Blood Wedding

10

“It’s no wonder I went to sleep,” Abby said when Fargo got her to wake up. “I didn’t get much sleep at all.”

She said it somewhat accusingly, and Fargo was willing to share the blame for her failure to stay awake even though he wasn’t the one who’d paid a visit to her bedroom. And he didn’t think it would be a good idea to remind her that he hadn’t had much sleep that night, either. For that matter, he knew damn good and well that he wasn’t going to tell her he’d had hardly any sleep at all since then. Come to think of it, he could have used a couple of hours on his blanket up in the hayloft, but he knew he wasn’t going to get them.

“I don’t blame you for what happened,” Fargo said. “How long have you been asleep?”

“It couldn’t have been long. And Angel must have waited until I was sleeping hard, because she couldn’t have taken the gun out of my hand otherwise. Why?”

“Because we have to find her. If she gets back to Murray, he’ll probably kill every farmer around here.”

“Oh,” Abby said. “And it will be my fault.”

“It’s not your fault. Anyway, she’s hurt. She shouldn’t be able to get very far. She’ll be too weak from that gunshot wound. You stay here. I’ll go after her.”

Abby’s mouth was set in a hard line. She opened it to say, “Not without me, you won’t.”

Fargo could tell she was determined, and he didn’t try to stop her from following him. He went out to the barn to see if Abby’s horse was missing, but it was there. Angel probably hadn’t been able to lift the saddle with her wounded shoulder. He looked around the barn to see if Angel had hidden somewhere in a stall or the loft, but there was no indication that she’d even been there. Fargo went back outside, with Abby at his heels.

The sun was coming up, reddening the eastern sky over a low cloud bank and giving Fargo just enough light to see the ground, which was too hard to take any tracks. He did, however, notice some light dew that had been disturbed where someone had walked toward the cornfield. It was the only place of concealment around other than the barn.

“I’m going in there to look for her,” Fargo said. “You wait here.”

“No,” Abby said. “I feel responsible. I’m going with you.”

“If we both get shot, who’s going for help? You stay here until I call for you or until something happens and I need you.”

Abby didn’t like it, but she nodded. Fargo walked into the corn. The sun made crazy dark shadows on the ground, but at first it was easy enough to see where Angel had passed by. Although the ground hadn’t been plowed recently, it was soft enough for Angel to have left a light impression on it. Fargo followed her tracks, being careful to keep an eye out for her. He didn’t think she could have gotten too far, and he thought she might be waiting for him. And she had Abby’s pistol.

After going about halfway through the field, Fargo saw that Angel’s tracks were much fainter, almost disappearing completely. He wondered why, and then realized that she must have been even weaker than he’d thought. After the excitement of escaping, she’d tired quickly, and now she was probably just ahead of him.

But she wasn’t. Fargo looked all around; he couldn’t find her. It took him a minute or two to locate more tracks, and then he knew he’d been tricked. Angel had slipped over to another row, turned around, and gone the other way. She’d passed him by and was headed back to the house.

Fargo didn’t know why she was going there, but he knew it couldn’t be for any good reason. Good, that is, from Fargo’s point of view. He turned back and started to run, not minding that he was brushing against the cornstalks and making as much noise as a buffalo herd.

When he pushed aside the last green stalks and emerged from the field, Angel was there, all right. She was standing behind Abby, holding the pistol against the base of the smaller woman’s skull.

When she saw Fargo, Angel said, “I’m glad it’s you who came back. I knew I couldn’t get back to my pa, but I thought I might get back at you some other way. I was willing to wait for however long it took until somebody showed up, but you came quicker than I even hoped.”

Fargo had never liked to be tricked, but he had to admit that Angel had gotten the better of him. He said, “Now that you’ve fooled me, what are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to kill this dainty little trollop,” Angel said. “It’s too bad her father’s not here to see it, but you’re just as good. You’re the one that held me like this in front of my own father. Now you can feel a little of what he did. And this whore can feel what I felt.”

“I’m not a whore,” Abby said. “And I’m not afraid of you, either.”

“Well, you should be. Because I’m just about to shoot the back of your head off.”

“You don’t want to do that, Angel,” Fargo said. “It wouldn’t be smart.”

“I don’t give much of a damn whether it’s smart or not. In a way she’s the one who got Paul killed, and it’s only right that she’s the one to pay for it.”

That was just like the Murrays, Fargo thought, always looking for someone to blame.

“If Paul had stayed away from here, he’d still be alive,” Fargo said. “Who’s fault is it that he came?”

“Don’t start that kind of talk with me,” Angel said. “I’m going to shoot this bitch.”

“If you do, I’ll kill you,” Fargo said.

“What do I care? You’re just using me against my father, and we Murrays don’t like to be used.”

“You talk too much,” Abby said. “And you’re standing too close.”

She raised her foot and stomped down on Angel’s instep.

Angel yelped. Abby whirled around and smacked her in the face with a tiny fist. Angel stumbled back a step, and Abby struck at her again. She missed. Angel brought up the pistol, but she didn’t get a chance to pull the trigger. Abby slammed headfirst into her midsection, and both women hit the ground, Abby on top. Angel struck at Abby’s head with the pistol, but she didn’t seem to do much damage. Abby raised her fist and clubbed her in the wounded shoulder. Angel let out a yell to rival the ones Fargo had heard from Molly not too long ago under entirely different circumstances.

By the time the scream had died, Fargo was beside the two struggling women. Angel was trying to head-butt Abby, but the smaller woman had pulled back and was preparing to hit Angel’s shoulder again.

Fargo bent over and grabbed Abby’s wrist with one hand to restrain her while he wrested the pistol from Angel with his other hand.

“That’s enough,” he said to Abby. “I think you’ve got her whipped.”

“The hell she does,” Angel said. “You get away from her and let us fight. I’ll tear her head off.”

Fargo didn’t think so. Abby had proved to be a lot less delicate than Molly seemed to think she was. Abby might be small, but she was a fighter.

Fargo kept his grip on her wrist and eased her up off Angel. Abby couldn’t resist one last kick at Angel’s ribs as Fargo pulled her away.

“Bitch,” Angel said. She struggled to sit up. “Let her go, Fargo. I’m going to kill her.”

“Looks to me like you’re the one getting killed,” Fargo said. “You should have shot her back in the house when you had the chance.”

“I wanted someone to see and suffer the way my father did when you put the gun to my head. You bastard. This is all your fault.”

Fargo wondered why people like Angel, and her father for that matter, always had to blame someone else for their troubles. They never seemed to think that any blame should light on them, no matter what they’d done.

“You might as well get up,” Fargo said. “You seem to be feeling pretty feisty.”

“That’s what you think,” Angel said, and then she fainted.

“That’s the second time she’s done that,” Fargo said. “I don’t think she’s feeling too well after all.”

“That’s just fine with me,” Abby said. “I don’t care if she dies. I hope she does. And you can let go of my arm. I’m not going to do anything else to her.”

“I think you’ve done enough, already. Let’s get her back in the house.”

“Why don’t we just leave her here? Let her lie there and die. I hate her.”

“She doesn’t think too much of you, either, judging by those names she called you. But it wouldn’t be smart to let her die. I made a promise to Murray, and I’m going to keep it.”

“Even after what she did?”

“What she did doesn’t matter. She didn’t make any promises.”

“You sound a lot like Jed sometimes,” Abby said. “I didn’t understand him, either.”

She turned and started back to the house. Then she remembered her pistol and came back for it. When she picked it up, she said, “You can bring her in if you want to, but don’t expect me to help you.”

“You’ll have to watch her,” Fargo said.

“If you want her watched, you do it. I don’t think she’s going anywhere.”

Fargo picked up Angel and carried her back to the house. She didn’t stir until he put her on the bed, and even then she didn’t awaken. Abby was right. Angel wasn’t going anywhere, not for a while.

Fargo sat down in the chair across from the bed. He removed his Colt from the holster and put it under his leg just in case Angel was faking. She wouldn’t be able to get to the pistol without waking him up. When he was as comfortable as he could get, he closed his eyes, and in less than a minute he was asleep.

He woke up when he heard voices in another room. Angel was awake, too, and watching him, but she wasn’t saying anything.

For the first time Fargo noticed that she was a beautiful woman, or would have been if not for the perpetual scowl she wore. Her hair was long and dark, her eyes were a startling blue, and her mouth was wide and sensuous. Fargo already knew she had an inviting figure from his earliest encounter with her in the barn. It was too bad that she was an outlaw’s daughter and that she’d chosen to follow her father’s way of life.

Fargo grinned at her and said, “I thought you’d sleep a lot longer.”

“I’ve been thinking about what’s going to happen to you when my pa gets through with you,” Angel said. “You won’t be much of a man after he finishes cutting.”

“I don’t plan to give him a chance to start, much less finish.”

“That shows how much you know about it. He runs things around here, and you just haven’t figured it out yet.”

“The way Jed hadn’t?”

“I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Why not? You liked him for a while, or so I hear.”

“He could have had everything, but he let his conscience get in the way. He deserved what happened to him.”

She said the word conscience as if it were a curse. And the venom was still in her voice when she talked about Jed’s fate. Fargo didn’t agree with her conclusion, but he didn’t feel like arguing with her. He put his pistol back in the holster and went out to see who was talking to Abby.

It was Lem, back from Johnson’s place, and he was telling Abby a little about what had gone on there. Fargo hadn’t told her because he hadn’t had time. They’d been too concerned with catching up with Angel, and after that he’d been too tired.

“So there’s not going to be a funeral for Sarah?” Abby said when Fargo walked into the kitchen.

“Just a little graveside ceremony for Rip and a couple of her women friends. There won’t be any sitting up with her, either. Everybody’s going to stay close to home for a few days. Some of them are even starting to talk about forming some kind of vigilance committee and doing something about Murray and that gang of his.”

“You might not want to say that too loud,” Fargo said, with a glance back over his shoulder.

“I don’t care if she hears,” Lem said. “Those Murrays find out everything sooner or later, anyhow. They’ve had things their own way around here for long enough. It’s time somebody did something about them.”

“That’s the kind of talk that got Jed killed,” Abby said. “I don’t want to lose you, too.”

“They won’t kill me. I’m too old and ornery.”

“They’ll kill anybody. They killed Sarah Johnson.”

“I blame Rip for that,” Lem said. “He’s pretending to be all torn up about it. But I know how he was around women. He might be just as glad she’s gone.”

As he said that last part, Fargo waited for Abby’s reaction. She didn’t mince words.

“He doesn’t care one bit about Sarah. He’ll be making a play for some other woman before she’s cold in the ground.”

“I know who that woman will be,” Lem said, “and so do you. I don’t like it.”

“I don’t like it any better than you do,” Abby told him. “But if he thinks he’s got a chance with me, he’s got another thing coming. He’d better not even come around here.”

“You know he likes you. He always has. He won’t stay away.”

“He doesn’t like me any more than he likes any other woman. Which I admit is probably quite a lot. What he’d really like to do is get this farm for himself. But you don’t have to worry about that. He doesn’t have a chance with me.”

“I thought you felt that way,” Lem said, “But I’m glad to hear you say it. He’d make a mighty sorry son-in-law.”

Fargo looked out the window and judged from the sunlight that it must be sometime past noon. He’d slept longer than he thought. And he realized that he was hungry. When he said something about it, Lem told Abby to fry up some bacon and eggs.

“I guess none of us have had any breakfast today. What about Angel?”

“She can wait,” Abby said.

The bacon smelled good while it was frying in the pan, and it tasted even better than it smelled. The fresh eggs were just as tasty, and Fargo, for just a second or two, could almost understand why someone might want to settle down to the farming life. But only for a second or two. Being stuck in one place, living day after day under the same roof, seeing the same people all the time: those things didn’t have any appeal for Fargo, and he was already getting anxious to get away from Kansas and back to some country where there were mountains with the snow still on top and streams that rushed down their sides instead of sliding along the flatlands.

While they were eating, Fargo asked Lem about the Murray gang, trying to find out a little more about them.

“Murray just showed up here one day a couple of years ago,” Lem said. “Nobody knows much about him, but I doubt that he got his start here. I think he came because things are so unsettled hereabouts. He could run that gang of his without too much interference, and that’s the way he wants it.”

“And nobody tries to stop them?” Fargo asked.

“They take whatever they want, whenever they feel like it,” Lem said around a mouthful of eggs. “They steal our chickens to eat, but they kill the rest of them for fun. They live off us, is what they do. We work, and they take what they please because we can’t stop them.”

“We could stop them if we did what Jed suggested,” Abby said.

“It’s hard to get farmers to turn to the gun,” Lem said. “That’s why they’re farmers. They might talk about doing something, but they never do. Hell, I should know. I’m one of ’em.”

“What about the town?” Fargo asked. “Does Murray ever go there?”

“Atchison? Sure, he goes there. He’s robbed the bank there at least twice, but the sheriff’s afraid of him. He might get together a posse, but they never seem to be able to find Murray. Pretty sorry posse, if you ask me.”

That fit with what Molly had already told Fargo, and the thought of Molly made him wonder where she was.

“She’s decided to stay at Talley’s,” Lem said when Fargo asked. “There’s nobody else to do it, and she doesn’t have a place anymore. The bank probably owns it now, but Molly might be able to take it over and pay off Talley’s loan. ’Course, it wouldn’t be easy, paying hers and his, too, but if anybody can do it, Molly can. She’s a worker.”

“Maybe she and Rip could partner up,” Fargo said, just to see what Lem thought.

But it was Abby who answered as soon as she could quit laughing.

“Molly and Rip? You must be crazy, Fargo. Molly likes that man even less than I do, which is saying a lot.”

Fargo knew that was true, and he decided it was time to bring the talk back to Murray.

“Why is it that nobody seems to know where the gang stays when they’re not out raiding the countryside?” he asked. “Hasn’t anybody tried to find them?”

“Not very hard,” Lem said. “Fella named Melton tried once. We found him a day or so later, hanging in a tree at the end of a rope with his neck all stretched out. That pretty much discouraged people from looking.”

Fargo could see how it would discourage the farmers, but it didn’t bother him. He’d seen worse. Maybe he’d have a look around and see what he could find. Or maybe there was another way.

“We need to take good care of Angel,” he said. “Keep her in bed another day or so and then send her on her way.”

“We can’t be rid of her soon enough for me,” Abby said, and she crunched a bite of bacon between her teeth as if she were snapping a bone.