High Country Horror

3

Haven fit its name. The houses had tidy lawns and picket fences. The commercial buildings were well kept. Hitch rails and watering troughs were evenly spaced. The town was so quiet and peaceful that Fargo would have thought he was east of the Mississippi River.

The men left for home and hearth. Harvey rode off with Dugan and McNee after promising to pay the marshal a visit first thing in the morning.

“I aim to give him a piece of my mind about how he treated you,” Marshal Tibbit assured Fargo. “He won’t do that to anyone else, I can promise.”

“Too bad he did it to me.”

“Yes, well, Harve has always been a hothead. He acts first and thinks second.”

“The other two?”

“McNee and Dugan? They’re Harve’s friends. Where you find one you usually find them.”

“They all family men?”

“Goodness, no. I’m not even sure they like women. Truth is, they spend most of their time at the saloon.”

“They work for a living?”

“Oh, they do odd jobs for the farmers and ranchers.” Marshal Tibbit glanced at him. “Here now. Why all the questions? You’re not thinking of getting back at them, are you?”

Somewhere or other Fargo had heard the expression, “Perish forbid.”

“I hope not, for your sake. You might not rate me highly but I take my job seriously. I’ll arrest you as quick as look at you if you break the law.”

“I noticed you didn’t arrest Harvey and his pards.”

“Why cause more trouble than there’s already been? I believe in restoring the peace and keeping the peace.” The marshal drew rein near a gate in a white fence. Dismounting, he opened it. “This is the widow Chatterly’s place. Her light is still on, thank goodness. I’d hate to wake her this late.”

Flower beds ran along the front of the house. A second-floor window was lit, the shade over it pink. After the lawman knocked a shadow moved across the shade, the shape undeniably hourglass.

Fargo folded his arms. He was sore all over and his neck was smarting.

Harve and those other two had a lot to answer for.

Marshal Tibbit knocked again. “Maybe she won’t come down, it being so late and all.”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the door opened, framing a woman in a floor-length robe. And what a woman, Fargo thought. Lustrous golden hair spilled past slender shoulders. Her face was peaches and cream, her lips strawberries. She had eyes as blue as his and a bosom that needed a lot of robe to cover it.

“Sorry to bother you so late, Helsa,” Marshal Tibbit said, taking off his hat. “I’m hoping you can do me a favor.”

Helsa Chatterly looked past the lawman at Fargo. “If by favor you mean him, his buckskins look as if he’s been rolling around in grass and he has a welt on his jaw. Is he safe to let into my house?”

“I’m perfectly harmless,” Fargo answered for himself.

Helsa looked him up and down and said with a slight smile, “I very much doubt that.”

“He needs a bed and you’re all we’ve got,” Marshal Tibbit said. “One day Haven will have a hotel. Until then ...”

“Until then my boardinghouse will have to do,” Helsa finished. “Very well. Come on in and I’ll show him to his room. But keep it down, if you please. I have another boarder and he retired hours ago.”

The inside smelled of flowers, as well it should since there were vases of them everywhere Fargo looked. He tried to walk quietly but his boots thumped on the hardwood floor and his spurs jingled. She led them up a flight of stairs and opened a door at the end of the hall. The room was spotless. A blue quilt covered the bed, and there was a dresser and a night stand.

“Isn’t this nice?” Marshal Tibbit said.

“It almost makes up for nearly being hung,” Fargo said dryly.

Helsa Chatterly turned. “What was that?”

“The good citizens of your peaceful little community,” Fargo quoted the lawman, “tried to treat me to a strangulation jig a while ago.”

“What on earth for?” Helsa said to Tibbit.

“Now, now. It’s nothing to get excited about. There was a misunderstanding.”

“What brought it on, Marion?”

Tibbit looked around as if afraid of being overheard and leaned toward her to whisper, “Myrtle is missing.”

“What?” Helsa’s hand rose to her throat. “Myrtle Spencer? When did this happen? Why haven’t you raised an alarm?”

“I did, my dear,” Marshal Tibbit said. “But I raised it quietly. I got together a search party and we went up and down the road but didn’t find anyone except this gentleman.” He jerked a thumb at Fargo and then said, “Say, you haven’t told me who you are.”

Fargo gave his name.

“What do you do for a living?” Helsa asked.

“I scout. I track people. I work as a guide. I play cards.” Fargo almost added, “I drink a lot.”

“A tracker, are you?” Marshal Tibbit said. “That’s interesting. Would you be willing to stop by my office tomorrow morning about eight?”

“What for?”

“I’d like to put your skills to use. Maybe you can find Myrtle where the rest of us couldn’t.”

“I’ll think about it,” Fargo said. He had no hankering to stay in Haven a minute longer than he needed to. Not after the reception they’d given him.

“You do that,” Marshal Tibbit said. “Think about how a young woman’s life might depend on how good you can track.” He put his hat on and nodded at Helsa and went out.

“He means well,” she said.

“Where can I put my horse?”

Around back was a fenced area. Fargo removed the saddle and the saddle blanket and draped them over the top rail. A bay was already there, dozing. He didn’t realize Helsa Chatterly was in the doorway watching him until he turned.

“You’ve never seen anyone take a saddle off?” he joked.

She went into the kitchen and Fargo followed her and closed the door behind him.

“I haven’t explained about the few rules I have. Breakfast is at seven sharp. Miss it and you go hungry. I serve light fare around midday if you want any. Supper is at six in the evening and I prefer you let me know in advance if you will be here so I can plan accordingly. There’s to be no rowdy behavior. No drinking, for instance. And no loud noise after about ten. You are welcome to sit in the parlor whenever you like, provided you wipe your boots first and don’t track in dirt and mud.”

“A few rules?” Fargo said.

Helsa smiled. “Perhaps I go a little overboard. You would, too, if you’d seen some of the things my boarders have done. There was one man who put out his cigar by rubbing it against a wall. There was another who snuck whiskey in and got falling-down drunk. Then there was the baritone who fancied he could sing at the top of his lungs any hour of the day or night.”

“You’ve had it rough.”

“I know sarcasm when I hear it. But it’s not easy being a widow in a town where the men outnumber the women three to one.”

“You don’t have to stay,” Fargo said.

“Yes, I do. I owe it to James. He was my husband.” Helsa stopped and stepped to the window and gazed out, her hands clasped in front of her. “A lot of women like to complain about their men, about how worthless they are. I never once complained about James. He was a good man. He came out here on account of me. We lived in Indiana, and I’d heard and read so much about the frontier, I hankered to live out here. James said that whatever I wanted, we would do. That’s the kind of man he was.”

Fargo could think of another reason the man gave in so easily but he didn’t say it.

“So we came west. We got to Prescott and heard about a new town in a beautiful valley. Haven. The Indians left it alone, and the people were peaceful and prosperous. James wasn’t sure because it was so far from anywhere but I knew the moment I heard about it that Haven was the place for me.”

“You wanted frontier life without the dangers,” Fargo said.

Helsa Chatterly turned. “Only a fool courts peril and I flatter myself I’m no fool.”

“Go on,” Fargo said to mend fences.

“All went well until about a year ago when the first of the young women went missing. Felicity was her name. Her parents were our dearest friends, and James took it hard. He liked her. She was sort of the daughter we never had.”

“You didn’t have any kids of your own?”

“No, Mr. Fargo. We did not. It’s none of your affair but we couldn’t. Not for a lack of trying, I might add.”

Fargo ran his eyes from the crown of her luxurious hair down over her enticing body to the tips of her small feet. “I bet your husband tried every night, too.”

For a second she appeared offended but her face softened and she said quietly, “The feeling was mutual. I found James very handsome. He had the most piercing blue eyes. A lot like yours. We did it every chance we had.”

Fargo gave her charms another scrutiny. He liked earthy women. They didn’t put on airs and pretend that “it” was beneath them when secretly they liked “it” as much as most men. “How long has he been dead?”

“I’m getting to that. You see, James tried hard to find out what had happened to Felicity. He would go out at night, late, which wasn’t like him, and when I asked where he was going, he wouldn’t say. He told me it was best I didn’t know but that he had an idea about who had taken her. That surprised me. At the time there was a difference of opinion.”

“Difference how?”

“Felicity had gone off for a walk in the middle of the afternoon as she usually did and she didn’t return. Some assumed it must have been Apaches. Others thought maybe a bear or a mountain lion got her. Still others that she got lost in the woods and couldn’t find her way back. James was convinced a foul misdeed had been committed.” Helsa’s features clouded. “And then he disappeared, too.”

Fargo’s interest was growing.

“His horse was found about a mile from Haven with blood on the saddle. But there was no sign of James. Since then three other girls have vanished, which proves he was right about a sinister purpose.”

“You stay to honor his memory?”

Helsa smiled. “Something like that, yes. And because I truly do love it here.”

“Do you have any notions on who killed him?”

Sadness wiped her smile away. “I wish I did. I wish I knew so the marshal could arrest whoever it is and put them on trial and they could be hung by the neck until they are dead.” Helsa’s frown deepened. “Everyone in Haven is on tenterhooks. We would all of us like to get to the bottom of the mystery and find the person responsible.”

“Not everyone,” Fargo said.

“Excuse me?”

“Whoever is taking the women doesn’t want to be found.”

Helsa moved to the hall. “Look at me, talking my head off when it’s so late and you probably want to turn in.”

“How many folks live here?”

“In the town itself or all together? Counting the farmers and ranchers and their families, I believe the total is one hundred and twelve but I could be mistaken. The assessor would know. Why?”

Fargo did the numbers in his head. She had said there were about three men for every woman. “That makes about seventy to eighty of them men?”

“Over eighty, I believe. So yes, the marshal has a lot of suspects, if that is what you’re getting at.” Helsa sadly sighed. “It’s so frustrating. Two families have left because of the disappearances. Now with Myrtle gone and her dog killed, it wouldn’t surprise me if more go.”

“Aren’t you worried it could happen to you?”

Helsa shook her head. “No. None of the women taken were married. As a widow, I should imagine I’m safe. Whoever is to blame hankers after young unwed girls.”

“Or he likes green pastures,” Fargo said.

“In what way?”

“Girls are more likely to be virgins.”

“What a sick thing to say,” Helsa said.

“For some men that’s important. Me, I like females with experience.” Fargo stared at her bosom.

“Show more respect, if you don’t mind. I’m beginning to have second thoughts about letting you stay.”

Fargo went over to her. He didn’t touch her; he stood so close that he could feel the warmth of her body through the robe and she could feel the warmth of his. “I have plenty of respect. As you said, it’s not easy being a woman alone. But a woman alone has the same needs as a woman who isn’t. All I’m doing is letting you know I’m interested.”

“Well,” Helsa said, and blushed. “You come right out with it, don’t you? What makes you think I would care?”

Fargo looked at a spot on her robe below the belt.

“I should slap you.”

“You won’t.”

Helsa started down the hall, saying over her shoulder, “There will be no more talk about that, not while you’re under my roof. I’m glad I only have to put you up for one night.”

Fargo liked how her backside swayed as she walked. “I just might stay longer,” he said to himself, and grinned.