Texas Tornado Read online

  Advancing, Fargo groped as he went. He found a few more wet spots.

  The alley ended at the next street.

  Clear in the starlight were glistening fresh drops on the plank walk.

  Alice Thorn was bleeding.

  Mako had hit her.

  Fargo followed the drops. Twice he came on smudge marks where she’d stopped and turned to look back. She’d gone two blocks, crossed the street, and ducked into another alley.

  Fargo risked a look-see. He saw nothing, heard nothing.

  In his haste to catch up to her, he did something he shouldn’t have done: he entered the alley without keeping low.

  Almost immediately fireflies flared at the far end and leaden hornets sought to sting him. Fargo flattened, felt his hat whipped from his head, and answered twice with his Colt.

  The shooting stopped.

  Fargo stayed where he was. For effect he let out a groan. Let her think she’d hit him and she might come to see.

  Long seconds went by, and from the other end of the alley, so weak he barely heard her, Alice Thorn called out, “Help me, please! I’m hurt bad.”

  22

  Fargo heard her gasp and gurgle and a flurry of sounds that might be someone in their death throes. Then there was silence. Suspecting a trick, he stayed put. He found his hat and jammed it on.

  A minute become two and two became three. He would have waited longer, but Luther Mako’s hard tones from a block back spurred him to act.

  “I tell you the shooting was around here somewhere. Keep looking until I say different.”

  “I shouldn’t be doing this,” Deputy Brock said. “I was shot, damn it.”

  “Hell, you were nicked, is all,” Mako said in disgust. “Quit your blubbering, you damn big baby, and do as I tell you.”

  Rising, Fargo ran to the far end and stepped out, looking for Alice Thorn’s body.

  It wasn’t there.

  Fargo turned right and started to turn left, but a hard object was jammed against the base of his spine. “Hell,” he said.

  “I thought it was one of them or I wouldn’t have shot at you,” Alice said. “Drop the six-gun.”

  Frowning, Fargo opened his fingers and the Colt thudded to the ground.

  “We both played the same trick and you took the bait,” Alice said, scooping up the Colt.

  “Like hell,” Fargo said gruffly. “The marshal and his deputy are closing in.”

  “The big one?”

  “Brock,” Fargo confirmed.

  “I thought I’d done him in. Nothing is going right tonight.”

  “Besides killing Gwen Stoddard,” Fargo said.

  “She had it coming. She was a party to it all.” Alice sidled around, careful to keep out of his reach. She glanced into the alley. “I hear them.”

  So did Fargo. “Luther Mako won’t be as easy as the others.”

  “That one’s a he-wolf, sure enough,” Alice said. “The only real killer of the bunch.”

  “Like you,” Fargo said.

  “You are so dumb, it’s plumb pitiful,” Alice said. She motioned with the Henry. “Head up the street that-away. We’ll fetch my horse and then we’ll fetch yours.”

  “We’re going somewhere?”

  “I won’t have it be here,” Alice said. “I know a nice place. I passed it when I first came to this godforsaken town.” She motioned again. “Get moving.”

  Fargo was tempted to try and jump her. He thought of the posse and Travers and Gwen and decided to wait for a better chance.

  “For the life of me, I can’t figure why the Almighty let this happen,” Alice remarked. “I was never much of a churchgoer, but I wasn’t no sinner, neither.”

  “Good for you.”

  “You couldn’t care less. I savvy that. It matters to me, though. Especially now.”

  “Why now?” Fargo asked.

  Alice didn’t answer, not right away. When she did, she had a question of her own. “Life sure is unfair, ain’t it?”

  “All the time,” Fargo said.

  “Look at Stoddard. As mean a bastard as ever drew breath. Yet he lives in a fancy house and has a fine carriage and money to spare. How fair is that?”

  Fargo was listening for the marshal and the deputy. They might distract her and he could get hold of the Henry.

  “Why do you suppose God lets things be the way they are?”

  “How the hell would I know?”

  Alice didn’t seem to hear him. “It starts out of the womb. Some babies live, some babies die. Those that live, some have it easy in life, some have it hard. Those that have it hard, it’s not always their fault. They’re poor, or sickly, or get kicked by a mule and their chest stove in.”

  “Why are we talking about this?”

  “I’m making a point,” Alice said. “But you’re too stupid to see it.” She gave a slight cough. “Walk faster, you turtle.”

  Her horse was tied to a hitch rail. She mounted, covered him, and had him lead her to the Ovaro. Twice they stopped when they heard searchers, but they weren’t discovered.

  “Where are you taking me?” Fargo asked after he forked leather.

  “You’ll see,” Alice said. “It’s a pretty spot. It’ll do as good as any other.”

  She had him ride to the east edge of town. Once they were clear of the buildings, they bore to the south.

  Open rangeland spread in a sea of grass that waved and rustled in the cool predawn breeze.

  Soon the sun would rise. Already a pink tinge framed the eastern horizon.

  “A right fine morning,” Alice said.

  Fargo grunted.

  “Pick up the pace. I don’t know how long it will be.”

  “To what?”

  “Use those spurs of yours.”

  For the next couple of miles they held to a trot and then slowed.

  “They’re not far ahead now,” Alice said. “Thank God.”

  Fargo didn’t bother asking what she was referring to. She probably wouldn’t say, anyway.

  “You don’t like me much, do you?”

  “I don’t like all the killing with my rifle.”

  “Not even if it’s justified?”

  “In your eyes,” Fargo said.

  “Mine are the ones that count.”

  After that she didn’t speak again until a line of hills appeared. She scanned them and said, “Bear east a ways.”

  The hills formed a barrier between the rich grassland and rugged country beyond that eventually changed to miles of swamp bordering the gulf. Many of the hills were covered in trees and as picturesque as a painting.

  Alice guided Fargo to one that was higher than most. The climb was easy enough. They drew rein on the clear crown and were treated to a panoramic vista that stretched in all directions for as far as the eye could see.

  Alice breathed deep and smiled. “Didn’t I tell you? Pretty as can be.”

  “You brought me all this way to admire nature?” Fargo said.

  Alice sighed. “You gripe more than my grandma. Climb down, if you please. And even if you don’t.” Punctuating her demand, she pointed the Henry.

  Fargo alighted and stretched and smothered a yawn. He’d been up all night and could use some sleep.

  Dismounting, Alice gazed longingly into the distance. “I wish I could see it again. I wish it more than anything.”

  “See what?” Fargo asked, despite himself.

  “My home. My ma and pa. My brothers and sisters. They warned me not to go traipsing off. But I wanted to see more of the world. Meet new people. Thought I’d visit my aunt first and you know how that went.”

  Fargo almost felt sorry for her. But he couldn’t shake the sight of Gwen’s head being blown to bits and pieces.

  Alice pointed at a spot about ten fe
et from her. “Sit yonder.”

  “You enjoy bossing me around, don’t you?”

  “Gripe, gripe, gripe,” Alice said. When he obeyed, she sank cross-legged, placed the Henry across her lap, and went on gazing wistfully into the distance.

  “What now?” Fargo asked.

  “We wait.”

  “For what?”

  “You are a biddy hen in buckskins,” Alice said, and grinned rather sadly.

  “This just makes no damn sense.”

  “Ah,” Alice said. “I reckon you have a right to know, seeing as how you’ll have to tend to it, after.”

  “There you go again,” Fargo said. “Talking in riddles.”

  “You gnaw at things like a dog with a bone,” Alice said. Shifting slightly, she surprised him by commencing to unbutton her shirt. She undid the bottom four buttons, and winced.

  “What’s the matter?” Fargo said. “Are you in pain?”

  “A light begins to dawn.” Alice parted the shirt and raised it high enough for him to see her belly. Above it, just below the sternum, was a red-rimmed hole.

  “Serves you right,” Fargo said.

  “That damned law dog can shoot. Put one in me quick as anything.” She looked down at herself. “It went in and stayed. I think it rattled around in my ribs some. Hurts like the dickens.”

  Fargo didn’t say anything.

  Alice touched the bullet hole. “Hasn’t bled much, has it? Wonder why that is.”

  Fargo stared at her and then out over the magnificent sweep of south Texas, and swore. “You came here to die.”

  “You’re not as dumb as a stump, after all.”

  “Damn it. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “What good would that do? You’d likely crab at me to see a sawbones. If I lived, the marshal would have me back in chains as soon as I was fit enough.”

  “You don’t know that,” Fargo said, fully aware that she was right.

  “It’s best this way. I die free. I die with my head high.” Alice stopped and closed her eyes. In the growing light her freckles lent her a childlike quality. “I wanted so much to do them in for what they did to me.”

  “You’d gotten away,” Fargo said. “There was no reason to go back other than pure hate.”

  “Think so, huh?” Her eyes still closed, Alice placed her hand over her belly and groaned.

  Fargo could take her. He could be on her in a heartbeat and have the Henry. But he didn’t move. “Alice?”

  “I don’t have long left. I can feel it.” She raised her head and looked at him. “Three years of my life, and now this. That tin star will never know he killed two birds with one slug.”

  “Another riddle.”

  “If you were female you’d have already guessed.”

  Fargo stared at her belly and an awful realization crept over him. “Surely not,” he said.

  “Why he picked me I will never know.” Alice rubbed her belly in small circles, a tear trickling from her eye. “Someone should know and it might as well be you.”

  “Hell, hell, hell,” Fargo said.

  “Finally figured it out, did you?” Alice stopped rubbing and a tear trickled from the other eye. “I’m pregnant.”

  23

  For one of the few times in his life, Skye Fargo was struck speechless. He stared at the hole in her belly and imagined the slug bouncing around inside her and felt sick.

  “Ain’t that funny?” Alice said softly. “Me in the family way, and no family. No man I love with all my heart. Only a bastard who raped me and left me lying there like so much trash.”

  Fargo forced his vocal cords to work. “Who?”

  “What difference does it make?” Alice returned. “Me and the baby are goners.”

  “This is why you’ve been out for blood,” Fargo said. “It was more than being arrested and the chains and the work gang.”

  “They were part of it,” Alice said, “but mostly this.”

  “Who?” Fargo asked again. He was over his shock.

  Fargo frowned. A familiar hardness was coming over him, a hardness that had nothing to do with beds and gushing and such.

  Alice seemed to turn her gaze inward even as her body seemed to shrivel in on itself. “He caught me by surprise. After more than two years with no one laying a hand on me, I didn’t figure anyone would.”

  “I’d like to know.”

  Alice was silent awhile, more tears trickling. She took a deep breath and shuddered and said, “There I was, out to the Stoddard Ranch, like usual. The men were digging another damn ditch. Me, I’d been told to help out around the house. Make the beds and sweep the floors and wash the dishes. Just like a damn maid.”

  Fargo didn’t interrupt. She had to tell it at her own pace.

  “I hated it. Hated that bitch looking down her nose at me like I was no-account. And you wonder why I blew her head off. Because she did worse.” Alice paused. “She was in on it. She told me to remake the bed in the guest room, they called it. I went in and the bed was fine. I couldn’t understand why she wanted it redone.” She paused again. “That was when he came up behind me and grabbed me.”

  The horror in her voice reached deep into Fargo and lit his veins with fire.

  “He threw me on the bed. I fought. God, how I fought. But I’m a little thing and he was a grown man and he forced me down and had his way.” Alice sobbed, just once. “And you know what? In the middle of it, when it was as bad as it could be, I heard her laugh out in the hall. That bitch. The one you said I shouldn’t have shot. She laughed at what he was doing to me.”

  “You should have told me sooner.”

  “Why? It’s personal. It’s none of anyone’s business but my own. I’m not one of those silly females that prattles about every little thing that happens to them.”

  “This wasn’t little.”

  “No,” Alice agreed, “it surely wasn’t. Now that I think about it, he probably picked me because at the time Sarabeth was the only other woman in the chain gang and she’s long at the tooth.”

  She was quiet awhile, until Fargo said, “Alice?”

  “I’m only telling you now because I hate to die without anyone knowing.”

  “So that’s why I’m still breathing.”

  “It was mine to do and I failed. You’re free and clear and should keep on riding. Get on with your life.”

  “I’m not stupid,” Fargo said.

  She managed a grin. “Never figured you were, despite what I said about you being a stump.”

  “You could have let me go back into town. But you brought me all this way.”

  “To tell you.”

  “You want a hell of a lot more than that,” Fargo said, not unkindly.

  “I’m hopeful,” Alice said, “but I don’t know you all that well. It could be I’m wasting my breath.”

  “You’re not.”

  Alice coughed, and nodded, and wept.

  Fargo got up. He stepped to her side, sat back down, set the Henry next to his leg, and draped an arm around her shoulders. Without saying a word she rested her cheek on his shoulder and closed her eyes and continued to cry.

  His throat constricted. He gazed out over the beauty of Texas without seeing it, and even though the temperature climbed as the sun rose, inside he was cold as ice.

  It was a good while before Alice quieted and sniffled and wiped her nose with her sleeve. “Sorry,” she said. “I reckon I’m weak.”

  “You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met,” Fargo said.

  “It just ain’t fair.”

  “No,” Fargo said. “It’s not.”

  “I think him and her were doing it.”

  “Gwendolyn Stoddard?”

  “Who else? The way she set it up so he could. How she laughed about it. I think they were doing i
t behind her pa’s back. I suspect she likes her pokes, that gal.”

  “For the last goddamn time, who?”

  Alice sucked in a breath. “The tin star himself. Marshal Luther Mako.”

  “I’m surprised,” Fargo admitted.

  “Why? Because he acts so law and order? He puts on a great act. But as God is my witness, it was him who raped me.”

  “I believe you.”

  “You’ll do what needs doing?”

  Fargo mustered a grin of his own. “If you’ll let me have my Henry.”

  Alice started to laugh and broke into a fit. Red flowed from her mouth and over her chin.

  Fargo held her until the spasms stopped. He smoothed her hair and shifted and lowered her head to his lap.

  She smiled weakly. “I’m glad I missed you out at the ranch.”

  “Anyone you want me to get word to?”

  “No,” Alice said. “Let my kin think I vanished off the face of the earth. I don’t want them knowing I was raped.”

  “I wouldn’t tell them that part.”

  Alice gently squeezed his arm. The effort set her to coughing and when she stopped she said, “You’re a good man, Skye Fargo.”

  “Like hell.”

  “It wouldn’t do if Mako is the only one,” Alice said. “It will just go on and on, with more folks ending up like us. You savvy that, don’t you?”

  Fargo nodded.

  A look of contentment came over her. “I can rest easy now.” She folded her hands on her bosom. “Strange. The pain has mostly gone away.”

  “Good.”

  “My mouth sure is bone dry.”

  “I have a canteen.”

  “No need,” Alice said. “It won’t be long. I’d rather just lie here.”

  “Damn it all.”

  Alice reached up and touched his cheek. “Listen to you. Not that long ago you’d have shot me dead if you could.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “Rest easy,” she said. “So long as they’re going to pay, I die happy.” She closed her eyes and lowered her arms to her sides and was still.

  “Alice?”

  Her chest wasn’t moving.

  “Alice?” Fargo said again, and pressed her neck where there should be a pulse. There wasn’t any. “Damn,” he said.