Blood Wedding

13

The Murray gang struck at Alf Wesley’s farm that night around midnight. Wesley was asleep when the shooting started, but he must have run outside and tried to put a stop to it.

He didn’t have a chance. He was shot to ribbons before he got off his front porch.

The Murrays stayed around after he was dead, shooting and hollering and generally having themselves a fine old time. It was as if they were trying to attract attention to what they’d done, and if attention was what they wanted, they got it. Wesley farm was close enough to Lem’s for the noise to awaken Fargo, and it didn’t take him long to get the Ovaro saddled and go to see what the trouble was.

Lem wanted to go with him, but Fargo told him to stay at home.

“You can’t leave Abby here alone,” the Trailsman said. “And we don’t want her to go with us. You need to be here to put up some kind of fight if they come this way. Make plenty of noise if anybody shows up here, and I’ll come back.”

Lem said that he’d try to make as much noise as he could, but Fargo could see that he wasn’t happy about staying.

“You think they’ve killed Alf?” Lem asked.

“That’s what I’m going to find out,” Fargo said.

The gang didn’t seem too worried that anyone would interfere with their fun. And they needn’t have been. As Fargo neared Wesley’s farm, he realized that no farmers had come in response to the ruckus, and he didn’t think any of them would be coming along later, even though the shooting could be heard for miles. Everybody heard it, Fargo was sure, but nobody appeared willing to take the risk of leaving his own house.

Fargo didn’t really blame them. They had their own homes and families to think of. On the other hand, Fargo couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t want to help out a neighbor, even though it would be a risk. Maybe that was another reason he’d never become a farmer.

He left the Ovaro on the far side of the cornfield and made his way through the tall rustling stalks. He didn’t have to worry about making noise. The gang members were riding around the house and barn, brandishing torches, shooting their pistols into the air, and yelling as if they’d had plenty to drink before coming to raid Wesley’s property. They weren’t going to hear a man walking through a cornfield. They probably wouldn’t have heard a buffalo stampede.

In the light of the moon and the flickering torches, Fargo could see Alf Wesley’s body lying sprawled a few feet away from the front of his house. He wasn’t moving, and Fargo didn’t doubt that he was dead. A rifle lay a short distance from one outstretched hand.

Peter Murray sat astride his horse near the house and watched the frolic with the dignified air of a circuit-riding preacher. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and a little thick through the middle. He had a thick, bushy beard that was mostly black, though it was silvered by the moon. Fargo couldn’t really see his eyes, but they glowed crimson in the reflected torchlight, and Fargo thought he could see the ghost of a smile through the wild tangle of beard.

Angel was near her father, but she didn’t seem quite so pleased with what was going on. She wasn’t smiling, and her shoulders slumped. That could have been a result of her wound, but Fargo thought it was the result of her disapproval. He chuckled to himself. He was getting soft if he thought Angel didn’t endorse what was happening. She knew what was going to happen before she rode out with the gang.

Fargo was a little sorry she was there because he was about to do something that would hurt her more than the death of her brother. He was going to kill her father. He didn’t see anything else he could do. He couldn’t fight the whole gang, which had grown back to its original size or larger already, so he’d deal with it the way he’d deal with a snake: cut off the head and hope the body would die. It was a little like bushwhacking, and Fargo didn’t like it. However, Murray hadn’t given Wesley much of a chance, either.

Fargo pulled his Colt from the holster and brought it up to shoot, but before he could pull the trigger, someone came riding up, firing a shotgun and shrieking like a gut-shot antelope.

It was Molly Doyle, the only farmer with the gumption to take a hand in things. Instead of sneaking up on the gang like Fargo, she’d apparently decided to shoot it out single-handedly. Maybe she thought that they’d believe she was crazy and that would scare them away. If that was her idea, it didn’t work, but it did slow things down a little.

Not because anybody was afraid of her. Crazy or not, she was using a gun with a limited range and with only two shells in it, not the kind of ordnance to strike fear into the heart of anybody with even a little knowledge of firearms. Anybody who got nicked by the buckshot fired from a distance was going to be more peeved than hurt. Several of Murray’s men stopped riding around in circles and sat watching to see what Molly would do next.

Not having hit anybody with her shotgun, Molly simply tossed it away from her and pulled her pistol. She did a little better with that, and Fargo was surprised to see her shoot one man out of the saddle.

Probably just luck, Fargo thought. It wasn’t easy to shoot straight while you were riding full tilt on horseback.

When the man fell from his horse, Molly turned and rode toward the spot where Murray and Angel had been. But they were no longer there. As soon as Molly had come into view, they had ridden away, and Fargo didn’t know where they had gone. All he knew was that Molly had spoiled his chance of killing Murray and that she wasn’t likely to catch up with him and do the job herself.

All she was going to do was get herself killed.

Unless Fargo did something to help her out.

He ran out of the cornfield, firing his pistol. He didn’t think he’d hit anybody. He was just trying to create a momentary distraction, to do something that would turn the attention to him and away from Molly.

It worked. Murray’s men started shooting at Fargo, who ran a zigzag trail toward Molly. Approaching her horse from behind, Fargo holstered his pistol. He made a running jump, placed his hands on the horse’s rump, and propelled himself onto the horse’s back behind Molly. The horse reared up in surprise, but Fargo held onto Molly’s waist and didn’t fall. Reaching around her ample body, he grabbed the reins from her hands and snapped them against the horse’s neck. The horse had recovered from its shock at the sudden addition to its load, and it jumped forward at a run.

Instead of heading away from the house, Fargo ran the horse straight toward Murray’s men, who were so surprised at his audacity that they forgot to shoot for a second or two. By the time they remembered, Fargo was right in the middle of them, and then past them.

“It’s Murray!” Molly yelled, and Fargo looked over her shoulder to see the leader of the gang, with Angel still at his side, not far away.

Murray and Angel weren’t running away. They were sitting on their horses, silhouetted against the night sky, waiting with drawn pistols for Fargo and Molly to get closer.

Molly got off a couple of shots, but then the hammer of her pistol clicked on an empty chamber.

“Damn!” she said.

With the gang coming up behind him and Murray waiting in front, Fargo didn’t have much choice of where to go. He jerked on the reins, hoping to turn the horse to the right, but the animal was moving too fast and the footing wasn’t certain. The next thing Fargo knew, he and Molly were flying through the air, asses over elbows, and then he hit the ground, hard, and didn’t know anything for a long time.

When Fargo came to, he had no idea where he was. Total darkness surrounded him. He might as well have been tied up inside a heavy leather bag for all that he could see. He was in a sitting position, and there was something hard against his back, something that felt like a rock. His head throbbed as if he’d been kicked by a horse.

The thought of being kicked in the head brought back the memory of his fall. He must have hit his head somehow. He was lucky that his neck wasn’t broken. Maybe it had been. Maybe he was dead and in hell. He knew there were plenty of people who’d wished him there over the years. The place he was in now didn’t seem hot enough for hell, though. In fact, it was a little cool, and the rock at Fargo’s back seemed damp. He had a feeling there wouldn’t be a lot of damp rocks in hell. He couldn’t smell any brimstone, either, and there weren’t any fires. There was nobody with hooves and a forked tail. There was nothing, in fact, but the blackness. And the silence. Fargo realized for the first time that he couldn’t hear a thing.

Then he realized that he couldn’t feel his hands.

Had he gone deaf?

Had someone cut off his hands?

He tried to move and found that he couldn’t. His feet were tied together, and his arms were behind him. Probably tied at the wrists, tied so tightly that the circulation was cut off. Which was why he couldn’t feel them. That wasn’t good. It could lead to some serious problems later on.

“Anybody here?” Fargo said. His voice was a hoarse croak.

His voice echoed off stone walls, and a voice not far away said. “Just me.”

“Molly?”

“That’s right. Are you all right, Fargo? I thought for sure you were dead.”

Fargo’s head pounded and his shoulders had started to ache.

“I might be better off if I was. Do you know where we are?”

“Murray’s hideout. Don’t talk too loud or somebody will hear us.”

Fargo didn’t think he could talk loud even if he wanted to. His throat felt as if it might be full of sharp-edged stones.

“I was wondering where the hideout was,” he said, his voice rasping. “But now that I’m in it, I still don’t know where it is.”

“It’s a cave. We’re in a little valley not far from the Missouri River. This cave was carved out a long time ago when the river first came this way, I guess.”

Fargo tried to take that in. “How far from Wesley’s farm are we?”

“A pretty good distance. You’ve been out for a long time.”

Fargo thought about that. The inside of his mouth was dry and tasted like it had been stuffed with burned chicken feathers.

“Why didn’t they just kill us?”

“They were going to at first. That’s what Murray wanted to do, but Angel talked him out of it. She said something about you being different from the rest of the farmers, that maybe you’d throw in with them, but I don’t think she fooled Murray much. He knew what she really meant.” Molly chuckled. “You get around, don’t you, Fargo.”

Fargo didn’t see any point in talking about that. He said, “What about you? They could have killed you.”

“I guess they figured that if they were going to keep you around for a while, they might as well keep me, too. Or maybe Murray fancies me.”

“I wouldn’t blame him if he did,” Fargo said.

“That’s mighty gallant of you, Fargo, especially considering that we’re trussed up like a pair of turkeys. But I don’t really think Murray fancies me. I don’t think they’ll keep either one of us alive for very long.”

As he got more accustomed to the dark, Fargo realized that the blackness wasn’t quite as intense as he’d at first believed. There was a faint glow almost directly across from him. It wasn’t much, but he knew that the cave must have several rooms. Murray’s gang was in one where there was light from fire and torches, while Fargo and Molly had been stuck back in one of the other, darker rooms.

Fargo wiggled his arms, trying to stimulate the circulation in his hands. He didn’t have any luck.

“Why did you come charging up to Wesley’s house like that?” Fargo asked. “You’re lucky you didn’t get killed right then and there.”

“I was just so damn mad,” Molly said. “I thought that by the time I got there, everybody from all around would have come to help Alf out. But there was nobody. Well, except for you, and I didn’t know you were around. It made me mad that nobody cared about Alf, and I guess I just lost my head. Now I’ll probably lose it anyhow.”

“Maybe not. Maybe we can get out of here.”

“Sure. Any minute now Angel will come in and cut you loose because she likes you so much. Let me set you straight, Fargo. You’re good, but you’re not that good. Besides, even if she cut the ropes, you’d never get past Murray.”

“I wasn’t thinking about Angel. I thought maybe you could cut these ropes. If you don’t, I’m going to lose my hands.”

“I don’t have a knife, and I don’t think I can chew these ropes in two. If there was a rat around, maybe he could do it for you.”

Fargo didn’t much like rats, and he’d just as soon Molly hadn’t mentioned them. But there weren’t likely to be any rats in a cave. He said, “I carry a knife in my boot. If we can get it out, and if you can get hold of it, we can at least get loose. After that, we can see about getting away from here.”

“A knife? Why didn’t you say so sooner? How can we get to it?”

“Can you get over here?”

“I can sure as hell try.”

Fargo heard a muffled flop as Molly fell over and then a scratchy scraping sound as she snaked her way across the floor on her stomach. Within a minute or two, he felt her head bump his leg.

“I’m here,” she said. “Now what?”

“Now we see if we can get to the knife.”

Fargo wasn’t actually sure the knife was there. Whoever tied his feet together might have noticed it and taken it. But Fargo didn’t think that would have happened. The knife had been overlooked before and had gotten him out of more than one scrape. He slid down the wall until he was lying on his back with his arms and hands beneath him. It was just as well he couldn’t feel anything back there, he thought. He’d probably be screaming if he could.

He managed somehow to raise his legs until they were pointing just about straight up at the ceiling. The knife didn’t fall out of the boot. There were two possible reasons: either someone had removed it, as he’d feared, or the ropes that held his feet were tied so tightly that the knife was stuck.

“Damn,” Fargo said, and then he explained the problem to Molly.

“Kick your feet around,” she said. “Maybe you can shake it loose. If it’s there, which I wouldn’t count on.”

Fargo bent his knees and kicked straight up. Nothing happened. He tried it again, and he thought he felt something move inside the boot. He couldn’t be sure because by now he couldn’t feel his lower legs and feet much better than he could feel his hands. Whoever had tied him had certainly done a good job of it. Or a had job, depending on your point of view.

Fargo kicked again. The knife fell out of the boot, but its scabbard stayed inside. The hilt of the knife hit Fargo squarely on the breastbone, sending a sharp pain through his chest. He clamped his teeth shut and didn’t cry out. He thought it was a good thing he’d been struck by the hilt and not the point of the blade. The knife bounced off his chest and hit Molly’s head before falling to the floor.

“Now all you have to do is get your hands on it,” Fargo said. “I’d do it myself, but I can’t feel a thing.”

“My fingers feel like pieces of cordwood,” Molly said. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

She got into a sitting position and fumbled around for the knife. While she was groping, Fargo squirmed back up against the wall to wait until Molly got hold of the knife, if she ever managed it.

It took a while, but finally Molly said, “I think I have it. Scoot over here, and let’s see what I can do.”

Fargo dug in with his heels and pulled himself across the floor. When his feet encountered something soft, Molly said, “That’s me. Turn around and back up to me.”

Fargo did his best, and eventually they were back to back.

“Now’s the hard part,” Molly said. “I think I have the knife with the sharp edge of the blade facing you. I can hold onto it, maybe, if you can move your arms up and down.”

Fargo didn’t know of any other way to do it. Not being able to feel his hands, he was probably going to get cut pretty badly, but it wouldn’t matter if the ropes got cut as well.

“Can you feel where I am?” he asked.

“You’re about right. Get to moving.”

Fargo moved. It was slow work because the knife occasionally slipped from Molly’s hands, and then she was forced to pick it up and get it back into position. Fargo didn’t ask why the knife slipped away. It could have happened because Molly’s fingers were too numb to hold it. Or it could have been that her hands were slick with his blood. If it was the latter, he didn’t want to know about it.

After what seemed to be several hours, though it was more like ten minutes, the ropes parted and Fargo’s arms separated. But he couldn’t do anything to help Molly, not then. He had to wait until the circulation returned to his hands and fingers.

That took another few minutes, and they were mighty painful ones. It was as if someone had stuck Fargo’s hands into a fire and then stuck red-hot needles into his hands. When he could finally flex his fingers, the pain ran all the way up his arms. He found that his hands were covered with blood, but he couldn’t feel the cuts yet. That would come later, and he didn’t let it worry him. He found the knife and cut his feet free. Then he cut the ropes that bound Molly.

She groaned a little when her circulation began to come back, but not enough to be heard by anyone in another part of the cave.

“Well, we’re loose,” she said when she could speak again. “What now? We can’t just walk out of here.”

“We don’t have a lot of other choices,” Fargo said. “But at least we don’t have to go out the front way.”

“Who says there’s another way?”

“Nobody. Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn’t. We’ll just have to find out.”

“You might not have noticed,” Molly said, “but it’s darker than the inside of a black cat at midnight in here. And if we start going farther back, it’s just going to get darker.”

Fargo couldn’t argue with that. He said, “You can go out and face Murray if you want to. I figure you’d get about one step into the light before you got shot four or five times. I’d rather take my chances in the dark if there’s another way out of here.”

“So we feel our way along, is that it?”

Fargo nodded, then realized that Molly couldn’t see him. He said, “That’s it. We’ll either find a way out or get stuck somewhere and starve.”

“I could do with missing a few meals, but I don’t much like the idea of starving. And what about the bats?”

Fargo didn’t know anything about bats.

“They’re not in this part of the cave,” Molly told him, “but I heard Murray talking about them. They’re in here somewhere, and I don’t like the idea of running into them.”

“Bats won’t hurt you.”

“They’ll tangle up in your hair. I don’t think I could stand that. I lost my hat when we fell, or I wouldn’t be worried.”

Women never ceased to amaze Fargo. Here was one who’d charged at Murray and his gang even though she was outnumbered fifteen or twenty to one, and she was worried about bats.

“Bats don’t get in your hair,” Fargo said. “That’s just a tale some folks like to tell.”

“How do you know?”

“I know. The only thing you have to worry about is that the floor under their roost will be mighty nasty.”

“As long as they don’t get in my hair, I don’t care.”

“Then let’s see if we can find a way out of here,” Fargo said.