Hannibal Rising

10

Samantha sat at one end of the long mahogany table, Tom at the other end. Fargo was on Sam’s right, Cletus Brun on Tom’s left. There were plenty of empty chairs; the table could seat forty people. Clockwise after Fargo, a few chairs away, sat Roland, then Theodore Pickleman. On the other side of the table were Charles and his friend from the Hannibal Men’s Club, a man by the name of Bruce Harmon. Charlotte and her cousin Amanda sat across from Fargo and Charlotte glared at him every chance she got.

The meal started with a choice of soup, potato or vegetable. A salad bowl was passed around. Roast venison, beef and ham were the meats. Carrots and green beans the vegetables. In addition, the cook’s staff had prepared simmering hot rolls. Fargo smeared his thick with butter. The coffee was a rich blend from Italy, he was told. The taste was too bitter for his liking so he spooned in enough sugar to sink a canoe. For dessert there was apple pie, cherry pie, or pudding. Fargo chose the pudding.

By six everyone was done eating and they were sitting around making small talk.

Fargo was on his fourth cup of coffee. No one said much to him, which was fine, as he got to eat in peace.

Then Samantha caught his eye. “I trust the meal was to your liking?”

“Kings should eat this well.”

Sam grinned. “For all our father’s faults, he was a stickler for family meals. We were required to eat together. No exceptions. Charles always had to wait to go to his club until after we ate. Roland stayed away more than a few times when he was off hunting, which always made Father furious.”

Charlotte was being her sweet self around the others. She sighed and said with only slight resentment, “Our father always had to do everything his way. He never allowed for our personal wishes.”

“Did you cry at his funeral?” Fargo asked.

“Why, of course I did,” Charlotte answered, sounding shocked. “I loved my father even though he was always mean to me.”

“Maybe he saw you for how you truly are.”

Charlotte forgot herself and bristled. “What exactly is that supposed to mean? I was always the nicest of all of us.”

“Emmett was nice, too,” Samantha said sadly.

“Yes, he was,” Charlotte quickly corrected herself. “I miss him terribly. It’s a shame we can’t give him a proper burial until after the hunt.”

As if that were a cue, Theodore Pickleman rose and tapped his wineglass with a butter knife. The ting-ting-ting got everyone’s attention. They all fell silent save for Tom, who loudly declared, “Finally!”

“We all know why we’re here,” the lawyer began. “It’s yet another condition of your father’s will. He was quite explicit in how this was to be arranged and I have followed his instructions to the letter.”

“Yes, yes, get on with it,” Tom said.

Charles leaned on his elbows. “How is this silly hunt to be handled?”

“I’ll get to that in a moment.” Pickleman hooked his thumbs in his vest. “First I am required to make one thing perfectly clear. Whoever wins the hunt inherits everything. All of your father’s money. All of his many properties. All of his holdings in everything. We are talking millions of dollars.”

“We know that,” Tom said.

“Yes. But what you don’t know is that in your father’s will, he left it up to the winner to decide whether he or she will share any of the inheritance. Whoever prevails can either keep it all or offer the others equal shares.”

“Equal?” Charlotte said.

Pickleman nodded. “It’s a condition of the will. Either the winner shares everything equally or he or she can’t share anything at all.”

Roland said, “How peculiar.”

“Not at all,” Samantha said. “It’s just like Father to force us to be generous whether we want to be or not. Don’t you see? If Tom were to win, for instance, he can’t keep ninety percent of the inheritance for himself and give the rest of us a pittance.”

Tom took exception. “Why use me as your example? The rest of you would do the same.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not,” Samantha responded. “A moot point since Father doesn’t give us the choice.”

“Even from the grave he controls our lives,” Charles remarked.

“I can’t wait for this to be over with,” Charlotte said. “It’s so morbid.”

Theodore Pickleman cleared his throat. “May I get on with the details, please?” He paused. “The conditions are these. Tomorrow morning at six a.m. the hunt is to begin. You will have twenty-four hours in which to succeed. No more and no less. By six a.m. Monday morning, if none of you have claimed the prize, all of you forfeit any right to the inheritance.”

Tom started to come out of his chair. “What the hell? You never said anything about this.”

“I was required not to.”

“Forfeit?” Charles repeated in stunned amazement. “Father would deny us everything?”

Samantha gestured to get the lawyer’s attention. “What happens to the inheritance? Who gets it if we don’t?”

“All your father’s properties are to be sold off. All the money from the proceeds and all the money in his bank accounts are to be administered to the poor and the needy.”

Now Tom did come out of his chair. He was so incensed, he pounded the table. “We’re to be deprived of what is rightfully ours to feed some dirt farmers? By God, I won’t stand for this.”

“The will is ironclad,” Pickleman told him. “You can fight it in court but I can promise you that you’ll lose.”

“A bunch of poor riffraff,” Tom said in disgust. “What have they done to earn it? Nothing.”

Roland asked the question uppermost on Fargo’s own mind. “What are we to hunt? All this talk of the inheritance and you still haven’t said whether it’s a bear or an elk or some other animal.”

“Your father calls it a hunt in his will. Given what’s at stake, and what you are to find, I’d call it a treasure hunt.”

“Find?” Roland echoed. “We’re not to track and kill game?”

“No. I’m afraid your hunting skills won’t give you an edge. You see”—the lawyer gazed at each of them in turn—“the object of your hunt is a small wooden chest. In it is the last page of the will, bequeathing everything to whoever finds it.”

“I’ll be damned,” Charles said.

“A treasure chest?” Tom swore lustily. “We’re to decide our fate with some silly child’s game?”

Pickleman answered, “Believe it or not, your father was trying to be fair. He buried the chest himself. I am permitted to tell you that it is within half a mile of the lodge, but in which direction, not even I know.”

“That’s a lot of ground to cover,” Charlotte said.

“Which is why your father gave you twenty-four hours. He provided no other clues. There’s no mention of landmarks or anything else that would help you. All I know is that he told me he had buried it in a shallow hole and that whoever found it would have no cause to weep.”

“An understatement if ever I heard one,” Tom spat. “And so like our father. God, I hate him as much now as I did when he was alive.” He glanced at Cletus Brun. “As for you, your hunting skills are of no use whatsoever.”

“I can still be of help,” the big Missourian said. “Four eyes are better than two and my eyes are sharp.”

Samantha smiled ruefully at Fargo. “I had you come all this way thinking you were the best hunter my money could buy.”

“You don’t want me now?”

“To the contrary. Mr. Brun is right. Four eyes are better than one. Besides, it’s too late to find someone else.”

Pickleman tinged the glass again. “There are a few other conditions of which you must be aware. First, you must conduct the hunt on foot. No horses or mules allowed.”

“Leave it to Father to make it as hard as possible,” Charles said.

“Second, no weapons are allowed. No guns of any kind. No knives or anything else. All weapons are to be left here in the lodge.”

Cletus Brun wasn’t happy. “The hell you say! I never go anywhere unarmed. Only a fool does.”

Fargo didn’t like it, either. He would feel naked without his Colt or the Henry or the Arkansas toothpick. They were as much a part of him as his clothes, hat, and boots.

“The third condition is one I argued against,” the attorney was saying. “I told your father that it is immoral and unethical. Inhuman might be a better word. He refused to rescind it.”

“What is it?” Tom demanded.

Pickleman coughed. “Should any of you come to harm, no charges are to be lodged against whoever is responsible.”

“What?” Samantha said.

The siblings sat there in silence as the full import slowly sank in. Finally Charles placed his hands on the table and cocked his head at the attorney. “Did we hear you correctly? Our father is encouraging us to attack one another?”

“That would be illegal,” Pickleman said.

Tom was livid. “Don’t try to hoodwink me. I’m no simpleton. What Father has done is set up a hunting contest where we are the game.”

“He wouldn’t,” Samantha declared in horror. “Not even he would go that far.”

“But he has,” Charlotte said.

Cousin Amanda broke her long silence to say, “You’re going to try and kill each another?”

“Only if we want to,” Tom said, and laughed.

“There was no mention of anything like this,” Amanda said. “I don’t want any part of it.”

“Nor do I,” said Charles’s friend, Bruce Harmon.

“That is entirely up to you,” the lawyer told them. “In fact, the same applies to the principals.” He looked at each of the siblings in turn. “Any of you can bow out if you so desire. Keep in mind that those who do are eliminated from the hunt and won’t receive a cent of the inheritance.”

“Our father,” Roland said. “The devil in disguise.”

Tom turned to Cletus Brun. “What about you? Are you as cowardly as our cousin and Bruce? Or will you see it through?”

“You’re payin’ me,” Cletus replied.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Samantha focused on Fargo. “And you, Skye? Please think carefully before you answer. I don’t want you to come to harm on my account.”

Fargo fully realized the danger he was placing himself in as he said, “I gave my word I would take part.” He turned. “But there’s something all of you are overlooking.”

“What would that be?” Pickleman said.

“Emmett. Whoever hired the man who shot him isn’t done. Any one of you could be next.”

“Which would please our deceased father no end,” Tom said. “Or haven’t you gotten it yet? He wants us to murder one another. He wants his own sons and daughters to kill one another off.”

“Someone should report this to the sheriff,” Amanda said.

Charlotte spun on her. “Don’t you dare. This is a family matter and will be settled by us, not the law.”

“You can settle it without bloodshed,” Amanda persisted. “Each of you can give his or her word that you won’t try to harm anyone else during the hunt.”

“We could,” Tom said, nodding, “but I won’t.”

“Why in God’s name not?” Charles asked.

“Because I agree with Father. This is the best way. We’ve been at one another’s throats for years. Fear of being thrown behind bars has always held us back but now we can give free rein to all the hate bubbling inside of us.”

“You have a warped mind,” Samantha said.

“As did Father.” Tom chortled. “Ironic, is it not, that I’m more like him than any of you, yet I’m the one he thought was the fruit of someone else’s loins?”

“So Charles and Charlotte will hunt by themselves?” Pickleman asked to have it clarified. “Amanda and Bruce have dropped out?”

Both their cousin and Harmon nodded.

“Just so you know,” the lawyer told them, “you have until the actual start of the hunt to change your minds.”

“I certainly won’t,” Bruce Harmon said.

Pickleman gazed along the table. “At six o’clock tomorrow morning I expect everyone to be out front. I am to fire a pistol to start the hunt. Remember, no mounts, no weapons, and no food or water.”

Samantha straightened. “Father made that a condition, too? Twenty-four hours without anything to eat or drink smacks of cruelty.”

“Our father’s middle name,” Tom said sarcastically.

Pickleman walked to the doorway. “I bid you good night. Since I am to oversee the hunt, I must remain awake the entire twenty-four hours. In order to do that I need all the sleep I can get tonight.” He smiled and left.

“How can any of us sleep knowing what’s in store?” Charlotte played her part as the innocent.

Fargo could use some rest himself. The lovemaking and the huge meal had left him sluggish and tired. He pushed back his chair and was about to excuse himself when Samantha placed her warm hand on his.

“Does all of this trouble you as much as it does me?” She didn’t wait for him to reply. “We need to talk over our strategy for tomorrow.”

“I’m listening.”

“Not at the table. The others will overhear us. We need somewhere private.” Samantha’s cherry lips curled and her fingernail traced a delicate line across this hand. “Why don’t you come up to my room with me?”

Oh hell, Fargo thought.