Blood Wedding

17

The next few days passed without any more incursions by Murray. Fargo figured he was looking for a new hideout, since Angel had told them where he’d stayed after leaving the cave. The drunken doctor had come out and removed the bullet from Angel’s shoulder, and she was healing again. Fargo and Lem tried to decide what to do about Murray.

“There aren’t that many places around here he could go,” Lem said. “If we could find out where he is, we’d go after him.”

“Who’s we,” Fargo wanted to know.

“I’ve talked to Cass Ellis and Bob Tabor. Both of them would throw in with us. And they think they could find some others. Murray shouldn’t have hung Frank from that scarecrow. That made people madder than anything he’s done so far.”

“What about Rip Johnson?” Fargo asked.

Rip had been by a couple of times already, trying to get Abby’s attention, hoping to make some time with her.

“Rip’s ready to ride anytime we say. He told me to let him know first thing, just as soon as we decide on a plan, so he could be ready. He and Frank were friends, just like he and Tom were. He’s lucky he wasn’t killed like them, and he knows it.”

Fargo thought about that and decided to ride over to Talley’s place, or Molly’s, since it was hers now by virtue of the bank and her own persistence.

He stopped in Angel’s room first. She was propped up on some pillows and smiled when he came in.

“I guess we’re even now, Fargo. I stuck up for you when Pa wanted to kill you, and you stuck up for me the other day. I was just about sure Pa was going to kill me.”

“He almost did. I need to know where he’s hiding out these days.”

Fargo had already asked that question more than once, and Angel kept putting him off. He wasn’t sure if she really didn’t know anything or if she was still protecting her father even though he’d shot her.

“I’d tell you if I knew. He could be back in the cave, though. That’s like something he’d do. He’d try to outsmart you, and if he believed you wouldn’t expect him to be there, he might head straight for it. It would be worth a try.”

Fargo had already considered that possibility. He didn’t think Murray would go back to the cave. It was too easy to get trapped in a cave if you didn’t know the way out, and Fargo didn’t think Murray would want to exit by the route Fargo had used. It was too uncomfortable, and it took too long. And Fargo would know where he’d be coming out.

“We could check the cave,” Fargo said, not really meaning it. “There’s something else that’s been bothering me.”

Angel tried to sit up a little straighter, hardly wincing at the pain she must have felt.

“What’s bothering you?” she asked.

There were a lot of things. Fargo had a whole list of them, but he didn’t want to go through them with Angel. So he told her one of them.

“Seems to me your father always knows what’s going on with the farmers. He knows when the funerals are, and he knows who’s going to be there. He knows whose house the bodies will be in, and he knows who’ll be sitting up with them. I don’t see how he does it.”

“I don’t know, either, but I see what you mean. If Paul were alive, he could tell you. Pa always let him in on the plans. He never told me anything. He let me ride with him, but that was only because I wouldn’t stay behind. You know something, Fargo?”

Fargo didn’t like guessing games, so he didn’t reply. Angel apparently didn’t expect him to, and she answered her own question.

“I should have left Pa long ago. I must have been crazy to stay with him when I saw what he was doing.”

“I’m not too clear on what he’s doing.” Fargo said. “You told me a while back that there was more to it than I knew, but you never explained what you meant by it.”

“That’s because I don’t know much more than you do. But Pa and Paul used to go off all the time to discuss their plans. That’s probably when they met with their spy.”

“How do you know there was a spy?”

“You said it yourself. Pa always knew everything. There had to be a spy. I thought you knew that. I just can’t tell you who it was because I was never there when they met.”

Fargo had figured out the spy part for himself. He even thought he knew who the spy was, which was why he was going to see Molly.

“You must have some idea about the plans,” he said.

He had a vague idea, himself, but he couldn’t quite make sense of all the ideas rattling around in his head.

“All I know is that Pa was upset with everybody when Ma was killed,” Angel said. “He hates the farmers, he hates the free-staters, he hates the slaveholders. Sometimes that’s all he can talk about. I don’t know how he thinks he can whip all of them, but for some reason he started with the farmers.”

Fargo knew why Murray had started with the farmers. It was the smart thing to do because he could whip them more easily than the other groups. If he had mixed it up with the others, the army would have gotten involved, and that would have been the end of things for Murray right there. Which was why Fargo couldn’t figure out how Murray could go beyond the farmers.

“He talks about the South a lot, too,” Angel said. “Sometimes I thought he might want to go there to live. But he doesn’t. He says that nobody can run him off and that he’s staying right here where he belongs.”

That was a new fact for Fargo to think about. He wasn’t sure that it meant anything, but maybe it fit somewhere with all the other things he was mulling over. He thought that he might be able to pull it all together when he talked to Molly.

“Where will you go?” Fargo asked Angel.

“I’ve been thinking about that. I’d like to stay here if the people would have me. I’m willing to work, and I can learn about farming. They might not want me, though. I’ve been fighting against them for a good while. I wouldn’t blame them if they hated me.”

“You should talk to Abby about it.”

“I don’t know what to say to her. It’s my fault that Jed was killed, and they were going to be married.”

“You said Jed got what he deserved.”

“I don’t feel that way now. He was right all along. If I’d listened to him, he’d be alive, but I thought I had to stick by my family. You can see where that got me.”

There wasn’t much Fargo could say to that. He said, “You might be surprised at how forgiving people can be if they know you’re sorry for what you did. I don’t think Abby will blame you for anything after she hears what you have to say. She’ll help you find a place around here.”

“That would be nice, but I don’t know if I can ask her. It’s not right, what I’ve done.”

“People change,” Fargo said, though in his experience the ones who did were few and far between. “You talk to Abby. You might find out she’s changed a little, too.”

Angel said she’d try, and Fargo left to pay his visit to Molly.

Molly was feeding the chickens when Fargo got there, sticking her hand into a bag of corn and flinging it out in wide swaths. As soon as the grain hit the ground, the chickens would snap it up. Or they’d snap something up. Since they were in the chicken yard, the chickens would sometimes miss the corn and peck at their own droppings. After watching them for a few seconds, Fargo thought it might be a while before he wanted to eat fried chicken again.

“Hey, Fargo,” Molly said when she saw him standing there. “Did you come by to help me feed the chickens?” She gave him a wicked grin. “Or did you have something else in mind?”

“I had something else in mind,” Fargo said, “but it might not be what you’re thinking.”

“That’s too bad, but it’s nice to see you anyway. I have to put this corn in the barn. Come on along.”

Molly went off toward the barn, and Fargo followed behind. She put the bag of corn in a barrel so nothing would get into it. She covered the barrel, dusted off her hands, and turned to Fargo.

“All right. If this isn’t about what I was hoping it was, what is it about?”

“We need to have a little talk,” Fargo said.

“We’re talking already. You have a particular subject in mind?”

“Peter Murray.”

“That’s one thing I’d just as soon not talk about. He’s not a very pleasant subject.”

Fargo thought it might get less pleasant before their conversation was over. He said, “Do you want to talk here in the barn or go inside?”

“It’s nice enough here in the barn.” Molly sat on the covered barrel. “Find yourself a seat and let’s talk.”

Fargo pulled a nail keg over and sat down on it. He was at a lower level than Molly, and she had to look down at him to see his face.

“Now, what is it about Murray that you want to tell me?” Molly asked.

Fargo told her what Angel had said about the death of Murray’s wife and the way Murray felt because of it. Then he talked about how Murray always knew what was going to happen and where everyone was going to be.

“We’ve talked about that last part before. At Jed’s funeral. Remember?”

Fargo said that he did. “I’ve been thinking about it some more. If Murray knew everything that was going on, somebody had to tell him.”

“I figured that, but I don’t know who it could be. There are a lot of people around here, and I can’t keep watch on all of them.”

Fargo didn’t really think she’d tried to keep watch. He said, “Only a few people knew where Paul Murray was buried. And of the ones who knew, three of them are dead.”

Molly looked at him through hooded eyes.

“What are you trying to say, Fargo? That I have something to do with what Murray finds out about things?”

“It could be that way,” Fargo told her.

“But you don’t think so, do you. You know me better than that, Fargo.”

Fargo wasn’t sure you could ever know people well enough to predict what they might or might not do, no matter how long you’d known them.

“I’m not sure what to think,” he said. “Your house and barn were burned, but not any of the others. I asked myself about why that might be.”

“It could be that Murray hates me more than the others. And that means I’m not the one passing information to him.”

“Or it could be that he just wanted people to think he hates you. You have another house and barn already, and it didn’t take you long to get them.”

“I don’t like the way this is going, Fargo. You might want to think it over before you say anything else.”

“I’ve already thought about it. I don’t have much else to say.”

“That’s good, because I’m about through listening. Get on with it.”

“It’s about Jed,” Fargo said. “I don’t think anybody in the Murray gang killed him.”

“I don’t know what makes you say that. Everybody knows he was killed in the fight at Lem’s barn.”

“He was killed in the fight, all right, but it wasn’t the Murrays who killed him. I’ve been pretty sure of that all along. They were on horseback, but the way the bullet went in Jed’s head showed that whoever shot him was standing behind him. Murray wanted him dead, all right, but he had to be sure the job was done. The one way to do that would be to have somebody there who could take care of it. It would have been easy for somebody who was already at the party to come up behind and kill Jed in all the confusion.”

“Why would someone besides the Murrays want to kill Jed?”

“Because they wanted to get rid of him. Maybe whoever did it was jealous.”

Molly slid off the barrel and stood facing Fargo.

“Are you saying that I killed him because I was jealous of Abby? And that I was spying on everybody for the same reason?”

“It makes sense,” Fargo said. “You knew where Paul was buried, and that’s important. Not just the general area. Everybody knew that. But Murray went right to the grave and dug in the right place. I was there and saw it. Somebody had to tell him just exactly where the grave was.”

Molly drew herself up a little straighter. She towered over Fargo, who continued sitting on the nail keg.

“You’re going to make me mad in a minute if you keep on like this,” Molly said.

“You can settle down,” Fargo told her. “I don’t really think it was you. It could have been, though, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t.”

“And you’re sure now?”

“I’m sure. You wouldn’t be so mad at me if you were guilty.”

Molly relaxed. She grinned and sat back down on the barrel.

“How do you know I’m not lying to you?”

“You could be, but I don’t think so. There’s somebody else who fits all the facts even better than you do.”

Molly thought a second and said, “Rip Johnson.”

“That’s right. Rip. I asked Lem if Rip would be willing to fight with the rest of us, and he said that Rip was ready to go, and that he wanted to know as soon as anything was decided. I figure he wants to know first so he can get word to Murray. And when you think about it, it was mighty convenient that his wife was the only one killed when Murray raided his place. Everybody was drunk, but Rip might not have been as drunk as he wanted us to think. He might even have pushed his wife out of the house or told her to go outside. The others were too drunk to know if he did.”

Molly’s mouth twisted in disgust. “And him doing all the crying about her being dead. He was probably glad to get her out of the way so he could start working on Abby.”

“He’s already been sniffing around. His house and barn weren’t burned, either, but then only yours were.”

“Don’t get started on that again. If you want to know, I think Murray did that because he thought I might leave if he did. I’m the only one around here with guts enough to stand up to him now that Jed’s gone, and he’d be glad to get rid of me. But I’m not all that easy to get run off.”

“On the other hand, he didn’t burn any of the other houses,” Fargo said. “Why not? He wanted to get rid of everybody else.”

“What if he wants the houses?” Molly asked.

“What would he do with houses?”

“It’s more than just houses. It’s farms. Let’s say he runs everybody off. The farms will still be here, and Murray and his gang can take them. Rip would be staying, since he’s in with Murray, but he’d get a better farm. Lem’s. And he’d get Abby into the bargain. Or that’s what he thinks. Abby would never stand still for it. She’d either kill him, or he’d have to kill her.”

Fargo thought over what Molly had said. He’d always thought there had to be more than just revenge in Murray’s mind. Power and revenge and property. It made sense. Fargo remembered Angel’s comments about Murray’s feeling for the South.

“You might be right,” Fargo told Molly. “Murray could have the idea that he can set up his own little state here, maybe seal it off, or even pull out of the Union. He’d have a hell of a time defending it, though.”

“He wouldn’t have to. The army’s already got its hands full, and nobody else is going to do anything. Before long, the whole country could be at war, and nobody’s going to pay any attention to what’s going on in some little farm area here. Who knows? Murray might wind up running the whole territory.”

Fargo thought it was barely possible. Murray had the military bearing to draw people to him, and he had the madness necessary to believe he could do anything. And he didn’t care who got hurt or killed in the process, as long as he got what he wanted. Taking the land from the farmers would give him the revenge he was looking for and put him in a position to become a far more powerful figure than he already was.

“Now all we have to do is stop him,” Molly said. “How are we going to do it.”

“I don’t quite have that figured out yet,” Fargo told her.