High Country Horror

4

At quarter past eight Marshal Marion Tibbit came up the street, yawning and scratching himself. His clothes looked as if he had slept in them. His hat was pushed back on his head and he squinted in the glare of the morning sun. A rolled-up newspaper was under one arm. He came under the overhang and groped in his pocket. Producing a key, he inserted it into the lock and was about to turn the latch when he glanced over and gave a start. “Mr. Fargo! My word. I didn’t see you leaning there.”

Fargo straightened and came out of the shadows. “You said something about wanting my help. And we have things to talk about.”

“If you mean the lynching, I consider the matter closed. You may press charges if you so wish but no jury will convict those men, not given the circumstances.”

“It’s those circumstances I’m interested in.”

“Well, then, please, come on in. Would you care for a cup of coffee? I can’t start my day without four or five.” Tibbit opened the door and went over to a potbellied stove in the corner.

The office was Spartan: a desk, a chair behind the desk and another in front of it, the stove, a small cupboard where the coffee and cups and other things were kept, and a cell for prisoners. At the moment the cell was empty.

Fargo sat in the chair in front of the desk and placed his left ankle on his right knee. On the desk were a tobacco pouch and a pipe. It explained the odor.

“How was your stay at widow Chatterly’s?” Marshal Tibbit asked as he kindled a flame in the stove. “I trust it was pleasant.”

“I liked it so much I might stay a few nights more.”

“That’s fine. Just fine.” Tibbit took the lid off the coffeepot and got a pitcher down from the bottom shelf of the cupboard. The pitcher was filled with water. “I hope you don’t expect me to pay,” he said as he poured. “I agreed to one night and one night only. Any more and you must pay for them yourself.”

“That’s fair.”

“What’s your reason for wanting to stay there, if I might ask?”

Fargo pictured the widow’s face and lips and bosom, and felt a twinge low down. “I’d like to see the landlady bareassed naked.”

Tibbit’s mouth fell open and he started to straighten so fast, he nearly dropped the pitcher. “I trust you are joshing.”

“Why?”

“She’s not that kind of woman. Helsa is a respectable lady and must be treated as such.”

“You don’t sleep with many females, do you?”

“What a thing to ask,” Tibbit retorted. “I don’t see where that’s any of your business. But for your information I have slept with my share.”

Fargo was willing to bet he could count them on one hand and have fingers left over but he changed the subject. “Last night you mentioned putting my tracking skills to use.”

“That’s right. I did, didn’t I?” Tibbit got the coffee down. “How good a tracker are you?”

There were plenty of veteran army officers and seasoned frontiersmen who would rate him as one of the best but all Fargo said was, “I can trail a buffalo good enough.”

“A buffalo?” Marshal Tibbit said, sounding disappointed. “Why, anyone can do that. They leave tracks as big as pie plates. I need—” He stopped and stared. “Wait a second. You were pulling my leg, weren’t you?”

“Might have been,” Fargo conceded.

Tibbit chuckled. “It’s nice you have a sense of humor. Take that incident with the rope, for instance. Give yourself time and you’ll laugh about it.”

Fargo thought of Harvey Stansfield and Dugan and McNee, and his neck and face grew warm. “Not in this life.”

“What I’d like to do is take you to the Spencer place and let you have a look around. She was only taken last evening so there might still be sign.”

“Didn’t you look?”

“I did, yes, but it was dark. I used a lantern, which didn’t help much.” The lawman shrugged. “I freely admit I’m terrible at it. I couldn’t track a cow down the middle of Main Street. In my defense, I’ve never hunted a day in my life so I’ve never really had to do much tracking.”

“What did you do before you pinned on that badge?”

Tibbit came and sat behind the desk. He propped his boots up and laced his fingers behind his head. “Promise not to laugh?” He didn’t wait for Fargo to answer. “I was a traveling salesman. I sold ladies’ corsets, if you can believe it.”

“I can believe it,” Fargo said.

“I got tired of always being on the go and always scrabbling to make ends meet. About a year and a half ago I came to Haven. I only intended to stay a couple of days and sell as many corsets as I could and then catch the next stage out. But I liked it here so much that I asked a councilman’s wife if she knew of any jobs that were to be had, and as it happened, there was one.”

“You went from corset salesman to lawman?”

Tibbit laughed. “I know what you’re thinking. What did a seller of ladies’ corsets know about the law? I admit I knew little. But my enthusiasm impressed the town council. And as it so happens, I’m a fast reader. I’ve gone through every law book and statute there is.”

“There’s more to wearing a tin star than law books.”

“I grant you that, yes. But don’t you see?” Tibbit spread his hands in delight. “I have a job I love. I have a roof over my head and the roof is my own. No more endless travel. No more having to listen to customers carp about their corsets. I’m in heaven.” The gleam of happiness faded from his eyes and he put his boots on the floor. “Or I was until this whole missing women horror started. The first one, I thought for sure the Apaches were to blame. Everyone knows they take white women to their wigwams and have their way with them.”

Fargo smothered a laugh. Most Apaches regarded white women as weak and helpless and unable to endure the Apache way of life. Apache warriors would much rather have a woman of their own kind.

Tibbit had gone on. “Then three months later the second woman disappeared, and I wasn’t so sure anymore. By the time the third woman went missing after another three-month interval there was no longer any doubt. It had to be a white man.”

“Or men,” Fargo said.

“Eh? Oh, yes. Possibly.”

“Were the women always taken three months apart?”

“Give or take a week or two. Isn’t that strange? There must be a reason but it eludes me.”

Fargo could see where a lot might elude Marion Tibbit.

“The town council is demanding action and I don’t blame them. Those poor women, vanishing into thin air. I would like nothing better than to find them and restore them to their families. But I’m at my wit’s end.”

“So you clutch at a straw and ask a tracker for help,” Fargo said.

“It can’t hurt, you taking a look. You don’t mind, do you? You’d be doing this community, and me, a great favor. And I did save your life last night, if you’ll recall.”

“You must have been good at it,” Fargo said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Corset selling. You could talk rings around a tree.”

Marshal Tibbit laughed. “I guess I was, at that. I admit I am a talker. On the rare occasions a man gets drunk and rowdy in Haven, I don’t drag them here to the cell against their will. I talk them into spending the night of their own free will. I prefer to use my tongue, not my pistol.”

“I like to use my tongue, too.”

“You do? You could have fooled me. You’re rather the laconic type, I’ve noticed.”

“Laconic?”

“Yes. You don’t speak unless you have to and even then ...” Tibbit stopped. “You just did it again, didn’t you? Pulled my leg?” He got up and went to the stove and touched the coffeepot. “It shouldn’t be long.”

“Why haven’t you asked for help before this?” Fargo asked.

“From whom? The Rangers? They mainly deal with Indians, and they might disband soon, anyway, I hear. The army? Most of the troops have been recalled east because of the war. The county sheriff? There isn’t one because they haven’t gotten around to forming a county yet.” Tibbit shook his head, and sighed. “No, there’s just me.”

“And four missing girls.”

“And a missing man. Didn’t Helsa tell you about her husband?”

“She did.”

“That makes five that I know of. I also got a letter six months ago from a woman in Illinois wanting to know if I’d seen her brother, who was supposed to be in this area. I told her I never had.”

“The tally is climbing.”

“Yes. Worrisome, isn’t it? Makes me wonder exactly what I’m up against.”

The coffee was soon done. The lawman filled two cups and filled his with cream and enough sugar to gag a goat. Fargo took his black.

Outside, the street was alive with people moving to and fro. A buckboard clattered past. A man and his family of five were about to go into the general store across the street.

Tibbit had been unusually quiet but now he pointed and asked, “Do you recognize him?”

Fargo looked. “The farmer who cut me down last night.”

“Sam Worthington. As fine a gentleman as you’ll find anywhere. Notice anything about his family?”

“He has a girl about eighteen.”

“She’s all of twenty but not married yet. Her name is Melissa. A pretty thing, and smart. She came to me about a week ago, in secret. Said she thought someone was spying on her. I thought maybe whoever took the other girls would try to take her, so I was keeping watch on their farm. And wouldn’t you know? It was Myrtle Spencer who disappeared.” Tibbit took a sip of his coffee-flavored sugar water. “I’d like to take you out to the Worthington farm after we talk to the Spencers, if you’re willing. There’s something I’d like you to see.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Fargo said. “I’ll take a look-see but I can’t promise I’ll be of any help.”

“The fact that you are willing to lend a hand means more to me than you can imagine.” Tibbit sounded genuinely grateful. “If you don’t mind my asking, what prompted you to agree? Do you possess a strong sense of civic responsibility?”

“No.”

“Was it sympathy for the girls who have gone missing and for their families?”

“No.”

“You want to help because it’s the right thing to do?”

“No.”

Tibbit placed his elbows on the desk. “Then why, in heaven’s name?”

“Two reasons,” Fargo said.

“The first being ...?”

“The widow.”

Marshal Tibbit bobbed his head as if waiting for Fargo to go on, and when Fargo didn’t he said, “Does this have to do with seeing her—how did you put it?—bare-assed naked?”

Fargo nodded. “I need something to keep me busy until I bed her.”

Tibbit sat back and uttered a bark of a laugh that died in midbark. “Wait. My God. You’re serious. Why, that’s outrageous.”

“She’s a fine-looking female.”

“Yes, true, but still,” Tibbit sputtered. He opened his mouth to say more but apparently changed his mind and closed it again. He drank some coffee and cleared his throat. “All right. Let’s put that aside for the moment. Although I must say, your gall is remarkable. You’ve only known her one night. Do you honestly think you have a chance?”

“She’s a woman and I’m a man.”

“It takes more than that.”

“No,” Fargo said, “it doesn’t.”

Tibbit fixed Fargo with slightly bewildered look. “All right. What’s your second reason?”

“That necktie social last night.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was nearly hung because some of those men blamed me for the women who have gone missing. I’d like to find the son of a bitch who took those women and show him what I think of having a rope around my neck.”

“You’re saying you want to help so you can see him hung?”

“I’m saying I want to find him so I can kill the bastard myself.”

Marshal Tibbit opened a drawer and took out a half-empty bottle of whiskey. He opened it and poured some into his cup and tilted the cup to his mouth and gulped. It brought on a coughing fit and it was a while before he could say, “You are the most singular person I’ve ever met.”

“I’m no different from anyone else.”

“Yes, you are. But I’m afraid I must disappoint you. I can’t have you taking the law into your own hands. If we find whoever is responsible, I intend to place him under arrest so he can be tried in a court of law. Under no circumstances will I let you deprive him of due process.”

Fargo sat silent.

“I must insist on your word. Promise me that you won’t shoot him on sight. I’ll have to refuse otherwise, as much as I can use your help.”

“I won’t shoot on sight,” Fargo said.

“Good.” Tibbit smiled and drank heartily. “Very good.” He set down his cup. “I have to make my morning rounds and then we can be on our way. It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes or so. You’re welcome to stay here until I get back.” Standing, he smoothed his jacket and adjusted his hat and strode out with the air of a rooster on the peck.

Fargo went to the window. The Worthington family came out of the general store and moved down the street. Three riders came up it from the other direction and dismounted in front of the Leaky Bucket. They tied their horses to the hitch rail and filed in.

“Well now,” Fargo said. He went out. Staying close to the buildings he came to the saloon and peered in the front window. The three were at the bar.

The only other customer was an older man at a table by himself. Fargo pushed on the batwings. They didn’t squeak and no one heard him until he was close enough for his spurs to give him away. Two of the three glanced over their shoulders to see who it was.

“You!” Dugan blurted.

“What are you doing here?” McNee asked.

Harvey Stansfield heard them and put down his glass and turned—straight into Fargo’s uppercut.