again, each holding a knife. She slashed at Samantha, who recoiled, and then she was around the bed in a crouch, still grinning her strange grin, her eyes alight with glee.
Fargo stabbed for his Colt but it wasn’t there. His gun belt was lying on the bed.
The holy terror in the maid’s uniform never said a word. She was all business, and her business was slaying him. Her knives weaved figure eights in the air.
“My pistol!” Fargo shouted to Sam but she was frozen in shock. He avoided a stab at his belly and a slash at his neck. He had to let go of his pants and they began to slide down his hips. Grabbing hold, he shifted to the right but went left. The feint saved his life.
The assassin lost her grin. She speared a knife at his chest and when he jerked aside lanced her other knife at his jugular.
Fargo flung himself back and collided with the wall. Inadvertently he had backed himself into a corner. He held on to his pants to keep them from falling and tried to spring past her but she was much too quick. He had to jerk back again to avoid having his throat cut from ear to ear.
“No!” Sam cried, and threw a pillow.
The assassin swatted it aside and came at Fargo again. He tried to grab her wrist and pain seared his upper arm. She had cut through the buckskin sleeve and drawn blood. Before she could skip out of reach he whipped a backhand that sent her staggering. Then, dropping to one knee, he plunged his hand into his boot and palmed the Arkansas toothpick. “Try me now, bitch.”
In she rushed, her knives streaking.
Fargo parried, countered, parried again. He unfurled, moving back as he rose, and nearly tripped over his pants. He had forgotten to hold them up and they were bunching around his legs. Clutching them, he barely deflected a cut at his eyes. She was skilled, this woman, perhaps the best knife fighter he ever went up against, and that was saying a lot.
“I’ll stop her!” Sam cried, and lunged for the Colt.
Once again the sister did her imitation of a jackrabbit. Whirling, she vaulted high in the air. Her foot slammed against Sam’s head, knocking Sam back. As lithely as a cat, she alighted on the balls of her feet poised to renew their combat.
Fargo had never encountered her like. He slashed at her legs, at her ribs, but it was like trying to cut a will- o’-the-wisp.
She grinned her strange grin again. She held the right blade out from her side, the left blade low in front of her.
Fargo went for her face but she hopped out of reach. Her knives flashed and his middle knuckle was opened. Not deep but it hurt like hell. He went high, going for her throat, only to have her prance out of reach.
A revolver boomed. Sam had his Colt and fired from a distance of only a few feet—and missed.
The assassin spun. She leaped onto the edge of the bed and did an acrobatic somersault. Her right leg described an arc and her shoe caught Samantha on the chin and sent Sam tumbling.
Fargo sought to bury the toothpick in her back. So what if she was a woman? She had tried several times now to kill him and that was several too many. But as fast as he was she proved faster. She was halfway to the door before he came around the end of the bed. She worked the latch and threw the door wide, then paused in the doorway to look back.
“My compliments,” she said.
Wondering what the hell she meant, Fargo dashed after her. It took barely two seconds for him to reached the doorway—yet the hallway was empty. He stood there with his arm stinging and his hand hurt and blood trickling from under his sleeve and summed up his sentiments with, “I’ll be damned.”
12
A search of the lodge from top to bottom turned up a discarded maid’s uniform in a pantry but there was no trace of the deadly woman who wore it. Samantha was furious. She ordered that the lodge be searched again. When Charles remarked that the servants had already gone over every square foot and another search was pointless, Samantha blistered his ears. Charles proved to be right, though: the assassin had disappeared.
Samantha called a family meeting in the dining room. She insisted that her brothers and her sister attend, along with their partners in the hunt. Theodore Pickleman eased into a chair across from Fargo.
“All of you have heard what happened,” Sam began. “My partner in the hunt tomorrow has been marked for murder. I’d like to know which of you is to blame for the attempts on his life.”
“How dare you blame one of us,” Tom indignantly replied.
“Who else?” Sam said. “The only people with anything to gain are sitting at this table.”
“Why have they only tried to kill your partner?” Roland wondered. “I know the forest better than he does and no attempt has been made on my life. For that matter, Cletus Brun has lived in these woods since he was born yet no one has tried to kill him, either.”
“Indeed,” Charlotte said. “What makes Fargo so special?”
Fargo had been asking himself the same thing. “Maybe it’s not me so much as your sister.”
“How’s that?” Samantha asked.
“It’s you they want to stop,” Fargo guessed. But why her more than any of the others was a mystery.
“You’re forgetting Emmett,” Roland said. “His death makes no sense at all.”
“Maybe it does,” Charles said, and glanced about sheepishly. “You see, there’s something I haven’t told any of you. Something that could explain why poor Emmett was shot.”
“We’re listening,” Sam said.
Charles cleared his throat. “Emmett confided in me that he might have seen Father bury the chest.”
The siblings all started talking at once. Tom pounded the table and demanded to know why Charles hadn’t said anything sooner.
“Because Emmett asked me to keep it secret,” Charles replied. “We were always close, the two of us, probably because we were born less than a year apart. The night before he was shot, he took me aside and told me that he had come out to the lodge one day to hunt grouse with Roland and saw Father go off through the woods carrying a shovel and a sack. Emmett was curious and followed him.”
“Dear God,” Charlotte said. “Emmett could easily have won.”
“Except he didn’t know what it was at the time,” Charles said, “and he couldn’t remember where he saw father bury the thing. He didn’t pay much attention and got out of there quickly, afraid Father would spot him.”
“Who else did Emmett tell?” Tom asked.
“No one, so far as I know.”
“Someone must have overheard,” Roland speculated. “But if that was the case, they had to know how important the chest is. And none of us knew that until this evening.”
Tom was glaring at Charles. “It took you long enough to enlighten us.”
“What are you implying?” Charles responded.
“Only that it’s strange you didn’t mention this earlier when Pickleman told us about the will.”
Charles came out of his chair. “I don’t like what you are implying. I loved Emmett as much as any of you. I would never harm him. As for wanting the inheritance, which of us doesn’t?”
Fargo had heard enough bickering to last a lifetime. Pushing his chair back, he made for the door. Samantha called to him but he shook his head. He didn’t stop until he was outside.
The sun was about to relinguish its reign. Vivid streaks of red, orange, and yellow splashed the western sky. Songbirds were in full throat and somewhere off in the trees a dove cooed.
Fargo strolled over to the stable. He checked on the Ovaro and was coming back out when a shadow fell across the center aisle, and him. Instinctively, he swooped his hand to his Colt.
“Hold on there, hoss. I’m friendly. Don’t shoot.”
“Show yourself.”
Cletus Brun stepped into view. He was cradling his rifle, and nodded in a friendly fashion.
“What the hell do you want?”
The big Missourian frowned. “I can’t say I care to be talked to that way.”
