“You’re making a mockery of the will,” Pickleman complained, but he put the toothpick in his valise. “Carry on as you were. I’ll arrange for these bodies to be taken to the lodge and will hold them there until the hunt is over.”
Sam smiled and patted his cheek. “I knew I could count on you, Theodore. You’ve always been a friend as well as our counselor.”
“To you, perhaps, but to your father I was never anything but his lawyer. Another menial to be bossed around as he saw fit.”
“He confided things in you he never confided in the rest of us.”
“Only because he knew my lips were sealed against ever revealing his secrets. There’s such a thing as attorney-client privilege.” Pickleman regarded the bodies. “Off you go. There’s a lot I must get done and still do my duty as monitor of this horrible hunt.”
“Even you agree it’s wrong,” Sam said.
“But not for the same reasons.” Pickleman gazed at the wall of green. “Let me see. Which direction would the lodge be?” He started walking to the east.
“Not that way,” Fargo said, and extended his arm in the direction the lawyer should go. “The lodge is that way. To the northwest.”
“Thank you. But if you don’t mind my asking, how can you tell which is which?”
Fargo squinted up at the sun. “There’s all the help you need. It rises in the east and sets in the west. Remember that and you can never get lost.”
“Maybe you can’t but I can.” Pickleman gazed uncertainly skyward. “What about north and south?”
“It’s early yet so the sun is still in the eastern half of the sky,” Fargo explained. “Raise your left arm and point at it. Like that. Now raise your right arm. Your left is pointing east, your right is pointing west, your face is to the north and your backside to the south.”
“How do you remember all that? And what if it happens to be the afternoon and the sun is to the west?” Pickleman shook his head. “I would make a sorry plainsman. Give me my law books any day.” He hurried off in the right direction.
Sam said to Tom, “Thank you for standing up for us and getting him to change his mind.”
Tom laughed. “I didn’t do it for you, stupid. I did it for me. I couldn’t very well demand he permit me to continue the hunt and not you when both our partners broke the rules.” He headed off. “Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a chest I need to find.”
“He’ll never change,” Sam said.
Fargo was thinking of the toothpick and his Colt. Thank God it wasn’t the Rockies where he’d have to be on the look-out for roving grizzlies and painted hostiles.
Sam looked down at her hands. She gave a slight shudder and said in horror, “I just noticed. I have Charles’s blood on me.”
“Wash it off. I’ll keep watch.” Fargo turned his back to the creek and assumed she would do as he suggested. Instead, she came over and stood so close to him, her breasts brushed his arm.
“Do you know what would be wonderful right about now?”
“For you to have a six-gun hid under your dress.”
“No, silly. A bath.”
All Fargo could do was stare.
“Why are you looking at me like that? I’m sweaty and smelly and I have blood on me. What’s more natural than to take a bath? That pool is deep enough. We could sit and let the water wash over us. It will be grand.”
“We?”
“You can’t expect me to do it alone. Shed your buckskins and join me. It won’t take long.”
Fargo glanced at Charles and then at Brun and then at the shadowed woods and finally at her. “Was everyone in your family born with empty space between their ears?”
“Whoever stabbed my brother and shot that oaf are long gone. Please. I really want to wash this blood off.”
“You can jump in the creek if you want but not me.” Fargo had credited her with more common sense. “I like breathing too much.”
“All right, then. Be that way.” Sam flounced to the bank and slid down to the water’s edge where she began stripping with her back to him.
Fargo moved to a log and sat facing the woods. He heard her mutter, and grinned. His grin died when he thought he spied movement off in the undergrowth. He tensed and braced for the crack of another shot.
The vegetation parted and a brown shape stepped timidly into view. It was a doe, her ears up, looking right and left. She had caught his scent but didn’t know where he was.
“Howdy, girl.”
That was all it took. Wheeling, she showed her tail and bolted in long leaps that swiftly carried her out of sight.
“What did you say?” Samantha asked.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“You were talking to yourself? And you accused me of having space between my ears.”
Fargo chuckled. Her dander was up. Most females took criticism about as well as most males took being called yellow. He glanced back and saw her bare back and her luxurious hair falling past her shoulders and entertained a notion he shouldn’t. “No,” he said out loud.
“What was that? Or are you talking to yourself again?”
“Hurry up and wash and get dressed,” Fargo said more gruffly than he intended.
“I’ll thank you not to be so bossy. I hired you, remember? Not the other way around.”
Fargo heard her wade out.
“Goodness, this water is cold. I have gooseflesh all over me.”
“No,” Fargo said again.
“I beg your pardon? You’ll have to speak up.”
Fargo fought with himself, and lost. He shifted on the log so he could see her and the forest, both. “Oh God,” he breathed.
Samantha had reached the middle of the pool. Sunlight played over her superb body, showing every detail: the velvet sheen of her neck, the upturned peaks on her twin mounds, her flat tummy, and bushy thatch and smooth thighs. She bent and dipped her hands in the water and her breasts jiggled. Her bottom was two smooth moons.
“No,” Fargo said, more quietly than before.
“The water is so clear I can see the bottom. There are small fish in here. And I saw a frog on the other side.” Sam went on splashing.
Fargo couldn’t take his eyes off her. He felt himself stir, and whispered to himself, “No, damn me.”
“Now that I’m getting used to the water it’s not bad,” Sam informed him while slowly sinking in to her waist. She splashed water on her neck and her breasts and giggled girlishly. “I needed this.”
Fargo imagined one of her nipples in his mouth, and stood. Self-preservation battled lust and lust won. With a last glance at the vegetation, he moved to the top of the bank.
“Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind?”
Fargo sat and tugged on a boot. “If we get killed it will be your fault.”
Samantha cupped water in both hands, placed her hands on her breasts, and slowly rubbed. “If you come in, you must promise to behave yourself.”
“Like hell,” Skye Fargo said.
17
There were times when a man knew he was making a mistake but he made it anyway. Times when a man knew he was being as dumb as a tree stump but he couldn’t help himself. Times when a tiny voice in the back of his mind warned, “Don’t do this!” and he did it. Times when, like now, Fargo wanted to kick himself. He stripped off his
