So there were three of them at least out there in the moon-silvered night—one deadly with a gun, one deadly with a knife, and the leader deadly with his fist. And for all Fargo knew, there might be more. He was not particularly worried. If she had let him call the Rangers, he would have—the easy way out. But anyhow, he had learned something he wanted to know. More—the house was a fortress. There was no way they could get in, any of them, without his cutting them down. And when daylight came, they’d be even better targets. He and Lola could endure a siege here for several days. A man on the dodge could not hang around that long. Fargo blew smoke. “All right,” he said. “We can stand ’em off.”
“I don’t want them stood off,” Lola rasped. “I want them killed. That’s what I hired you for.”
Fargo took the cigar from his mouth. “Wrong. You hired me to keep you from being killed.”
“It’s the same thing. The only way to keep them from killing me is to kill them. If you don’t do it, they’ll come back. And then it will start all over again. Neal, you’ve got to kill them—now, while you’ve got the chance.”
“Lola, calm down. You’re—”
He broke off as a hoarse voice rang through the night. “Lola! Lola Dane! Damn you, do you know who’s out here? It’s Harrod, Lola—and, you bitch, I’ve come to keep my promise!”
“You see?” Lola whispered. “I told you!”
“Be quiet!” Fargo snarled. He went to a shutter, cracked it an inch. “Harrod!” he yelled. “It’s Neal Fargo talkin’!”
For a moment there was silence. Then Harrod yelled back: “Fargo! I remember you! You’re there with Lola?”
“I’m here with her! And I’ll smash you if you try to come after her! You and your sidekicks, Murphy, and the knife-man! You don’t have a chance of gettin’ to her!”
Again silence. Then Harrod called, a sound of gloating in his voice, “You’re a big man, Fargo. Tough, the way I hear. But not even you’re tougher than nitroglycerin!”
Fargo sucked in breath. That he had not counted on. Nitroglycerin, the most powerful and the most unstable explosive in the world! But where would an escaped convict get—?
“You’re lyin’!” he shouted back, but there was a sinking feeling in his belly.
“Not hardly!” Harrod laughed, a deep sound. “I figured Lola would have herself locked in. And when Flash and Jimmy met me north of here, they brought Sam Watkins with ’em. Ever hear of Sam? Likely not—but he’s the best safe and vault cracker on the Gulf Coast, and there’s nothin’ about nitro he don’t know. We’ve got half a dozen pint flasks of it here, enough to blow you and Lola all to hell. And there’s four of us and you and Lola can’t be everywhere at once! We’ll get that nitro against the walls and back off and put a bullet into it and—boom! You’re finished, Fargo. And so is she! But I’ll make a deal with you. Give her to us without a fight, and you can walk away! She’s the one we want, because she knows where the money is!”
Fargo closed the shutter.
He turned. “The money,” he said. “What money?”
Lola stood there pale, silent.
“I knew there had to be some,” Fargo rasped. “You’d better tell me, and in a hurry. What is it they want from you?”
Before she could speak, Harrod’s voice sounded again. “Fargo, we’ll give you five minutes. I don’t know what kind of deal you got with her, but your life oughta be worth more than a half million dollars.”
Fargo bit down hard on the cigar. “A half million dollars,” he said gustily. “My God, woman, no wonder they want you!”
Lola licked her lips. “All right,” she whispered. “That’s really why I turned him in. He’d made a score, a big score. There was this crooked politician in New Orleans, kept his graft money in his house, in a wall safe. Rex really loved me, he didn’t have another woman. He said when we got that half million, we’d take off. And he and the others broke into the man’s house on the River Road and killed him and cracked the safe and Rex got it all, a half-million in big bills. But the man had powerful friends. They were on Rex’s trail, he gave me the money to keep for him until the heat died down. But ... all that money, the chance to be free the rest of my life …! I—”
“You stole it!” Fargo rasped. “And then blew the whistle on Rex and sent him to prison so you could have it all—”
“Yes. And that’s why the Rangers couldn’t come into it. Because I’m an accessory to the murder, I knew about it and I didn’t tell, and—Neal, I’ve still got the money! It’s hidden in a safe place! Now—” Her hand dug into his arm. “Go out there and kill Rex! Kill them all! Then you and I, we’ll share it! We’ll go away together! Neal—!”
Fargo knocked her arm away. “Damn you, I halfway don’t blame Harrod. I—”
“Fargo!” Harrod called. “You’ve got two minutes left!”
“Neal!” she screamed, “don’t let them get me!”
Fargo spat disgustedly. “I ought to. Damn you, I ought to. If I’d known it was money, I’d have had you and the money both out of here long ago. Where is it, why didn’t you take it and run?”
“Because I couldn’t get to it. I—”
“One minute, Fargo!”
She stood there, staring at him. “Nothing’s changed. You took my cash. You promised to defend me. Now you’ve got to do it.”
“Yeah,” Fargo said. “I’ve got to do it. But after this is over, if we’re both still alive—”
He turned away, went to a window. He knew what Harrod would do now—the same thing he would in a similar situation. Create diversions on several sides of the house. And under cover of that, one man would run up with a flask of nitro, plant it by the wall, scuttle away. Then a well-placed rifle shot in this damned killer moonlight, from a safe distance, and that whole side of the house would go. All the same—
He cracked the shutter. “Harrod!” he yelled. “You go to hell!”
A hoarse laugh rang through the night. “Your funeral, Fargo! You’ll beat me there!”
Fargo wasted no time on an answer. “Around the house,” he snarled at Lola. “Open all the shutters! Wide!”
“But they can shoot at us!”
“Dammit, do what I say!” He was already in action, making a circuit of the house, in this room, another, flinging open the shutters. He heard others bang as Lola followed suit. He slung the shotgun, picked up the rifle, waited. The moonlight fell plainly on the southern and eastern sides of the house; the other two were in shadow. That was some help, anyhow. On the south side of the house, by a window, he waited.
A minute passed, two, five ... ten. Outside, the night was wholly silent. They were, Fargo knew, getting into position.
Nitro. He knew all about it from working in the oil fields. Okay if you handled it slowly, easily, like a baby sleeping. Deadly dangerous if you dropped it, subjected it to any sudden impact. Its flasks had to be housed in layers of padding to be carried safely. Well, padding would not stop a bullet.
Twelve minutes now. Lola was making a whimpering sound in her throat. Then, suddenly, from the northern and western sides of the house there was the roar of gunfire. Lead whined through the open windows. Fargo at his post on the south side waited. Out there across the ranch yard were the stables, dark bulks in the silver light. He rolled his cigar across his mouth. Harrod might be a city racketeer, but he was no soldier. He expected Fargo instinctively to return the fire, be drawn away from the vital area. But Fargo knew all about diversions and—
Then he saw it, a flicker of motion in the shadows around the stables. The gunfire from the other flanks increased. Lola had crouched behind a chair. Lead chunked into the walls, spraying plaster. A vase smashed, with a crash of glass. Fargo waited, rifle up.
Then the figure emerged from shadow. Bent low, it trotted easily across the ranch yard, cradling something tightly against its belly. Unhurriedly, smoothly, the man came, and from the way he traveled, Fargo knew that this was Watkins, the peterman, the safecracker and nitro expert. And what he hugged against his belt buckle was a flask of high explosive, heavily padded in felt and cotton.
Fargo let him make it halfway across the ranch yard. When he was seventy yards away, clearly visible in the brilliant moonlight, Fargo raised the rifle, tucked its butt to his shoulder, lined it. A second more and he pulled the trigger.
Even he was awed by what happened next.
The man didn’t even have time to scream. One second he was there. The next, the night was lit by a gigantic flash of orange flame and jarred by deafening thunder.
And when, once again, the moonlight was all that lit the ranch yard, there was a scarred place on the dirt and no sign that any human being had ever existed there. Watkins had literally and completely been blown to atoms.
And almost as if in awe, the gunfire out there died.
Fargo chewed on the unlit cigar. “Harrod!” he yelled. “One down! And you’re gonna have to do better than that! The next man tries to bring a flask of nitro this way gets the same!”
There was no answer.
Harrod, he thought, might be tough, but he was none too bright. First, he’d tipped his hand. Second, he should have used dynamite, not nitro. Dynamite could be thrown from a safe distance, but the very jar of throwing nitro could set it off, and it had to be delivered in person, so to speak. Harrod and his men would think twice about trying that after seeing what had happened to Watkins.
And yet, Fargo thought—a half million dollars! Men would take risks for that kind of money that they would not for simple vengeance!
In the following silence, he made a quick circuit of the house, checking every window. Nothing moved out there in the darkness. Minutes passed, but Fargo knew better than to think they’d given up. “Lola!” he rasped. “On your feet! Help me cover these windows! You see anything outside, you holler!”
Reluctantly she arose. Around and around they went, in and out of rooms, checking every window. The moon was going down, now. Daybreak not too far away, Fargo thought. If they could stand them off till then ... A man like Harrod would have to hide from daylight. It wasn’t, anyhow, his natural element—and besides, war in the daytime would attract attention. The sound of gunfire carried, and with the Rangers on his trail, he couldn’t linger. Whatever he did would have to be done tonight.
Fargo met Lola back in the living room.
“All clear?”
“All clear,” she said. “Nothing out there except a stray horse. I guess one got loose—”
Fargo tensed. “Stray horse? Where?”
“Outside the kitchen window. Just wandering in the yard. Fargo, there was nobody on him—”
“And you didn’t call me? Damn it, woman—” But he was already running for the kitchen.
He was too late. A man couldn’t deliver nitro without risking destruction, but—
The saddled horse, reins thrown over the horn, was only fifty feet from the back wall of the house. Even as Fargo watched, it shied, and he heard the thunk of a thrown rock striking its neck. Turned back from wandering to one side, it trotted toward the kitchen steps. Fargo raised his rifle, but already he knew he was too late. The horse was only a couple of yards away now, and—
Fargo turned and ran. Lola, standing in the kitchen door, stared. “What—?”
“Down!” Fargo bellowed, smashed into her, and she screamed as his body bore her backwards, she hit the floor, and he sprawled over her.
Then the whole world blew up, as someone out there put a rifle bullet into the flask of nitroglycerin tied to the horse’s saddle.
The thunder of the explosion was ear-numbing. The entire back end of the house blew in. In the dining room, where Fargo had slammed Lola flat, the floor danced, and overhead beams groaned, and then, with a vast rumble, the ceiling gave way.
“Fargo!” Lola screamed. Her body twisted under him.
And he rolled, looked up, just in time to see a great weight of tile and plaster cascading toward him.
He raised one arm to shield his face. Then it hit him, with crushing force, maybe a half ton of rubble. He saw it coming. Something smashed into his head.
Then, for a time he could not measure, there was only blackness ...
~*~
He awakened feeling pain, and the vast weight of rubble still on his body. He did not move, kept his eyes tightly closed, waiting for full consciousness to return. Gradually he was aware of the sound of voices.
“I told you.” Rex Harrod’s was cold, metallic, devoid of mercy. “I told you I’d be back, you slut.”
“Rex, for God’s sake—” That was Lola’s, frightened, whimpering.
“Where is it? Damn you, you’d better tell me. Is it here?”
“No. It—” Then Lola screamed. “Rex, please—”
“I’ll hurt you worse than that if you don’t talk. A half million dollars—the half million I took out of Girdler’s safe. Goddamn you, you took it and ran and turned me in to the Rangers, and ... If you don’t talk, I’ll turn Jimmy loose on you. You know what he’ll do to you.”
Carefully, Fargo cracked his eyes, opening them only slit-wide. This end of the house was nothing but a pile of rubble. Lola lay sprawled on the shattered floor, a huge man with enormous shoulders standing over her. His face, in candlelight, was harshly handsome, like something out of a collar ad, despite his years of fighting in the ring. He was proud of those good looks, boasted that no opponent had ever touched them. But somewhere on that face must be scars that Fargo had given him in their one bout.
He wore range clothes. So did the two men beside him, but no one would ever have mistaken them for cowpunchers. One, short and squat, with strange eyes, like a snake’s, wore a low-slung Colt, and that would be Flash Murphy. The other, angular, his head strangely small, almost freakishly so, squatted like a collapsed scarecrow near where Lola lay, and Fargo saw how he ran the rough part of his thumb over the shining blade of a ten-inch Bowie. And that would be Jimmy-the-Blade.
“Gimme two minutes with her, Rex,” Jimmy said. “She’ll talk, then.”
“No,” Lola whimpered. “No, please don’t. I’ll talk, I’ll tell you. It’s not here on the ranch, it’s not anywhere near here at all. It’s forty miles from here.”
“Forty—Where?”
Lola licked her lips, sat up. Her face was smudged and bruised, her blouse torn, her hair full of dust. “An old mine. Called the J & D. A mercury mine my father had an interest in one time. It’s all played out, now, deserted. It’s in the Sierra Diablo Mountains southeast of here, north of Van Horn. I hid the money there, down in a shaft ... drove up there in Dad’s old Packard. But then a week later there was a flash flood. It wiped out the old mine road, caused avalanches, washouts. You can’t get up there in a car any more, and it would have attracted too much attention for me to have tried to ride up there with a pack animal alone ... So I left it there. Later, after I was sure it was safe, after I was sure you were—”
She broke off.
“Dead,” Harrod said.
“Yes,” she whispered. “After I was sure you were dead, I was going to make up a story about an inspection trip of the property, hire packers to take me up there, get the money and—”
“Dance on my grave,” Harrod said fiercely. “Well, now I’ll dance on yours. How long does it take to get from here to there?”
“You’d have to go on horseback. Two days the way the road is now.”
“Forty miles and two damn days?” Flash Murphy swore.
“Before the road washed out, I made it there and back in six hours in the car. But horses are the only way …”
“Then we’ll go on horses,” Harrod said. “On your feet, Lola.”
“You’re not going to—?”
“Not yet. You live long enough to lead us to the money. We don’t know this country. You’re to take us straight there and put it in your hands. And if you’ve lied, if it’s not there—then Jimmy gets you ... to play with all he wants to.”
“I’ll take you to it,” Lola husked. “I’ll give it to you—”
“Okay. Flash, you get some horses from the stable. See if you can find some grub. I saw canteens hanging in the feed room out there, fill all you can find. There’s a well out back.”
“Right. But horses—Two more days in the saddle. Chee!” Flash shambled out.
Jimmy-the-Blade stood up. “One more thing, Rex. That big bastard over yonder. What about him?”
Fargo quickly closed his eyes. Pinned by the rubble, he could not move, reach either Colt or knife, and the shotgun had disappeared.
“He still alive?” asked Harrod.
A hand touched Fargo’s cheek. “Yeah. Still warm, anyhow.”
There was silence. Then rough hands shoved away some of the rubble, seized Fargo’s shirt. He was nearly pulled in two, and as an arm came free, he tried to reach for the Colt, but it was whisked from its holster. The knife followed. Then the same massive strength yanked him to his feet, pinned him against a fragment of wall still standing. A big hand slapped his face, rocking his head from side to side. Involuntarily his eyes came open. Harrod’s strongly-chiseled, handsome face looked down at him. Its eyes were cold, gray, opaque.
“I remember you, all right,” Harrod said. “The only man I never put down in the ring. Tried everything I knew, and you still stayed up. I’ve waited a long time for a rematch.”
He swung Fargo around. “Watch her, Jimmy ...” Then, as Fargo, still dazed, tried to raise his hands, Harrod’s fist slammed into his face with mule-kick force.
Fargo went sprawling over rubble. His head rang, his vision blurred. He tried to scramble to his feet and Harrod hit him again, and the force of the blow lifted him and knocked him back across more ruined masonry. Harrod came at him inexorably, and Fargo rolled, and then he was out of the blasted remnants of the house, in the yard, and he staggered up, a chunk of adobe brick in his hand. Harrod laughed and came for him, big fists clubbed, and Fargo threw the brick.
It was a farce. His strength was gone. The missile bounced harmlessly off Harrod’s shoulder and Harrod laughed and came at him in a rush, and Fargo staggered back, hands raised to protect his head, and Harrod hit him in the belly and then in the chest and then in the belly again, and drove him back across the yard.
“Hey, watch out!” Flash Murphy yelled, turning away from the well with full canteens.
Now there were only blows and pain. Fargo slammed back against something hard, cold and solid: the masonry edge of the ranch well. Better than waist high, it caught him just below the shoulder blades. Harrod’s laugh rasped again, and through a red haze Fargo saw a big fist cocked back for a punch that would surely smash his nose and jaw and cost him all his teeth and maybe kill him.
His action was instinctive. He brought up a knee, blocked Harrod, and kicked out. Harrod rocked back a little and that gave Fargo room, and his hands went behind him, braced on the well’s rim. Then, with the last of his strength, as Harrod’s fist whizzed by his head, grazed his cheek, he jerked up, rolled backwards—and then, head-first, he was hurtling down the well.
It seemed to take forever for him to fall. He had time to hope that there was plenty of water down below; otherwise, he would crush his skull or break his neck. He heard Harrod’s yell of surprise. Then he hit the water.
Still head-first, he went under like a stone. The water was deep in the four-foot diameter shaft. Down and down he went into depths that were icy cold, and the shock cleared his head. He struggled below the surface to right himself in those narrow confines, had to, must get his head above the surface or he would drown. He got his knees up under his chin, his body bobbed, revolved, and then he was right side up. Desperately he fought toward the surface. His head broke water, he gulped in air. Above he saw a circle of bright light: faces peering downward.
“There, Flash!” Harrod’s voice came faintly. “Blast him!”
Fargo ducked beneath the water again, as the thunder of a six-gun rang in the well-shaft. He made it beneath the surface just in time, heard the eerie sound of bullets hitting water. One actually struck him in the head, but its force was broken by the barrier of liquid it had penetrated; it was only a gentle tap. Fargo turned his body, braced his back against one side of the shaft, his knees against the other. He held his breath until his lungs ached, and then, carefully, fought his way to the surface once more, controlling his movements by pressure against the wall. Only his nose and mouth broke water this time, and he sucked in air and sank again.
There was, as nearly as he could tell, no more shooting. Another minute beneath the water, then a cautious breaking of the surface once more, to breathe. This time, when he came up, the circle of light up there had disappeared; he was in total darkness. And with a chill, he knew what that meant. A heavy cover had been put over the mouth of the well and probably weighted down. He was trapped here, and likely he would die here.
Harrod probably figured him already dead and had sealed the well to make doubly sure.
But, Fargo thought, heated by a rage that neutralized the chill of the icy water, he was not dead yet. And as long as there was any tatter of breath or strength left in him, he would not give up. He wanted Rex Harrod. He wanted him with a force stronger than despair; his fists actually ached with his desire to smash them into Harrod’s face.
He braced himself against the wall, appraising his situation.
He was lucky on two counts. This close to the stream behind the house, the water table had been high; they had not had to dig too deeply to strike water. Therefore, the total depth of the well was not over fifty feet.
Secondly, there was plenty of water in the well. Fifteen feet of it anyhow, and that was what had saved his life. Count the elevated rim around the well, and he had only forty feet to climb to get out. Forty feet, he thought wryly, of mossy, damp stone, slick as glass. And, at the top, a cover weighted by maybe a hundred, two hundred pounds of masonry or whatever they had found, and, even if he had the strength, no purchase to be gained to lift it off. The chances were good after all that Harrod had won, but he would not acknowledge that.
Time passed. Braced as he was, the water buoyed him and its chill numbed and soothed the multiple aches and pains of what he had endured. Sometimes he let go, trod water, to ease the strain on muscles. Then he jockeyed himself back into position again. He had no idea how much time passed before, back against one side of the well, feet against the other, he felt a subtle, but definite rhythmic vibration. He knew at once what it was: hoof-beats. He let out a breath. They were leaving—Harrod, his men and Lola.
And so, while he still had strength, it was now or never.
Fargo hated heights; they were the one thing that really frightened him, with some old, deep, instinctive fear. But a man in his profession had to learn to overcome fear, and he had, on this job or the other one, had to learn some of the techniques of climbing rock. He knew how mountain-climbers went up the cracks they called chimneys: and there was no other way of getting out of the well.
If it had been a foot wider, it would not have worked. But now he edged upward, shoulders braced against one wall, feet against the other. It was no trouble to ease his torso upward; it slid easily over the mossy stones. His booted feet were a different matter. They kept slipping on the wet glaze. Only the mortared seams between the fieldstone well lining, and an occasional rough out-jut of rock gave him traction and kept him from falling back.
It was brutal, muscle-wracking work. Inch by inch, foot by foot, he worked his way up the shaft, still with no idea what he would do when he reached the cover that sealed the well. Maybe when he did, he would find that all his effort was in vain. But, without trying, he would never know.
Panting, muscles crying protest, body lanced with pain, he went on inexorably. Ten feet, twenty, and now he was high above the water. Often he stopped to rest, panting. The air in here was dank, musky, unsatisfying. But if he could only make another twenty feet ...
He made it, after an interminable struggle. Now he was just below the well-cover, a platform of boards sheathed with tin. The well was left open in the daytime, the cover placed over it at night. The cover alone weighed seventy-five pounds, at least, a formidable obstacle for a man in his position. He did not doubt that Harrod and his men had piled another hundred pounds of weight on it to seal him in.
And so now he would learn his fate. With all the strength in legs and hips, he braced himself against the sides of the shaft. Up here, above ground level, the stones were dryer. That, at least, was a break; he had better purchase. His body taut and rigid, he raised his hands, pushed against the cover.
Fargo made a sound in his throat.
The cover was unexpectedly light. It moved.
“The stupid bastards,” he wasted breath enough to pant aloud. Exultation rose in him. Greed, that was it—and, of course, fear of being caught. They had not even taken the ten minutes extra required to weight the cover and seal him in. They could not wait that much longer to be on the way to a half million dollars. Sloppy work. He hated, had contempt for, unprofessional behavior. He would never have failed to weight the cover, had taken it for granted that they would. But they had let greed overcome professionalism and—
Every muscle straining, he shoved. The cover lifted, slid back a little. Fargo saw sunlight, breathed fresh dry air. Both revived him somewhat, and he shoved again. Once more the cover grated across the well, and he pushed harder, and then, over-balanced, it fell away and the top of the well was completely open and above Fargo’s head dangled the two oversized buckets that operated on a windlass arrangement and were the reason why there had been no permanent cover on the well with a trapdoor, the usual arrangement.
Fargo, still braced, reached up as high as he could. His trembling hand caught the bottom edge of one bucket. He dragged it down within his reach. Then, cramped in position, he seized its rope, began to pull.
As one bucket went down, the other went up. Fargo spent five minutes paying out slack. Then one bucket was in the bottom of the well, the other jammed at the windlass and the rope was taut. Fargo clamped his hands around the rope. With almost the last of his strength, he swung himself up, legs clawing. One gained purchase, over the rim of the well. He twisted, and then he was in the clear and free. His big body spilled off the well’s rim, landed on the hard, dry ground, and its feel against his flesh was like a blessing, and so was the dry, hot wind blowing over him.
He lay there in the hot bright sunlight for a long time. His sodden clothes dried and slowly but certainly he felt strength returning to him. After a while, stiffly, he got to his feet, and, in morning sunlight, surveyed the ruins of the ranch house.
Half of it was rubble; the other half still stood.
Moving stiffly, he limped into the ruins to see if he could find his weapons. Exhausted as he was, they were his first, thought. His weapons were his life.
And there again they had been too greedy, too hurried to be professional. Picking in the rubble, he found them all. Here the Colt, there the Batangas knife. And over there—his eyes lit and he stroked it lovingly—the Fox shotgun. Unharmed, and something eased within him. This was no ordinary gun: his hand traced out the inscription worked on the ornately engraved breech. To Neal Fargo, gratefully, from T. Roosevelt. His old commander in the Rough Riders, and later President of the United States: and nobody but the donor and the recipient would ever know what Fargo had done to earn this fine gun; but it had been plenty. Anyhow, it was safe and—
He scrabbled in the ruins, found a can of beans, hacked them open with the Batangas knife and wolfed them cold. The nourishment took hold and helped to clear his head. Harrod, Flash and Jimmy-the-Blade were on their way, with Lola guiding, to a mine in the Sierra Diablos forty miles away, on horseback. They had a start of several hours. He knew the Sierra Diablos, bleak and rugged mountains. Two days, Lola had said, it would take them to climb to the mine. Long before then, he could be in El Paso, even if he had to walk, alert the Rangers, and the Rangers would know the location of the mine and cut Harrod off.
Fargo grunted, a thick animal sound. Rangers, hell! Harrod was his meat! And so, by God, was that half a million hid somewhere in the Sierra Diablo! The hell with Rangers!
Then the reality of the situation bore in on him. With the head start they would have before he could get to El Paso and get some idea of where the J & D mine was and take out after them on horseback, they would have been at the mine and gone long since before he could get there. Besides, he was not made of steel, he needed rest, had to have it, or it would be suicide to go up against a trio like Harrod and his understrappers. Long before he could make the mine, the money would be gone and Harrod with it—and Lola would be dead.
That last did not bother him particularly. She had asked for what she got. He hated double-crossing women—men, too, for that matter. But the half-million in big bills, really no-man’s money, since it was political graft proceeds ... that was another matter.
Fargo threw away the bean can. It was hopeless. There was no way he could beat Harrod to the money. A man would have to be an eagle, with wings, to do that ...
Fargo grinned tightly. He wished he had a cigar, but there would be none until he reached El Paso. Stiffly he arose. When he went to the stables, there was still one horse there, a fat old mare. Probably a family pet, kept for sentimental reasons. He found a blanket, saddle, bridle and put her in shape to ride. His bandoliers, retrieved from the house, clicked dryly on his shoulders as she went into a lurching trot. He turned her south, headed for El Paso.