the ropes that lashed the men. This was something Ekert and McGarth should have thought of but had forgotten.
“You’ll have fun on the island,” Manuel said, still wearing the uniform-like clothes from earlier this evening. “It’s a real adventure—for everybody involved.”
“You’re not going to give us a hint about it?” Fargo said.
“I would not want to spoil your pleasure in discovering for yourself, Mr. Fargo.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, Manuel.”
“But I will say this. You’ll never see the games on the island played anywhere else. Nobody would have the courage Mr. Tillman does.”
“You sure you’re not confusing courage with insanity, Manuel?” Aaron said.
“I hate to say this to you, Mr. Aaron, but I think you’re jealous of your brother. You resent the fact that he’s so—creative. The only thing you’re creative with is finishing off a fifth of whiskey before anybody else. I have to give you that. You have an enormous capacity. For that I salute you.”
“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” Aaron said.
Manuel laughed softly. “As I said, I don’t want to spoil your pleasure and fun. You need to discover the island all for yourself.”
He jumped down from the bed and walked around front.
“Straight to the dock, Ekert.”
“I know, Manuel.”
“Mr. Tillman will be on the island later this morning. He’ll expect them to be there. But you’re not to wait. You’re to come back as soon as these two are delivered.”
Ekert sighed again. Another deep, frustrated sigh. “I know my orders, Manuel. I’m not stupid, you know.”
“I just want you to know the consequences if something should go wrong. These are the people Mr. Tillman wants.”
“And he’ll have them. Now stand aside. I want to get going.”
The buckboard began to roll again. The second half of the journey was no more or no less hot and uncomfortable than the first half.
Aaron talked a good deal of the time, sharing more stories about his brother’s strange habits. “He got so jaded that he had to start upping the ante. Instead of one whore in his bed, he had to have two, then three. And the sex acts got a lot more sadistic. He’s pretty much barred from all the best houses in Little Rock. None of the whores’ll go with him. They’re too afraid.”
On and on into the night this way, each new tale more outrageous than the last. Finally, Fargo was lucky enough to drift off to sleep again.
Tom Tillman woke early, kissed his sleeping wife and children, and headed, without even the mercy of a cup of coffee, to the office.
The town was quiet and solemn and lovely in the breaking dawn. There was a slight haze over everything, blunting some of the ferocious coloring of the Fourth of July decorations. A couple of men were passed out in chairs on the porch of a saloon; another man slept in a buggy without a horse attached. Here and there you could see articles of female attire in the dust or hanging from the end of a hitching post or lying over a porch railing.
Wait ’til tomorrow morning, he thought. The aftermath of a Fourth of July spectacle always left the town looking like a battlefield. This was the only time of year when even most of the churchgoers let themselves go. And the visitors let themselves go even further.
The night deputy sat at his desk filling out forms. When he looked up and saw Tillman, he said, “Believe it or not, Sheriff, we’ve got a full house. They finally settled down and went to sleep.”
“Anything serious?”
“Busted nose, broken arm, couple black eyes, and soon there’ll be a whole lot of bad hangovers. But nobody was shot, stabbed, or set on fire so I figure it was a pretty good night.”
Tillman would usually smile at such a rueful assessment. But he was too tensed up with his mission to have any fun. “I’ll be in my office.”
“Yessir.”
Tillman poured himself some coffee and headed to the hall. No lamplight was needed. The sun was starting to clear through the haze. The office window was painted a frail golden color.
He set his cup of coffee on top of the second filing cabinet and went to work. He’d hired a widow who’d been desperately in need of money to set his files in strict order. She’d done so good a job that using the files now intimidated him. Afraid he’d screw up the system she’d established, he was extra careful to put each file back as soon as he was finished with it.
He spent an hour working on the names and dates of the reports on missing people from town. Most of them had no relevance to the “vanished” people that Fargo had asked him about. But between Liz’s husband being shot because he was investigating the situation and Fargo identifying one of the men who’d burst into his room as Ekert, he knew that his stepfather was involved in this. And he also knew that the stories were true. People did vanish around here this time every year. And if his stepfather’s men were involved in “disappearing” Daisy this year, it was likely they’d been involved in the other years as well.
The boat. The island.
What the hell was Noah up to anyway?
He prepared the paperwork the way a lawyer would prepare a trial. He wanted not to merely confront Noah but to assault him with names and dates. See how the cold, old bastard reacted when faced with so many incidents of people just disappearing.
He thought again of his mother and wondered, as he’d wondered ever since he’d come to stay with the Tillmans, what had ever drawn her to Noah. A simple, good woman drawn to a devious, morally corrupt bully like Noah Tillman made no sense to Tom.
He snorted a laugh. Hell, Noah might not even let him on his property this morning. Noah was still angry that Tom had refused to arrest a farmer, a small part of whose land Noah wanted to the east of his property. It was Noah’s intention to build a fancy horse-breeding business there. He could easily have built it somewhere else but once Noah got something into his head, he pursued it ruthlessly. The farmer didn’t want to sell. He wasn’t being ornery. He liked a hill that particular stretch of land had at its western end. He and his family had picnics there in the summer and in winter his kids used it for sledding and sliding. It was nothing against Noah, the farmer insisted. He just liked that piece of land and wanted to keep it as his own.
Noah had one of his men torch an old barn on his own ranch. Noah rode into town and demanded that the farmer be arrested. He said that the farmer had burned the barn as a way to demonstrate that he didn’t want to sell any part of his land and wanted Noah to cease and desist.
Tom had listened carefully and said, “My God, Noah, that’s the dumbest story you’ve ever concocted.” When Tom had first pinned on the badge, he’d done all of Noah’s bidding, just assuming that the old man would never lie to him. But after a few months, it became clear that Noah made up stories about people he perceived as his “enemies” and had the law take care of them for him. Tom and Noah had never been close but once Tom started refusing to do Noah’s dirty work, the relationship cooled even more. These days, Noah sent Tom’s kids gifts on their birthdays, and always had a huge dinner for them on Christmas, but, except for that, they had little contact. Tom expected that soon enough, Noah would find some excuse to take his badge away. There’d be no point in fighting him. This was Noah’s town and would remain so as long as Noah was alive. All Tom could do then was pack up his family and move on. The alternative was to start doing what Noah wanted him to—and Tom would never do that, no matter the circumstances.
The first thing he needed to do, now that he’d written down the significant names and dates, was to talk to Fargo. And then Liz, see what she had turned up.
He checked the jail cells before he left. The combined stench of sweat, vomit, tobacco, and dirty clothes was so strong it seemed to sear his face. If there was a hell, it probably resembled this—humanity in one of its most self-indulgent moments. There were a lot worse crimes than public drunkenness, true, but when you saw this many drunks crammed into so few cells—it was a damned disgusting sight.
He went up front, told his night deputy where he was headed. The day deputies would arrive in half an
