Backwoods Bloodbath tt-300 Read online

  “What in hell is going on?” Fargo wondered aloud. The man’s behavior was a complete mystery.

  A doorman admitted Draypool. As soon as the door closed behind him, the man in the dark suit replaced the pencil and notebook in an inside pocket and resumed walking in a leisurely fashion past the hotel.

  Curiosity compelled Fargo to follow. He had to find out what the man was up to. At the next corner they turned right. At the corner after that, left. Another hotel, the Imperial, was the man’s destination. It catered to those who liked a decent room for a decent price. Fargo had stayed there a couple of times himself. The rooms were plain, the furnishings simple, but a man could enjoy a good night’s sleep free of lice and mice and rats of the human variety.

  Fargo waited a while to give the man time to get to his room, then shoved his hands in his pockets, plastered a smile on his face, and ambled inside.

  The desk clerk was getting on in years. He had a neatly trimmed speckled beard and speckled hair cut off above the ears, and apparently he was hard of hearing in one ear, because as Fargo approached he tilted his head so his right ear was toward Fargo and loudly declared, “How do you do, friend? If you’re after a room, you’re in luck. It’s late, but we happen to have one handy at the back.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t need one.” Fargo was staying in the loft at the stable. He’d had little money on him when he arrived, not dreaming what good fortune awaited him at the poker table.

  “Then what can I do for you?”

  “I was up a street a ways and thought I saw someone I know come in here,” Fargo fibbed. “A drummer I met once. His handle is Smith. Jed Smith.”

  “Do you mean the fella who just came in about a minute or so ago? A tough customer in a dark suit?”

  “That would be him, yes.”

  “Then he’s not your drummer. I have no idea what he does for a living, but his name isn’t Smith. It’s—” The clerk opened the register and ran a bony finger down the right-hand page. “Ah. Here it is. That was Mr. Colter. Frank Colter. Says here he is out of Washington, D.C.”

  “How long has he been staying with you?”

  The clerk’s eyes narrowed. “Since he’s not your friend, I don’t see where that is any of your concern.”

  “I’m obliged,” Fargo said, and got out of there. The last thing he wanted was for the desk clerk to become suspicious and mention his visit to Colter.

  Stymied, Fargo retraced his steps. By now it was close to midnight, but the saloon was packed. Smoke hung thick above the tables. The loud voices, the gruff mirth, the tinkle of chips were as much Fargo’s natural element as the wilds. He was halfway to the bar when perfume wreathed him.

  “I was beginning to think you had abandoned me,” Saucy McBride said in mock sadness.

  “Not likely,” Fargo said, grinning and wrapping an arm around her slender waist. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Why don’t I take you to my room and show you?”

  4

  Saucy McBride’s room was above the Hitch Rail. Like most doves, she could ill afford a plush apartment. The room was small and sparse, with a run-down bed, an old table, and two well-worn chairs. Through the thin floorboards wafted the tinny notes of the piano and the hubbub of conversation.

  “It’s not much,” Saucy said apologetically as she stepped aside so he could enter, “but I can’t complain. There’s a water closet at the end of the hall, and in the winter plenty of heat.” She closed the door and threw the latch. “I’ve stayed at places that were a lot worse.”

  So had Fargo. Leaning against the table, he commented, “Your boss doesn’t mind you bringing men up?”

  “My free time is my own to do with as I please.” Saucy fluffed her red hair and smoothed her dress. “And before you ask, no, I don’t make a habit out of getting acquainted with every gent who strays into the saloon. But now and again a gal needs companionship. Know what I mean?”

  Fargo knew all too well. A scout’s life was often a lonely one, with days and sometimes weeks spent on the trail, far from human habitation, days and weeks when he did not set eyes on another soul.

  “The moment you walked in, I had butterflies in my stomach,” Saucy said while opening a cupboard and taking down a whiskey bottle. “You are an uncommonly handsome rascal.”

  “I’m as ordinary as candle wax.”

  “Oh, please. I bet you have to beat the ladies off with a club. There isn’t a gal alive who wouldn’t leap at the chance to bed you.”

  “I’ve met a few.” Fargo did not care to talk about his escapades with females. Certain things were private.

  Saucy produced two glasses, wiped them on a towel hanging from a peg, and set them on a counter. She filled each glass halfway, sipped from hers, and handed the other to him. “It’s not the best money can buy, but it’s not bad, either.” She treated herself to another swallow. “I’ve long since given up on the notion of ever being rich, so this will have to do.”

  “You don’t hear me complaining.” To Fargo, liquor was liquor. He had tasted everything from Georgia moonshine to El Paso tequila, from the finest Scotch to rotgut so watered down it was more water than alcohol.

  “You don’t say a whole hell of a lot, period,” Saucy said, “unless it’s to answer me.” She drained the rest of her glass at a gulp and poured another. “If you’re hungry I have bread and cheese.”

  “I’m hungry, all right,” Fargo said, reaching out and snagging her wrist, “but not for food.”

  Giggling, Saucy said, “I was beginning to think you were the bashful type. Most men would have ripped my dress off by now.”

  “Dresses cost money.” Pulling her close, Fargo molded his hips to hers. “Or would you rather I don’t give a damn?”

  “A true gentleman and handsome to boot,” Saucy marveled. “How is it you’re not hitched yet?”

  “I’ve yet to meet a female who doesn’t try to talk me to death,” Fargo groused. He finished his drink, waited for her to do likewise, and placed both glasses on the table. Then he boldly cupped her bottom with both hands and ground against her. “How about if you kill me with your body instead?”

  “Why, sir,” Saucy playfully teased, “whatever do you have in mind?”

  Fargo covered her lips with his. She responded as if she were famished and he were a feast. Her tongue delved into his mouth and swirled around and around, her bosom swelled against his chest, her thighs molded to his. From deep in her throat came a tiny mew of kindled passion.

  When they broke for breath, Saucy was panting. “You sure can kiss,” she said, flattering him. “That just about tingled my toes.”

  “Just about isn’t good enough,” Fargo said, and kissed her again, harder, his left hand rising along the sweep of her legs to her smooth belly and up over it to cup her right breast. She shivered at the contact, and groaned when he tweaked her nipple through the fabric.

  “Keep this up and I’m liable to ravish you,” Saucy bantered.

  “Promises, promises.” Fargo kissed her neck, then fastened his mouth to an earlobe and sucked while he kneaded and caressed her twin melons until they heaved with unleashed desire. Her breath became a furnace, her skin warm to the touch.

  “Mmmmmm,” Saucy huskily cooed. “That did the trick. My toes will be tingling for a month of Sundays.”

  “Not long enough.” Fargo slid his hands down the backs of her thighs and hoisted her into the air. She took that as her cue to wrap her legs around him and lock her ankles. Her feather-soft lips fluttered to his and her fingers traced the hard outline of his biceps.

  Carrying her to the bed, Fargo gently laid her down. Stepping back, he took off his hat and threw it on the table, then peeled off his buckskin shirt.

  Saucy’s eyes widened. “Oh, my. You have more muscles than most ten men. A girl could get used to a sight like that.”

  She jabbered too much, Fargo thought. He silenced her with another kiss that went on and on in languid, molten wetness. His fingers explore
d every square inch from her knees to her shoulders, and soon he commenced unfastening buttons and undoing stays to get at the charms hidden underneath.

  “Oh, yesssss,” Saucy breathed, writhing under his erotic ministrations. “You touch me in all the right places.”

  Fargo leaned over her shoulder and pried with his thumbnail at a tiny button that was being stubborn.

  “You would be surprised at how many men don’t have any idea what excites a girl.” Saucy rambled on. “They treat us like we’re a piece of sausage. Or, worse, they can’t be bothered to excite us at all so long as they have their fun.”

  Fargo wished to heaven she would shut up. He was growing impatient with the button and had half a mind to tear the dress off.

  “You would think it would come naturally,” the chatterbox babbled, “but it has to be learned, like everything else.” She chortled. “I thought about opening a school to teach men how to make love but figured I’d be tarred and feathered by the straitlaced crowd for sinning.”

  The button finally came loose, but there was another under it. Fargo inwardly swore.

  “A man told me once, a professor from back east, that in the old days, in a country called Greece, there were ladies who gave lessons in love. His exact words. They taught others how to do it. Can you imagine?”

  “Were they any good at sewing mouths shut?” Saucy’s eyebrows pinched together. “How can you kiss someone if your mouth is sewn shut?”

  “There’s more to kiss than the mouth.” Fargo had one button to go, but it resisted his every tug.

  “That makes no kind of sense whatsoever,” Saucy told him. “What is taking so long? If you don’t hurry, you’re apt to spoil the mood, and we’ll have to start all over.”

  Growing testy, Fargo sank onto his knees between her legs. If he couldn’t shut her up one way, he would do it another. Gripping the hem of her dress, he suddenly peeled the lower half up over her hips and her waist.

  “What are you up to down there?”

  Fargo’s hands were between her legs. It took only a few seconds to part her undergarments. Before she could guess his intent, he fused his lips to her nether mound and slid his tongue along her moist slit.

  “Oh, God! Oh, Fargo, yes, yes!” Saucy came up off the bed, arched in a taut bow. Her lips parted and her eyelids fluttered and she hung there as if suspended by invisible wires. Then she cried out and sank back, thrashing her head from side to side.

  Fargo applied the tip of his tongue to her swollen knob.

  “Like that! Like that! There! There! Oh! What you are doing to me!” Again Saucy launched herself off the bed, and it was a wonder she did not send Fargo flying. Again she collapsed, but this time she clamped her thighs like a vise to his head and entwined her fingers in his hair. “Don’t you stop!” she moaned huskily. “Don’t you dare by God stop!”

  A flick of Fargo’s tongue was all it took. Saucy’s bottom rose like the prow of a ship in storm-tossed waters. In a frenzy she ground her muff against him while cooing like a lovebird in the throes of delirium. “Harder!” she urged. “Suck me harder! Suck me until I scream!”

  Fargo did as she wanted. He did not care that those in adjoining rooms could hear her. He did not care that the customers in the saloon below were probably listening and smirking. He cared only about the satiny feel of her thighs and the sugary nectar that he could never get enough of.

  “Fargo! Oh, Fargo!”

  Holding on to her hips, Fargo stroked his tongue deep into her womanhood, inciting her to ever higher peaks of arousal. He ran the tip of his tongue across her knob, and she nearly tore his hair out by the roots.

  Fargo rose onto his elbows, then on his knees. He undid his belt and his buckskin pants. As he slid them down, her hooded eyes regarded him hungrily.

  “Oh, my. I have a stallion on my hands.” Saucy grinned. “If I were standing up, I would be weak at the knees.” She impishly wrapped her hand around his member and lightly squeezed.

  Fargo thought he would explode.

  “Like that, do you?” Saucy taunted. She slowly moved her hand up and down, then cupped him below. “Boulders and a redwood. Who would have guessed what was hidden under those britches?” Laughing lightly, she spread her legs wide. “Don’t keep me waiting, handsome.”

  Fargo didn’t. He inserted the tip, placed his hands under her backside, and levered up into her the full length of his shaft. Her head snapped back and her mouth opened, but no sound came out. For an instant she froze. Then she buried her fingernails in his shoulders and pulled him down so her bosom cushioned his chest, her nipples like tacks against his skin.

  “Ohhhhhh.” The moan hung in the air, enveloping them with sound even as Saucy’s arms and legs enveloped Fargo in velvet. “You are so hard! I want you! God, how I want you!”

  Fargo stroked, almost out, then in. He settled into a rhythm. She matched him, thrust for thrust, tit for tat, her urgency rising as his did. Her cries of wanting mingled with his lustful grunts. Limbs interwoven, they moved faster and faster. The bed under them and the walls around them blurred.

  Then came the deluge. Fargo felt Saucy’s inner walls contract, and a second later she spurted, drenching his pole. He held his own explosion in, but not for long. All it took was for her to fondle him and he was over the brink. Again and again he drove into her, so hard he thought the bed would break.

  Afterward, Saucy’s rapid breathing slowed to normal and her lush body stilled. She lay totally spent, beautiful in her nakedness. Fargo placed his cheek on her chest and was lulled by the gentle rise and fall into dozing off. When next he opened his eyes and glanced at the small clock that served as the table’s centerpiece, it was almost three in the morning.

  Fargo had agreed to meet Arthur Draypool at the hotel at seven. Plenty of time yet. He would catch up on his sleep and start the new day alert and refreshed.

  Saucy mumbled in her sleep and smacked her lips. Contentedly nestling her head against his shoulder, she was the portrait of a living angel.

  About to doze off again, Fargo could not resist running his fingers through her lustrous red hair.

  The crowing of a rooster outside the window woke Fargo up at the crack of daybreak. He dressed swiftly and tiptoed out so as not to awaken Saucy. He had already told her he was leaving, so there would be no hard feelings.

  The street was nearly deserted at that early hour. A few neglected horses dozed at the rail in front of the saloon as Fargo bent his steps toward the livery. A cantankerous old cuss brought the Ovaro from its stall while Fargo fetched his saddle, saddle blanket, and bridle from the tack room. Within fifteen minutes Fargo was trotting down the street toward the Sunflower.

  Dawn was Fargo’s favorite time of the day. The golden crown on the horizon, the brisk chill in the air, the sense of a world astir—all were ripe with the promise of new possibilities. The feeling was similar to that which he experienced whenever he crested a ridge or a pass high in the Rockies and beheld unexplored country.

  Arthur Draypool was not waiting outside the hotel as he had promised. Fargo was not surprised. City folk tended to oversleep. He left the Ovaro at the hitch rail and ambled inside, thinking he would go up the stairs to the second floor and pound on Draypool’s door. But the clerk had other ideas.

  “Mr. Fargo, isn’t it? Mr. Draypool left this envelope for you.”

  It was sealed. Puzzled, Fargo slid a nail along the seam and removed a single sheet of folded paper. The note was short and to the point:

  Mr. Fargo,

  My associates and I will meet you two miles to the northeast on the road to Richmond. We have packhorses and plenty of supplies.

  Yours truly, Arthur Draypool

  Fargo thought it odd of Draypool not to mention that his associates, as Draypool kept calling them, were in Kansas City. More of the secrecy that Draypool insisted was necessary to ensure that rumors of the effort to end the Sangamon River Monster’s murderous spree did not reach the killer’s ears.

 
To Fargo the precautions seemed more than a trifle silly. They were hundreds of miles from the Monster’s haunts. The odds of the killer’s learning what Draypool was up to were extremely slim.

  Still, Arthur Draypool was paying good money, a lot of good money, and for ten thousand dollars Fargo could put up with a lot of silliness.

  What harm could it do?

  5

  Arthur Draypool was a man of his word. He was waiting for Fargo two miles out of Kansas City on the road to Richmond. The road was not as frequently used as others that linked Kansas City to points east, but Fargo assumed it was more of Draypool’s precious secrecy. It did not surprise him that Draypool chose it. What did surprise him was the two men with Draypool.

  Both spotted Fargo long before he reached them. They were dressed enough alike to be twins: black hats, black frock coats, black pants, and black boots. That was as far as the similarities went. One man stood over six feet, the other barely five. The tall one had curly hair the color of corn and blue eyes. His short companion had straight hair as black as a raven’s wing and eyes as dark as pitch.

  Spaced well apart, they came to the edge of the road to await him. Neither had a firearm strapped around his waist, but that was deceiving. Barely noticeable bulges under their frock coats revealed where they carried their revolvers. The tall one said something over his shoulder, and Arthur Draypool hurried up to greet Fargo warmly. “Welcome! I was worried you wouldn’t find us!”

  Fargo had not taken his eyes off the pair in black. His right hand on his Colt, he drew rein in the middle of the dusty road and remarked, “These are the associates you were telling me about?”

  “What?” Draypool said, and glanced over his shoulder. “Oh. You must mean the note I left for you. It was, perhaps, an unfortunate choice of words. The associates you are thinking of, the ones I told you about in the saloon, are men of power and prestige in Illinois. Businessmen and politicians who have decided enough lawlessness is enough and want to eliminate the criminals.” He gestured at the frock coats. “These two gentlemen work for me and only me. I retain them to safeguard my person from physical harm.”