Blood Wedding

20

They got out of the trees and rose as fast as they could. Fargo was sure that Murray had left the trees, too, and that he was well ahead of them.

“Where do you think he’ll go first?” Angel said.

“Rip Johnson’s house is closest,” Fargo said. “He’ll find out that we’ve done that job for him already, so he’ll head for Lem’s.”

“We’ll never get there before he burns the place.”

“We might,” Fargo said. “It’s not as easy to burn a house as you think it is.”

“Rip’s place went up like a torch.”

“That’s because of the coal oil in the lantern. Murray doesn’t have a lantern.”

“How long do you think it’ll take him to find one?”

“Not long,” Fargo said.

When they reached the farm, Murray was nowhere to be seen, but his horse was outside the barn.

“He’s in there,” Angel said. “I’m going after him.”

“I’ll go,” Fargo said. “You stay here.”

Angel laughed as she slid off her horse. “Don’t try to tell me what to do, Fargo. The only man who could was Pa, and I should never have listened to him in the first place.”

Fargo shrugged and started toward the barn. Angel trailed along after him. They both stopped short of the big doors, which stood open. Fargo could hear someone inside, and he smelled coal oil. He realized that Murray was inside, splashing the coal oil around, getting ready to burn the barn first, and then the house.

“You in there, Murray?” he called.

The noise in the barn stopped. After a couple of seconds, Murray said, “Is that you, Fargo?”

“It’s me,” the Trailsman answered.

“Is Angel with you?”

“I’m here. Come on out, Pa. We can leave here and go somewhere else. Fargo won’t try to stop us.”

“How the hell can you say that?” Murray said. “The son of a bitch has blown up half my men, and I’m sure the other half are dead now. He’ll kill me as soon as I show myself.”

“No, he won’t,” Angel said. “I have a gun on him.”

Fargo turned to see if Angel was trying to fool Murray, but she wasn’t joking. She stood with her feet planted firmly, and in her right hand was a pistol aimed at Fargo’s belt buckle.

“He’s my pa,” Angel said with a hint of apology. “When you get right down to it, I can’t just let you kill him. And I don’t want him to kill you, either.”

Fargo was disgusted, not just with Angel but with himself. He should have known that blood ties mattered more than anything else to the Murrays. After all, hadn’t Angel been with Murray when they’d dug up Paul’s body and thrown Abby into the grave? Angel had changed since then, but she hadn’t changed enough to want her father to die.

“You’re not just leading me on, are you?” Murray asked from within the barn.

“Take a look,” Angel said, her eyes on Fargo.

The Trailsman thought he could get in a shot or two if he went for his pistol, but the trouble with that was, Angel would get the first shot, and at that distance she wasn’t likely to miss.

“You have him, all right,” Murray said, and Fargo turned to see him peering around the opening into the barn. “How do I know it’s not a trick?”

“It’s not a trick,” Angel said. “You can trust me, Pa.”

“You betrayed me before, daughter. I can’t ever trust you again, not after that.”

“I didn’t do anything to hurt you. I just didn’t want you to kill people who’d helped me without giving them a chance to fight back.”

“One thing you should have learned from me,” Murray said, “is that you never give anybody a fair chance. Fargo could tell you that. He blew up that house without a warning. Isn’t that right, Fargo.”

“Nobody was killed when the house blew up,” Fargo said. “After that, everybody had a chance to get away. You managed it.”

“That’s because I’m a little smarter than most of the men I surrounded myself with. I could have used somebody like you, Fargo, but you’re a little too delicate for the job.”

“If you mean I’m not a killer, you’re right, Murray.”

“I don’t think my daughter is, either, but I’m going to give her a chance to prove herself once and for all. I’ll come out of the barn, Angel, if you’ll kill Fargo. Right now. Pull the trigger.”

“I can’t do that,” Angel said.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Murray said. “So I’ll have to do it myself.”

He stepped into the opening, and when he did Fargo dived to the side. The sound of a pistol blast echoed from the barn as Fargo rolled over and came up shooting. His bullet knocked a chunk out of the side of the doorway, but Murray had already ducked back inside. Fargo turned his head to see Angel on her knees. She had dropped her pistol and was holding both hands to her stomach.

“He . . . shot me,” she said.

“He was shooting at me,” Fargo told her. “But I moved.”

“I think . . . he meant to do it.”

“No,” Fargo said, though he wasn’t entirely sure.

It didn’t matter. He didn’t think Angel heard him.

She folded in the middle and fell forward so that her forehead was touching the ground. She stayed like that without moving, and Fargo knew she was dead.

“You killed your daughter, Murray,” he called into the barn. “And now I’m coming for you.”

“Come ahead, Fargo,” Murray yelled back.

Fargo got to his feet and walked to the side so that Murray couldn’t see him from the barn door. When he reached the barn, he turned his back to the wall and walked to the door with his shoulders rubbing against the rough wood. The pistol he had borrowed from Molly was in his hand.

“Come inside, Fargo,” Murray said.

Fargo didn’t reply.

“You killed my son,” Murray said after a few seconds of silence, “and now you’ve killed my daughter. Why don’t you face me like a man?”

“I didn’t kill anybody, Murray,” Fargo told him, thinking that Murray would go to his death blaming someone else for all his troubles. “If you hadn’t raided the wedding party, your son would still be alive. And you’re the one who shot your daughter, not me.”

“You jumped out of the way. I was trying to kill you, not her.”

“Maybe you believe that, but I don’t. You already tried to kill her once. This time, you did it.”

“I never tried to kill her. She just needed to be taught a lesson. You don’t betray your family.”

“What do you call it when you kill them?” Fargo asked.

There was a long silence. Fargo waited it out.

“Are you still out there, Fargo?” Murray asked.

Again, Fargo didn’t answer.

“What are you waiting for? Do you think those farmers are going to come back and help you? I hope they do come back, Fargo. Because if they do, I’ll pick them off from the loft, one at a time. I’ll start with Abby Watkins. You watched my daughter die, and you can watch the Watkins bitch die, too.”

Murray’s voice sounded different. He’d moved farther back in the barn, or so it seemed, probably headed for the loft. Fargo thought he might be able to catch him before he got there, so he stepped around the wall and into the barn. There was the sharp smell of coal oil mingled with the smell of hay and manure.

Murray was already at the top of the ladder to the loft, and he jumped forward just as Fargo fired at him. The bullet knocked off the heel of Murray’s boot, but Murray rolled away, unhurt.

“That was close, Fargo,” he said. “If you’d been more of a man, you’d have come in and faced me. Maybe you could have killed me. As it stands now, you’ll never get me.”

It was dark in the barn, but it didn’t matter. Murray was out of sight in the loft anyhow.

But he wasn’t as safe as he thought he was. He couldn’t see Fargo any better than Fargo could see him, and the flooring of the loft was just planking that wouldn’t stop a bullet. Fargo crossed the barn until he was standing under the flooring.

“You still up there, Murray?” he shouted.

“Right here,” Murray answered, and Fargo fired at the sound.

The bullet when through the planking, and dust drifted down on Fargo.

“You missed, Fargo, but I thought you’d come over here and try that. I was hoping you would. Welcome to hell.”

Fargo saw something falling from the loft. A lit match. It fell lazily toward a stack of hay near the wall.

When the match hit the hay, it ignited the coal oil that Murray had splashed on it. The hay blazed up quickly, and smoke poured out of the stack.

Fargo heard footsteps pounding on the floor above him. He didn’t try a shot. It wouldn’t have been worth it. He moved out from under the floor. The heat from the fire was already scorching him.

Murray’s dark figure appeared at the edge of the loft floor at the side of the barn opposite the fire. Fargo took a shot just as Murray jumped.

The shot went past Murray’s head, and Murray landed on another stack of hay. He rolled down the side of it, flinging hay and dust all around him. When he hit the ground, he rolled under a wagon and took a shot at where Fargo had been standing, but Fargo was no longer there.

The fire was spreading rapidly, and the Trailsman knew that the barn was lost. He also knew that if he stayed inside, he would be burned alive. Or dead, if Murray shot him. He preferred to leave Murray there to burn instead, so he headed for the doorway.

By the time he got there, the fire had already gone up the side of the wall, engulfing most of it. The floor of the loft had caught, and it wouldn’t be long before the roof was afire as well. Fargo didn’t believe Murray had a chance.

Murray felt differently.

As he reached the doorway, Fargo heard something over the crackling of the flames. He turned to see the wagon bearing down on him. Murray was behind it, pushing, but with nothing to guide it in the front, it didn’t go straight for the door. It veered to one side and headed for the wall, exposing Murray, who jumped to get behind it again.

Fargo had only a couple of shots left, and he wanted to make them count. He stepped back into the barn, which was rapidly becoming an inferno, and looked for Murray.

The smoke was thick and stung Fargo’s eyes. He took shallow breaths. After a couple of seconds, he saw Murray standing to his right. In the light of the flames, Murray looked like some kind of demon. He had his back to the burning wall, and his pistol was in his hand. He was about to pull the trigger, but Fargo didn’t give him a chance.

Fargo fired one shot, and the pistol jerked from Murray’s hand and flipped backward. Murray looked down at his hand in wonderment, then looked back at Fargo.

“That was a lucky shot, Fargo. Now I don’t have a gun.” Murray had to stop and cough for a second. The smoke was getting to him. “But I don’t need one. You’re a man of honor, Fargo, and you wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man. I know that, and so do you.”

“I have one bullet left,” Fargo said. “Just how sure are you that I won’t use it on you?”

He took a step forward, pointing his pistol at Murray’s head.

“I’m sure,” Murray said. “Men like you will kill in an even fight, but you’d never take an unfair advantage. I’m going to walk right out of here.”

“Jed Brand was a good friend of mine,” Fargo said. “You didn’t kill him, but you caused his death. You caused plenty of misery and death before he died and more since. No one would blame me if I shot you.”

Fargo took another determined step forward, and Murray took another back. The fire must have been blistering his back, Fargo thought.

“But you won’t.” Murray coughed. “I know you won’t.”

Murray had been splashing coal oil all around the barn. There was no way he could have avoided getting some of it on him, Fargo thought, and he was right. As Murray started to take a step forward, his clothing suddenly ignited. Sometimes you just had to let a man bring about his own destruction.

“No,” Fargo said, “I won’t shoot you. But you might wish I would.”

In an instant Murray was enveloped in flames. His clothing burned. His beard and hair were afire. He screamed and ran toward Fargo, who stepped aside and let him go. Murray had dropped his pistol. Fargo thought he recognized it and picked it up. It was hot to the touch, but Fargo didn’t drop it. It was his own Colt. Murray knew a good weapon when he stole it. Fargo put it in his holster and continued to hold Molly’s gun in his hand as he went out of the barn.

Murray was rolling on the ground, still screaming. He could roll for a long time, Fargo thought, without putting out the fire.

“Shoot me!” Murray screamed. “For God’s sake, Fargo!”

“I wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man,” Fargo told him. “You said so yourself.”

Murray continued to scream, but Fargo could no longer make out the words. The Trailsman walked over to Angel, lifted her up, and carried her into the house.