Death Devil (9781101559666) (2 page)

The woman looked around in bewilderment and then at him and her daze was replaced by anger. Letting go, she heaved out of the buggy, pushing his hand away as she stood. “No thanks to you, you dumb bastard,” she fumed. “You nearly got me killed.”

“You're the one who hit my horse,” Fargo reminded her. “That was a damn stupid thing to do.”

“So now this is my fault?” she said, gesturing at the buggy.

“If the petticoat fits,” Fargo said.

She smoothed her dress and snapped, “I don't think I care for you very much, Mr.—?”

Fargo told her his name, along with, “And I don't give a damn what you think.” He stepped to the buggy. “But I'll do what I can to get you on your way, Miss . . . ?”

“It's doctor to you,” she said resentfully. “Dr. Belinda Jackson.”

“You're a sawbones?” Fargo could count the number of times he'd run into a lady sawbones on one hand and have four fingers left over.

“Why not? Because I'm a woman I'm not fit to be one?”

“I never said any such thing,” Fargo replied.

“But I bet you were thinking it,” Belinda said. “All you men are alike. You think only men can be physicians. My own father tried to talk me out of going to medical school. And the instructors, all men, treated me as if I had enrolled on a lark and wasn't to be taken seriously. Now here I am, with my own practice, and I'm being treated the same way by the very people I took the Hippocratic oath to treat.” She had grown red in the face during her tirade. “It's not fair, I tell you.”

“Life has a way of doing that,” Fargo said as he slowly moved around the buggy, inspecting it for damage.

“Well, aren't you the buckskin philosopher?” Belinda said. “Any other insights you care to share?”

“Only that you're not going anywhere,” Fargo said, and pointed at the wheel the buggy lay on. Several of the spokes were shattered. “I was going to find a pole and see about getting you on your way, but without a wheel there's not much point.”

“Oh no.” Belinda came over and sank to her knees. “Can't we fix it somehow?”

“I don't usually carry spokes in my saddlebags,” Fargo remarked.

“A philosopher and a humorist,” Belinda said. “Do you cook as well?”

“Lady,” Fargo said, “I'm a scout.”

“I was only joking.” Belinda stood and moved around to the other side and groped under the seat. “I guess you'll have to take me. I can't afford more delays.”

“Take you where?”

“To the McWhertle farm. Their youngest girl is sick. They sent word over an hour ago. I was on my way there when you spooked my horse.”

“I'm not the one with the whip,” Fargo said.

“There you go again.” Belinda stopped groping and pulled a black bag out. “Ah. Here it is. We'll have to ride double and I expect you to behave yourself.”

“I haven't said I'll take you.”

Belinda walked up to him. Most of the color had faded from her face but her eyes were flashing. “Listen to me. Their girl is ten years old. From what they told me it sounds serious. I have to reach her as quickly as possible.”

“That's why you were driving your buggy so fast,” Fargo realized.

Belinda moved to the Ovaro and held her arms aloft. “Are you going to be a gentleman or must I climb on by myself?”

“What about your horse?” Fargo proposed. “I'll strip off the harness and you can ride it.”

“Bareback?” Belinda waggled her arms. “I don't ride well, I'm afraid. If I could, do you think I'd be using a buggy? No, we'll leave it here and I'll retrieve it on my way back to Ketchum Falls.”

“That a town?” Fargo asked. If it was, he'd never heard of it.

“A settlement, more like.” Belinda waggled her arms some more. “Do I have to light a fire under you? If you were any slower you'd be a turtle. Time's a-wasting.”

Fargo sighed. He set the black bag down, swung her up, and gave the bag to her. Carefully forking leather so as not to bump her with his leg, he suggested, “Wrap your arm around my waist so you don't fall off.”

“Your shoulder will do nicely.”

“Suit yourself.” Fargo clucked to the Ovaro and felt her fingers dig deeper. “Keep on north, I take it?”

“For a couple of miles yet, yes. We'll come to an orchard and there will be a lane on the right.”

Fargo figured she wouldn't say much, as mad as she was. She surprised him.

“I suppose I should apologize for treating you so poorly. But I'm worried about Abigail. That's the McWhertle girl's name. She's a pretty little thing.”

“You're a pretty thing, yourself.”

“Why, Mr. Fargo. Was that a suggestive remark?”

“If suggestive means I think you'd look nice naked, then yes,” Fargo said.

For the first time since he'd met her, Dr. Belinda Jackson laughed. “My word. You don't beat around the bush, do you?”

Fargo thought of the junction of her thighs, and grinned to himself. “I like to get right to things.”

“Is that so?”

Before Fargo could answer, a man came out of the woods at the side of the road. The man was wearing a bandanna over the lower half of his face and holding a rifle that he trained on Fargo's chest.

“That's far enough!” he commanded. “I'll have your money or I'll have your life.”

Fargo drew rein. He could tell by the voice that the would-be robber was young. His right hand was on his hip close to his Colt, and he was uncommonly quick at drawing it. But instead of drawing he gave the fool a way out by saying, “You don't want to do this, boy.”

“The hell I don't,” the young man said, his words muffled by the bandanna.

“I don't have much in my poke,” Fargo said. “It's not worth dying over.”

The young man motioned with the rifle. “You're the one who will die if you don't quit yappin' and hand it over.”

Dr. Belinda Jackson astonished Fargo by poking her face past his shoulder and saying, “Timothy Wilson, you stop this nonsense this minute—you hear me?”

The young man's eyes widened and he lowered the rifle a little. “Dr. Jackson? I didn't see you up there behind that feller.”

“Of course you didn't,” Belinda said. “You don't have your spectacles on.”

“What the hell?” Fargo said. “You know this jackass?”

“I couldn't find them this mornin',” Timmy said to her, letting the rifle dip to his waist. “But I don't need 'em to hit the center of a blob.” He coughed a few times, and sniffled.

“A blob?” Fargo said.

“He doesn't see very well,” Belinda said. “Astigmatism, it's called. People to him are shapeless blobs.”

“So I just aim at the middle,” Timmy said in a tone that suggested he thought it was awful smart of him. He did more coughing.

“How many people have you shot?” Fargo wanted to know.

“None yet,” Timmy said, sounding disappointed that he hadn't. “But give me a few years and I reckon I'll have done in as many as Dastardly Jack.”

“Who?”

Timmy came closer. “Don't tell me you never heard of him? Why, he's the most famous highwayman in Merry Olde England. Ain't that right, Doc?”

“According to the stories,” Belinda said. “You might want to take your bandanna off. It's sticking to your mouth when you talk.”

“Oh. Sure.” Timmy pulled the bandanna down around his throat. His nose was running and he wiped it with a sleeve. To Fargo he said, “You're not pullin' my leg, mister? You've never heard of the Prince of Highwaymen? I got me two of his adventures. I can read, with Ma's help. I have to stick my face right up to the page, but they are the best books ever.”

“Books?” Fargo said.

“Penny dreadfuls,” Belinda said. “From England. His mother bought them for him at the general store a few months ago, and ever since, he's gone around pretending to rob folks.”

“Pretending?” Fargo said.

Timmy looked mad. “I ain't neither. I'm doin' it for real but no one will take me serious. Everyone in these parts knows me so when I try to rob them they tell me to shush and behave and go on their way.”

“But you keep trying?”

Timmy nodded. “I want to be just like Dastardly Jack. Have all that money. Wear fine clothes. And them ladies swoonin' at my feet. Just like in the pictures in those books.” He brightened and declared, “I thought for sure I'd get money from you, you bein' a stranger and all.”

“What if I'd shot you, you dumb bastard?”

“Why would you do that?”

Fargo stared at him. “Some people, boy, don't like being robbed.”

“Well, that's just petty.” Timmy coughed and grumbled, “This damn cold.”

Belinda said, “I've told you before, Timmy. Those stories are fiction. They're make-believe.”

“How can that be, Doc?” Timmy said. “They're writ down, ain't they?”

To Fargo the doctor said, “He thinks that anything on a printed page is real.”

“I need a drink,” Fargo said.

“I got me some squeezin's,” Timmy said. He slid a hand under his shirt and produced an old battered flask. Smiling, he came over and handed it up. “My pa makes it himself in a shed out back of the barn. Ma won't let him make it in the barn on account of the smell.”

Fargo uncapped the flask, wiped it on his buckskins, and took a swig. He'd had moonshine before and was braced for the jolt. Or so he thought. His throat seared with liquid fire and a keg of black powder went off in his gut. It was so potent, it set his eyes to watering and his nose to running. Coughing and hacking, he wiped at his face with his sleeve.

Timmy cackled. “Has a kick, don't it? My pa likes to say that if liquor don't curl a man's toes, it ain't worth drinkin'.”

“Good stuff,” Fargo wheezed, and gave back the flask.

“Any time you want a swig, just say so,” Timmy said, sliding it under his shirt.

“You're the strangest damn outlaw I ever met.”

“Hey now,” Timmy said. “No need to be insultin'. I ain't no outlaw. I'm a highwayman. Or I will be once I can get folks to give up their money.”

“Why don't you go home, Timmy?” Belinda said. “I have to get to the McWhertle's. Abigail is sick.”

“So is Old Man Sawyer, I hear,” Timmy said. He coughed some more. “I'm comin' down with somethin', too.” He sighed and cradled his rifle. “Oh well. Guess I'll rob me somebody another time.” He grinned and walked off into the woods and coughed and wiped his nose and cheerily waved.

“That boy is going to get his fool head blown off,” Fargo predicted.

“We should pay Old Man Sawyer a visit after we're done with Abigail McWhertle,” Belinda said.

“We?”

“You keep forgetting that thanks to you I don't have any means of getting around.”

“I should have gone the long way around these mountains,” Fargo said.

“Sorry?”

“Nothing.” Fargo gigged the Ovaro.

“Don't take this personally,” Belinda said, “but you're a little strange.”

“I'd fit right in around here.”

“I don't see what you mean by that. The people in these parts are as normal as anywhere. Most are farmers or have small homesteads and grow vegetables and raise hogs and the like. And as for Ketchum Falls, it's no different from any other settlement. Most of the folks there are earnest and hardworking. No one is strange.”

“Tell that to Dastardly Timmy.”

“Oh, posh,” Belinda said. “His only problem is that he's young yet, and doesn't know his own mind.”

“If he has one.”

“Now you're being mean. It's perfectly normal for a boy his age to have a hero they look up to. Why, when Timmy was younger, his idol was Robin Hood. For the longest while he ran around with a bow and arrows and called all the women maiden-this and maiden-that. He was adorable.”

Fargo grunted. “Did Robin Tim shoot anyone with those arrows of his?”

“Well, there was an incident,” Belinda said, and laughed. “But it was mostly comical.”

“Mostly?”

“Mr. Barnaby, the banker, is the wealthiest man hereabouts. He has a fine house over on Turner Creek. One day Timmy snuck up on him and threatened to put an arrow into him if Mr. Barnaby didn't turn over all his money.”

“That's sure comical,” Fargo said.

“But the money wasn't for Timmy. He wanted it to give to the poor, exactly like Robin Hood did. You know. Rob from the rich and give to the poor? Everyone thought it was precious of him, despite the calf.”

“There's a calf in this now?”

“Mr. Barnaby thought the whole thing was a great joke. He laughed and told Timmy he wouldn't give him any money and to run along. So Timmy let fly with an arrow.”

“I knew it,” Fargo said.

“Unfortunately, Timmy wasn't wearing his spectacles and he missed by a mile. Or at least thirty feet. The arrow hit a calf over in the corral. Pierced its eye, if you can believe it, and the poor thing dropped dead then and there.”

“Arrows in the eye will do that.”

“Well, it was an accident, plain and simple. No one held it against Timmy.”

“Not even Barnaby?”

“He was upset, certainly. But Timmy's father made it right by offering to pay for the calf in installments. I'd imagine it's paid off by now.”