Fargo hoped the moan would be repeated but all he heard was the breeze rustling the trees. He circled along the thorns and went only a few steps when he saw part of a leg and a man’s shoe poking out. From the way the grass was flattened and the briars broken and bent, it appeared the man had been heaved into them.
“Who is it?” Sam whispered, aghast.
Careful of the thorns, Fargo parted the branches. When he saw who it was, he quickly slid the toothpick under his belt, gripped the man’s ankles, and pulled him out.
“Oh God!” Sam exclaimed, her hand flying to her throat. “Charles!”
Someone had got at her brother with a knife. His face had been slashed, his throat sliced, his sleeves cut to ribbons where he had used his arms to try to ward off the weapon. He had also been stabbed in the chest and the belly.
“Charles! Charles!” Sam threw herself down beside him. She touched his face and his chest and stared in horror at the blood on her hands. “Who would do such a thing?”
Fargo had a good idea. He felt for a pulse. There was one but it was weak and erratic. It didn’t take a sawbones to know that Charles Clyborn wasn’t long for this world.
“We must do something,” Sam urged. “Run to the lodge and have them send for Dr. Williams in Hannibal. Hurry before it’s too late.”
“It already is.”
“What? No, no, you’re mistaken.” Tears welled in Sam’s eyes. She bent and gently touched his cheek. “Charles? Charles? Can you hear me? It’s Samantha.”
To Fargo’s surprise, Charles’s eyelids fluttered and opened. “Sam?” he croaked.
“Yes, Charles, yes.” Sam hugged him and kissed his chin.
“Don’t you worry. I’ll have you carried to the lodge and we’ll get Dr. Williams.”
Charles tried to speak, couldn’t, and tried again. “No,” he rasped hoarsely. “It wouldn’t do any good.”
“Don’t talk like that.” Sam clasped his hand in hers. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“It already has.” Charles coughed and a drop of blood trickled from a corner of his mouth. “Listen. I don’t have much time.”
“Oh, Charles,” Sam said, and sobbed.
“A woman did this to me. I never saw her before. She came out of the trees and I said hello and she drew a knife and attacked me. I tried to defend myself but”—Charles stopped and coughed more violently. His gaze rose to Fargo—“I think she was the one you told us about. The woman who attacked you in Sam’s bedroom.”
“I figured it had to be her or her brother.” Fargo scoured the surrounding greenery. “Where did she get to?”
“She tossed me into the pickers and walked off,” Charles related. “The strangest thing is, she never said a word the whole time.”
Fargo realized the female assassin could be watching them at that very moment. He kept his hand on the toothpick.
“I’ll see that she pays,” Sam said, tears trickling down her face. “I’ll see that she’s arrested and hung, so help me God.”
Charles hadn’t taken his eyes off Fargo. “Don’t let them get Sam. Please. They’ll do the same to her as they’ve done to me.”
“Not if I can help it,” Fargo vowed.
Charles smiled. “Thank you.” He tried to raised his hand to Sam but was too weak. “One last thing.”
“Don’t talk. Save your strength.”
“It’s important.” Charles took a long breath. “I found it.”
In her sorrow and confusion, Sam said, “Found what?”
“Where Father buried the chest.”
Sam gripped his shirt. “Did you dig it up? Did the woman who cut you take it with her?”
“No,” Charles said. “I was on my way—” He stopped and his eyes widened and he said, “I’ll be damned.”
And he was gone.
15
Samantha slumped over her brother’s body, buried her face in his shirt, and sobbed and sobbed.
Fargo didn’t intrude on her grief. His every sense alert, he hunkered with his back to an oak. He couldn’t shake the notion that the assassin was nearby, and half hoped she would attack them. Other than the cooing of a dove, the forest was uncommonly still, as if the wild things were holding their collective breaths waiting for the next explosion of violence.
Eventually Samantha stopped. Sniffing, she tenderly touched Charles’s cheek. “We must tell Theodore. The body should be taken to the lodge and kept safe until we can hold a funeral.”
“It might be best to leave him where he is until the hunt is over,” Fargo suggested
“We leave him out here that long and the coyotes and buzzards will get hold of him.”
“Not if we cover the body with tree limbs and brush.”
“Not on your life,” Samantha said.
Fargo understood her feelings but she wasn’t thinking straight. “Pickleman can’t call off the hunt. You heard him. Once it starts it can’t be stopped.”
Samantha spun. “Do you think I give a damn about my father and his insane will when my brother is lying here dead?”
“If you give up, whoever hired the woman who killed Charles will have gotten what they want.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“Is it? Emmett dead. Charles dead. You out of the way. Who would want that? Who stands to gain the most?” Fargo didn’t let her answer. “Tom, Roland, or Charlotte, that’s who.”
“I don’t believe it for an instant.”
“Think, damn it. One of your brothers or your sister had to hire Anders. One of them had to hire the other two assassins.”
“No,” Sam said, without much conviction. “There has to be another explanation.”
“Like hell. Face the truth,” Fargo bluntly declared. “Tom, Roland, or Charlotte. Two of those three are out to win the hunt no matter what it takes.”
“They wouldn’t do that.”
“Tell Charles.”
Samantha stared at her dead sibling and uttered a tiny whine of despair. Slumping, she covered her face with her hands. “Father, what in God’s name have you done to us?”
Fargo rose to comfort her, and froze. Two figures had emerged from the trees. They glared at him and he glared back. “Sam,” he said to warn her.
Sam lowered her arms. “Tom!” she exclaimed. “It’s Charles! He’s been murdered.”
“So I see.” Tom flicked a glance at the body. “It serves him right for being so pigheaded. I tried to talk him out of taking part but he wouldn’t listen. He was as greedy as the rest of us.”
“Oh, Tom,” Sam said.
“Don’t ‘Oh Tom’ me, damn you,” Tom spat. “Charles and I never got along well. Would you have me pretend different now that he’s dead?” He walked over and nudged the still form with his foot. “I can’t say as I’ll miss him much more than I miss Father, and I don’t miss Father at all.”
“How can you be so cold toward your own flesh and blood?”
“Oh, please,” Tom said in disdain. “I’m as unlike the rest of you as night from day. Father always suspected Mother was untrue to him, and to be frank, I tend to agree. For all we know, the stableman was my real father.”
Sam was on her feet, her fists balled. “Don’t you dare talk about Mother like that. Until the day she died she swore that you were hers and Father’s and no one else’s.”
Tom shrugged. “Tramps always make excuses.”
