8
Around two that afternoon, Sheriff Henry Burrell told his deputies to watch over the office, that he was “slipping home” for the rest of the day. They took turns spelling each other in this fashion. It was democratic. They rotated the privilege of “slipping home” when there wasn’t much going on at the office. Four of them, Burrell and his deputies, rotating the privilege.
He might as well go home, he thought, as he rode his roan down the dusty road. He couldn’t think of anything except his son Hap finding those bloody clothes. He wondered where Hap was now. Probably getting liquored up somewhere. When he was drunk, he often belittled Burrell about how pathetic it was to be a lawman in a town like this one. If he had any guts or gumption, Hap always implied, he’d be toting a badge in a much bigger town. All this criticism from a punk who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—hold a job. There was no heartbreak like the heartbreak of having a child whose behavior humiliated you at every turn—whose behavior marked you as a softheaded fool who couldn’t control your own flesh and blood.
He unsaddled his horse, fed him, brushed him, and then headed for the woods, toting a shovel he’d grabbed from the barn. He’d seen no sign of Hap. Again, he assumed he’d find his son—if he bothered himself to look—in some saloon somewhere. No doubt playing cards. The day was gently warm, with soft breezes penetrating even the deep confines of the forest. A day for fishing or just simply loafing. Not a day for digging up bloody clothes.
A couple of times, he felt panic when he couldn’t find the hole he’d dug. His mind was so knotted up with thoughts of Hap—dark thoughts; dangerous thoughts—that he couldn’t think clearly. But then with the help of some chittering squirrels and a rather somber-looking raccoon—a big fella—he saw a clear patch where the earth had recently been disturbed. He set to work.
The clothes were gone.
He sat down, weary beyond his years, on the gnarled limb that lightning had ripped from its tree. He rolled himself a cigarette and let the work-sweat on his body dry from the breeze.
He’d assumed that Hap would have left the clothes where he’d found them. This would be sufficient to get from his old man the things he wanted. Namely, cash. Over the past three years, Hap had gotten himself into several scrapes with various professional gamblers in the area. He’d paid off his debt in various ways. He’d won a little back at cards but mostly he’d stolen—from his father, from a few merchants in the deep of night, and at least one time in a stagecoach stickup. The kind of gamblers who were after Hap for bad debts didn’t give a damn that the young man’s father was the law. One way or the other, they wanted their money. They’d kill Hap if necessary—it would only enhance their reputations for ruthlessness—and worry about Henry Burrell later. They could always leave the area if necessary and pick up their trade somewhere else. That was the nice thing about gambling. Anywhere you went, you had men and women eager to have their hard-earned money taken from them.
Burrell filled in the hole again, tamped it down, disguised it with as much foliage as he could find. He’d probably never come back here. What was the point, with Hap in possession of the bloody clothes?
He headed back to his house. He walked slowly. He was afraid of what he might do if he saw Hap. He was just glad his wife hadn’t lived to see how Hap had turned out.
Some folks argued that a broken heart couldn’t kill you. Maybe not—leastways in the way of a romantically broken heart. But a misbehaving kid—a drunk, a gambler, a bully, a kid who survived in part because his old man was the law—this was the kind of kid who could kill you through sheer heartbreak. You could only take so much before your will to live began to drain out of you. Then death began to look like a blessing.
Hap’s horse was there.
The confrontation he’d been dreading was here at last.
He went to the back door and let himself inside. Hap sat at the only table they had. A whiskey bottle sat in front of him. A cigarette was tucked into the corner of his mouth. The bloody clothes sat in the middle of the table.
“You looking for these, were you?”
Burrell sat down. Grabbed the whiskey bottle. Took two swigs for himself and then set the bottle down hard.
“What the hell’s all this about?”
“It’s about Paul Iverson. I owe him four thousand dollars.”
“Oh, God, Hap, why’d you ever have to play cards with him? He probably dealt you off the bottom.”
“Well, he sure did something,” Hap said, frowning, “because he won every hand.”
“And you had to keep betting.”
“The only way I could get my money back.”
“So what do you want me to do about it, Hap?”
Hap touched the bloody clothes balled up on the table. “I need to get some money and get out of this territory and never come back.”
“And just how the hell’re you going to get that kind of money?”
“The bank.” Hap smiled. “You’re going to help me rob it.”
When the trapdoor was lifted, Fargo sprang from sleep. He’d tucked himself in the corner, trying to stay warm in the dark tomb of the root cellar.
He was on his feet. Moving swiftly to the ladder. He looked up at the open trapdoor. He had a sensation of light, warmth. Every ounce of him wanted to be up there in that light and warmth. He knew better than to start up the ladder. Anybody who wanted to could just push it away from the foot-long space between the ladder’s top and the trapdoor. He’d be flung backward to the floor many feet below. He didn’t need any more injuries.
A lantern appeared at the top of the open door suddenly and young Darcy peeked her head down. “You don’t tell my Pa I did this or he’ll beat us both.”
“Tell him what, Darcy?”
“This.”
She dropped something small and square wrapped in paper.
He caught it.
“There’s bread and some beef.”
“Thank you.”
“And this. But you’ll have to hide it somewhere when they come down.”
A blanket. Tattered, thin, stained. But it would provide at least a bit of warmth.
“How come you’re doing this?”
“ ’Cause you’re one of God’s creatures. And that’s what the good book says I should do. The way Pa reads the Bible is all wrong. All he sees in it is punishment for sinners. And like the book says, we’re all sinners.”
He smiled. “Somehow I doubt you are, Darcy.”
“Oh, I have terrible thoughts sometimes.”
“You do? You’re too sweet to have terrible thoughts. How old are you?”
“Twelve. And when Pa’s beating me, I have plenty of terrible thoughts. One time, I even thought of waiting till he was asleep and then taking his pistol and killing him right there in his sleep. That’s about as terrible a thought as you can have, mister.”
“We all have thoughts like that, Darcy. Especially when somebody’s beating us.”
She hesitated. “And then I have thoughts of running away. Like Nan did. But I wouldn’t become a whore. I’d just run away somewhere where it was nice and peaceful and where people read the Bible the right way.”
Fargo knew he was about to use her to his own ends. But it was the only way he might ever get out of here. And he’d certainly be doing her a favor.
“That’s what I need to do, Darcy. Run away from here. As soon as I can. I’d be happy to take you with me.”
She didn’t have time to answer. They both heard the same sounds at the same time. Father and son talking as they approached the front door.
The lantern was pulled up. The trapdoor was eased down, shut.
Darkness again.
He took food and blanket to the rickety chair he’d seen. He wrapped the blanket around him and began to pull on the tough beef. The bread was fresh and satisfying. Especially the crust.
He allowed himself the fantasy of escape. Darcy’d come back at the next opportunity and they’d run away together. He’d find a good home for her and then he’d resume his search for the killer. He realized for the first time since being abandoned down here that Curt Cates had less than twenty-four hours to live if Fargo didn’t come up with the real killer.
So far, all he knew was that he didn’t know much at all. Almost everybody he’d met seemed suspicious for one reason or another. And there was always the possibility—much as he didn’t want to consider it—that Curt himself had murdered the girl. Fargo didn’t think so—but he couldn’t dismiss it, either.
The cry came soon after he finished his humble meal.
The crack of a strong hand on bone and then the cry. Easy—too easy—to picture. Good ole Pa slapping his daughter. Hard.
“That lantern’s hot, girl. That means you lit it. Now why would you light it when the sun’s still full up?”
“I didn’t light it, Pa. It must still be hot from last night.”
She wasn’t much of a liar. She sounded desperate.
Another resounding, echoing slap. Followed by a crash. He must have knocked her over something. Another cry.
Pa had apparently lost his mind again. “You’re gonna get the belt! You took that lantern and went down there, didn’t you girl? You committed a sin with him, didn’t you girl?”
Fargo felt each lash of the belt the girl received. His stomach knotted. His fists became useless lethal weapons. Someday he’d get his hands on Pa and that would be all for Pa.
The lashes and the screaming and the crying and the pleading to stop went on for what seemed like hours, even though it was in reality a relatively short time. And then it was done.
Poor Darcy cried into the spent silence.
Oh, yes, Fargo thought, someday I’ll get my hands on that sonofabitch and it’ll be all over for him. I’ll give him a taste of his own belt and then I’ll stove in the side of his head.
Someday.
Someday, if I can ever get out of this crypt I’m in.
Deputy Andy Madden had a difficult time concentrating on the plump German girl he was trying out on the second floor of Jody Tyler’s whorehouse. All he could think about was Tal Boatman and Boatman’s boast that he could lead Andy to Skye Fargo. Usually, Andy tried to impress the gals with his “stay-ability” as he liked to call it. But right now he didn’t care. He just got it over with. When the whore, who spoke little English, looked up at Andy as he quickly dressed, he read her expression with no trouble. “I no payee for thisee,” he said, in the same singsong way he addressed all foreigners, be that Chinee, Mexicanee, or Germanee. “Missee Jodee take care of itee.” The gal looked baffled but he didn’t give a damn. His prostate felt better and he was in a hurry. He got out of there.
His horse was in back of the whorehouse. He operated under the delusion that this made his presence at Jody’s invisible. Who would expect that a deputy sheriff, dipping his wick for free, could possibly be clever enough to ground-tie his horse out back in broad daylight? Because the house was on a corner next to a vacant lot, nearly every man passing by noted the color of the animal and said, “There’s Andy’s horse. Someday his pecker’s gonna fall off, you just wait and see.” The women passing by were more refined in how they expressed themselves. “Andy’s poor wife. I don’t know why she puts up with it.”
There was a good breeze from the south. Andy was glad to be in the saddle. And alone. For a giddy minute or two, he felt like a boy again. No political problems to deal with—a lawman was a target for every political malcontent in town—and no marriage woes—a philanderer always had to cover his tracks with his wife and sometimes, the way Andy lived, that was impossible, and so he had to put up with a lot of yelling and screaming about how he was an unfaithful husband and a sorry example of manhood for his brood of kids.
But out on open range like this—
Pure pleasure until he came in sight of the Boatman place. Then the stomach started to go acid on him and the heart rate increased at least slightly and a vague headache began forming behind his right eye.
All he’d thought of since talking with Tal Boatman earlier was capturing Skye Fargo. Bringing him in dead or alive, he didn’t much give a damn either way. He pictured himself riding down the center of town, trailing Fargo’s horse behind him. Fargo slung over the saddle, of course. The voters would take one look at him—early thirties, virile, tough, handsome—and wonder why they put up with some old fart of a sheriff when a radiant god like Andy Madden could be elected into office?
There were a few things wrong with this little fantasy. Andy was actually forty-one, and he was virile only if he’d had enough sleep and wasn’t hitting the bottle too hard, and was tough only when he brought out the brass knuckles or some such implement, and as for handsome . . . he couldn’t remember any woman ever calling him that except his mother. And that had been when he was little. But . . .
. . . but—he would make a better sheriff than the sheriff the town had now. And that was for damned sure.
He didn’t see Tal anywhere. If fact, he didn’t see anybody. The Boatman place had the feel of being deserted. It gave him a momentary chill. He’d heard stories about how Indians would kill an entire family and then hide in a house, waiting for the next unsuspecting victim to come riding up.
He eased his rifle from its scabbard and then dropped down from his animal. He started to shout Tal’s name and then thought the better of it. The suspicious silence made him too nervous to call out. He clutched his rifle.
He crept up to the window next to the front door and peeked inside. Nothing, nobody moving.
Sound, then: a jubilant jay, a lonely dog, a bored cow. Then wind all caught up in trees and bunch grass and long rough rows of wildflowers. Wind that sounded every bit as jubilant as the jay had.
And then another sound, one so pretty, so delicate that even Andy—who didn’t claim to be sensitive or artistic in any way, who in fact disdained most higher forms of culture—got chills again. But these weren’t chills of fear. These were chills of appreciation. He had never heard anything so beautiful—so achingly melancholy.
As if in a daze, he walked around the side of the place toward the three outbuildings in the back. The sound came from somewhere in the rear of the place. He had to find its source. Had to.
He vaguely remembered a story his older sister had read to him once, a “myth” she’d called it, about a young woman who sang with such sadness and beauty that all the young men fell in love with her. She was like a sea siren, drawing men to her with the simple grace of her voice.
The deputy knew who was singing, of course. It was just that nobody had ever told him what kind of lovely, elegant, captivating voice she had.
Andy Madden, tough-ass hombre (or so he imagined himself, anyway) walked around the red-painted shed and found himself in the presence of Maya Boatman, who sat on a tree stump, combing her long, radiant hair in the sunlight. And singing with a voice that threatened to undo him. And Andy Madden, tough-ass hombre, did not want to become undone by a voice and a song. How the hell would a fella explain something like that—I swear to God, I didn’t even want to touch her, I just wanted her to keep on singing—to his pards in the saloon?
He cleared his throat.
She stopped singing as if she’d been shot dead through the heart. She prided herself on her hearing as many blind people did but she’d been so caught up in her singing that she hadn’t heard him approach.
She turned around, facing him.
“That’s some beautiful voice you got, Miss Maya.”
“You startled me.”
“Didn’t mean to.” His eyes assessed her body. A nice little tidbit, if you liked them on the thin side. “I was just looking for your brother.”
“He left, Andy.”
“Any idea where?”
She sighed. “I guess I may as well tell you. We had an argument and he just stormed off.”
Now Andy Madden was many things, but foolish was not one of them. He sensed immediately what they’d argued about. Maya Boatman was a collector of lost and injured animals—so why not a lost and injured human animal like Skye Fargo? A desperate man facing the same gallows that he’d come here to help his friend avoid?
Sure, she’d help him. House him, feed him, heal him with those lovely hands of hers.
“Probably about that Fargo, huh?” he said.
“Why, yes, how did you know?”
“Oh, I’m just good at guessin’ things, Miss.”
She hesitated. Her sweet face wrinkled in displeasure. “That’s why you’re here, too, isn’t it?”
“Miss?”
“You’re looking for Skye, too, aren’t you?”
He duly noted the use of Fargo’s first name. He wondered if Fargo had put the pork to her. Now that would be somethin’, wouldn’t it? Hidin’ him, feedin’ him, healin’ him—and then screwin’ him on top of it. Yessir, if you had to be a man on the run, that was just the kind of good luck a fella’d want to have.
“He’s a killer, Miss.”
“He didn’t kill Nan Miller, if that’s what you mean.”
Andy Madden smiled. “He didn’t, huh? That what he tole ya, that he didn’t?”
“That’s exactly what he told me and I believe him.”
“You know anything about his reputation in general, Miss?”
“If you mean have I heard of the Trailsman, yes. But that sort of thing gets exaggerated.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen the bodies of the men he’s killed.”
“I didn’t say he was a saint, Andy. Traveling around the way he does, he’s bound to get into scrapes. With his reputation, a lot of men are out to kill him. He doesn’t have any choice but to defend himself.”
Enough talk, Andy Madden decided then and there. This could go on the rest of the day. Yak got you nowhere.
“I need you to tell me where Fargo is.”
His voice was different now. Harsh, raspy.
“Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“You ain’t my sister, Maya.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning there’s only so much your brother can let himself do to you. But I can do whatever’s necessary.”
“If you hurt me, Andy, Tal will kill you.”
Madden laughed. “Or die tryin’, anyway.”
In three steps he crossed to her and grabbed her shining dark hair. He twisted it so hard that she cried out and was forced to rise from the tree stump. He was a good foot taller than she was so it wasn’t difficult to keep twisting her hair tighter, tighter.
“Where is Fargo, Maya?”
“I don’t know.” She could barely speak through the pain that turned her face into an image of terror and contempt.
“Maya, I really don’t want to hurt you.”
He grabbed the front of her dress and ripped it straight down to her hips, low enough that not only was one perfect breast exposed but so was the top of her pubic hair. It was the same lovely chestnut color as the hair on her head.
She screamed, her arms flailing about instinctively, trying to cover the exposed parts of her body.
He didn’t slap her. He’d learned long ago that a sharp kick to the shinbone was a lot more effective and longer-lasting than a slap to the face.
The kick was so strong she collapsed in his grasp. The only thing that stopped her from falling to the ground was the hand he’d wrapped through her hair.
“Don’t make me hurt you no more, Maya.”
She cried now. Gently. The pain she felt was now joined with humiliation. Tearing the front of her dress had embarrassed her. She turned her grief and pain inward now so that the tears weren’t about rage but about embarrassment.
“Tal won’t have to kill you, Andy,” she said softly between lips suddenly thinned out and hard. “I’ll do it myself.”
He smirked. “Oh, I forgot. He taught you how to shoot. And for a blind girl—”
“Don’t underestimate me, Andy. You do any more to me, I’ll kill you for sure.”
The deputy thought a long moment. Her embarrassment was gone. Pure hatred possessed her now. He had to admit to a stray moment of fear. Funny, every once in a while you forgot about how women were supposed to be weak and obedient and not nearly as tough or vengeful as men—you had a moment when you saw that that theory didn’t apply to all women.
As now.
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” he said, all fake joviality and would-be manliness. “Since you’re gonna kill me anyway, I might just as well have my fun before I die, now, shouldn’t I?”
He ripped the rest of her dress away so that in three simple gestures she stood nude before him in the sunlight, a lovely, white, gorgeously sexual creature that he was about to violate in such a way she would never forget.
“Well, now,” he said, his voice clotted with desire. “Ain’t you just somethin’?” He reached out and took rough hold of her left breast. It was even more exquisite than he’d imagined.
He laughed. “Even if you do kill me, Missy, it’s gonna be worth it.”
“You’re the sheriff. You’ve got the key to the bank.”
“You don’t think I’d be the first person they’d suspect?”
“You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Yeah, and why not?”
“Because we’ll make it look like somebody broke in instead of using the key.”
“You got it all figured out, huh, Hap?” Sheriff Burrell said to his son as they sat on the front stoop of their house.
“Yeah, matter of fact, I do.” He clapped his old man on the back. “You been wantin’ to get rid of me for a long time, Pop. Now here’s your chance. I’ll wait for a seemly amount of time and then I’ll just take off one day.”
“With the money.”
“Yep. With the money.”
“And meanwhile, nobody’ll be suspicious, I suppose?”
“Let ’em be suspicious. They can’t prove anything.”
“What happens if somebody sees us going in?”
Hap gave him one of those beaming smiles. “Two A.M., three A.M., who the hell’s gonna see us, Pop?”
Sheriff Burrell had to admit that the notion of getting rid of his son sure sounded good. He knew by now that his son was never going to change. Too much arrogance, too much lust, too much greed. Every once in a while, a boy like that actually changed. He met the right gal or he got religion or he just plain and unaccountably grew up. But it wasn’t going to happen to Hap, Burrell was pretty sure of that.
The trouble was exactly what he’d been saying: getting into the bank wouldn’t be any trouble. Nor would figuring out the combination. Hap had long boasted that he was good with combination locks and Burrell had no doubt that was true. He knew that Hap had broken into a few places and stolen money from time to time. But this was different. No other business attracted attention like a bank. Anybody who happened to be out and about at that hour—anybody who happened to see a shadowy figure or two enter the rear door of the bank—why, that person would run right to the sheriff’s office. And then the night deputy would round up a couple of men with shotguns and the three of them would post themselves at the front and back doors of the bank and insist that the men inside come out with their hands up. This was exactly the instructions Burrell had given his deputies over the years.
Then imagine the shock and anger when the deputy and his men saw Burrell and his son come strolling out.
Oh, Burrell was good enough on his feet that he’d have some kind of explanation for them. An explanation that might even make sense for the moment. An explanation that would calm the nerves of the night deputy to the point where he’d tell the men he’d enlisted to go on home, that this was all a misunderstanding.
But home in bed after the end of his shift, the night deputy would start to think about the excuse the sheriff had given him for being inside the bank in the middle of the night. And he’d begin to wonder. And then he just might stroll over to the bank that afternoon and have a little coffee with the bank president and say, You know, the damnedest thing happened last night at the bank here. And then they’d start talking. Now the bank president—a gruff old bastard named McGregor—he wouldn’t have the automatic faith in Burrell that the night deputy did. And right away he’d be suspicious about the whole thing. The sheriff and that bullyboy son of his in the bank in the middle of the night? “That was pretty damned strange, wasn’t it?” old McGregor would say. “The middle of the night?” And then the night deputy would finally be able to admit to himself—despite his loyalty to Burrell—that yes, the whole thing did seem pretty strange when you thought about it. And you didn’t even have to think hard about it. Middle of the night? McGregor would say. Middle of the night?
“And then it all comes apart.”
“What all comes apart?” Hap asked.
“The whole thing. Everything. It all comes apart.” The dialogue between bank president and night deputy had been so real in Burrell’s mind that he spoke as if Hap had heard it, too.
“So you’re saying—what?”
“It’s too risky.”
“Riskier than somebody finding some bloody clothes that got that way the night a certain Nan Miller got herself killed in a hotel room?”
Every once in a while—and this was certainly one of those times—Burrell would realize that Hap was of another species. He wasn’t just “different,” he wasn’t just “spoiled,” he wasn’t just “selfish.” He was a whole other species. There was just no other way to say it, to see it. He had the kind of ruthlessness you just didn’t see in other human beings.
His own father. And it didn’t mean a damned thing to Hap. His own father.
Hap said, “I’d just keep thinkin’ about those bloody clothes, Pop. And I think you’ll see your way to help-in’ me out with that bank.”
Fargo slept for a long time in the dank crypt of the root cellar. His entire body and mind were given into the arms of slumber. It was the sort of deep sleep he hadn’t enjoyed in many nights. The sort of sleep that revitalized the body on a molecular level. The sort of sleep that brought strength and succor to flesh and bone alike. The sort of sleep that gave the mind back much of its focus and perception.
A good deal of his past fled through his dreams . . .
He remembered a copper-haired gal, a freckled feast of no more than 100 pounds of pure wild Irish beauty, a four-day weekend in St. Louis when they’d done everything possible a man and woman could do together.
He recalled especially a hot bath they’d taken together in an oversize tub . . . letting the steamy water intoxicate them with its soapy surface that was so much fun to slip a hand beneath . . .
He’d found her sex before she’d found his, slipping his broad fingers up inside her until she set her head back against the rim of the tub and closed her eyes and let him see just how crazy with need he could make her.
He’d made her crazy indeed, so much so that she soon enough slid her own hand under the water, finding his stiff, throbbing rod and began to tease the head of it with a knowing thumb. He was soon just as frenzied with animal longing as she was.
She eased herself up on him, half of her hidden under the soapy surface of the water, and slowly began to make him even harder with a slow side-to-side rhythm he’d never encountered before.
He could still feel her searing breath against his ear as she said, “Harder, Skye! Harder!” His upward thrusting making her throw her head back once again, and close her eyes. He wanted to make this the ultimate pleasure for her. He wanted her to forget everything but the orgasms that would soon come shaking and shuddering through her body to the point that it seemed she’d lost all muscle control.
It was an equally good romp for Skye, too. When he thought he could take no more, his upward thrust was so violent he bucked her clean up out of the water. She laughed and fell to biting his neck in a way that kept him hard enough to continue on until she was shouting and slamming her way to new heights of pleasure.
He awakened now and thought, remembered: I am Skye Fargo.
And with this simple thought most of his memories returned. Fargo—the lad. Fargo—the young man. Fargo—the wanderer. People, places, feelings—moments of glory, moments of humiliation, moments of peace, and moments of bloody rage and retribution. All the ticktock seconds that made up the life of the man some called the Trailsman.
The pleading letter from Serena. Talking to Curt. Starting to move around town, asking questions. Beginning to feel that he was making progress. And then the amnesia—
But now—
All the memories he needed—right up until the night he stood in front of the hotel room door. The door that opened on the bed. And the bed that hid the dead girl beneath.
He had the outline of that memory but none of the details—like a heavy black outline of a drawing that has yet to be filled in.
He walked into the room—
He found the dead girl—
And then—
So damned frustrating. It was as if he’d walked right up to the answer he needed—the identity of the person who’d knocked him out—only to have it snatched away by an unseen hand.
He had recollected every memory he possessed—or so that jumble of recollections had seemed—but the single identity that he most needed right now . . .
. . . nothing.
He had the sense that if he went back to that room that he could remember. He’d wait till night, till the circumstances were similar, and then he’d sneak into the room, look under the bed, and then—
—the memory he needed would come back to him. And the identity of the killer would be known. And both he and Curt would be free men again.
He stood up, cramped from sleep.
He’d had moments in his life when dark, finite circumstances like this cellar would have spooked him. Fortunately, this wasn’t one of them.
I have to get out of here.
The need to flee had been strong enough without his memories. With them, he felt a kind of desperation. He had to get back to that hotel room. Had to fill in the missing blank in his memory. Had to confront the killer.
He walked over to the ladder. Climbed it making as little noise as possible. Heard the father and Darcy arguing.
“You do it, Darcy, or you’re gonna get the switchin’ of your life.”
“We don’t know he’s the one.”
“We sure do. Now you do what I say and right now.”
“Won’t you at least talk to him first, Pa? Get his side of things?”
“Don’t need to hear his side of things, girl. Already know it. He’ll say what all the devil’s people say. He’ll say he’s innocent ’cause that’s what the devil himself taught them to say. What’s the point of wastin’ time? And anyway, you know there’s only one way to know if he’s innocent or not.”
“Maybe that’s not true, Pa. Maybe that’s not—”
The slap resounded like a whip lashing a tree.
“You take them filthy words back. I didn’t make any of this up, Darcy. God give it to us in Scripture so we’d know who was a-lyin’ and who wasn’t. Now you take them words back, girl.”
Fargo could barely hear the girl speak. “I take the words back, Pa.”
“And you go do what I say.”
“All right, Pa.”
Darcy sounded defeated. The spirit she needed to talk back to her father was gone. She sounded as if she’d go along with just about anything now.
She wasn’t gone long, wherever she went.
Fargo heard her coming in from outside.
“Now that’s a God-fearing young lady,” Pa said when she returned. “You start obeyin’ me all the time like this and I can practically guarantee you that heaven’s gates will open for you when the time comes. You understand me, girl?”
“Yes, Pa.”
“You want to go to heaven, don’t you, Darcy?”
“Yes, Pa.”
“You say it like you’re afraid to say it out loud. Speak up, girl.”
“Yes, Pa. I want to go to heaven.”
But there wasn’t much conviction in her voice.
“I have to slap you again, Darcy?”
“No, sir.”
“Then say it loud, and proud.”
She shouted: “I WANT TO GO TO HEAVEN!”
“Now that’s the way a God-fearing young girl should say it. Now give me that bag. How many you stick in there, anyway?”
“Three.”
“Three? How come not six or eight?”
“I thought you were in a hurry.”
“You’re a-lyin’ to me, girl.” He sighed. “Give me that bag.”
By now, Fargo had a pretty good idea of what was coming. The first thing he had to do was scramble back down the ladder and fast.
The trapdoor opened immediately. He could see the father outlined against the soft light of the day coming through the windows. And then he could see the bag open up and three rattlers come raining down alongside the ladder and landing on the earthen floor. They made soft, plopping sounds. Like pillows hitting the floors. But their angry hisses and rattles quickly took away such a benign image.
The trapdoor slammed shut.
Total darkness.
And Fargo left all alone with three rattlesnakes that probably weren’t real friendly.
Probably not real friendly at all.