Roland jerked his Spencer rifle to his shoulder but he didn’t fire. With an oath he jerked it down again, then said in horror, “Emmett!” Wheeling, he raced for the clearing.
Fargo followed, watching both their backs.
Everyone was gathered around the body. Charlotte was on her knees, clutching Emmett’s limp hand and bawling hysterically. Samantha was seeking to comfort her. Charles and Tom appeared to be in shock. Pickleman was as pale as a bed-sheet. The servants were staying respectfully back and whispering among themselves.
Out of all of them only one person didn’t appear the least bit upset—the backwoodsman Tom had picked as his partner. The man was picking at his teeth with a fingernail.
“Who would do this?” Charles said, aghast. “Why kill poor Emmett?”
Fargo was scanning the woods. That the second assassin hadn’t opened up on them didn’t mean he wasn’t out there. Or did it? A disturbing thought struck him, a thought he kept to himself. He did say, “We can’t stand around in the open like this. We’re sitting ducks.”
Some of the others gave him angry looks.
“He’s right,” Roland said. “We should make haste to the lodge. We don’t know but whoever did this might come back.”
Samantha had an arm around Charlotte and was saying, “There, there. You need to calm down. You need to control yourself.”
The younger woman’s face contorted in disbelief. “
“I know that, dear,” Samantha responded, “and I don’t want any of the rest of us to share his fate. Please. We must collect our wits and get out of here.”
It was done quickly. Servants were directed to wrap Emmett in a blanket and drape him over his horse. Fargo was going to take hold of the reins but Tom snatched them before anyone else could.
They pushed hard. Every moment was an eternity of suspense. They never knew but when another shot might thunder and another of them might wind up wrapped in a blanket.
Fargo had time to think and came to several conclusions. Again, he kept them to himself. They had gone about a mile when he slowed and let some of the others pass him so he could rein alongside Tom. On the other side of him was the hulking backwoodsman. “I’m sorry about your brother.”
Tom glanced at the horse he was leading, and the body. “Whoever killed him will pay. Mark my words.”
“Any idea who it could be?”
“How would I know?” Tom snapped. “It’s not as if we haven’t made enemies. When you’re rich and powerful you can’t help stepping on toes.”
“So you think it’s someone with a grudge against your family?”
“What else?”
Fargo didn’t answer. Instead he said, “Your friend, there, didn’t seem bothered.”
The backwoodsman had been gazing into the forest but now he turned his craggy face and gave Fargo a withering look. “You talkin’ about me, mister? ’Cause if you are, I ain’t Mr. Tom’s friend. I hardly know him. I hardly know any of them.” He motioned at the family members up ahead. “So no, it doesn’t bother me a lick that one of them was shot.”
“Must you be so cold about it?” Tom demanded. To Fargo he said, “This is Cletus Brun. He’s about the best hunter in Hannibal, next to Roland. I’m paying him for his services this weekend just as my sister is paying you.”
Brun snorted. “Shucks. Your brother ain’t all that great. I beat him once out to the fair in the turkey shoot.”
“Don’t underestimate him,” Tom warned.
“Don’t you underestimate me,” Brun said.
“Whoever shot Emmett and almost shot Charles is bound to try again,” Fargo mentioned.
“Have you ever been to our lodge?” Tom asked, and answered his own question. “No, of course you haven’t. It’s a fortress. We’ll be safe there.”
“For how long?”
Tom didn’t hide his annoyance. “Why are you bringing this up? To upset me? Isn’t it bad enough I’ve lost one of my brothers? Must you rub my nose in the fact I might lose more of my family?”
“So you really care about them?”
“Go away,” Tom said. “I didn’t like you when we first met and I like you less now. So what if I haven’t gotten along with them in the past? They’re still my brothers and sisters.”
Cletus Brun said, “You heard Mr. Tom. Go pester someone else, little man, and leave us be.”
Fargo couldn’t remember the last time anyone called him “little.” But the woodsman was a lot wider across the chest and shoulders and must outweigh him by sixty to seventy pounds. “Suit yourselves.” He tapped his spurs and rode to the head of the line.
Roland was a study in glum. “I just don’t get it,” he said as Fargo came up. “I just don’t get it at all.”
“Get what?”
“Why the killer chose Emmett. He could have shot any of us. Why Emmett? Emmett was just a kid.”
“He also shot at Charles.”
Roland gave a start. “The next oldest. It’s almost as if the killer started with the youngest and was working his way up.”
Fargo hadn’t thought of that. “How long until we reach the hunting lodge?”
“Another hour and a half yet, maybe more. Why?”
They were about to go around a bend in the trail.
“Keep going,” Fargo said. “I’ll catch up.” He rode past the bend and promptly reined into the woods. A dozen yards in he drew rein. No one else had seen him break away. He sat and watched them file by, one by one until the last of the pack animals went past.
Fargo was alone. Silence fell but it didn’t last long. A jay shrieked and a robin broke into song and presently a doe and a fawn emerged from the greenery and crossed the trail farther down.
Fargo was acting on another hunch. Odds were, whoever shot Emmett wanted to add to the tally, in which case the killer might be stalking them. He stayed where he was as the minutes crawled on turtle’s feet. He was about convinced he had been wrong and was raising the reins when the Ovaro pricked its ears and turned its head toward the trail.
Around the bend came a rider. A middle-aged man of middling height who looked as if he never bathed and wore clothes that looked as if they had never been washed. He was chewing lustily and his cheek bulged, and a moment later he spat tobacco juice. He held a rifle by the barrel, the stock propped on his thigh.
This, then, was the killer. Fargo let him go by. He mentally counted to thirty, reined to the trail, and shadowed the shadower.
Fargo could have shot him. He could ambush him as the killer had ambushed them but he needed answers and the only way to get them was to take him alive.
Spitting tobacco every now and again, the man rode along as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Fargo stayed well back. At each turn he slowed and checked before riding on. A quarter of an hour went by. Half an hour. More. By Fargo’s reckoning they were near the hunting lodge. At the next bend he slowed again and warily risked a peek.
The man had stopped. Thirty yards away he sat his horse in the middle of the trail. For a few moments Fargo thought the man had heard him. Then it hit him—the killer was waiting for someone.
Reaching down, Fargo shucked the Henry. He quietly ratcheted a round into the chamber and swung down. Holding on to the reins, he led the Ovaro in among some oaks and tied the reins to a limb. Then, paralleling the trail, he crept forward. The killer had his back to him. It would be so easy to fix a bead between his shoulder blades and bring him crashing down.
The man’s sorrel stamped and the man twisted in the saddle.
Fargo froze. He was in a crouch in high weeds and hoped he blended in.
The man was staring back down the trail and had his head cocked to one side.
A second later Fargo heard the thud of hooves.
Around the bend came two more on horseback, a man and a woman. Both were young, no older than
