High Country Horror tt-256 Page 2

  His pursuers reached the road and goaded their mounts to greater effort. He used his spurs. The road was straight, thank God, and he held his own. Then a sharp bend hove out of the night and the stallion went around it so fast that Fargo had to cling tight with his legs or be thrown violently off.

  Someone was shouting. It sounded like Harvey, yelling for the others to shoot Fargo. A few more shots were sent his way to no effect. Few townsmen or farmers ever practiced daily at shooting. They might plink targets once in a while, and hunt now and then, but that was it.

  Another bend, and the Ovaro veered dangerously near the trees. Fargo ducked under a jutting limb and felt it brush his hat. He began to think that maybe—just maybe—he would get away even with his hands tied when another branch loomed. He ducked but it caught him across the chest and lifted him clear and he was slammed to the ground with such force he felt it in his bones. The impact, the pain, dazed him. Dimly, he was aware of pounding hooves and then voices and hands grabbed his arms and the light from the burning brand splashed over him. They hauled him roughly to his feet. His head cleared just as Harvey punched him in the stomach.

  “That’s for tricking us, you son of a bitch.”

  Fargo kicked him between the legs.

  Bleating in agony, Harvey clutched himself and folded at the waist. He cursed up a storm and staggered, his face dark with rushing blood.

  “You bastard,” McNee said, and struck Fargo on the jaw, a backhand that didn’t hurt much.

  “Let’s hang him and get this over with,” Dugan said.

  Danvers had a rope as well as the brand. He waggled it and said, “All we need is the right tree.”

  Harvey was slow to recover. Glaring at Fargo, he straightened and grinned his vicious grin. “Mister, I’m going to enjoy this. Whether you took Myrtle or not doesn’t hardly matter anymore.” He snatched the rope from Danvers and rigged a noose. Knocking Fargo’s hat off, he slid the noose over Fargo’s head and around his neck, and laughed. “Like your new necktie?”

  They pushed Fargo toward the woods. He fought, planting a boot on Dugan and shouldering McNee. Before he could spring clear he was brought down by a sweep of Harvey’s leg. Dugan and McNee pounced and held him fast.

  “Damn, he’s a wildcat,” Dugan said.

  “He’ll soon be a dead one,” Harvey said.

  Danvers pointed with the brand and exclaimed, “Look at this! His horse didn’t leave him.”

  The Ovaro had come back. The stallion walked up to Fargo and Harvey gripped the reins. “Right obliging. Now we can hang him on his own animal and not one of ours.”

  A tree at the edge of the road suited them. It had a thick limb, easily reached on horseback. Fargo fought but they got him up and on the stallion. Dugan and McNee each held a leg while Harvey climbed on his horse and tossed the other end of the rope over a higher limb.

  The noose was so tight Fargo could hardly breathe. He didn’t beg or ask them to spare him. He glared and grit his teeth and wished to hell his hands were free so he could show these sons of bitches what he thought of them. He saw Harvey raise a hand to smack the Ovaro.

  “I can’t wait to see your face turn purple and your tongue bulge out,” Harvey crowed.

  “Just get it over with,” Danvers urged.

  That was when hooves pounded, and from the other direction came another group of riders. At the forefront was the townsman who had gone off to fetch the marshal and beside him a dumpling of a man in a brown suit with a badge pinned to his vest.

  “Hold on, there!” the lawman shouted. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Oh, hell,” Dugan said.

  Harvey swore and raised his hand higher.

  “Stop!” the lawman bellowed. “I mean it, Harve Stansfield. You hit that horse and I’ll by-God see you behind bars.”

  To Fargo’s unbounded relief, Harvey muttered under his breath and lowered his arm.

  The other group came to a stop.

  “I don’t believe this,” Marshal Tibbit declared. “Fixing to hang a man without a trial. What the hell got into all of you?” Tibbit was overweight and pasty-faced and his voice had a squeak to it and squeaked more the higher he raised it. “I asked you a question,” he said when no one responded. “You’d better have a good explanation.”

  “We think he’s the one who took Myrtle,” Harvey said sullenly.

  “So you hang him?” Marshal Tibbit took off his hat and wiped a sleeve across his sweaty brow. He had curly gray hair and big ears the hat had partially hid. “I should arrest all of you.”

  “Ah, Marion,” Danvers said.

  “Don’t ‘Ah, Marion’ me,” Tibbit replied. “I won’t stand for shenanigans like this—you hear me?”

  Fargo twisted his neck, scraping his skin on the rope as he did. “Cut me down, damn it.”

  “Whoever you are, I apologize for this,” Marshal Tibbit said. “We are normally law abiding. But we have been plagued this past year with god-awful happenings and some of our good citizens have—”

  “Cut me down now.”

  “Oh. Certainly.” Tibbit gigged his mount next to the Ovaro and reached up and pried at the rope but couldn’t loosen it. His nails dug into Fargo worse than the rope.

  “Don’t you have a knife?”

  “A knife?” Tibbit said, acting befuddled. “Why, I think I do.” He patted his pockets and produced a folding knife, which he had difficulty opening. He pressed the edge to the rope and cut but the knife was so dull that it took forever for him to slice through a few strands.

  “Oh, hell,” said a man with the new group. He brought his sorrel up on the other side of the Ovaro and drew a large bone-handled knife from a hip sheath. He was big and brawny and wore a homespun shirt, overalls with suspenders, and a floppy hat. He smelled of cow manure. “Let me, Marshal. You’ll be at it a month of Sundays.”

  “Sure, Sam, go ahead,” the lawman said sheepishly.

  A single slash of Sam’s knife and the rope parted above Fargo’s head. Another slash and Fargo’s wrists were free. Fargo rubbed them, then tore the noose from his neck and threw it to the ground. He brought his knees up on top of the Ovaro and launched himself past Tibbit at Harvey Stansfield. It caught everyone by surprise, Harvey most of all. Fargo slammed into him and smashed him to the ground. He slugged Harvey’s jaw, his cheek, his head. Harvey got an arm up but Fargo swatted it aside and punched him twice more. He cocked his arm to do it again and someone gripped his wrist to stop him.

  “Enough of that, mister!” Marshal Tibbit said. “I don’t blame you for being mad but I can’t let you beat him to death.”

  Some of Fargo’s rage faded. Some, but not all. He jerked loose and stood and stepped to Danvers, who recoiled in fear. Fargo held out his hand. “Hand over my Colt.”

  Danvers fumbled getting it from under his belt and almost dropped it. “Here,” he bleated.

  Fargo shoved it into his holster. He took several steps back and glared at Dugan and McNee and Danvers and the rest of them. “The next son of a bitch who lays a hand on me, I will shoot dead.”

  “No need for talk like that,” Marshal Tibbit said. “You can’t let a little mistake sour you.”

  “Little mistake?” Fargo couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He took a stride and jabbed the lawman on his badge. “Some of your good citizens almost hung me. Where I was raised they call that murder. Not a goddamned mistake.”

  “Of course, of course,” Tibbit said, bobbing his double chins. “All I meant was, we can’t blow it out of proportion.”

  Fargo looked at him—really looked at him—and realized that here was a man who had no business wearing that tin star. Overweight and out of shape and with little backbone to boast of, Tibbit was one of those good-natured souls who thought everyone else should be the same and always tried to reason with troublemakers.

  “You should listen to yourself sometime,” he said.

  “How’s that again? I hear perfectly fine, thank you. And I shou
ld think you’d be more grateful for me saving your life.” Tibbit held out his hand. “But what do you say we start over? Where are your things? How about we collect them and take you to town and put you up for the night? To sort of make up for how you were treated.”

  Fargo stared at the lawman’s hand.

  “What’s the matter? I’m trying to be friendly and mend fences. Can’t you meet me halfway?”

  “How long have you worn that badge?”

  “Why do you ask a thing like that? I’ve been the town marshal for going on fourteen months. And I do a good job if I do say so my own self.” Tibbit chuckled. “But then, Haven is a peaceful little community. Some would call it a stick in the mud with only a bank and a general store and the feed and grain and the houses. But it serves the needs of farmers like Sam, there. Doesn’t it, Sam?”

  “I can’t complain,” Sam said.

  Fargo grunted. “Peaceful little communities don’t go around stringing folks up in the middle of the night.”

  “I grant you that, yes,” Marshal Tibbit allowed. “But Harvey and his friends had cause, of a sort. You see, a local girl has gone missing. The fourth in the past year. So you can’t blame them for being rough with you.”

  “Care to bet?” Fargo said, with a pointed glance at Harvey Stansfield.

  “All right. Let’s drop that, shall we? What do you say to my invite? Care to partake of Haven’s hospitality? I’ll even go so far as to put you up at the widow Chatterly’s for tonight. She rents out rooms.”

  One of the townsmen snorted and grinned. “Hell, you can put me up at her place every night of the week. That there is one fine filly.”

  “You’re married,” Marshal Tibbit said.

  “Married ain’t dead, and you’d have to be dead not to admire the widow Chatterly.”

  “Even if I was dead I would,” another man said, and some of them laughed.

  “Well?” Tibbit prompted.

  Fargo had half a mind to tell them to go to hell. But he wouldn’t mind sleeping in a bed for a change, especially if it didn’t cost him anything. Plus that talk of the widow had piqued his curiosity. “Does this town of yours have a saloon?”

  “As a matter of fact we do,” Marshal Tibbit said. “It’s called the Leaky Bucket.”

  Despite all that happened, Fargo chuckled. “That’s a new one. I don’t suppose it’s still open.”

  “At this hour? I should say not. We’re a farming and ranching community, not a rowdy place like Saint Louis.” Marshal Tibbit paused and then asked hopefully, “Am I to take it you have decided to accept my offer?”

  Fargo nodded.

  “Good. You won’t regret it, I can promise you.”

  “We’ll see,” was all Fargo said.

  3

  Haven fit its name. The houses had tidy lawns and picket fences. The commercial buildings were well kept. Hitch rails and watering troughs were evenly spaced. The town was so quiet and peaceful that Fargo would have thought he was east of the Mississippi River.

  The men left for home and hearth. Harvey rode off with Dugan and McNee after promising to pay the marshal a visit first thing in the morning.

  “I aim to give him a piece of my mind about how he treated you,” Marshal Tibbit assured Fargo. “He won’t do that to anyone else, I can promise.”

  “Too bad he did it to me.”

  “Yes, well, Harve has always been a hothead. He acts first and thinks second.”

  “The other two?”

  “McNee and Dugan? They’re Harve’s friends. Where you find one you usually find them.”

  “They all family men?”

  “Goodness, no. I’m not even sure they like women. Truth is, they spend most of their time at the saloon.”

  “They work for a living?”

  “Oh, they do odd jobs for the farmers and ranchers.” Marshal Tibbit glanced at him. “Here now. Why all the questions? You’re not thinking of getting back at them, are you?”

  Somewhere or other Fargo had heard the expression, “Perish forbid.”

  “I hope not, for your sake. You might not rate me highly but I take my job seriously. I’ll arrest you as quick as look at you if you break the law.”

  “I noticed you didn’t arrest Harvey and his pards.”

  “Why cause more trouble than there’s already been? I believe in restoring the peace and keeping the peace.” The marshal drew rein near a gate in a white fence. Dismounting, he opened it. “This is the widow Chatterly’s place. Her light is still on, thank goodness. I’d hate to wake her this late.”

  Flower beds ran along the front of the house. A second-floor window was lit, the shade over it pink. After the lawman knocked a shadow moved across the shade, the shape undeniably hourglass.

  Fargo folded his arms. He was sore all over and his neck was smarting.

  Harve and those other two had a lot to answer for.

  Marshal Tibbit knocked again. “Maybe she won’t come down, it being so late and all.”

  No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the door opened, framing a woman in a floor-length robe. And what a woman, Fargo thought. Lustrous golden hair spilled past slender shoulders. Her face was peaches and cream, her lips strawberries. She had eyes as blue as his and a bosom that needed a lot of robe to cover it.

  “Sorry to bother you so late, Helsa,” Marshal Tibbit said, taking off his hat. “I’m hoping you can do me a favor.”

  Helsa Chatterly looked past the lawman at Fargo. “If by favor you mean him, his buckskins look as if he’s been rolling around in grass and he has a welt on his jaw. Is he safe to let into my house?”

  “I’m perfectly harmless,” Fargo answered for himself.

  Helsa looked him up and down and said with a slight smile, “I very much doubt that.”

  “He needs a bed and you’re all we’ve got,” Marshal Tibbit said. “One day Haven will have a hotel. Until then ...”

  “Until then my boardinghouse will have to do,” Helsa finished. “Very well. Come on in and I’ll show him to his room. But keep it down, if you please. I have another boarder and he retired hours ago.”

  The inside smelled of flowers, as well it should since there were vases of them everywhere Fargo looked. He tried to walk quietly but his boots thumped on the hardwood floor and his spurs jingled. She led them up a flight of stairs and opened a door at the end of the hall. The room was spotless. A blue quilt covered the bed, and there was a dresser and a night stand.

  “Isn’t this nice?” Marshal Tibbit said.

  “It almost makes up for nearly being hung,” Fargo said dryly.

  Helsa Chatterly turned. “What was that?”

  “The good citizens of your peaceful little community,” Fargo quoted the lawman, “tried to treat me to a strangulation jig a while ago.”

  “What on earth for?” Helsa said to Tibbit.

  “Now, now. It’s nothing to get excited about. There was a misunderstanding.”

  “What brought it on, Marion?”

  Tibbit looked around as if afraid of being overheard and leaned toward her to whisper, “Myrtle is missing.”

  “What?” Helsa’s hand rose to her throat. “Myrtle Spencer? When did this happen? Why haven’t you raised an alarm?”

  “I did, my dear,” Marshal Tibbit said. “But I raised it quietly. I got together a search party and we went up and down the road but didn’t find anyone except this gentleman.” He jerked a thumb at Fargo and then said, “Say, you haven’t told me who you are.”

  Fargo gave his name.

  “What do you do for a living?” Helsa asked.

  “I scout. I track people. I work as a guide. I play cards.” Fargo almost added, “I drink a lot.”

  “A tracker, are you?” Marshal Tibbit said. “That’s interesting. Would you be willing to stop by my office tomorrow morning about eight?”

  “What for?”

  “I’d like to put your skills to use. Maybe you can find Myrtle where the rest of us couldn’t.”


  “I’ll think about it,” Fargo said. He had no hankering to stay in Haven a minute longer than he needed to. Not after the reception they’d given him.

  “You do that,” Marshal Tibbit said. “Think about how a young woman’s life might depend on how good you can track.” He put his hat on and nodded at Helsa and went out.

  “He means well,” she said.

  “Where can I put my horse?”

  Around back was a fenced area. Fargo removed the saddle and the saddle blanket and draped them over the top rail. A bay was already there, dozing. He didn’t realize Helsa Chatterly was in the doorway watching him until he turned.

  “You’ve never seen anyone take a saddle off?” he joked.

  She went into the kitchen and Fargo followed her and closed the door behind him.

  “I haven’t explained about the few rules I have. Breakfast is at seven sharp. Miss it and you go hungry. I serve light fare around midday if you want any. Supper is at six in the evening and I prefer you let me know in advance if you will be here so I can plan accordingly. There’s to be no rowdy behavior. No drinking, for instance. And no loud noise after about ten. You are welcome to sit in the parlor whenever you like, provided you wipe your boots first and don’t track in dirt and mud.”

  “A few rules?” Fargo said.

  Helsa smiled. “Perhaps I go a little overboard. You would, too, if you’d seen some of the things my boarders have done. There was one man who put out his cigar by rubbing it against a wall. There was another who snuck whiskey in and got falling-down drunk. Then there was the baritone who fancied he could sing at the top of his lungs any hour of the day or night.”

  “You’ve had it rough.”

  “I know sarcasm when I hear it. But it’s not easy being a widow in a town where the men outnumber the women three to one.”

  “You don’t have to stay,” Fargo said.

  “Yes, I do. I owe it to James. He was my husband.” Helsa stopped and stepped to the window and gazed out, her hands clasped in front of her. “A lot of women like to complain about their men, about how worthless they are. I never once complained about James. He was a good man. He came out here on account of me. We lived in Indiana, and I’d heard and read so much about the frontier, I hankered to live out here. James said that whatever I wanted, we would do. That’s the kind of man he was.”