face lit, as if at inspiration, and he asked, “If the Sangamon River Monster doesn’t exist, then whose tracks are we following?”
“I was hoping you would tell me,” Fargo said. “Then you can go back and tell your bosses that whatever they are up to didn’t work.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Tell them, too, that I’ll be coming for them. They must pay for the Sweeneys. Why that family, anyway? Did Draypool and the judge pick them out of thin air? Or were they Northern sympathizers?”
Layton’s eyes darted right and left, like those of an animal caught in a cage. “Sheer nonsense, I tell you.”
“Keep it to yourself, then,” Fargo said. “But now that things are out in the open, I’d like for you to hand me your revolver.”
“What?”
“I don’t keep rattlesnakes in my pocket, and I don’t let men out to kill me keep the guns to do it with.”
“Crazy as a loon,” Layton declared.
Fargo extended his left hand, palm up. “Your revolver.”
“Like hell! You have no right!” Layton started to stand but sat back down again. He was a study in nervousness. His jaw muscles twitched. He shifted his legs one way and then another.
“We don’t have all night,” Fargo said.
Like a punctured bladder deflating, Layton’s body sagged and he said resignedly, “I’ll give it to you. But once you realize the mistake you’ve made, I want it back. Understood?”
“You’re stalling.”
“All right, all right. Hold your horses.” Layton set down his cup and lowered his right arm toward his Remington.
Fargo’s gaze was glued to the other arm, to the hand that brushed Layton’s hip. Cold steel flashed and lanced at his throat. With a deft twist of his wrist he threw his coffee into Layton’s face even as he skipped to one side to evade the blade. He thought it would buy him the split second he needed to draw, but Layton was on him before his fingers could close on the Colt’s grip. Again the knife speared at his jugular. He had to throw himself backward to save himself, and in doing so he tripped over his saddle.
Layton was a woodsman. His reflexes were as keen as his knife. He sprang as Fargo fell, shearing the razor’s edge at Fargo’s chest, and it was only by a fluke that the blow missed by the barest fraction.
Fargo got his hand on his Colt and the Colt clear of his holster. A foot caught him on the wrist, numbing it, and the Colt went flying. Inwardly cursing his clumsiness and sluggishness, Fargo rolled to the right and came up in a crouch, his hand sliding into his right boot and groping for the Arkansas toothpick he always carried strapped to his ankle.
Layton did not allow an instant’s respite. He thrust his blade at Fargo’s chest, then sprang back in surprise when Fargo swept the toothpick up and deflected the stab with a metallic
Fargo did likewise. It was rash to talk in a fight, any fight, but he did so now. “If you kill me, the judge and Draypool might be upset. It will spoil their plans.” He did not add “whatever those plans were.”
“I have no choice. You know too much,” Layton responded. “We’ll still have your body, and that’s the important thing.”
“My body?” Fargo wondered what in hell that meant.
“You’re not as clever as you think,” Layton said. “You have no idea what we need you for. It’s sure not to track, not when we have Hiram Trask.” Layton snickered. “The only thing you’re good for is being a convenient scapegoat, as the judge calls it. When your body is found near his, everyone will jump to the wrong conclusion.”
“
“You don’t know who the man is or you would understand,” Layton said. “Everyone will be so busy trying to figure out why you would do such a thing, they won’t suspect the League.”
“Who are you after?”
“That would be telling.”
Without warning, Layton attacked, wielding his knife in a flurry, seeking to overwhelm Fargo quickly. But Fargo was expecting it, and he met the whirlwind with all the considerable skill he had acquired, the clang of steel on steel ringing loud and sharp. He was forced to give way, but only for a few yards. Then he planted himself and would not be moved. He countered or evaded every stroke, every feint. Fury crept into Layton’s countenance and he redoubled his effort, but now it was Fargo who forced him back, step by step, until they stood where they had started, both of them swearing and Layton panting as if he had just run ten miles.
“Damn you! No one has ever lasted this long!”
“I intend to last longer,” Fargo assured him.
“Think again,” Layton said, and clawed for his revolver. He had it half out when Fargo’s shoulder slammed into him and they pitched backward into the fire. He stabbed at Fargo’s neck but cleaved empty air.
Fargo gained his feet first. He lashed out with his right foot and Layton’s Remington sailed into the dark.
“Enough is enough!” Layton growled. He was growing desperate, and he proved it by throwing himself recklessly forward, his knife arcing right and left.
Fargo retreated. He made Layton come after him, made Layton overextend himself, and at the next wild slash, he drove the toothpick’s double-edged blade into Layton’s forearm.
Crying out, Layton backpedaled, then stopped and regarded the blood seeping from the wound. He was winded and could not last much longer, and they both knew it. “How about if we call this a draw and you let me take my horse and go?”
Shaking his head, Fargo resumed circling. “You tried to kill me. This ends only one way.”
“Bastard.”
Struck by a thought, Fargo stopped and said slowly, “Unless—”
“Unless what?” Layton eagerly responded.
“Unless you tell me the name of the man the League wants dead. Do that, and I won’t try to stop you from leaving.”
Layton straightened, blood dripping from his wrist. “I can’t. I took a vow. I pledged to be loyal to the League.”
“Is your vow worth dying over?”
“The stakes are. This isn’t about you or me. It’s about sticking up for what I believe in.”
“You’ve lost me,” Fargo admitted.
“The judge calls them ‘causes greater than ourselves, ’ ” Layton recited. “I have an obligation to do what is best for everyone, not just for me.”
“How is murdering someone good for anyone?” Fargo skeptically asked.
“It depends on who. And it’s not really a murder. Not in the way you mean.”
The quibbling annoyed Fargo. “What other way is there?” he demanded. He wondered if Layton was stalling to regain his strength.
“Nice try, mister. You’re fishing, hoping I’ll give it away. But I won’t. I’ve made my decision. I would rather die than betray the cause.”
Fargo’s puzzlement grew. The Secessionist League was devoted to one cause and one cause only. “All this has something to do with the South?”
Desperation compelled Layton to snarl and recklessly throw himself into an attack yet again. He feinted high but sliced low, his intent to bury his knife in Fargo’s groin. But the backwoodsman was not the only one with superb reflexes. Fargo’s had been honed in clashes with Comanches and Sioux, grizzlies and wolves. His arm moved like lightning. He blocked the knife, and before Layton could recover, Fargo reversed his grip on the toothpick and slashed it across the other’s throat.
For all of five seconds Bill Layton stood in stunned disbelief. Then he bleated and staggered, clutching at the cut in a vain bid to stanch the crimson spray that moistened the front of his buckskin shirt. “No!” he gurgled. “Not like this!”
