Finish me off, you miserable bastard.”
Fargo whispered so no one else would hear. “Why were Colter and you following Arthur Draypool?”
“As if you don’t know,” Sloane spat out. It cost him a fit of coughing that brought flecks of blood to the corners of his mouth.
“If I did I wouldn’t ask.”
“Let me die in peace, damn you. But remember one thing, mister. You won’t win. We won’t let you.”
Fargo scanned their vicinity but did not spot anyone else. “I said it before, and I’ll say it again. I don’t know what the hell you are talking about.”
Sloane tried to respond but succumbed to more coughing. When he could finally speak, he rasped,
“Have your fun. But the government is on to you and the rest of the League. We won’t let you light the fuse.”
More puzzled than ever, Fargo said, “What League? What fuse? You don’t make sense.”
Instead of answering, Sloane laughed bitterly, a laugh nipped by an upwelling of dark rivulets from between his lips. “Damn!” he gurgled. “I’m not long for this world.”
“Listen to me,” Fargo said. “Draypool has hired me to track down a killer called the Sangamon River Monster. Have you ever heard of him?”
“Now who is not making any sense?” Sloane weakly rejoined. “Who ever heard of a monster in this day and age?”
“It’s a man who mutilates and murders whole families,” Fargo explained. “In the Sangamon River region near Springfield.”
Sloane blanched as pale as a sheet. His eyes swiveled and fixed on Fargo’s face. “What did you say?”
Fargo repeated it, elaborating with, “Draypool and some others want to end the bloodshed. That’s why they hired me.”
“Oh, God.”
“What?” Fargo asked, unsure of whether the man was agitated by the information or had gone stark pale due to his wounds.
“Those devils! It’s so simple!” Quaking violently, Sloane raised his head and feebly clawed at Fargo’s leg. “He has to be warned! Get word to—”
“To who?” Fargo prompted.
Jim Sloane went rigid. Tears streamed from his eyes as his mouth worked soundlessly. Abruptly going limp, he slumped onto his back and exhaled.
Fargo felt for a pulse but there was none. He heard Draypool huff and puff up behind him, but he did not turn.
“Is that one dead?”
“Yes.”
“Good riddance. Let’s hope Avril and Zeck do the same with the other.”
7
Fargo said very little to Arthur Draypool over the next several days. He did not tell Draypool what Sloane had told him. Better he kept the information to himself until he found out what was going on.
Avril and Zeck had seen to Sloane’s burial after they returned from chasing Frank Colter. Colter got away, which secretly pleased Fargo. He offered to help dig Sloane’s grave but Draypool would not hear of it. “Menial chores are why I have Mr. Avril and Mr. Zeck in my employ.”
As the pair in frock coats busied themselves with broken branches, scooping out earth, Fargo searched Sloane’s pockets. He hoped to find something that would tell him who Sloane had been and what Sloane and Colter were up to, but all he found was thirty dollars, a folding knife, and a compass.
In an effort to justify the shooting, Arthur Draypool had gone on and on about the dangers of traveling in that part of Missouri. “Scoundrels are everywhere. It shouldn’t surprise you that two of them were following us. No doubt at the first opportunity they planned to relieve us of our valuables, if not our lives.”
That was three nights ago. Over the subsequent days, Fargo racked his brain for an excuse to bow out. All he had to do was walk up to Draypool and flatly refuse to go another mile. But he could not bring himself to do it. Part of the reason was that he had agreed to do the job, and while his promise was not carved in granite, he never went back on his word if he could help it.
Curiosity was also a factor. Colter and Sloane had given the impression that Draypool was up to no good. The idea seemed preposterous. Fargo could not for the life of him figure out what Draypool hoped to gain by deceiving him. Why go to so much trouble to track him down and offer him so much money if the whole arrangement was underhanded?
For the time being Fargo was content to go along. But he was no man’s fool, and he stayed alert for gleanings of Draypool’s true intentions.
The day came when they crossed the border into Illinois. Fargo reckoned they would push on to the next town and rest there for the night. But to his surprise, after only a few miles, Arthur Draypool turned off the main road and down a long lane that brought them to a stately farmhouse. It reminded Fargo of mansions he had seen in the deep South. Scores of workers, nearly all of them black, were busy at various tasks.
“I hope you won’t mind if we stop early tonight,” Draypool commented. “I thought it might do to treat you to some Illinois hospitality.”
Apparently word of their coming had preceded them, for four people were waiting on a broad porch. For farmers, the four were dressed in remarkably nice clothes. A craggy-faced man with a bushy mustache came down the steps to greet them, declaring, “Arthur! What a pleasure to see you again!”
“Permit me to introduce Clyde Mayfair,” Draypool said while shaking their host’s hand. “He and I go back a long ways.”
“I should say so!” Mayfair exclaimed. “We grew up in South Carolina not twenty miles from one another.” He went to say more, seemed to change his mind, and instead gestured at the trio coming down the steps behind him. “This is my wife, Margaret, my son, Jace, and my daughter, Priscilla.”
“How do you do, sir?” the wife said. Her hair was graying and she had a plump body that jiggled when she moved.
“A pleasure, sir.” Jace gave a courtly bow. He was in his twenties, and the spitting image of his sire.
Fargo was more interested in the daughter. Tall and willowy, Priscilla Mayfair filled out her dress in the shape of an hourglass—a rather tight dress for a farm girl, cut low in front to accent her cleavage and snug at the thighs to accent something else. She offered her hand with a graceful flourish.
“I do declare. Aren’t you a handsome devil!”
Grinning, Fargo imitated the son’s bow and kissed the back of her hand. Only she was aware that he pressed the tip of his tongue to her skin. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Not half as pleased as I am,” Priscilla said, her lovely green eyes twinkling. She did not resent the liberty he had taken. Quite the contrary.
“Why don’t we all go inside?” Clyde Mayfair proposed. “I will have refreshments brought.”
Fargo shucked his Henry from the saddle scabbard, untied his saddlebags, and followed Draypool and their hosts indoors.
A butler and two maids, all of them black, snapped to attention as if they were soldiers on a parade ground. Clyde Mayfair had one of the maids take Fargo’s personal effects upstairs. Then he said, “Follow me, gentlemen,” and led the way to a sitting room.
The house was a model of elegance. Mayfair was no simple farmer. He had money, lots of it, and he was lavish in spending it. Fargo found himself in a plush chair across from a giant window that afforded a sweeping vista of the thousands of acres Mayfair owned. The butler brought him a cup of coffee on a sterling silver tray. The cup itself was of the best china.
Draypool sank into another chair with a contented sigh. The maid gave him a glass of brandy, which he sniffed, then sipped, savoring it as if it was liquid gold.
“You have no idea, Clyde, how wonderful it is to be back among civilized society.”
