Hannibal Rising

twenty-five, and wore matching riding outfits and polished boots. Both had brown hair and brown eyes. Both had oval faces, thin eyebrows and thin lips. Judging by how much alike they looked, Fargo took them for brother and sister. Neither wore a revolver that he could see, but from the saddle scabbard on each horse jutted the hardwood stock of a rifle.

Tobacco Man didn’t seem surprised or alarmed. He turned his mount sideways and leveled his Spencer and when they were ten feet out he said, “That’s close enough.”

The pair came to a stop. They glanced at one another and smiled.

“What’s so funny?” Tobacco Man demanded.

“We thought we made our wishes clear back in Hannibal, monsieur,” the young man said with an accent that made Fargo think of New Orleans, and the French Quarter.

“We told you that you were not to take a hand in this yet here you are,” the young woman chimed in.

Tobacco Man showed his yellow teeth in a sneer of contempt. “And I told you two that I don’t scare easy. You’re the ones who should stay out of it if you know what’s good for you.”

“We can’t do that,” the young man said.

“We’ve been paid,” the young woman said.

“So have me and my pard,” Tobacco Man said. “The difference being that one of us is on the inside, which gives us an edge.” He wagged the Spencer. “Were I you I’d light a shuck and forget this whole business.”

“We can’t do that,” the young man said again.

“A contract is a contract,” said the young woman.

“You two are damned peculiar. You dress alike and you talk alike and I suspect you even think alike. It’s spooky.”

“Do you hear him, sister?”

“I hear him, brother.”

They laughed.

“That’s exactly what I’m talkin’ about,” Tobacco Man said. “Now get it through your heads that this is our job, not yours. My partner and me are locals. You two are from out of town. That gives him and me a better right.”

The young man put his left hand on his saddle horn and lowered his other hand to his side. “What a marvelous convolution of logic.”

“Isn’t it though?” his sister agreed.

“A what?” Tobacco Man said.

“When we saw you following Charles Clyborn around Hannibal we knew you were a competitor,” the brother said.

“We’re not being paid for you or your friend so we tried to persuade you and your friend to bow out,” added his sister.

Tobacco Man spat dark juice.

“It didn’t work,” the brother declared.

“No, it didn’t,” the sister echoed.

“So now you leave us no choice.”

“None at all.”

Tobacco Man raised his Spencer. “You prattle worse than biddy hens, the pair of you. Since you won’t listen, you’re the ones who leave me no choice. I’ll shoot you both dead if you don’t light a shuck. Be smart and make yourselves scarce in these parts.”

Once again the brother and sister glanced at one another and then at Tobacco Man.

“Did you know when you woke up this morning?” the brother asked.

“Did you feel it in any way?” from the sister.

“Know what?” Tobacco Man responded.

It was the sister who said, “Did you know that this was the day you were going to die?”

8

Fargo had stayed still and listened in the hope of learning who was behind the attempts on his life and the death of Emmett Clyborn. He suspected that the brother and sister were the same pair who attacked him on the Yancy. He hadn’t gotten a good look at their faces but it had to be them.

Suddenly the brother’s arm swept up and cold steel streaked from his hand.

Tobacco Man jerked the Spencer but he was much too slow. The knife caught him in the throat and blood burst in a geyser. Crying out, Tobacco Man clutched at the knife, only to have more scarlet spray from between his fingers. Somehow he stayed in the saddle and tenaciously tried to bring the Spencer to bear.

Fargo started to rise. He saw what happened next and could hardly credit his eyes.

The sister swung her horse in close to Tobacco Man’s. Placing both hands on the saddle, she whipped her leg up and around. Her foot caught Tobacco Man under the jaw and snapped his head back with an audible crack. She was so quick her leg was a blur.

Fargo had never seen the like. He charged onto the trail and raised the Henry but brother and sister were already flying into the trees. The sister looked back and saw him, and grinned. Fargo took aim, only to have the vegetation close around them before he could shoot. “Damn it.” He ran to Tobacco Man, who had toppled from the saddle and lay on his side, convulsing. A crimson pool was forming under him.

Kneeling, Fargo said, “Can you hear me? Can you talk?”

Tobacco Man went on quaking and shaking.

“It was you who shot Emmett, wasn’t it?” Fargo gripped his arm. “Who hired you and your partner?”

A strangled whine issued from Tobacco Man’s ravaged throat. He tried to speak but all that came out of his mouth was more blood.

“Who hired you?” Fargo asked again, and shook him.

The man looked up. His mouth moved but all he uttered were moans. Abruptly arching into a bow, Tobacco Man gave a last gasp and was still.

Fargo rose and kicked the ground. If not for the brother and sister, he would have had the information he wanted. He supposed he should be glad that one of the killers had been disposed of but he would much rather know who was behind it.

Once again hooves pounded and Fargo turned up the trail as Samantha and Charles Clyborn and two servants trotted into sight. They didn’t draw rein until they were practically on top of him.

“Who’s that?” were the first words out of Charles’s mouth.

“The man who shot your brother.”

Charles bent low. “I have a feeling I should know him from somewhere but I can’t remember where.”

“Of course you should,” Samantha said. “He lives on the outskirts of Hannibal. His name is Bucklin Anders. He got into trouble for poaching. The Hannibal Journal had the story.”

“That was over a year ago,” Charles marveled. “How can you remember something so unimportant from that far back?”

“I remember everything.”

Charles turned to Fargo. “Congratulations. You’ve avenged my brother and saved the rest of us from a bullet in the back. You have my deepest gratitude.”

“Mine as well,” Samantha said.

Fargo started to tell them that he hadn’t killed Anders, that it had been the brother and sister who tried to kill him on the steamboat. But he didn’t. For a reason that even he couldn’t explain, he decided not to. Instead he said, “You came back to find me?”

Samantha nodded. “I noticed you were missing and asked Roland where you got to. He told me about you riding off the trail. It wasn’t hard to deduce what you were up to.”

“You took a risk riding back.” Fargo smiled up at her. “I didn’t know you cared all that much.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Samantha gave orders to the servants and they climbed down to tend to the body.