2
Tillman, Arkansas was bigger than Fargo had expected. Thirty-five hundred souls resided here according to the WELCOME sign on the north edge of town. A clean blue river, new, if modest, homes, two full blocks of merchant buildings, two churches, a schoolhouse, and a courthouse lent the town an air of prosperity and friendliness.
The folks here knew how to celebrate the Fourth of July, too. Everywhere he looked, Fargo saw bunting and signs that proclaimed the special day. And the red, white, and blue colors weren’t limited to storefronts and posters, either. Lots of folks wore red, white, and blue ribbons pinned to their shirt pockets. There was even an old swayback with a red, white, and blue blanket thrown over it.
Fargo naturally drew attention. A dead man is bound to attract almost as much attention as a naked lady. Kids, codgers, businessmen, farmers all paused in their activities to watch the rough-hewn man on the big stallion trail in another horse with a corpse slung across it. Even the short trip in the scorching sun had made Jeb Adams’s body a mite smelly. Flies loved him. A couple of old people waved at him. He wasn’t sure why. They probably weren’t, either. They were just so used to waving—the custom of this friendly part of the country—that they did it out of habit.
Fargo didn’t need to ask where the sheriff’s office was. A wide, one-storied, whitewashed building had signs saying SHERIFF on both the side and the front. He lashed the reins of his stallion to a hitching post and walked inside.
He didn’t have to do much explaining of the basic problem. A portly man wearing a leather vest that bore a deputy’s badge was standing at a front window. He had quick, friendly brown eyes. “Looks like you’ve attracted just about as many people as our parade will.”
He put forth his hand and said, “Queeg is my name. Mike Queeg. I can take down all the information and offload your friend out there. But the sheriff’s in court right now, testifying in a case.”
“His name is what?”
“Tillman. Same as the town.”
“Let me guess. His father owns the town.”
Queeg grinned. “You’re half right. Noah owns the town all right. And that’s only right. Whether you like him or not, he built this damned place. He cleared some of the land himself, that’s how far back he goes. In fact, there’s a painting of Noah in the courthouse. Shows him chopping down trees when he was in his early twenties.”
“You said I was half right.”
“Tom—he’s the sheriff—he’s the stepson. He was adopted after the fact.”
“People like having the town boss’s stepson as sheriff?”
“I know what you’re saying, mister. But that isn’t the way it works here. Tom ran for office fair and square. The first time, he lost, as a matter of fact. And Noah and Tom don’t get along all that well. Noah expected Tom to do his bidding. But it hasn’t worked out that way. Tom’s a straight shooter with a real sense of right and wrong. He’s even thrown some of Noah’s hired hands in jail from time to time. They get out of hand, Tom doesn’t treat them any different from anybody else. He may have Noah’s name, but he makes it pretty obvious that there’s no Tillman blood flowing through his veins.” Then, “Say, you didn’t tell me your name.”
“Fargo.”
“Fargo? Are you foolin’ me?
“You going to arrest me? That’s what the guy slung across his horse was trying to do. Somebody trumped up a murder charge against me in Wyoming. He was trying to collect on it. He was doing double duty, hoping to finish me off before he got to your town. Noah Tillman had sent him a letter inviting him.”
Queeg whistled. “You sure got a way of comin’ into a town, Fargo. You bring a dead man who’s here because Noah invited him.” He smiled. “You should work for a circus. One of those advance fellas they send out to let everybody know the circus is coming. It’s one hell of a way to introduce yourself.” He nodded outside. “You know what his name was?”
“Jeb Adams.”
Queeg’s eyes and mouth narrowed. “He’s been here before and he was a bad one. Couple of people got killed over some land Noah wanted. But Tom didn’t follow up on it. I don’t think he was scared to go after Noah. I think he just couldn’t bring himself to believe that Noah could be behind two murders. He doesn’t have any illusions about Noah—Noah does what Noah needs to, no holds barred—it’s just that Noah and his wife took him in when he was only three. Tom just couldn’t face up to what Noah had done.”
“Was Adams around here long?”
“A month maybe. Raised a lot of hell here in town. Busted up one of the pleasure houses one night. Scared the hell out of all the girls. He was one mean sonofabitch.”
“In the letter, Noah thanked him for helping out with something called ‘Skeleton Key.’ That mean anything to you?”
“It sure does, Fargo. That’s the only other thing Tom won’t look into where Noah’s concerned.” He hitched up his holster and said, “But let’s get that body in here before it rots in that damned sun of ours. I’ll tell you about Skeleton Key later.”
Fargo spent a short time walking around the town and having himself another breakfast of steak, eggs, and potatoes. Banners inside and out proclaimed FOURTH OF JULY FEVER! A small marching band was practicing on a dusty side street. And boys and girls of every age set off fire-crackers and sparklers. He even saw three or four ladies wearing dresses made up of the stars and stripes. They weren’t kidding about having a “fever.” It seemed to have infected damned near everybody in town, the way the streets were crowded with hometown folks and visitors alike.
Fargo had spent enough time in towns and cities to know when he was being followed. A lanky man in a dark three-piece suit, way too hot for this boiling day, had stayed on Fargo’s trail ever since Fargo had left the cafe. Being that the only person he had talked to at any length was Queeg, Fargo wondered why the sheriff’s department had found it necessary to put a tail on him.
He decided to have some fun with the lanky man. Fargo would walk real fast and then abruptly stop. He repeated this often enough to have the lanky man so out of sorts, he damned near walked past him. Once, Fargo ducked into an alley, hid in the shade of a blacksmith’s shop, and watched as the lanky man hurried past, looking confused and frantic. Sure wouldn’t want to go back to Queeg and tell him he’d managed to lose Fargo, now, would he?
A block later, Fargo was following the lanky man. When the man turned around, apparently sensing that Fargo was behind him. Fargo waved and smiled before taking off again, quick enough to shake the lanky man for good this time.
3
“I’m afraid I can’t help you, sir.”
This, or words like it, were spoken by room clerks in three of the hotels neighboring each other. Seems people in all the surrounding small towns came to Tillman for the Fourth. Every available room had already been rented.
At the next place, the clerk said, “This is on the top floor and ordinarily it’s a storage room. But we fixed it up nice as we could ’cause we figured somebody’d probably take it.”
“And that would be me.” He paid the man and yawned again. He’d originally decided to ride straight through. But now he decided he needed some good sleep in a real bed before he started looking for the best place to cast his line.
Fargo carried his saddlebags up to the top floor, on the way pausing a couple of times to appreciate the
