“Do me a favor and shut up. You keep making more of me than there is. I do what I have to and that’s all.”
“Some men don’t even do that.”
Fargo was glad when she didn’t say more. Soon her regular breathing told him she had finally fallen asleep. He settled down for a long night. The minutes became snails. It didn’t help that he had to constantly stay alert. A lapse could prove fatal.
At one point Fargo swore he heard the patter of running feet but they stopped and he didn’t hear them again. Toward the middle of the night a howl wavered eerily from under the ground.
Fargo’s eyelids became heavy with fatigue. He had been through a lot since he arrived in Kill Creek and had little chance to rest. Along about four in the morning, he was so weary his chin kept dipping and his eyelids kept drooping.
Each time he shook his head and stretched and willed himself to stay awake.
His chin dipped yet again and his eyes closed and Fargo told himself to open them. The next he knew, a gust of chill wind gave him a start. He jerked his head up and looked around, appalled he had dozed off. By the positions of the stars, he hadn’t slept long but it was a mistake he dared not repeat.
“Damn me,” Fargo grumbled under his breath so as not to awaken Gretchen.
He gave his head a vigorous toss and his gaze happened to alight on the roof of the general store. Someone was up there, watching them. The huge bulk left no doubt who. Fargo started to bring up the Henry but the moment he moved, the shape vanished.
It made Fargo’s skin crawl to think that Bromley could have snuck up on him while he slept and bashed his brains out as the madman had bashed out Shorty’s. He had no trouble staying awake from then on. Gradually the sky to the east lightened and a golden bank framed the horizon. Off in the forest the birds welcomed the approaching dawn with chirps and warbles and twitters.
Gretchen stirred and rolled onto her back. Her eyes opened and she glanced about in confusion then saw his face and smiled. “I was having the most pleasant dream. You were being very naughty.”
“Tell me about it when this is over.” Fargo would see to it her dream came true.
Sitting up, Gretchen fussed with her bonnet and then looked down at her dress and frowned. “I’m a mess. I need a bath. I need to wash my hair. I need to change into different clothes. Let’s go to the millinery, can we?”
Fargo had no objection. “As soon as the sun is up.”
“It’s light enough to see now.”
“Sunup,” Fargo repeated.
“I do wish—” Gretchen began, and stopped, her eyes widening in surprise at something she saw past him.
Fargo twisted and raised the Henry but lowered it again. “You.”
“Me,” Serilda echoed. She had on the same clothes as before and her revolver was tucked at her waist. She came up and said, “Leave Kill Creek right this minute.”
“Where’s your pa?” Fargo asked.
“I don’t rightly know. He moves around a lot. He’d be mad as hell if he knew I was here. Now please. For the last time. Go while you still can.”
Gretchen had recovered from her surprise. “I’m not going anywhere without my friend Esther. Where is she? What have you done to her?”
“Me, nothing,” Serilda said. “I’m not out to hurt anyone. It’s best you forget about her and just go.”
Fargo said, “It’s too late for that even if we wanted to.”
“For your own good. It’s not just my pa you have to worry about. My sister is mad as hell about you killing one of her dogs. . . .”
“Two,” Fargo amended.
“Oh God. Now she’ll want you dead even more. Unless you’re hankering to be torn apart, you’d best light a shuck.”
>
“You haven’t told us about my friend Esther,” Gretchen said.
“It’s too late for her and for those fellas she was with. They snuck down into the tunnels last night, playing right into his hands.”
“Your father’s?”
“Moon’s.”
“They’re all underground?” Fargo said.
Serilda nodded. “I don’t know if you know it but Moon and my sister are stuck on one another. What she sees in him I can’t imagine but about a year ago he strayed into Kill Creek and she took a fancy to him. It’s why he brought those city folks here. To dispose of after he gets the money.”
“So we’ve heard,” Gretchen said. “And you had no hand in any of this?”
“If I did, do you think I’d bother warning you off? I can’t stand Moon but what I think doesn’t count for a hill of beans with Maxine. She does as she pleases. It’s that wild streak of hers.”
“Where’s Esther?”
“I told you. She went down under. Moon talked them into it. Now they’re in a pit and Moon and my sis are making cows’ eyes.”
Fargo thought to ask, “Conklin?”
“He’s down there, too. Keeps looking at me like I’m a slab of beef and he’s starved. But he knows I’ll shoot him if he so much as lays a finger on me.”
“I talked to your pa last night,” Fargo said, which was one way of putting it. “He accused me of being after his treasure.”
“He accuses everybody of the same. He murdered a priest once, a kindly old man who couldn’t have cared less about the mine.”
“He’s loco, you know. I saw his treasure. It’s fool’s gold.”
A haunted look came into Serilda’s eyes. “It was the accident. He was never the same after that beam fell on him. Before, he was a good enough pa. He treated us kindly and we never starved although we hardly ever had more than five dollars in our poke. His big dream was to strike it rich. He dragged us from one gold strike to the next but he could never find any for himself. Then we came here and our world went to hell.”
“Why didn’t you leave Kill Creek when everyone else did?” Gretchen asked.
“Pa refused. He was sure the gold hadn’t played out and he’d find a new vein that would make us rich. We’d almost got him convinced when a tunnel caved in. It took us months to nurse him back to health. Wasn’t long after that he found his treasure. Maxine and me didn’t have the heart to tell him it was fool’s gold. I doubt he’d believe us anyway.” Serilda put a hand over her eyes. “It’s been a living nightmare.”
