Hannibal Rising

3

All that was left of the sun was a golden arch. The woods on both sides of the road were mantled in spreading shadows. Soon twilight would descend and they still had miles to go.

Theodore Pickleman was a talker. He prattled on about the glories of Hannibal, about how it was a hub of commerce, how it had grown by bounds the past decade, about the foresight of the man some considered the town’s founding father. “Yes, sir. Tom Clyborn was a visionary. He turned that vision into riches most men can only dream of.”

Fargo listened with half an ear. He wished he had kept the bottle. He could use a drink. Folding his arm across his chest, he remarked, “Didn’t you tell me that creek we crossed is called Bear Creek?”

“Yes. Once these woods teemed with black bears but now there are far fewer.” The lawyer gestured at the forest. “Tell me. What do you see?”

Fargo wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “Trees?”

Pickleman smiled smugly. “Indeed. You and I see trees. Not Tom Clyborn. He saw black walnut. Hickory. Ash. Sycamores. Maples. An entire logging industry there for the taking.”

They had passed logging operations at the outskirts of Hannibal. Trees were being felled at a terrific rate. Fargo couldn’t help but reflect that as fast as the forest was being chopped down, in another twenty years there wouldn’t hardly be any forest left. He said as much.

“So? That’s a long way off. The important thing is that we make money now.”

“There’s more to life than money.”

Pickleman tilted his head and studied Fargo as he might a new kind of bug.

“Don’t let Sam hear you say that. To the Clyborns, money is everything. Power. Prestige. Luxury.” He patted the victoria’s seat. “As you can tell, they only buy the best. Which, by the by, is one of the reasons Sam saw fit to send for you.” He paused. “You are widely regarded as being the best there is at what you do. Is that true?”

Fargo shrugged.

“I see. You’re not one to brag. But I hope for your sake it is. Sam will be most displeased if you’re not all it’s claimed you are.”

Fargo remembered the comment about a hunt. “Has a bear been acting up? Is that why he sent for me?” So far as he knew, the only other meat-eaters that still roamed these hills and might pose a threat to people were cougars, but cougar attacks were rare.

“Oh, goodness no.” Pickleman laughed and shook his head.

“You’re not here to hunt wild game. Sam sent for you for a special purpose.”

Fargo was fed up with being kept in the dark. He fished for information by saying, “Clyborn meant what he said about paying me two thousand dollars?”

“A thousand a day for two days of your time, yes. Not bad when you consider that the yearly income for most people is about five hundred.”

The lawyer lapsed into silence, for which Fargo was grateful. He closed his eyes and pulled his hat brim down. A little rest would do him good. He had been up most of the night with Sweetpea. He relived the feel of her lips on his, of her full mounds in his hands, her hard nipples against his palms. He’d like to be with her now, parting those silken thighs of hers and running his hand from her knees to her moist cleft. He felt himself stir and inwardly smiled.

Unexpectedly, the victoria came to a stop.

Fargo opened his eyes. The sun was gone and night was falling. The driver was in the act of lighting the two lamps, one on either side of the seat, that would illuminate their way in the dark.

“Hurry it up, James,” Pickleman said. “We don’t want to keep Sam Clyborn waiting, do we?”

“No, sir,” James replied. He had the first lamp lit and closed the glass. Turning to the second, he opened the glass and bent to light it. In the woods a rifle boomed and the back of the driver’s head exploded in a shower of hair and flesh and silk hat.

Fargo was in motion before the sound of the shot died. It had come from the trees to the right; he went left, clearing the seat and the step and landing in a crouch with the victoria between him and the shooter.

Theodore Pickleman was frozen in shock.

“Get down!” Fargo rasped, and when the lawyer didn’t move, he reached up and hauled him out of the seat. A second shot blasted and the slug ripped into the victoria inches from his head. Ducking, Fargo turned Pickleman toward the vegetation and gave him a shove.

The lawyer unwittingly straightened and took a step.

Instantly, Fargo grabbed him by the shirt and threw him to the ground. “Are you trying to get yourself shot?” He hunkered beside the rear wheel.

Pickleman didn’t move. His mouth worked but no sounds came out. Then he gulped and bleated, “What is going on? Who shot James?”

“How the hell would I know?” Fargo raised his head to peer over the top and nearly lost an ear to a leaden hornet. Only this time the shot came from a different spot and by the sound was a revolver. He worked the Henry’s lever, feeding a cartridge into the chamber.

“This can’t be happening. It just can’t.”

“Tell that to your driver.” Fargo risked a look around the rear of the carriage. A black veil had fallen and was rapidly darkening.

Pickleman sat up. “Oh, God. Poor James. I don’t understand why anyone would shoot him. He was a good man. He’d never harm a soul.”

“They shot him first to keep us here,” Fargo guessed. “Now they’re waiting for one of us to try and climb up on that seat so they can do the same to us.”

“You keep saying they but I bet it’s only one man. It has to be Injun Joe.”

Fargo didn’t waste breath explaining. He edged away from the wheel and toward the Ovaro. He was worried the bush-whackers might decide to shoot the horses.

Across the road the undergrowth spouted flame and sound and lead smacked the victoria. Fargo answered in kind, banging off three swift shots. Spinning, he crab-stepped toward the driver’s seat. “We have to get out of here,” he whispered. “When I climb up, you jump in.”

“Not on your life,” Pickleman said with a vigorous shake of his head. “We’ll be killed before we go ten feet. They can see us but we can’t see them.”

Fargo remedied that. He shot the lamp. It burst in a shower of flame and whale oil, plunging them in darkness. It also spooked the team. With a strident whinny the near horse bolted and the other horse ran with it. Fargo lunged to try and grab hold of the victoria and swing up but he couldn’t get a firm grip and pitched onto his side. The carriage was a score of yards away—and taking the Ovaro with it—before he could get to his knees. “Damn.”

“Oh my,” Pickleman said.

In the woods a gun thundered.

Fargo saw the muzzle flash. He slammed off two shots while backpedaling. “Hunt cover!” he snapped, and Pickleman scrambled after him.

Across the road both the rifle and the revolver opened up, peppering the undergrowth.

The wide trunk of a maple offered haven. Fargo darted behind it and worked the lever. His elbow bumped the lawyer, who was practically clinging to his back. “When I said to hunt cover I didn’t mean me.”

“Oh, sorry.” Pickleman moved a bit back. “It’s just that I’ve never been involved in anything like this before.”

Fargo had, more times than he cared to count. “The first rule is don’t get shot.”

“Am I mistaken or is there more than one shooter?” the lawyer asked.

“The second rule is whisper.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Pickleman closed his eyes, apparently wrestling with his emotions, and when he opened them he was calmer. He whispered, “There are two of them, am I right?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s not Injun Joe. He works alone. But for the life of me, I can’t think who else it would be.”

“Hush.” Fargo was listening. The pair might be stalking them.

The brush remained still, the night quiet, save for the far-off hoot of an owl.

Pickleman didn’t stay quiet long. “The Clyborns do have enemies, though. Well, some of the Clyborns do. The youngest, Charlotte, doesn’t have any. She’s so nice and sweet that everyone in Hannibal adores her.”

Fargo looked at him. “There’s a third rule to follow.”

“There is? What would it be?”

“When I tell you to shut the hell up,” Fargo said, “you shut the hell up.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Minute after tense minute followed one after the other until fully a quarter of an hour went by. The moon rose above the hills to the east, splashing the woodland with pale light.

“I think they’re gone,” Pickleman said.

Fargo was beginning to think so, too. Maybe they were afraid the shots would attract others. No sooner did the thought enter his head than hooves thudded out on the road, coming from the south. It was a single horse, coming fast. It stopped a pebble’s toss off. “I’ll be damned,” Fargo said, and grinned.

“What?”

“The best friend I have has four legs.”

The Ovaro had either pulled loose of the victoria or the reins had come untied. It stomped a hoof and nickered.

Fargo warily emerged from hiding. Pickleman tried to walk past him and he pushed him back. “The fourth rule is never take anything for granted.”

“How many rules are there?”

“The fifth rule is don’t ask stupid questions when the man who is trying to save your hide is busy saving it.” Fargo patted the Ovaro while probing the undergrowth. Nothing moved. No shots ripped the night. Quickly, he shoved the Henry into the saddle scabbard and forked leather, then reached down. “Come on. We’re lighting a shuck.”

The lawyer grasped his arm and Fargo swung him up.

“Goodness. I’ve never ridden double before. Do I hold on to you or the saddle or what?”

Fargo couldn’t resist. “What.” He reined around and tapped his spurs and brought the Ovaro to a trot. Thanks to the moonlight the road was easy to make out. He stayed in the middle, his hand on the Colt.

“I want to thank you for saving me back there.”

“We’re not safe yet.”

Fargo wasn’t convinced they could relax until a mile had fallen behind them. By then he had slowed to spare the Ovaro. As he felt the tension drain from his taut sinews, it suddenly occurred to him that this had been the second attempt on his life in twenty-four hours. There had been the man and woman on the steamboat and now two assassins in the dark of night in the forest. “I wonder,” he mused.

“You wonder what?”

“You’re going to make some woman a fine wife one day.”

Pickleman didn’t respond right away. When he did, he chuckled. “Oh. I get it. You’re quite the wit. I didn’t expect that of you.”

“Let me guess. You’ve taken the notion that my kind must be as dumb as tree stumps.”

“I’ve met very few frontiersmen, Mr. Fargo. Those I have struck me as uncouth louts only interested in three things. Liquor, women, and having a good time.”

“That’s me, sure enough.”

“No, it’s not. You might fool others but I suspect there is more to you. Much more.”

“If you say so.” Fargo rose in the stirrups. He’d heard the drum of hooves. Drawing rein, he waited.

“What are we doing?” Pickleman asked.

“Do you have ears?”

Presently three riders swept into view, riding hard. Fargo swung the Ovaro broadside so they couldn’t see his gun hand. It would give him a split-second’s advantage, should it come to that.

The three spotted him and slowed. The thick-shouldered man in the lead was holding a rifle and started to raise it but stopped at a bleat of relief from Pickleman.

“Roland? Is that you? Thank God.”

“Theodore?” The man gigged his sorrel up close and stopped. “My God, man. What is going on? The carriage came barreling down on us and we stopped it and found James dead. I remembered you had gone into town earlier and came straightaway to find you.”

“Highwaymen attacked us,” Pickleman said. “Had it not been for Mr. Fargo, here, I would no doubt be as dead as James.”

The man turned to Fargo. He had bushy brows and fingers as thick as spikes and wore a tweed outfit with Hessian boots and a cap. Across his chest was a bandolier of cartridges and on his hip a knife with a stag hilt. “So you’re the man Sam sent for? I’ve heard of you. They say you’re one of the best scouts alive.”

“I get around,” Fargo said.

“Not that it will do you any good this weekend. I know these hills better than anyone.”

Pickleman coughed and said, “Mr. Fargo, this is Roland Clyborn, the second of Thomas’s four sons. His passion is hunting.”

“What was that about this weekend?” Fargo asked.

Roland glanced at the lawyer. “You haven’t told him yet?”

“Sam’s orders.”

“Figures.” Roland turned to Fargo. “A word to the wise: Stay out of this. If I were you, I’d turn around and head back to Hannibal and take the first steamboat downriver.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You will be in trouble up over your head.”