by Jon Sharpe
But as she started away her foot found a hole and threw her into the bushes. The noise alerted the man with the gun. He came for her. He slapped her over and over again until her knees buckled and he had to drag her to her cabin.
“I’m going to take care of some business here, Helen. It’s business that don’t concern you. And it’s business you’d damned well better keep to yourself or I’ll kill you. You understand me, Helen? I’ll kill you and I’ll get away with it, too. And you know I will.”
The funny thing was he didn’t even sound angry when he said all this. He was just stating a fact.
“Now you just sit here and I’ll do it quick and get it over with. And you stay away from that spot by those trees down by the creek. No need for you to see what I done. You understand, Helen?”
“Yes.”
“Somebody’ll come by soon enough and find him. And they’ll come and ask you if you know anything about it and you know what to say. You understand, Helen?”
“Yes.”
“You tell them you don’t know anything about it.”
“No.”
“Because if you did tell them anything, I’d have to kill you. And I think you know me well enough that I wouldn’t want to do that. You know me that well, don’t you, Helen?”
“Yes, I do, Pete.”
And then sitting there when he went away. And five minutes later the explosion of three gunshots. And then a terrible mountain silence.
And now, three days later, nervous every time she heard a horse on the trail that angled by her land.
By the time she could see the rider, she had her rifle up and aimed and ready to fire.
Fargo his name was. The man on the big Ovaro stallion. The man with those striking lake blue eyes. A good man, she’d sensed the other day, but a man who asked too many questions. A man who could get her in trouble. He was golden in the moonlight, a creature of myth as in some of the books she’d read as a little girl.
She shouted, “You better stop right there!”
This was pretty much the same situation Fargo had faced when he’d first laid eyes on Helen Hardesty. The harsh shout. The belligerent face. The rifle.
She whistled. From the shadows next to the house the wolfhound came running, lean and purposeful. He stood next to her. “He’ll kill you if I tell him to.”
“I don’t have much time, Helen.” He walked toward her.
“You stop right there.”
“There could be a lynching in town tonight. An innocent man could die unless you tell me who you saw murder the Byrnes boy.”
“Who said I saw anything?”
“The way you’re acting, Helen. You’re hiding something. Something you’re scared about. My guess is that the killer has threatened you. And you don’t scare easy. So that means he must have some kind of power. He thinks—and you think—that he can kill you and get away with it.”
The night winds soughed in the trees and filled the air with the scent of pine and the snow that had fallen on the lower parts of the mountains. A good night for sleeping in a warm bed. Sounded pretty good to Fargo.
“Who’s the man they’re going to lynch?”
“Ned Lenihan.”
“Ned Lenihan!” she said. “Why, he’s one of the most decent people I’ve ever known. He’s a good man. He was friends with both of my husbands.”
“Well, there’s some evidence against him so I had to bring him in. Now I’m wondering if I should have.”
He moved closer to her. A deep growl sounded in the wolfhound’s throat but it remained still.
“Three men are dead, Helen. Their families deserve some answers.”
“Well, I’m sorry for the families, Fargo. But I don’t have no answers to give.”
An owl flew downwind, elegant against the moonlight sky.
“Maybe you’re trusting the wrong people, Helen.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Maybe you’re scared to tell the truth because somebody threatened you.”
“You’re wrong there, Fargo. I’m not scared of nobody. I didn’t know that body was anywhere near here.”
“Look, Helen, you’ve lived out West a long time—maybe all your life. You know how animals respond to something like a human body. You’ve got a dog and cats and you probably get around your land pretty much every day. Kind of hard to believe that Clete Byrnes could have laid out there without you knowing anything about it. Unless you stayed inside your house for a couple days.”
The rifle lowered a few inches. “I don’t have many years left. I want to die peaceful. Enjoying myself. I don’t think that’s asking a lot.” Outlined in the silver light of the half-moon she looked small and bent. Her usual vigor was gone.
“I don’t think you want to die knowing that Ned Lenihan was sentenced for three killings he didn’t commit. That wouldn’t make for a very peaceful life. You’re too good a woman to live with something like that hanging over you.”
“How about the threat of death hanging over me?”
“I can take care of whoever’s threatening you, Helen. Take care of him once and for all.”
The sigh indicated that she was shifting toward telling him. He had kept his voice gentle, reasonable. “Whoever he is, Helen, he’s going to kill you one way or another. He has to. You’re the one person he fears. The one person who can tell the truth about him. Maybe he won’t kill you right away but he will kill you. That you can bet on.”
She was silent a moment. He could see her eyes watching him, wondering about him. She’d want to know if he really would protect her, if he really could protect her. He didn’t blame her. A woman her age and all alone, she was especially vulnerable.
He would never know if she had made up her mind to confide in him or not. The rifle shots cracked in the darkness. Before he could push her to the ground and out of the path of the bullets, he saw her forehead split open like a chasm. She wobbled backward on her feet and then fell forward into Fargo’s arms. He grabbed her and held her as he flung them both to the ground, rolling, constantly rolling, as the continued shots tried to pick them off. The gunman was in a stand of jack pines.
“Dammit, Sam. You missed Fargo.”
Kenny and Sam Raines. The slimiest bastards in Cawthorne.
There was nothing he could do for Helen now so he eased his arms from her, sensing that her life force had already left her body. He wanted to be more reverent with her but there was no time. There were two men he was going to kill.
Amy Peters forced her way to the front of the crowd that had gathered outside the sheriff’s office. To her the sight was as lurid as the illustrations in cheap magazines. Around thirty drunken men, some of them holding torches, shouting for Tom Cain to let them have Ned Lenihan for a hanging. The stink of kerosene was on the air as the torch flames whipped in the wind. The faces of the men were cold and grotesque from their anger. Several of them held pint bottles of rotgut whiskey in their hands. A few waved pistols. Cain had drawn the curtains and had made no appearance. To Amy this meant he was expecting the worst and was hunkering down. She was afraid that he’d give in to them. He’d pretend that he didn’t have any choice but would secretly be happy to see them drag Ned out of his cell and push him down the street to where the old hanging tree sat behind the general store.
She shouted, “Listen to me! Listen to me!”
Her words made them only more belligerent. They shouted back, “Get out of here, Amy, unless you want to get hurt!” “You know he’s a killer but you just won’t admit it!” “He deserves to die and you’re not gonna stop us!”
One drunkard even rushed for her but a larger man grabbed him by the collar of his denim jacket and pulled him back.
Amy stood in a flat-brimmed black hat, a sheepskin, a red sweater and jeans. To show that she was serious, a Colt dangled from the fingers of her left hand. Only now were a few of them beginning to notice her gun. She decided to let the others know in a dramatic way. She angled the gun so th
at the bullet would pass safely over their heads. And then she fired.
They stopped shouting. Drunken ears rang with the sound of the gunshot. Drunken eyes narrowed, fixed on the pretty woman standing in front of the sheriff’s door.
“I want you to listen to this. Sheriff Cain himself asked Skye Fargo to look into the killings. Fargo found enough evidence to arrest Ned. But Fargo is the first to admit that most of the evidence seems shady. As if somebody had set Ned up. And if you don’t believe me you can ask Fargo.”
“Fargo don’t live here!” a man bellered, his Stetson painted a reddish-gold from the torch he held. “And he ain’t got no right to decide what happens in this town!”
The rumble went through the crowd again, animals making threatening noises to their perceived enemy, the woman who was defending the man they wanted to lynch.
“You men need to wait until you’re sober! You don’t want to do anything you’ll regret!”
“Who said we’ll regret it?” a man shouted.
And the crowd laughed.
Amy wanted to empty her gun into them. Stupid, drunken animals, all of them.
The door opened behind her. She turned to see Tom Cain, a sawed-off shotgun in one hand, step out onto the plank walk and stand next to her.
“We want you to let us have him, Cain!”
“And right now! Right damn now!”
“He’s the killer and you know it!”
Cain said, “Amy’s right. We don’t want any lynching here. This is a law-and-order town. And I mean to keep it that way.”
Amy was surprised by how confident and certain he sounded. There was a real threat in his voice. But then he turned to her and even before he spoke his face parted into a grin, his sneering grin, and he said, “Of course I can’t hold these boys off forever. They get ten more out here I’ll have to turn him over. I’m not going to sacrifice my men for the sake of Lenihan.”
He’d said it loudly enough for everybody to hear.
A boisterous cheer went up. They’d have their hanging soon enough.
15
The Raines boys were having trouble finding Fargo now. He’d rolled out of the direct line of fire, forcing Sam to shift positions in order to find him in the darkness. Sam kept reloading and firing. Fargo didn’t return fire. They were out of range of his Colt. He swung wide. His intent was to surprise them. They were so intent on killing him that they’d kept searching the shadows for him, staying in the same location the whole time.
Their horses were ground-tied on the downslope of the hill the Raines boys were using. He decided to use the horses as a way of luring the two out of their sanctuary.
He crept up to the animals, his Colt at the ready, tied the reins and looped them over the saddle horns. “Git,” he ordered, swatting both horses on their rumps. The horses whinnied and trotted off.
In the vast mountain silence, in the moonlight-limned gloom of the trees where the duo was hiding, a shout went up, “What the hell spooked our horses?”
By this time Fargo had edged up the hill and tucked himself inside the line of jack pines. They wouldn’t know where he was until it was too late. He got within range of them and let them start down the hill. When their backs were to him, he said, “Drop your rifle right now, Sam, or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
He had to give them some time to realize that they’d walked into a trap. They froze in place. Fargo imagined they were considering their chances. There were two of them.
They could pitch their bodies in different directions and Fargo might have a hard time finding them with his gun. And maybe they’d get lucky. Maybe one or both of them could kill Fargo before he killed either one of them.
“What’re you gonna do to us?” Sam Raines said.
“Put your rifle down real slow, Sam. Set it on the ground. And then both of you empty your holsters the same way.”
Obviously Kenny hadn’t been able to manipulate a rifle with his left hand but that wouldn’t stop him from using a six-shooter.
“I didn’t mean to shoot that old woman. I was aiming for you, Fargo.”
“Shut up, Sam. You make me sick when you whine.”
“Well, it’s true.”
“Put the rifle down now. And the guns right after. Real slow.”
“You gonna kill us?” Sam Raines said.
“I’d like to but if you give yourselves up I’ll just take you in.”
“Now!” Kenny Raines shouted.
He was quicker and more agile than Fargo would have given him credit for. Kenny Raines dove to his left, dragging his six-shooter out at the same time. Before he even reached the ground he’d squeezed off two shots, both of them burning close to Fargo’s head. The blazing red-yellow flame of the explosions seemed to linger on the shadows.
Fargo took to the ground himself. He slammed his head down as two more bullets blazed past his flattened body. Kenny Raines was a resourceful gunfighter. No doubt about that.
But then he made his mistake. Fargo read it instinctively. Down to two bullets, Kenny Raines had to take a real chance now. He had to raise himself up very quickly to get a better angle at Fargo. He had to bet he could get his shots off before Fargo got his.
He lost the bet. Fargo pumped three bullets into the man’s chest. Kenny screamed as the bullets tore into him. His entire body danced before he settled onto the ground. Fargo was pretty sure he’d heard the word “Mama!” cried as the gunfighter was dying.
Sam Raines stood near his brother with his arms raised above his head. “I don’t want to die, Fargo. I’m sorry I killed that old woman.”
“Walk over here and keep your hands up. I’m going to tie you up and send somebody back here for you. And the way I’ll tie you up there won’t be any way you can escape. Believe me. Now move.”
Sam Raines began walking toward Fargo. He’d gone four steps exactly when Fargo saw what was taking place behind Sam. “You coward!” Kenny Raines called out. He had only the strength to raise the gun he’d somehow managed to hold on to and then pull the trigger twice, exploding his brother’s head into chunks. He tried to take aim at Fargo but the Trailsman was way ahead of him. He did the same thing to Kenny that Kenny had done to Sam. This time the exploding pieces of bone and brain weren’t quite as spectacular.
But you couldn’t have everything.
16
Fargo could hear the mob before he saw it.
Human roars ebbed and flowed as he approached the hill that overlooked Cawthorne. Shouts and screams, even a few gunshots punctuated what should have been bedtime silence. Disturbing as the sounds were, they signified that Lenihan probably hadn’t been dragged out of his prison cell as yet. They were likely still trying to get inside the sheriff’s office.
As soon as he reached the top of the hill, he saw that he was right. The area around the sheriff’s office was crowded with bodies, torches, rifles. He could almost smell the alcohol from here. A dangerous situation that liquor would keep making more dangerous.
The plank walk in front of Cain’s office was empty. Cain and Rule and the two night deputies would be inside, their shotguns ready. One question was how long they could hold out. The other question was did Cain really want to hold out? Even if he knew that Amy would never go with him, he probably wouldn’t mind seeing Lenihan hang. After all, Ned had done the unthinkable—at least in Cain’s mind—Lenihan had humiliated him.
Fargo knew better than to ride down the main street with Helen Hardesty’s blanket-wrapped body over the back of his horse. That would only incite more rage. She had died without telling him who she’d seen kill Clete Byrnes. He doubted it was the Raines brothers. They’d come to Helen’s to kill him, not Helen. And given what he’d learned about them it was unlikely that the three robbers would ever have gotten involved with them. The boys had been wild but not stupid.
And the Raines boys, for all their bravado, had not been blessed with brains.
He swung wide so that he would come in behind the main street. Ther
e were a few large barns that functioned as warehouses and a handful of shacklike homes strewn out across the dusty flatland. He could reach the back door of the sheriff’s office without being seen. If there were some mob members back there he’d have to deal with them any way he could.
The shouts and screams were hellish as he made his way past the warehouses and approached the sheriff’s office. The flames from the torches burnished the night sky with a lurid gold-red color.
He was happy to see that nobody lurked behind Cain’s office. The entertainment—and that was part of any lynching—was out front. If Cain was any kind of a lawman, and he was, he’d have somebody stationed at the back door with a sawed-off. There’d be hell to pay for anybody who tried to break in.
Fargo dropped from the saddle, ground-tied his Ovaro and hurried to the back door. He pounded on the door and shouted, “It’s Fargo! Let me in!” He didn’t have to worry about yelling too loud. The crowd voices easily covered his own.
It took three tries before he heard the heavy wooden bar being lifted from the door. A deputy with a white ten-gallon hat and a cigar butt jammed into the corner of his mouth kept his sawed-off trained on Fargo. The deputy stepped to the threshold, gaped around and then stood back to let Fargo inside.
“They’ll be making their move any time now,” the deputy said. “My name’s Hal Parsons by the way. I’ve heard a lot about you.” He nodded to the front of the place. “They’re all up front. I’m stationed here.”
“Don’t trust Parsons, Fargo,” Ned Lenihan said, his hands gripping the bars of his cell. “He’s one of Cain’s gunnies. I heard them talking earlier. They’re going to turn me over to the mob, Fargo. You’ve got to help me.”
“You’re lucky I don’t come in there and kill you myself, Lenihan,” Parsons snapped. He was tall, a powerful man starting to show middle age.
“You sure you’re a deputy?” Fargo said.
Parsons smirked. “Friend of his, are you, Fargo?”
