Arkansas Assault

13

Fifteen minutes after the Trailsman left, Noah Tillman heard a knock on his study door and said, “Enter.”

Manuel came in the room briskly. He belonged to another era. He would have been home in medieval Europe when each castle required more than its share of spies and courtesans.

“Excuse me, sir.”

“What is it, Manuel?” Noah sounded irritable and with good reason. He’d been looking over some construction bills that made him suspicious. He wondered if the man he’d put in charge of this particular job had made some kind of arrangement with the man building a new warehouse in the southern part of the state. The bill seemed twice as high as necessary. Hadn’t his man gotten bids? It was so easy to lard construction contracts. The builder padded the bill and then gave a good percentage of the extra money to Noah’s man. Noah would tend to this first thing in the morning.

“It’s about your brother, sir.”

Noah sighed and said wryly, “Bad news, of course, Manuel?”

“I assume so, sir.”

“Been trying to get into my safe again?”

“No, sir.”

“Stealing wine from my personal collection in the basement?”

“Afraid not, sir.”

“Then it’s really serious?”

“It could be, sir. That’s why I thought you ought to know what’s going on.”

Noah pitched the invoices he’d been studying to his desk top, leaned back in in his chair, closed his eyes, and said, “What’s he up to now, Manuel?”

“I watched him saddle up his horse about half an hour ago. But he didn’t leave the ranch.”

“No? Then what did he do?”

“He waited in the pines to the north of the house, sir.”

“Any particular reason?”

“That’s what I couldn’t figure out, sir. But then Fargo left and your brother followed him.”

With his eyes opened wide, Noah sat upright in his tall leather chair. “Followed him? For what?”

“I’m not sure why he’d follow him, sir. But right now they’re on the stage road. Talking.”

“You followed them?”

“Yessir. But I couldn’t get close enough to hear what they were actually saying.”

But Noah was already speculating on what they might be saying. What with all the sudden talk about the disappearances, he knew damned well what they might be saying. The time had finally come—as he knew it would someday—to deal with his brother in a permanent way. This wasn’t about liquor or gambling or womanizing. This was about something far more basic. This was about trust. After all that Noah had done for Aaron.

“When he comes back here, I want him locked in his room.”

“Yessir.”

“Have Ekert help you. Wait up ’til Aaron comes home, do you understand?”

“Yessir.”

“No matter what time it is.”

“Yessir.”

After Manuel left, Noah sat brooding in his chair, in his study, in his mansion, in the area of the state that could truly be called “his.” He should have felt all-powerful and completely invulnerable. But vulnerability and betrayal creeped in. Aaron didn’t know as much about Noah’s “special project” as he probably thought he did. But he knew just enough to point a man like Fargo in the right direction. And Fargo, with this new information was going to be a problem for sure.

He got up, poured himself more brandy, and carried the snifter to one of the long, mullioned windows. He’d always known that he would someday have to murder his brother, that Aaron would force him to commit the ultimate crime. The time was here and now.

This did not make him happy. But what could he do? Aaron could bring it all down, everything, unless he was stopped and stopped for good.

Noah wondered for a long time if he could actually do it. His own brother? He stared out at the starry night. But what was he thinking? Of course he could do it. What other choice did he have?

“It’s called Skeleton Key,” Aaron Tillman said. “It’s an island about ten miles from the bluffs you see on the east end of our property. A man named Deke Burgade operates it for my brother. Supposedly, he’s checking out the minerals there. But it’s been going on for five years. The island’s big but not that big. And Burgade is no mineral expert. He’s a tough who’s worked for Noah for at least ten years.”

They sat their horses just off the road. The warm night lacquered both of them with sweat. The moonlight gave an ominous yet beautiful look to the countryside.

“I’m not sure what all this has to do with these disappearances,” Fargo said.

“I’m not, either, exactly. But since the disappearances have taken place around the Fourth of July every year, and since Burgade always shows up at about the same time—in the house, I mean; he rarely leaves the island—I’m just wondering if there isn’t some connection.”

Fargo watched the man. Aaron seemed sober but not comfortably so. His arms and his voice shook. And he kept licking his dry lips.

“I guess I’m wondering why’d you go against your brother this way?”

“Because I know what my brother’s like. He’s had some strange—pastimes, I guess you’d call them.”

“Like what?”

“Well, there was a time when he led every posse that had to be got up.”

“A lot of men join posses.”

“Not posses like these. He’d take only trackers. He wouldn’t let them use their firearms unless it was self-defense. He wanted them to locate the fugitive and then come and get him. He insisted on killing the fugitive himself.”

“He never brought them in alive?”

“Never.” Aaron took out a long, thin cigar, bit off the end, spat it out. The lucifer was bright in the bird-cry darkness. He inhaled smoke deeply and then exhaled it. “He always worked it around so that he had some excuse to kill the man. And nobody was about to challenge him. You don’t challenge my brother. Or maybe you’ve learned that already.”

Another long drag on the cigar. “And that isn’t all, Fargo. A couple of prostitutes visited his fishing cabin over the years and were never seen or heard from again.”

“No explanation?”

“None. Nobody really gives a damn when soiled doves vanish anyway. And also you come back to the same problem—who’s going to challenge Noah?”

“I hear his stepson is pretty honest.”

“Very honest. And a good lawman. But I convinced him to let the whole thing slide.”

“Hell,” Fargo said, “why would you do that?”

“Simple. I like the boy. Even with all my personal problems, I’ve always been more of a father to him than Noah ever was. I don’t want to see him get himself killed.”

“Your brother would kill his own stepson?”

“If he felt he needed to.”

The Trailsman had met many different kinds of people during his years of wandering through this noisy, vibrant country called America but he’d met only a very few who’d turn on their own blood kin. Aaron and Noah Tillman had to genuinely despise each other for Aaron to give him this kind of information. Or was Aaron simply using him? What if he was lying about Noah so that Fargo would go after him? It wouldn’t be the first time a weak man had tricked a surrogate into doing his work for him.

But Aaron was convincing enough that Fargo knew he’d have to investigate these allegations. People were disappearing and so far this was the first reasonable explanation he’d heard.

“Aren’t you afraid of your brother?” Fargo asked.

“Terrified of him.”

“Then why don’t you leave?”

Aaron sighed. “Because life is too easy for me here. I get drunk and he dries me out. And in the meantime, I get to live in a mansion, eat the best food available, and have servants wait on me hand and foot. I’m not exactly an honorable man, Mr. Fargo. I leech off my brother because it’s the only way I can keep myself in a steady supply of liquor. My visits to the hospitals are short enough. And then I come right back and start imbibing again. Free of charge. I drink only the best brands of liquor, too. And Noah pays for it.”

He paused. “But I can’t countenance murder—or whatever the hell’s going on with my brother. I need to find out what Noah has been up to all these years. And you can help me.”

Fargo nodded. “I’ll see what I can do, Aaron.” He gripped the reins tighter on his stallion and said, “You might think of moving out. Might do you some good to stand on your own two feet.”

Aaron said, “You sound like a preacher, Mr. Fargo.”

Fargo laughed. “Now that’s the one thing nobody’s ever accused me of before.”

He set off for town, his stallion loping along the moonlit road.

Aaron wasn’t sure why but the mansion seemed unnaturally quiet to him when he returned. If nothing else, the servants usually made noise as they prepared the house for bedtime. But not now.

He was headed up the vast, sweeping staircase when Manuel stepped from the shadows and said, “Mr. Tillman would like to see you, sir.”

Aaron, sensing the danger of the moment—something in the shadowed peek he’d gotten at Manuel’s face ahead alarmed him—tried to appear at ease. “You know, Manuel, my name is Mr. Tillman, too. That could get confusing sometimes.”

There were pets that belonged strictly to one member of the family. As a child, he’d spent so much time with a kitten named Buttons that the animal didn’t want to play with anybody but Aaron. It was like that with Manuel. He answered only to Noah. He had no other boss. The most anybody else got from him was cold obedience. But you could tell that he could barely tolerate you—unless you were the one and only Noah.

“Is he in the study?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you.”

There had been times when he was drunk that he’d gotten abusive with Manuel. But not when he was sober. When he was sober, he treated Manuel as if he were the boss and Aaron the servant. Couldn’t help it. Manuel’s imperious manner always intimidated him.

Manuel slipped away, leaving Aaron to consider how to prepare himself for what he knew would be a confrontation with his brother. Had Noah discovered the three bottles of whiskey he had stolen from the basement? Had Noah received all the bills from his last binge at the whorehouse, when he’d sat naked with three whores and given them two thousand dollars to divide—two thousand dollars he’d had to borrow from the madame? You never knew what would piss Noah off. Sometimes he’d let some pretty outrageous things slide. Other times he’d jump all over him for practically nothing.

Aaron considered running away. He’d always known that some day Noah would no longer tolerate him. Would deal him with a very un-brotherly severity. Had Noah reached that point? Had Noah changed from his reluctant protector into his disgusted enemy? To run away . . . but where? And with what money? He’d be back begging at Noah’s door in no time. Always the same for Aaron—the boy-man who’d never grown up. The boy-man who’d always live at the mercy of his brother.

What did Noah want tonight?

Well, there was only one way to find out.

He walked down the stairs on legs that were now shaking. Patting his hair into place. Daubing at his sweaty face with a handkerchief. His stomach was sour, mean. Damn Noah anyway. Just once Aaron would like to put his brother through this kind of drill and see how he liked it.

Noah was standing in the center of his study when Aaron crossed the threshold. His smile was almost a smirk. “You’re a very sociable fellow, brother.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m told you followed Mr. Fargo when he left here.”

“That damned Manuel. Why can’t he mind his own business?”

“He’s minding my business. He thought I might be interested in why you followed Fargo.”

“I wanted to invite him to a party I’m having in town tomorrow night. On the Fourth of July.”

“He accepted your invitation, of course.”

“He said he’d think it over.”

Noah didn’t speak for a time. He just stood there looking at his brother. Aaron was surprised to find an expression of real hurt on his brother’s face. “I’ve taken care of you all of my life, brother. Every single day. I’ve bought you out of jail, I’ve paid off your gambling debts, I tried to wean you off the bottle by paying exorbitant rates at those hospitals you went to. And you’ve never shown me the slightest gratitude. Never a thank you. Never an offer to help me when I was having problems. Never even a friendly word.”

“I didn’t realize you were such a sensitive flower,” Aaron said, and instantly knew that he’d picked the wrong time for sarcasm.

Noah’s face tightened. The expression of hurt feelings shifted now into the more familiar one of cold contempt. “Luckily for me, I don’t give a damn anymore, Aaron. I don’t feel any obligation to protect you—especially since you’re doing everything you can to get me into trouble.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that you know damned well what Fargo was doing here. He wanted to know about the people who’ve gone missing around here. You’re just like my stepson. You’d both be happy to bring me down. And you see Fargo as the man to do it.”

There was a five-step difference separating the two men. Noah crossed it in swift, purposeful steps. Then, without feinting, without warning, he drove his fist so hard into Aaron’s stomach that the man was driven to his knees.

“Now, brother,” Noah said, “you’re going to tell me everything you’ve been able to figure out about my little island. I want to know exactly what Fargo knows.”