Backwoods Bloodbath

11

The dining room was as luxurious as the rest of the house. A long table able to seat two dozen guests filled the center. Globe lamps at regular intervals provided brilliant illumination. The night was warm, and several windows were open to admit air.

The butler came for Fargo at seven fifteen. Fargo had availed himself of the washbasin, rummaged in his saddlebags for a clean bandanna, and wiped the dust from his boots. He wore his gun belt.

Akuda arched an eyebrow as Fargo stepped from the room, and said respectfully, “If you will forgive my presumption, sir, you will not require your firearm at the dinner table.”

Fargo patted his holster. “I never go anywhere without it.”

“The judge might take offense,” Akuda said.

“You must have me confused with someone who gives a damn.” Fargo smiled to lessen the sting.

“The judge likes to have his way,” Akuda warned. “Trust me when I say he makes for a powerful enemy.”

“I bet a lot of his enemies are against slavery.” Fargo fished for information.

The butler broke stride, but only slightly. “The judge and his friends are very set in their beliefs.”

“A Yankee hater, is he?”

Akuda glanced the length of the hall, then said softly, “I should not discuss this with you, sir. The judge would be mad.”

“What is the worst he can do to you?” Fargo asked half jokingly. He figured it would be a harsh lecture and extra work.

“He can have me whipped, sir,” Akuda said, “and I would rather not go through that again, if you don’t mind. I still have the scars from the other times.”

Fargo envisioned the butler stripped to the waist, a whip biting into the flesh of his back. “Did the judge whip you himself?”

“Oh, no, sir, he would never sully his hands with someone else’s blood. Mr. Garvey, the overseer from the judge’s plantation, does the punishing.” Akuda’s frame seemed to tremble slightly. “You will meet him tonight.”

“The overseer is here?”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Garvey comes up from Alabama every two or three months, sir, to consult with the judge. Sometimes he brings new staff for the house.”

“New slaves, you mean,” Fargo said.

Akuda nodded. “Or he takes those who have not been doing their jobs well enough to suit the judge back to Alabama to work in the fields.”

“He’s not the forgiving type, is he?”

Akuda uttered a laugh that was more like a bark. “Not at all, sir. The judge has a saying he is fond of.” He paused. “Spare the rod, spoil the black.”

Fargo tried to imagine what it must be like for the slaves, living in a constant state of fear, terrified to make a single mistake. “It’s not right,” he remarked, more to himself than the butler.

“There are a lot of things in this world that aren’t right, sir,” Akuda responded. “Things people shouldn’t do to one another but do.” They came to the stairs and he started down. “It makes me mad to this day that an accident of birth has made me what I am.”

“That’s natural.”

Akuda went on talking without seeming to hear. “You have no idea what blacks have to put up with. Whites look down their noses at us because of the color of our skin. They treat us like we are not human, as if we are animals to be herded together and worked as they please.”

“Not all whites think that way,” Fargo said.

“Enough do,” Akuda said. “Enough to make our lives miserable. Enough that many of my kind would rather they had never been born.” They were almost to the bottom, and he leaned toward Fargo and pleaded, “Please, sir, not a word about our talk to anyone.”

“Don’t worry.” Fargo clapped him on the back. “They couldn’t pry it out of me with burning coals.”

Arthur Draypool was already at the table. So were three others. One was a human mountain dressed in an ill-fitting suit. Close to seven feet tall, he had short blond hair, a clipped yellow beard, and obsidian eyes that fixed on Fargo with baleful intensity. That would be Garvey, Fargo guessed.

Across from the overseer sat a plump woman in her middle years, her dress much too tight for her bulk, her bosom threatening to burst the fabric if she exhaled too strongly. She had a pumpkin head and tiny seed eyes. “Mr. Fargo,” she said, offering her pudgy hand. “I am Winifred Harding, the judge’s wife. I am sorry I was not here to greet you when you arrived, but I was in Springfield most of the day.”

Her skin was dry and smelled of powder. Fargo stepped past her to an empty chair. Across from him was the other new face, a woman only half as old as Winifred and not half as heavy, but otherwise the family resemblance was plain. “You must be the judge’s daughter.”

“Not quite. I am his niece,” she said in a sultry tone. “Darby Harding,” she introduced herself. “My father is the judge’s younger brother. I came up from the South with Mr. Garvey to pay my uncle a visit.”

Garvey grunted. “Heard a lot about you, mister.” He held out a hand the size of a bear paw. “Hope you turn out to be everything the judge and his friends expect.”

“The Sangamon River Monster is as good as caught,” Fargo said to gauge how they reacted. He received smiles and the sort of expressions professional gamblers wore when they were fleecing the gullible.

“I love a man with confidence,” Winifred Harding declared in a much friendlier tone than was warranted.

Fargo was more interested in the niece, who met his frank stare with one of her own. “How long are you staying?”

“For as long as my uncle needs me,” Darby said. “Uncle Oliver and I have always been close. I would do anything for him.”

At that juncture, into the dining room marched their host. Harding was as plump as his wife except for his face, which had the hard, angular lines of a blacksmith’s anvil. He came around the table without so much as a nod of acknowledgment to anyone, including his wife. Akuda held out a chair for him and he sat in it as if sitting on a throne. “I trust I haven’t kept all of you waiting too long.”

“Not at all, Uncle,” Darby said.

“You are punctual, as always,” Winifred chorused. “And even if you were not, we would gladly wait.”

Fargo sensed a strange sort of competition between them. He focused on the judge, absorbing details: piercing brown eyes, black hair going to gray, an aura of authority that Fargo normally saw in military officers.

“Nonsense, my dear,” Oliver Harding declared. “It would be a poor host indeed who kept his guests waiting.” He was looking at his niece as he spoke. “My dearest Darby. How wonderfully you grace our table. It is a shame you don’t visit us more often.”

Winifred Harding squirmed in her chair like a worm squirming on a hook. “Yes, we always look forward to having you, my dear.”

The judge swiveled. “Arthur! I trust there were no difficulties on your trip. You must tell me everything over brandies later.”

Fargo could not resist. “We ran into a pair of outlaws on our way here. Or highwaymen, as you would call them.”

Oliver Harding became a stone statue. Then he said, with no trace of emotion whatsoever, “On behalf of the state of Illinois, I apologize. We are not yet as civilized as our brethren to the east. We have not yet tamed the wilder element among us.” He smiled without warmth. “And you, I take it, are the famous Trailsman. It is an honor to make your acquaintance.”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Winifred Harding said.

The judge clapped his hands, and at the signal, servants began filing in bearing food. Fargo filled his plate with venison, potatoes, green beans, and a thick slice of bread layered with butter. He did not have much of an appetite, but on the frontier he had learned to eat when he could because he never knew how long it would be between meals. Especially lavish meals like this one.

Judge Harding and Arthur Draypool did most of the talking, with the judge’s wife making occasional comments. Most of it was of no interest, having to do with recent cases the judge had presided over, their mutual friend Clyde Mayfair, and the general lawlessness.

Fargo suspected that last was for his benefit. He had seen no evidence of it on the way there. Everyone they met had been friendly and seemed law-abiding. But he kept his suspicions private. He would let them go on thinking they had pulled the wool over his eyes.

Midway through the meal a commotion arose in the hall, and presently Akuda ushered in a man who had the dust of many miles on his clothes and a quirt in his hand. The new arrival whispered in Judge Harding’s ear, and the judge excused himself, saying he must attend to personal business.

Fargo pretended not to notice the pointed glances Draypool and Garvey cast his way. He began to wash down his supper with a cup of piping-hot coffee, flavored with a pinch of sugar.

In due course the judge returned. His mood had completely changed. Where before he was reserved and cold, he came back in whistling merrily, a new spring in his step.

“Good news?” Fargo asked between sips.

“Yes, indeed,” Judge Harding replied. “A critical business arrangement has turned out better than we dared hope.” When he said “we,” he glanced out of the corner of an eye at Arthur Draypool. He did it so quickly, and so cleverly, that only someone whose vision had been honed to the razor sharpness of a hawk’s in order to survive in the peril-filled fastness of the mountains and the vast plains would catch it.

Darby was toying with her green beans. “So tell me, Mr. Fargo,” she ventured, “how do you rate your prospects of catching the killer?”

“I can track anything that lives,” Fargo said matter-of-factly.

“Then that terrible man is as good as caught!” Winifred Harding declared. “You will be doing the whole world a service by helping to eliminate him.”

“The whole world?” Fargo repeated.

Judge Harding waved a hand in his Winifred’s direction but did not look at her. “Forgive her. My wife has a flair for the dramatic. By the whole world she means Illinois, which is her whole world, in a sense.”

Fargo reminded himself that most judges were lawyers, and lawyers were masters of twisting phrases to suit them.

“Yes, that’s what I meant,” Winifred said, bobbing her double chins. “Please don’t read more into what I say than there is.”

Judge Harding made a tepee of his fingers. “I suggest it is time for the ladies to retire to the drawing room so the men can smoke their cigars.”

Winifred came out of her chair as if someone had poked her bottom with a pin. “Oh. Certainly. Whatever you want, dearest. Belda will bring us our desserts.”

The judge and Draypool slid cigars from inner pockets and proceeded to clip the ends and light them, an elaborate ritual that ended with both of them leaning back, blowing smoke toward the ceiling, and sighing contentedly.

“There is nothing quite like a good cigar after a hard day’s work,” Judge Harding observed. He offered one to Fargo, but Fargo declined. “You don’t smoke? Pity. You’re depriving yourself of one of life’s too few joys.”

“I don’t smoke, either,” Garvey said. The overseer had voiced only a few comments all evening.

“You should,” Arthur Draypool said. “Tobacco is God’s gift to humankind. Unlike alcohol, it doesn’t have any bad effects.”

“Unless you count accidentally setting your clothes on fire when you light up,” Judge Harding joked.

Fargo did not share in their chuckles. “Tell me more about the Monster,” he urged Harding. “Has anyone ever made a list of the names of all those he’s butchered?”

“I have the information right here.” Judge Harding tapped his temple. “His first victims were the Myrtle family, ten years ago next month. They were from Rhode Island. They came here to farm and were buried on their plot.”

“I remember them,” Arthur Draypool said. “In addition to the parents, there were two small girls and a small boy, correct?”

“That was the family, yes,” the judge said. “I presided at the burials. Little did we realize more atrocities would follow.”

Fargo had to hand it to them. They lied as slickly as patent medicine salesmen. “Who were some of the others?”

Judge Harding related the deaths of victim after victim, adding little touches about their appearance and what they supposedly did for a living to make it more believable. “As you can see,” he said, summing things up, “my wife was not all that remiss about how badly we need your help.”

It was well past nine when Harding and Draypool excused themselves and headed upstairs, the judge commenting, “It would be wise if you gentlemen did the same. Tomorrow may well be the day we receive news of the Monster’s whereabouts.”

Fargo left the dining room. The shadow that fell across him as he came to the upstairs landing was as big as the shadow of a redwood.

“I look forward to working with you,” Garvey said.

“I work alone.”

“Not against the Monster you don’t,” Garvey responded. “Mr. Harding and Mr. Draypool told me we are sticking with you.” He stopped at a room. “This is mine. See you in the morning.”

Fargo shook off a feeling of a net closing around him. His uneasiness resurfaced, and he latched his bedroom door. Sprawling out on his back, he was on the verge of dozing off when a light knock sounded. The clock on the wall said it was five minutes to eleven. Belda was early. He threw the latch and pulled the door wide, and could not hide his surprise.

“I thought you might like some company,” Darby Harding said.