Arkansas Assault tt-263 Read online

  Queeg whistled. “You sure got a way of comin’ into a town, Fargo. You bring a dead man who’s here because Noah invited him.” He smiled. “You should work for a circus. One of those advance fellas they send out to let everybody know the circus is coming. It’s one hell of a way to introduce yourself.” He nodded outside. “You know what his name was?”

  “Jeb Adams.”

  Queeg’s eyes and mouth narrowed. “He’s been here before and he was a bad one. Couple of people got killed over some land Noah wanted. But Tom didn’t follow up on it. I don’t think he was scared to go after Noah. I think he just couldn’t bring himself to believe that Noah could be behind two murders. He doesn’t have any illusions about Noah—Noah does what Noah needs to, no holds barred—it’s just that Noah and his wife took him in when he was only three. Tom just couldn’t face up to what Noah had done.”

  “Was Adams around here long?”

  “A month maybe. Raised a lot of hell here in town. Busted up one of the pleasure houses one night. Scared the hell out of all the girls. He was one mean sonofabitch.”

  “In the letter, Noah thanked him for helping out with something called ‘Skeleton Key.’ That mean anything to you?”

  “It sure does, Fargo. That’s the only other thing Tom won’t look into where Noah’s concerned.” He hitched up his holster and said, “But let’s get that body in here before it rots in that damned sun of ours. I’ll tell you about Skeleton Key later.”

  Fargo spent a short time walking around the town and having himself another breakfast of steak, eggs, and potatoes. Banners inside and out proclaimed FOURTH OF JULY FEVER! A small marching band was practicing on a dusty side street. And boys and girls of every age set off fire-crackers and sparklers. He even saw three or four ladies wearing dresses made up of the stars and stripes. They weren’t kidding about having a “fever.” It seemed to have infected damned near everybody in town, the way the streets were crowded with hometown folks and visitors alike.

  Fargo had spent enough time in towns and cities to know when he was being followed. A lanky man in a dark three-piece suit, way too hot for this boiling day, had stayed on Fargo’s trail ever since Fargo had left the café. Being that the only person he had talked to at any length was Queeg, Fargo wondered why the sheriff’s department had found it necessary to put a tail on him.

  He decided to have some fun with the lanky man. Fargo would walk real fast and then abruptly stop. He repeated this often enough to have the lanky man so out of sorts, he damned near walked past him. Once, Fargo ducked into an alley, hid in the shade of a blacksmith’s shop, and watched as the lanky man hurried past, looking confused and frantic. Sure wouldn’t want to go back to Queeg and tell him he’d managed to lose Fargo, now, would he?

  A block later, Fargo was following the lanky man. When the man turned around, apparently sensing that Fargo was behind him. Fargo waved and smiled before taking off again, quick enough to shake the lanky man for good this time.

  3

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you, sir.”

  This, or words like it, were spoken by room clerks in three of the hotels neighboring each other. Seems people in all the surrounding small towns came to Tillman for the Fourth. Every available room had already been rented.

  At the next place, the clerk said, “This is on the top floor and ordinarily it’s a storage room. But we fixed it up nice as we could ’cause we figured somebody’d probably take it.”

  “And that would be me.” He paid the man and yawned again. He’d originally decided to ride straight through. But now he decided he needed some good sleep in a real bed before he started looking for the best place to cast his line.

  Fargo carried his saddlebags up to the top floor, on the way pausing a couple of times to appreciate the loveliness of the women who were coming down the stairs. He remembered the livery man’s remark about Tillman having a “higher class of women.” Apparently the man hadn’t been kidding.

  Just before he entered his room, he saw a Mexican chambermaid, slight but fetching, watching him from down the hall. They exchanged smiles. He liked Mexicans, and while every group had its bad apples, he especially liked Mexican women.

  The room was small but the bed was firm and the bedclothes clean. They’d fixed up a table with a wash basin, pitcher, and a couple of fresh towels. There was a spittoon, two ashtrays, a pile of magazines, and a pint of rye whiskey, this being some kind of reward for taking the room. There was also a window filled with blue sky—and somebody hiding in the closet.

  The hider wasn’t an experienced burglar. Made too much noise. Moved around way too much. But that, Fargo figured, didn’t preclude the hider from having a gun and taking everything in Fargo’s saddlebags. He felt sure that the hotel hadn’t included the hider as the same sort of surprise the pint of rye had been.

  “If you don’t come out, I’m going to start pumping that door full of bullets,” Fargo said. “All I want is some sleep. You come out with your hands above your head, I’ll let you walk out of here and we’ll call it square. If you don’t come out right away, I’ll start shooting. I get pretty ornery when I’m tired.”

  No response.

  All of a sudden the hider was completely quiet. If he’d been like this when Fargo came in, Fargo never would’ve heard him.

  Fargo raised his Colt, pointed it at the middle of the closet door. “I’ll count back from five and then start shooting. Five, four—”

  “No, wait, please don’t.”

  Though the voice was muffled because of the door, there was no mistaking its gender nor—as the door was now flung open—the good looks of the buxom young woman who’d been crouching inside.

  She was a burst of blondness and bosom, a tall, full-bodied woman of twenty or so in a gingham dress with a scoop neckline that displayed her charms to eye-popping effect. “Would you have really shot me?”

  “I’m afraid I would’ve.”

  “But I’m a woman.”

  “I didn’t know that at the time,” Fargo said.

  “And I’m unarmed.”

  “Afraid I didn’t know that, either.”

  “Oh, I forgot.” And with that, she raised her arms above her head, only emphasizing the ample fullness of those ripe young breasts that seemed eager to pop free of their dress.

  “You make a pretty picture,” Fargo said.

  “Thanks,” the girl said. “I’m Daisy by the way.” Then, her brow furrowing, “Are you one of them?”

  “One of who?”

  “One of the kidnappers.”

  Fargo laughed. “Miss, I’m real tired right now. And I don’t know what you’re talking about. What kidnappers?”

  “They took Clem.”

  “And Clem is—?”

  “My brother. We run off from the farm because our folks wouldn’t let us come to the celebration here. And now he’s been kidnapped.” She yawned. “And I’m every bit as tired as you are, believe me. All I’ve done for the past twenty-four hours is look for my baby brother. I need a bed just as bad as you do.” She nodded to it. “We could both fit in there, actually.”

  “Yeah, I suppose we could.”

  “And it’d be nice to get some shut-eye before it gets terrible hot.”

  “I guess you’ve got a point there.”

  She glared at him. “So are you going to invite me or not?”

  He laughed. “Well, I always do try and be neighborly.”

  They actually slept for a short time, but Fargo—every inch of him—came awake when he felt long, silken fingers start to stroke his manhood into stiff attention. They must teach them well in the backwoods where he suspected this young woman came from. Because after her fingers were through teasing him, making him buck up and down like a wild bronc, she then applied an equally silken, moist mouth to his lance, teasing it with even more skill than her fingers had applied.

  She paused only long enough to pull her light undergarment off and then she straddled him, pulling her legs far enough ap
art that he could penetrate her warm, wet depths as fully as possible. She was a stern mistress, her hips demanding his best thrusts again and again, favoring him from time to time with the rose-colored tips of her bountiful, farm girl breasts.

  When she tumbled over to her back, Fargo began slower, longer strokes that made her breath come in tiny explosive gasps. He had his hands tight on her buttocks and every time he’d clench them tight she’d slam upwards against him, bringing him so far up inside her that she started smiling out of pure joy.

  He held back so that he could roll her on her side and take her so that his hips slammed hard into the creamy magnificence of her young buttocks and he continued to pulse and pound his shaft deep into her womanhood. She gasped, groaned, and then let out a scream that would have been chilling under any other circumstances. Then he rode himself home, ravaging her mouth with his tongue while he propped himself up with one hand, and filled his other with her firm, sumptuous breast.

  He was just pulling away from her when the door slammed inward.

  Two of them. One white, one Mexican. Both with enough facial scars to qualify them as sideshow attractions. Both with double-barreled, sawed-off shotguns and Colts strapped gunny-style around their hips. The Mex kicked the door closed with his boot heel. They smelled of heat, sweat, beer. Their clothes showed no trail dust, meaning they were either local or had changed clothes recently. Fargo suspected the former. The Mex wore a red checkered shirt, Whitey a fancier blue one.

  “They’re the same men who were following me and my brother yesterday.”

  Fargo glanced at his Colt, on the floor within arm’s reach.

  “You don’t look stupid, mister,” Mex said, “don’t act stupid. Time you got to your gun I’d have pumped both these barrels in you.”

  “What the hell do you want?” Fargo said, as Daisy started getting dressed.

  Whitey walked deeper into the room, within a few steps of the bed. “Stand up, mister.”

  “You want a better look at me naked?” Fargo said, grinning.

  “I’d rather have a better look at you dead,” Whitey said. “And that’s just what you’ll be unless you do what I tell you.”

  Fargo took a last, long look at his Colt. He was still tired enough that he felt a dream-like quality around the edges. He finally got a room; a beautiful bountiful farm girl made herself wondrously available to him; and now two gunnys who look, smell, and talk like they mean business decide to bust everything up.

  Whitey nodded to Mex. Mex obviously knew what the nod meant. He went right for Daisy, grabbing her with one free hand and slamming her up against the wall. “You be a good girl and this won’t hurt. If I have to slap you around, I’ll do it real hard.” He smiled. “But that’s how you like it isn’t it, Blondie? Real hard?”

  “What’re you going to do to me? Where’s my brother Clem?”

  Mex wasn’t much for conversation. He set the sawed-off on the table and went to work. He had a tiny, brown glass bottle. He uncapped it and drained its contents into his handkerchief. “Now you just hold still and this’ll go nice and easy for you.”

  “What is it?” Daisy said, clearly terrified. “It smells bad.”

  “This won’t hurt you. Just hold still.”

  Fargo figured it was some variant of nitrous oxide. The stuff wasn’t intended for surgical procedures. Some people actually liked the woozy experience of it and used it socially.

  The Mex clamped the handkerchief over Daisy’s nose and mouth. The effect wasn’t quite immediate but close. Within a few minutes, she slumped forward into his waiting arms. He threw her over her shoulder with the ease of a farmer hoisting a fifty pound bag of potatoes.

  “I’ll take her down to the buckboard in the alley.”

  “The back way.”

  The Mex sneered. “You think I’m stupid? You think I’d take her down the front way, kinda show her off to everybody in the lobby?”

  “Just get her the hell out of here.”

  The Mex left.

  Fargo watched as the door closed—the rage of helplessness making a frenzy of his senses—so he wasn’t fully aware of what Whitey was up to.

  Whitey slid a long blackjack from the back pocket of his butternuts and applied it with fury to the side of Fargo’s head. He was damned good with it, and Fargo rewarded his skills by collapsing into a naked, vulnerable heap on the floor.

  4

  The first thing Fargo did when he regained consciousness was stagger to the wash basin. He filled it with water from the pitcher and then dumped the basin on his head.

  He’d gathered himself well enough to check the time. Twenty minutes had passed. Whitey was some expert with that damned blackjack. He sat on the chair next to the basin, dug the makings out of his shirt pocket, and rolled himself a smoke.

  He was dizzy, his eyes wouldn’t focus right, and he had a head like a big lumber mill saw slowly working its way right through the center of his brain. He knew only one thing for sure. Somewhere, somehow he was going to meet up with Whitey again. And that when he did, he was gonna open the bastard’s head up like a can of beans.

  It took a few minutes before he could stand up without wanting to fall down. Once he was able to maintain his balance, he dressed quickly, dried off his hair, shaved, and left his room.

  Queeg was sitting at the front desk working on some forms when Fargo walked in. He put his pencil down. “Back so soon, Mr. Fargo? Hope everything is all right.”

  “Was looking for the sheriff.”

  “I’m afraid he’s in a town council meeting.”

  Fargo snapped, “Why’d you have me followed?”

  Queeg seemed genuinely puzzled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The hell you don’t. A beanpole of a fella. Blond hair, long face. Dark suit.”

  “Damn,” Queeg said. He sounded upset.

  “You saying he’s not one of your men?”

  “Oh, he’s one of ‘our’ men all right. At least he pretends to be. His name is Buck Larson. He’s Noah Tillman’s spy in town here. He must’ve recognized Adams when you brought him in. I’m ashamed to say he’s a deputy here. He had an excellent record as a lawman, so Tom hired him. What he didn’t know at the time was that Noah’d get him. Noah uses him as his spy here. He reports everything that goes on in this office back to Noah.”

  “Why don’t you fire him?”

  “Tom’s about ready to. Larson’s worked in a couple of big cities so he’s valuable to Tom. Knows a lot about modern police techniques and things like that. But Tom’s getting tired of Noah knowing everything that’s going on down here.”

  Fargo said, “I just had some trouble in my hotel room.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  Fargo told him.

  Queeg listened, shaking his head every few minutes. When Fargo was finished, Queeg said, “Another name for the ‘mystery list.’ ”

  “What’s the ‘mystery list?’ ”

  “The people who’ve been reported missing over the years. Always around the Fourth of July.”

  “This have anything to do with Skeleton Key?”

  “Tom and I are pretty sure it does.”

  “You’ve looked into it?”

  Queeg shrugged wide shoulders. “As I said earlier, there are a couple of things Tom doesn’t want to know about. One of them’s Skeleton Key.”

  “Maybe he’ll have to now, with two new kidnappings on his hands.”

  “Yeah,” Queeg said thoughtfully, “maybe it’s time now to really find out what the hell’s going on.”

  The door opened and Buck Larson came in. Shock showed on his face when he saw the Trailsman. But only for a moment. He was enough of a professional to hide his feelings promptly and well.

  “Say, I hope you didn’t think I was following you this afternoon,” Larson said.

  “Perish the thought,” Fargo said.

  Larson caught the sarcasm and smiled. “I mean, I could see where you might think I was f
ollowing you. But actually—”

  “—actually, you were just making sure that I was having a good time and that the citizens of this fair burg were showing me the proper respect.”

  “Why, damned if that’s not exactly, right, Mr. Fargo. Exactly. I just wanted to make sure that everybody here was friendly to you.”

  “They were very friendly,” Fargo said, “except for the two men who came to my room and kidnapped the girl I happened to be with.”

  Queeg said, “You know anything about that, Buck?”

  Larson looked trapped. “Why, uh, no. Why would I know something about a thing like that? If I’d known about it, Queeg, I’d be trying to find the girl right now.”

  The door burst open and Larson was spared from saying anything more for the moment. A youngster, sheathed in sweat and out of breath rushed in and asked, “Is it true?”

  He’d barely finished getting the words out before the office was filled with more kids.

  “Is what true?” Queeg said, amused with the kids.

  “Is the Trailsman really in town?”

  Queeg laughed. “Well, Tommy, he’s not only in town. He’s right in this very office.”

  And it was then that Tommy’s gaze roved over to the big man with the lake-blue eyes.

  “Holy horses,” Tommy said. He looked at his friends. “This here man is the Trailsman. Is that true, mister?”

  While Fargo was busy meeting his public—if only half the stories of his derring-do were true—Larson used the time to slip out of the office behind the boys.

  Neither Fargo nor Queeg tried to stop him. By that time, Fargo had decided to do his own investigating. Friendly as Queeg seemed to be, Fargo was no longer sure if there was anybody in this whole town he could trust.

  “Maybe I’ll go talk to Noah Tillman sometime,” Fargo said.

  “If you do,” Queeg smiled, “talk loud. He hates to admit it but he’s real hard of hearing.”