“Suit yourself.” Fargo almost added, “bitch.” He turned and strode off and she quickly fell into step beside him.
“Don’t walk so fast. I can’t keep up.” Rebecca added an anxious, “Please, Skye.”
Reluctantly, Fargo slowed.
“Listen. I’m sorry. You set me off. But I do like you. Honestly and truly. And I would hate to see you hurt.”
Fargo swore. The woman was as fickle as the weather.
“I’m serious. Look. Fulton says you can go if you want. Why not take him up on it? I know Lem tried to talk you out of it but don’t listen to him. Your life is more important.”
Fargo was about to ask exactly what she meant when it hit him—she had called Owen
“Better yet, leave and take me with you. Gerty, too. This is no place for a woman and a child.”
“I tried telling the senator that before we started out, remember?”
“Yes. I heard you. And for your concern, I’m grateful. So why don’t we sneak off together? We’ll take Gerty. We can do it tomorrow night after everyone is asleep. All you have to do is knock out the men standing watch.” Rebecca clutched his wrist and brought him to a stop. “What do you say? Why should we stay and be killed by the savages?” She smiled and rubbed herself against him. “Besides, think of the good times we can have.”
Insight smacked Fargo between the eyes. He was being played for a fool. Or, rather, a typical sex-starved male. “So that’s what this was.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“That tale you told about not sleeping with the senator for thirteen years. And why you were so eager to lure me out here and let me have my way with you.” Fargo chuckled. “I’ve got to hand it to you. You’re slick.”
Rebecca drew back. “I’m sure I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about.”
“You want out of here. You want out of here so bad, you’re willing to do anything. And I do mean
In the dark Fargo didn’t see her hand until it was too late. She slapped him on the cheek, wheeled, and stalked toward the camp, her entire body as rigid as a board. He laughed lightly and followed but he made no attempt to catch up to her. Now that he was wise to her ruse, he wondered how much of what she had told him was true and how much she made up.
He had a bigger question to answer, namely, should he stay or light a shuck? These people meant nothing to him. Not any of them. Not now that he knew Rebecca was using him. No, there was nothing holding him.
Except one thing.
Fargo had promised the senator, when Keever hired him, that he would do his best to get them in and out of Sioux country in one piece. To some men that might not mean much. But Fargo never made a promise he couldn’t keep, or wouldn’t die trying to.
Some folks, Fargo knew, would brand him a sinner. He liked to drink, he liked loose women, he loved to gamble. Flaws of character, they would say. And he would be the first to admit he wasn’t the most straitlaced hombre around. But he did have a few scruples, and not breaking his word was one of them. Silly, maybe, but there it was.
And now that Fargo thought about it, he had another reason to stay. Rebecca had hinted her husband was up to something. He would like to know what it was. Fargo had a suspicion. For some time now, rumors had floated around that there was gold in the Black Hills. No one could say how the rumors got started. Normally, that was enough to start a gold rush, as it had in California and elsewhere. But the Black Hills had a deterrent California didn’t: the Sioux. A party of whites had snuck in to search for it, and never came out.
Fargo wondered if that was what Keever was after. Presumably, Keever was well-to-do, what with being a senator. But for some folks, there was no such thing as enough money. They always craved more. It was possible the senator had come down with gold fever, and the hunt was a cover so he could scout around for it.
He came to the clearing.
Rebecca was just slipping into the tent. She looked back at him in anger, and jerked the flap shut.
Fargo made sure the night watch had their backs to him, then moved to his blankets. Weariness nipped at him and he closed his eyes.
“It took you long enough.”
Fargo looked up. Standing over him was one of the sentries, heavyset, with a bushy mustache and stubble on his chin. Clymer, he thought the man’s name was. “What did?”
“Heeding nature’s call. I came over here five minutes ago to wake you but you weren’t here.”
Fargo sat up. “Wake me why?”
“Harris and me keep hearing and seeing something off in the trees. It comes and goes. We don’t know what to make of it but we thought you might.”
Fargo rose. “I haven’t heard anything.”
“It’s over yonder.” Clymer pointed at the far side of the camp, past the horse string. “Come look and give a listen and tell me if you think I’m loco.”
“What do you think it is?”
Clymer hesitated. “I’d rather not say. It’s best you hear and see for yourself.”
“Tell me, damn it.”
“Just don’t laugh.” Clymer took a breath. “I think it’s a ghost.”
11
It was a good thing Skye Fargo played a lot of poker. A man had to be good at keeping a stone face when he was dealt good cards. It helped in real life when life dealt an idiot or two. Fargo adopted his poker face now as he stared at Clymer. “Did you just say a ghost?”
“I sure did. And before you poke fun, no, I haven’t been drinking and neither has Harris. The senator wouldn’t let anyone bring liquor, remember?”
That was Fargo’s idea. Whiskey and Indian country didn’t mix.
“Come see this thing. Maybe you can tell us what it is. Because I’ve got to admit it has us spooked.”
“Lead the way.”
Harris was a grubby man who apparently never heard baths were invented. He was pacing beyond the horse string and nervously fingering his rifle. “I saw it again,” he said as they came up. “Spookiest thing I ever did see. I’d think I was addlepated if Clymer hadn’t seen it too.”
“Where is it?” Fargo asked.
Both Harris and Clymer pointed into the forest to the south, and Clymer said, “Just wait. It comes and goes.”
“Right now it goes,” Harris said.
Fargo cocked his head. The wind stirred the trees, and in the distance a lonesome wolf gave voice to the wavering lament of its breed. He heard nothing else. A minute went by, then a couple. He looked at the two men, and Clymer noticed.
“It’s out there, I tell you. Sometimes it takes a bit before it shows up again. Give it a little more time.”
“Me, I’d be happy to never see it again,” Harris said. “It’s not natural, a ghost gallivanting around as real as you please. Ghosts should stay in the ghost world and leave us breathing folks alone.”
“The ghost world?”
“People must have some kind of place to go to when they die. I know all about heaven and hell but it seems to me ghosts wouldn’t come from there on account of heaven has a gate and hell has that dog.”
Fargo was finding it harder to keep his poker face. “Who told you heaven has a gate?”
“Some parson. He said that when we die, we go up in the clouds and there’s this gent called Peter who stands at a gate and lets us in if we’ve been good or else sends us down to the dog if we’ve been bad.”
“I think you got it mixed up,” Clymer said. “I don’t think that dog is in the Bible. It’s from one of those nursery poems mothers are always saying to their sprouts.”
“I do not have it mixed up. And they’re not nursery poems. They’re called nursery rhymes.”
