Blood Wedding

1

Skye Fargo wasn’t fond of weddings. He was a Trailsman, a man given to wandering, sometimes leading other people where they wanted to go, sometimes journeying on his own. He liked the mountains and the sky. He liked being able to see the far horizons, and he liked the feel of a good horse under him. He couldn’t quite grasp the idea of a man giving up his freedom to tie himself to one woman and one spot of earth. There was nothing wrong with settling down and having a family for other people, but it wasn’t for Fargo.

Sometimes, though, the celebrations leading up to the wedding were all right, especially if there was food, music, dancing, and pretty women. Jedadiah Brand had taken care to provide all those things, and Fargo surely appreciated them.

“This is a mighty fine celebration, Jed,” Fargo said as he looked out at the dancers in the big barn.

At one end of the barn, there was a small platform where a fiddler was sawing away, calling the dance at the same time, and Fargo could smell the dust that the couples on the floor were raising as they moved enthusiastically to the fiddler’s tune. There were several children there, cutting a rug in improvised dances of their own. Fargo knew men who would ride for two days to go to a good dance, and this was a good one indeed.

There was food, too, on long tables at the end of the barn opposite the fiddler: the smell of freshly baked bread mingled with the smell of the dust, and there was corn on the cob, green beans, yellow crookneck squash, and good Kansas beef. Fargo had already tried a little of everything, and he planned to eat some more later on.

Some of the women dancers were as pretty as Fargo had seen for a while. Of course, some of them weren’t, but that didn’t bother Fargo any. He liked women in general, and he was always glad to be around them.

“Hard to believe a man would get married,” Fargo said, “with all those beauties around to tempt him.”

“I can’t be tempted by any but Abby,” Jed said. “You know that, Skye.”

Abigail, known to all as Abby, was dancing with her father, Lemuel Watkins, a tall man with black hair going gray, wide shoulders, and big hands. Abby didn’t look a thing like him. She was small and blond, with very blue eyes and a figure that would make a deacon think twice about his marriage vows. Fargo figured she took after her mother, who had died a few years earlier.

“I can’t say as I blame you,” Fargo said, “but it didn’t use to be that way.”

The truth was that when Fargo had known Jed in former days, he had been after women like a bear after honey, pretty much the same as Fargo. Jed had guided a few wagon trains with Fargo, and more than once he had come close to getting himself shot because he couldn’t stay away from a pretty woman. All that had changed when he met Abby Watkins. According to Jed, the first time he saw her, he felt like a man who’d been kicked in the head by a stallion, and from that time on he’d never even thought about another woman.

“And you know, Skye,” he’d told Fargo, “women were all I used to think about. Even for a while around here, I couldn’t keep my hands off of ’em. But I’m a different man now.”

He surely was. He’d given up his wandering life, and he was going to be a Kansas farmer. Instead of leading wagon trains out of St. Louis, he was going to let other men, men like Fargo, take the pilgrims out of the plains. He was going to walk behind a mule, plow up the earth, and plant seeds. He was going to feed his chickens and grow his corn and cattle and try to make a living at it. Before long, if everything went the way Jed planned, he would have sons to help him out.

Fargo wondered a little about that. Lemuel Watkins had never had sons of his own, but he did have a pretty daughter and a big farm, along with a big barn and a tight-plastered house. Now, because of the daughter, he was getting himself a son to share the work, since Jed and Abby planned to live on the farm with him.

“It will be our farm when he passes on,” Jed had explained, so maybe he and Watkins were both getting something out of the deal.

And Jed was getting Abby into the bargain, so Fargo figured it wasn’t such a bad trade. Not one that he’d make, but not bad if that was what a man wanted.

“It’s going to be a good life, Fargo,” Jed said. “Different, that’s for sure, and not what I’m used to, but good. With Abby, it would have to be.”

“I wish you well,” Fargo said, “and now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to have a dance with your bride-to-be.”

“As long as you’re going to stand up for me tomorrow at the wedding, I can’t very well refuse you the pleasure of a dance,” Jed said. “But I know you from way back, Fargo. Just be sure to keep your hands where they belong and to talk about the weather or the music.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you didn’t trust me.”

“I trust you all right, but when a wolf is in among the hens, it pays to be a little extra careful. Lem lost nearly seventy-five hens to wolves last winter, and I don’t plan to lose Abby to any wolf, animal or human, not even you.”

Fargo laughed. “You’re already talking like a farmer, Jed. But you don’t have to worry about me. I’d never try anything funny with anybody you cared about. You know that.”

“You’re right. I do. So go have your dance, and have some fun. Not too much fun, though.”

The fiddler’s tune was over, and the dancers were taking a breath before he got started again. There were several young men moving in Abby’s direction, but Fargo got to her first, and the other men stopped and looked at each other disgustedly for a second or two before moving off to find other partners.

It was clear that they didn’t think much of Fargo, who looked different from all of them. They were dressed in their Sunday best, while Fargo was in his buckskins. And while most of them were lean and fit from working their farms, there was something about Fargo’s build that suggested he knew how to handle himself in dangerous situations. And that he had, more than once.

Fargo had met Abby earlier, and she greeted him with a slightly worried smile.

“I’m glad you’re here, Fargo,” she said as they began the dance. “Jed could use a few more friends like you.”

There wasn’t time to say more, but Fargo knew what she meant. He’d talked to Jed and Lem about it the day before when he’d arrived at the farm. Kansas was in a turmoil because of the slavery issue. The free-staters were moving in and settling down, determined that there would be no slavery there, while the pro-slavery crowd was just as determined that Kansas would enter the union as a slaveholding state. The two groups had come into conflict, and the conflict had eventually become violent, with bloody clashes becoming more and more frequent, particularly in the eastern part of the state where the Watkins farm was located. The territorial government favored slavery and got the help of the United States Army to keep the free-staters under control, but the free-staters formed their own militia to fight back.

To make things worse, outlaw gangs, some of whom had been raiding the countryside for years, took advantage of the situation to increase their pillaging. They robbed and killed whenever and wherever they could while seeing to it that either the free-staters or the pro-slavery group got at least part of the blame for their crimes. It didn’t matter to the outlaws who got killed as long as their actions were thought of as patriotic by one side or the other, for the more fighting they could stir up between the two factions, the better it was for them.

Jed didn’t want to have anything to do with either side in the slavery fight, and he hated the outlaws. As he’d told Fargo, “All I want to do is settle down and be a farmer. I don’t want to have to carry a gun and be looking over my shoulder all the time.”

He didn’t sound quite convincing, and there was a shifty look in his eyes, as if he might have wanted to say more, but Lem Watkins was with them, and Jed deferred to him.

Lem Watkins felt pretty much as Jed said he did.

“A plague on all their houses,” Watkins said. “I’ve been a decent, hardworking man all my life. I don’t hold with slavery, but my hand fits a plow, not a gun. If people want to fight over who’s a slave and who’s free, let ’em do it somewhere else. Those other killers all just need hanging, and the sooner the better.”

Fargo could understand how Jed and his future father-in-law felt, but he knew things didn’t always work themselves out in a peaceful way. A man couldn’t always avoid a fight, no matter how much he might want to. Fargo didn’t particularly enjoy having to use his Colt, but he had, and more than once. He preferred to settle things without shooting, but one thing he’d learned in his travels was that there were times when you had to let a pistol do the talking. There were too many people who didn’t understand any other language. Jed knew that, too, as well as Fargo did, but maybe the idea of becoming a farmer had helped him forget it.

Fargo led Abby through the dance, which was some kind of a variation on the Virginia reel, and they were too busy to talk. When the dance was over, Abby’s face was flushed with exertion, and Fargo felt a little warm himself.

“Could we go outside and talk?” Abby asked.

“I’m not sure Jed would like that,” Fargo said. “He might get the wrong idea.”

Abby’s face got even redder. She said, “He knows me better than that.”

Fargo gave her a grin. “He knows me, too.”

“You men. That’s all you ever think about.”

“Nope,” Fargo said. “But it’s one of the things. Sometimes we’ve got to plan on what to have for supper.” This was enough to get a laugh out of her.

“Well, I don’t talk about it, not even to Jed. Now, can we please go outside? It’s important.”

“If you say so.”

They walked the length of the barn, and Fargo could feel the eyes of the young men on him. He knew everyone wondered why he and Abby were going outside, and he hoped they didn’t get the wrong idea. In spite of his earlier joking, he thought he knew what Abby wanted to talk about, and it had nothing at all to do with sporting around.

Not that he wouldn’t have liked to give Abby a tumble. She seemed a little more prim and proper than the women who Fargo usually liked, but that could be just a cover. You could never tell for sure just by looking.

Fargo put his impure thoughts out of his mind. Abby, after all, was marrying Jed, and Fargo was going to stand up with them as best man. He would never betray a friend.

They went out through the big barn doors, and Abby said, “We don’t have to go far. Nobody’s going to follow us.”

Fargo wasn’t too sure of that. Jed might take a notion to see what was going on, though Fargo hoped he wouldn’t.

The moon hung big and bright in the night sky, which was dotted with high, icy stars. There was a light breeze that fluttered through the cornfields beyond the barn.

“What did you want to talk about?” Fargo asked.

Abby looked off into the dark fields. “I said that Jed could use a few friends like you. Did you know what I meant?”

“There’s been some trouble around here, so I heard.”

“Trouble? Is that what you call it?”

“Can’t think of a better word,” Fargo said.

“Well, it’s worse than trouble. People are being killed and robbed every day. Some of them have had their houses burned.”

Fargo wanted to ask what that had to do with him, but he was afraid he already knew the answer.

“Jed and your father told me they didn’t have anything to do with the trouble around here.”

“I’m sure they did. As far as my father goes, that’s true. It’s not so true for Jed. He was just saying what my father wanted to hear.”

Fargo had been afraid that might be the case. Jed’s evident lack of conviction when they’d been discussing it had made him wonder. Jed hadn’t forgotten how people were, after all.

“So he’s been getting mixed up in things, has he?” Fargo said.

“You know him. Are you surprised?”

Fargo grinned. “Not much. Which side is he taking? Is he for a Free State or a slaveholding one?”

“Free, but that’s not the real problem around here.”

“What is, then?” Fargo asked.

“The Murray gang, that’s what. Have you heard of them?”

Fargo had heard of them, all right. You didn’t have to be where you got a newspaper every day to hear about the Murrays. Father, son, and daughter had joined together with a bunch of ragtag outlaws who killed as much for the fun of it as for the profit they might find.

“What does Jed have to do with the Murrays?” Fargo asked.

“He’s spoken out against them. He’s even tried to talk some of the farmers around here into forming a vigilance group to fight them.”

“Does your father know about this?”

“Jed doesn’t talk about it around him, but he hasn’t made a secret of the way he feels when he talks in town.”

“As long as Lem isn’t around.”

“That’s right. Jed doesn’t want him to get upset.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because he knows how Murray is. Most people who talk against him get their houses and crops burned. If they’re lucky.”

“What if they’re not lucky?”

“Then they get killed.”

“I can see why Lem doesn’t want to get mixed up in it. But Jed has always had a mind of his own.”

“He has more responsibilities now,” Abby said.

If Fargo was peeved by her casual assumption that men like him had no responsibilities, he didn’t show it. After all, it wasn’t her fault that she didn’t know how things were out on the trail or in the settlements farther out west. There were responsibilities aplenty for anyone who’d take them, and Jed had never been shy about doing it. He wasn’t shying away now, either, to hear Abby tell it.

“So you want Jed to forget about Murray and stick to his farming,” Fargo said.

Abby smiled. She had a nice smile that made little dimples appear in both cheeks.

“That’s right,” she said. “I want him to. But do you think he will?”

“Not likely.”

“You do know him, don’t you? But I haven’t told you everything.”

No wonder Jed had looked so shifty, Fargo thought. He asked what else Abby had to tell him about.

“Angel Murray,” Abby said. “She and Jed used to be . . . friends.”

Angel was the daughter of Peter Murray, the gang leader, and the sister of Paul, Peter’s son and second in command. Fargo didn’t have to ask how Angel and Jed had known each other. If Angel was as pretty as the stories had it, Jed wouldn’t have asked her much about her family’s habits when he first met her.

“I guess they were pretty good friends,” Fargo said.

The look in Jed’s eyes when they’d discussed the outlaw gangs was pretty much explained now, and Fargo figured that there had been other women as well, knowing Jed, even though he was interested only in Abby now.

“Yes, they were good friends,” Abby said. “If that’s what you want to call it. But now they’re not. She hates Jed because he quit seeing her when he found out about what she and her family did. And that’s why he needs a friend like you. Most of the people in there . . .” Abby paused and looked back at the barn. “Well, they’re good people. Like my father. He’d do anything for me, or for his neighbors. But they think they can stay out of a fight if they just look the other way. It doesn’t work like that.”

Fargo thought maybe he’d underestimated her. She wasn’t as naive as she’d sounded only a few seconds before.

“So,” she went on, “I was hoping you could stay around for a while. We could use a good hand around here.”

“I’m not much good at farming,” Fargo told her.

“I wasn’t thinking about farming.”

“I was afraid of that,” Fargo said. “You think Jed’s in danger, then.”

“I think we all are. You said you knew about the Murrays.”

“Revenge,” Fargo said. “That’s what they claim causes them to be the way they are.”

“That’s right. Their story is that they’ve been done wrong by everybody in the territory, and all they’re doing now is getting a little of their own back.”

“By killing and burning and stealing,” Fargo said.

“Any way they can. That’s what they say. I think they just do it because they like it.”

Fargo thought the same thing, but he was surprised that Abby did. She was seeming less innocent by the minute.

“You didn’t happen to invite them to the wedding, I guess.”

“No, of course not. Why do you ask?”

“Because I think they might be on the way,” Fargo said.