Colorado Clash (6 page)

“I’ll have to keep coming back unless you come out and talk to me. You could save both of us a lot of trouble.”

At first the only sound was the wind soughing through the huge pines nearby. He took two steps forward. Another sound—the wolfhound growling, the mouth opening to reveal gleaming white teeth.

The door opened and a tiny woman who was probably in her sixties came out toting a Winchester that was aimed right at Fargo’s chest. She wore a flat-crowned black hat, a buckskin shirt, black butternuts and buckskin boots that came up to her knees. She might have been pretty once but years out here had scrubbed most of the prettiness away. She had hard, harsh green eyes. She might have weighed one hundred on a good day.

“Morning, ma’am.”

“Don’t start none of that ‘morning, ma’am’ bilge with me. My name’s Helen Hardesty and I ain’t no ma’am.”

“I’m working with Sheriff—”

“What the hell you think I got here? Brick walls? In case you didn’t notice, this is a soddie. Meaning I can hear everything you said. And don’t try and make me cooperate because you’re working with that show-off sheriff. He’s nothing to me.”

One hundred pounds of pure prairie grit, Fargo thought.

“I found a dead man here yesterday.”

“Good for you. I don’t know anything about it.”

“He was laying right back there. He was probably shot on the trail and dragged by that tree.” Fargo turned and pointed. “Seems like you might’ve heard or seen something.”

“Guess you didn’t hear me, mister. I don’t know anything about it.” She waggled the Winchester at him. The wolfhound growled. “You simmer, Samson. I can handle this tinhorn.”

Fargo thought, you had to like her. The Eastern papers always talked about “the pioneer spirit” and this was surely it. A slight woman defending herself from a stranger at gun-point. It was too bad she was lying. She needed some real practice when she decided not to tell the truth.

“Is your husband around?”

“Yep. Back of the soddie. I buried him there three years ago.”

“You like living alone?”

“What the hell’re these questions about? I already told you I don’t know nothing about no killing and I mean exactly what I say.”

Maybe if she could look at him when she lied he’d be more likely to believe her. Also, the way she kept gnawing on her lower lip when it was his turn to talk told him that she was nervous about something. He also suspected—brazen as she was with him—that she might be afraid. She put on a hell of a good show. But what if she’d seen the killer and he’d threatened her?

“I’d like to help you, Helen.”

“You would, huh? Then you git on that horse of yours and ride out. That’d help me a lot.”

“I think you’re afraid. I think you saw something and somebody threatened you.”

She lost her grit just for a moment. “Who told you that?” But the tone was plaintive. Then: “It’s a lie. I didn’t see nothing and nobody threatened me, either.”

“Whoever threatened you, he’s killed one man, maybe more. And maybe he’ll decide to kill you.”

“I’m tough. I’ve got this.” The barrel of the Winchester gleamed in the sun. “And I’ve got Samson. Show him, Samson.”

The wolfhound stood up abruptly and growled. On cue. As in a circus act.

“I know you’re tough. I’ll bet you’re tough enough to tell the truth.”

“And tough enough to get you off my property. Go, Samson!”

The wolfhound leapt directly at Fargo. Teeth bared. Growl deep in its chest and belly. It landed just a few feet in front of Fargo and went into attack formation. But then it stopped.

Fargo felt sweat slick his face. He couldn’t think of a single man he was afraid of. He could think of a whole list of animals who gave him nightmares.

Helen Hardesty cackled. “That’s my warning shot. You should see your face, mister. You don’t look so strong now. I taught Samson to leap like that but then stop short. Scares the hell out of intruders. The next time I give him an order, though, he don’t stop short. He goes right for your throat.”

“You’ve got it all figured out.”

“I sure do.”

“Except for the killer. You’re worried he’ll come back on you and you don’t know what to do about it.”

“We’re done here, mister. Now I’m goin’ back inside and Samson’s gonna sit right where he is. I give him the order, he’ll tear you apart. You understand?”

She was true to her word. She did an about-face and stalked back to her soddie. Samson stayed in place.

She was right, Fargo thought. They were done here.

Less than a minute later he was in his saddle and headed out.

Karen Byrnes came home to the small frame house on the edge of the creek and put herself to work. Her mother had not been able to sleep all night. She’d sat in her rocker crying endlessly about her dead son. Now, exhausted, she slept.

Karen wanted to find the killer. She knew that Skye Fargo was working with Tom Cain but she assumed that she could help Fargo by talking to some of her friends. Her grief would come later.

Once home, she changed from her gingham dress into her Levi’s and green woolen sweater. She needed to start making candles today, not her favorite task but they were running low. She wanted to work in the large garden she’d planted. She’d been putting up vegetables for the coming winter for three months. But right now candles had to come first.

She set herself up and began the tedious process of hand-dipping. The problem was that if you topped the candle it would get too hard and would snap in two.

Somebody knocked on the door.

“Come in.” She spoke softly, not wanting to wake her mother. She didn’t mean to be unkind but she needed a rest from her mother’s sobbing.

Ingrid Haller was a typical frontier woman. Many men were open about wanting to marry stout women because they were like having a second horse. Some women found that sentiment amusing. The slender Karen wasn’t one of them and she resented the fact that men thought of women that way. Karen’s outspokenness had frequently caused her trouble.

Karen put a finger to her lips. Ingrid, square-shaped in a man’s red-and-black-checkered shirt and jeans, nodded her understanding and walked over on tiptoe.

“My mother’s sleeping. She had a terrible night.” She nodded to the blanket strung across the rope. The two beds were on the other side.

“I’m still having a lot of terrible nights myself.” Ingrid’s son Michael had been the first victim of the killer.

Ingrid knew not to interrupt Karen’s work. She drew up a thatched chair so she could sit close enough to talk without raising her voice. Karen continued to work.

“There’s something we need to talk about, Karen.”

“Oh?”

“The others don’t want to talk about it and neither did I, but now I don’t have any choice and neither do you.”

Her bluntness surprised Karen. She had a feeling that Ingrid was going to tell her something terrible.

“It’s what everybody’s talking about—behind our backs.”

“You’re being very mysterious, Ingrid.”

“You’ve had the same thoughts I’ve had but you’ve been afraid to admit them.” The woman had a wide, pleasant, freckled face. “I don’t like to think about them, either.”

“Are you ever going to tell me what you’re talking about?”

“I’m talking about the stagecoach robbery about a month ago. I saw my son get mad about everything right before it happened. He only acted that way when he was worried about something. I think he was worried about the robbery.”

“He could’ve been worried about a lot of things.” She kept on dipping the thin pole holding the wicks into the hot tallow.

“I don’t think you’re facing facts. Three of them dead right after the robbery.”

“Who’d kill them?”

“Two men died in that holdup. Maybe one of their kin.”

“I don’t see how that could be the case. Most people would have a hard time killing three people.”

Ingrid leaned back in her chair. Shook her head. “You need to be honest with yourself.”

“I’m trying to be.” A deep sigh. “I’ve thought about it, too, Ingrid.”

“I figured you had. Same with Maddie about her boy. She brought it up to me. She was the one who put the idea in my head. I didn’t want to believe it, either. But here we have her son, your brother and my son dead following a stagecoach robbery. And we all know how nervous they were beforehand.”

“So who killed them and where’s the money?”

“I don’t care about the money.”

“Neither do I.”

“I just want whoever killed them punished.”

“The worst thing is thinking about those men dying in the robbery.”

“I can’t believe that any of them would’ve done it on purpose. It had to be some kind of accident.” Tears gleamed in Ingrid’s blue eyes. “My son wouldn’t kill anybody. I know that for sure.”

Damned candles, Karen thought. She wanted to stop and relax. Confront the suspicion she’d had for several days. But they needed the candles. The winds from the mountains told of any early winter.

“What do you think about this Fargo man?” Ingrid said.

“I met him. I liked him. And I trust him.”

“Tell him this. Rex Connor saw somebody talking to the three boys down by the bridge just before the first murder. At night. He was fishing when he saw them. You’re a good friend of Rex.”

“I sure am. I bake bread for him.” Then: “People are going to turn against our kin, Ingrid.”

“Let them. My boy’s dead. All I care about is finding his killer. If any of those boys killed the driver and the Englishman, it had to be a mistake. They weren’t killers.”

“No,” Karen said gently, “no, they weren’t.”

Karen liked the woman. A good, honest woman. And it was more and more likely that they shared a dark secret.

Ingrid reached out and the women gripped their hands together. “You talk to this Fargo. Tell him about Rex.”

“I’ll do that, Ingrid. Thanks.”

Karen sat thinking of how strange and terrible life had become.

 

Fargo was walking back from the livery when he heard a bourbon-raspy voice say, “I’m afraid I was a little rude last night. At least from what I can remember, Mr. Fargo.”

The voice couldn’t possibly belong to anybody else in this town except for one man named O’Malley. Fargo wondered wryly if he’d ever met the man walking toward him. Now, as last night, O’Malley crept up behind him.

From what he could remember, Fargo reasoned that the man was still in the same clothes. He’d shaved but his ruddy face was a crosshatch of nicks and cuts. The eyes were as red as a matador’s cape. That he was upright and ambulatory was amazing. That he spoke clearly—as if he hadn’t had a drink in days—was even more startling.

“You weren’t rude, O’Malley. You were just a little full of yourself. And full of a lot of rotgut whiskey, I assume.”

“In my better days I drank only the best,” O’Malley the leprechaun said wistfully. “But alas too much of that for my editors. They didn’t understand that there is truth in the bottle.”

“You mentioned that last night. A couple of times in fact. Now what can I do for you?”

People streamed around them on the wide dusty street. The way a few of the passersby winked at each other when they saw O’Malley told Fargo a lot about how the town regarded him. The town drunk, the town clown. He didn’t want to feel sorry for the little bastard but he did.

“I believe I turned down your offer of cooperation.”

“You did.”

“Well, when I woke up this morning I thought I might think it over.”

“Why’s that?”

O’Malley tapped three pudgy fingers to his forehead. “As far as I can remember, when I pulled the sheets back on the bed in my dingy little hotel room there was a rattlesnake in it.”

“Drunks see all sorts of things, O’Malley. Dancing girls, pink elephants—”

“If you’d care to ask the night clerk at the Excelsior hotel he’ll bear out what I said. I have a distinct memory of him trapping the thing and carrying it outside. He seemed to be very dexterous with rattlesnakes. I recall being quite impressed.”

Fargo studied the pudgy face. For all his grandiosity O’Malley was an intelligent man who, despite his whiskey-soaked mind, still managed to function. The story he’d told was easily enough checked. There’d be no point in lying about it. “If it’s the killer he’ll try again.”

“And if it’s the killer, I’ll be waiting for him. I plan to sit up all night in my room. And I won’t just have my derringer either. I own a six-gun and I know how to use it.”

“Sounds like you want the killer to come at you again.”

“Of course. Wouldn’t you? What could be a better story than a reporter who traps a killer and gets a confession out of him?”

A dapper man in a blue suit and white shirt and red cravat came up behind O’Malley. He wore a dark Vandyke beard and a sneer. “Let me apologize to you, Mr. Fargo. My name is Amos Parrish and I’m sorry that my reporter here is no doubt wasting your time—as he wastes everybody’s time in this town.”

O’Malley’s eyes showed embarrassment and shame as Parrish put a hand on the Irishman’s shoulder.

“We were having an interesting conversation as a matter of fact,” Fargo said.

“Oh, don’t stick up for him. Or God knows feel sorry for him. That’s his main weapon. He rooks you in and makes you become his protector. I only keep him on because every once in a while he comes up with something. But most of the time he just stumbles around town here and bores people to death with his so-called secrets. His latest secret seems to be the identity of the man who killed all three of those young men who were involved in the bank robbery. I think everybody else pretty much knows who that is but no, not O’Mal ley here. He knows better than everybody. He knows the ‘secret.’ Usually I don’t interrupt him this way but I’m well aware of your reputation, Mr. Fargo, and I’m delighted that you were honorable enough to stop on your journey and bring Byrnes’ body in. I’m just sorry you have to endure poor O’Malley here.” He finally removed his hand from the Irishman’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go get yourself your morning drinks, O’Malley, and stop bothering Mr. Fargo here?”