32

Fargo could have been floored with a feather. “The hell you say.”

“As God is my witness. Why would I make it up? Didn’t you wonder why Hoby wouldn’t let his gang touch me when they took me from the bank?”

Fargo had wondered but he’d never imagined anything like this. “Back up a bit. If Hoby is Coltraine’s son, why don’t they have the same last name?”

“Hoby took his ma’s name. I don’t know all the particulars but she never told Hoby that his real pa wasn’t Sam Cotton the whole time he was growing up. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that she finally broke down and did, on her deathbed.”

“Son of a bitch,” Fargo said.

Amanda had more to impart. “I guess it came as a shock. By the time he was fourteen, Hoby had set his course on the wrong side of the law. He robbed. He killed. And then to hear that his father was the famous Luther Coltraine.”

“His brothers are Coltraine’s too?”

“Oh, no. Semple’s and Granger’s pa is Sam Cotton.” Amanda lowered her voice as if confiding a great secret. “Their mother was married to Sam when she and Luther, well, you know. That’s why she never told Hoby. She was ashamed.”

“This was down in Texas?”

“Sure. Luther was born and raised there. It’s where he made his reputation. But he decided to leave and come here.”

To Fargo it made no sense that a man would leave where he was widely respected for a backwater town in the middle of nowhere. “Why Horse Creek, of all places?”

“When my father and the town council decided they needed a lawman, they put an ad in some newspapers. One was a Texas paper. Luther read it and applied, and who could say no to a great man like him?” Amanda smiled dreamily. “It was fate’s way of bringing us together.”

To Fargo it still made no sense but he went on to something else. “Did Hoby show up at the same time Coltraine did or later?”

Amanda knit her brow. “About six months or so after, I think. Luther never let on, though, that Hoby was his son. I found out by accident one night when I snuck to the jail to see him and there they were together.”

“And the Cotton Gang has been terrorizing the territory ever since.”

“What’s your point?” Amanda asked. “Luther can’t control Hoby any more than my parents can control me. He told me that he wishes Hoby would go back to Texas or anywhere but here but Hoby won’t.”

“He’s doing it to spite his pa?”

“You’d have to ask him,” Amanda said. “I did, but Hoby refused to say. I told him flat out he was being unfair to Luther by causing so much trouble and Hoby laughed and said he was doing what was best for everyone.”

“What did he mean?”

“How would I know? You saw how Hoby is. Everything is a game to him. He does as he pleases and hang the consequences.” Amanda stifled a yawn. “Goodness, I’m tired. I really should turn in.”

Fargo finished spreading the blankets and stepped back. “They’re all yours.”

In the distance a coyote yipped and Amanda gazed fearfully into the dark. “I never have liked the wilds. Especially at night. Who knows what’s out there waiting to pounce.”

“I’ll keep watch,” Fargo said.

“Keep a good one.” Amanda lowered onto her side with her hand for a pillow and closed her eyes. “This has been a week I’ll never forget. First Hoby spirits me away and now you. Luther must be worried sick. He’ll scour the countryside until he finds me.”

“Get some rest.”

Amanda nodded, and not two minutes later her deep, regular breathing told him she had succumbed to her fatigue.

Fargo wished that he could. Shucking the Henry, he moved closer to the trees, and sat.

The night was peaceful. No roars or screams shattered the serenity. It made staying awake that much harder.

Fargo tried his best. When his eyelids grew leaden he tossed his head and swung his arms and once he got up and went to the creek and splashed water on his face. It helped for a while but eventually all that he had been through the past couple of days caught up to him. He dozed off, sitting up.

The piercing squawk of a jay woke him when the eastern sky was just starting to brighten with the promise of the new day. He sat up and shook himself and tried to spur his sluggish mind into working.

“Have a good sleep?”

Fargo looked up, and froze. For once again his sharp senses had failed him. Concealing his surprise, he said, “Morning.”

Hoby Cotton’s boy-man face split in a huge grin. He was sitting cross-legged, flanked on either side by Semple and Granger with their six-shooters drawn and cocked.

Behind them stood Timbre Wilson. He had acquired another revolver somewhere, and his hand was on it. “Say the word and I’ll gun him.”

“Don’t start with that again,” Hoby said. “You’ll kill him when I say you can and not before.” He made a teepee of his fingers and bestowed another smile on Fargo. “You must be wonderin’ how we found you.”

“Lucky hunch?”

“I do have more than my share. But no, Timbre followed you out of town. He stayed well back so you wouldn’t spot him, and then came to fetch me when you and her settled down for the night.”

“Tricky cuss,” Fargo said to Timbre.

“Wasn’t much to it,” Wilson replied. “I stopped and listened a lot. Almost lost you when you turned north.”

“Hoby,” Semple said. “His guns.”

“I’m gettin’ to that,” Hoby said, and flicked a finger at the Henry and the Colt. “Shed yourself of them if you don’t mind and even if you do.”

Fargo was mad at himself. This made twice they’d gotten the drop on him. He slid the Henry to one side and eased the Colt out and set it down beside the rifle. “What’s in store for me this time? More bear bait?”

Hoby chuckled. “I learn from my mistakes. This time will be different.” He flicked the same finger at Granger. “There. His claws have been pulled. Happy now, Semple?”

“You take too many chances,” Semple said.

“I like livin’ dangerous,” Hoby replied. To Fargo he said, “We’re not alike, my brothers and me.”

“Must come from having different fathers.”

Hoby lost his smile and glared at the sleeping form of Amanda Brenner. “Someone has been flappin’ her mouth when she shouldn’t, sounds like.”

“So I know. So what?” Fargo said.

“So you shouldn’t.” Hoby got up and walked around him and over to Amanda. None too gently he poked her with his toe. She moved her arm but otherwise didn’t rouse. “I could be a redskin about to lift her hair and she’d just lie there. If females aren’t plumb worthless I don’t know what is.” He hiked his leg as if to stomp on her head.

“I hear you were close to your ma,” Fargo said quickly.

Hoby slowly lowered his boot. “Is that what she told you? The stupid cow. My ma and me were never that close.”

“You must have been a hellion.”

“Weren’t that,” Hoby said. “I was a reminder of somethin’ she’d done, and she hated me for it.”

“That when she slept with Luther Coltraine she was married to Sam Cotton?” Fargo said.

Hoby darkened with barely contained fury. “The little bitch told you that, too?” He paused. “She just ruined any hope you had that I might change my mind about killin’ you. Make no mistake. This is your last day on God’s green earth.”