Hannibal Rising

Fargo rose up for another look around. He couldn’t see much for all the trees. The lodge had to be a quarter of a mile away, maybe more. Reaching it would take some doing.

“Well?” Charlotte prompted.

Fargo squatted. “It could be that’s what they want us to do. Panic and run for the lodge and right into their guns.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’m a good guesser.”

Sam said, “Our other option is to stay put. The shots were bound to be heard. Pickleman will come. Or maybe Roland or Tom.”

“If they’re still alive,” Fargo said.

Charlotte hissed in anger. “First Emmett and then Charles and now Amanda. I want to find the vermin who killed them. I want to see them suffer for what they’ve done.”

“It’s a pity we weren’t allowed weapons,” Sam said.

Fargo had never missed his Colt and Henry more. This was why he never went anywhere without them. In times of danger a gun was a man’s best friend.

“Do we try for the lodge or not?” Charlotte asked.

“We try,” Fargo replied. “But we do it my way.” He lowered onto his belly and crabbed backward. “Do as I do. And from here on out no talking unless I say it’s safe.”

The sisters mimicked him. Charlotte’s dress snagged on a rock and she started to swear but stopped at a sharp gesture from Fargo. He was a ghost compared to them. He glided along making very little sound; they made a lot. It didn’t help that their dresses kept catching on the brush, or that Charlotte kept swatting at a fly.

Fargo halted after only a hundred feet. “We’re making it too easy for them,” he whispered.

“What are you talking about?” Charlotte asked.

Samantha understood. “I can’t help it. I try to be quiet but I don’t have much practice at it.”

“We should wait for dark,” Fargo proposed.

“And leave poor Amanda lying back there for the coyotes to eat?” Charlotte shook her head. “I should say not.”

“They’ll feed on you, too, if we’re not more careful.”

“Look. It’s not that far to the lodge. All we have to do is reach it and we’re safe.” Charlotte began to rise and jerked her arm away when Fargo went to stop her. “I’m tired of skulking about. Let’s run for it and to hell with the assassins.”

From out of nowhere streaked a knife. Spinning end over end, it struck Charlotte in the chest with a sickening thuck. The blade buried itself to the hilt. She cried out and clutched it.

“No!” Fargo said.

Charlotte wrenched on the knife. It came out—and so did a fountain of scarlet, spurting like water from a hose. She gasped and tottered and bleated, “God, not me, too.” With that she toppled.

“Charlotte!” Samantha scrambled to scoop her sister into her arms but Fargo was quicker. He scooped Sam into his and darted in among a cluster of pines. She fought him but he held fast, saying into her ear, “Do you want to wind up like her?”

Sam went limp. She sobbed and covered her mouth and then pressed her face to him and cried.

Fargo let her. The pines protected them for the moment. He was sorry about Charlotte but she had been too stubborn for her own good. Her death meant Tom or Roland had hired the brother and sister killers. Or did it? The pair had killed Anders. The pair had killed Cletus Brun, Tom’s partner in the hunt. That made it unlikely Tom had hired them. Which left one person, the one he never would have suspected, the one he had liked from the start since they had so much in common. “I’ll be damned.”

“What?” Sam asked through her tears.

“Nothing.” Fargo figured she had endured enough in the past few minutes. The revelation could wait.

Sam sat up. She sniffled and wiped her sleeve across her face. “Do you think they’re still out there?”

“At least one of them is.”

“I bet you could make it to the lodge without me to slow you down.”

“No.”

“I don’t want you to die on my account.”

“This isn’t about you,” Fargo told her. “It’s not about your brothers or your sister or the chest your father buried. It hasn’t been since the steamboat.”

“Then what?” Sam asked in puzzlement.

“It’s about me. Those bastards tried to kill me on the Yancy. That made it personal. You could say you want to be shed of me as your partner right this second and I wouldn’t leave. I’m not going anywhere until I’ve paid them back.”

“An eye for an eye—is that your creed?”

“You’re goddamn right it is.” Fargo was growing angrier the more he talked. Reining in his temper, he finished with, “I’m in this to the end whether you want me to be or not.”

Her hand found his. “I couldn’t make it without you.”

Off in the woods something moved. Fargo caught a glimpse. He doubted it was a deer. Putting a finger to his lips, he backed away and motioned for her to follow.

For one of the few times since Fargo met her, fright showed in Samantha’s eyes. She had lost two brothers and seen her sister killed and she knew she might be next. He didn’t blame her for being scared.

It was cat and mouse and they were the mice. Fargo could never be sure they had given their stalker the slip. He stayed low, always hugging the shadows, always staying close to trees and thickets so the assassin wouldn’t have a clear shot or be able to throw another knife.

They had been at it for nearly ten minutes when Fargo drew up short. Up ahead the undergrowth moved. Either the killer had circled around in front of them or it was an animal. But he was wrong.

Out of the vegetation came Tom Clyborn. He was searching the ground and hadn’t seen them. He was so close that when he did, he gave a start and blurted, “Sam! Fargo! Why didn’t you say something?”

Fargo seized Tom’s forearm and forcibly pulled him down. Tom resisted and opened his mouth to object but Fargo clamped his other hand over it. “One of the killers is after us. Keep still and keep your voice down.”

Tom desisted. When Fargo removed his hand he whispered, “You’re being stalked?”

Sam nodded.

“I haven’t seen hide nor hair of anyone since I left you earlier. Have you seen any of the others?”

“Charlotte and Amanda,” Sam said, and sorrowfully informed him, “They’re both dead.”

“Charlotte too?” Tom bowed his head. “Damn it. Now there are only three of us left.”

“So far as we know.”

“Eh? Oh. You mean Roland might be dead, too?” Tom gazed about. “Where’s the killer? Which one is it, Fargo? The man or the woman you told us about?”

“It could be either. Or both.”

“I hope it’s the woman. She’ll be easier to fight.”

Fargo remembered how skilled the mystery woman was with a knife and how she hopped around like a jackrabbit. “I wouldn’t count on that if I were you. They’re both good at what they do.”

“What’s your plan?”

Sam said, “We’re trying to reach the hunting lodge. Pickleman needs to be told, and whether he wants to or not, I’m getting word to the sheriff and we’re ending this stupid hunt once and for all. The will be damned.”

“Damn Father, you mean,” Tom said. “This is all his fault. Him and his hate for us.”

Fargo broke in with, “We must keep on the move.”

“Lead the way,” Tom said. “I don’t have any idea where the lodge is.”

Fargo nodded and went to start off when an idea struck him. He scanned the forest and said half to himself, “It might work.”

“What might?” Sam asked.

“I thought we are heading for the lodge?” Tom said.

“The killer might not know you’re with us,” Fargo explained. “If the two of you go on alone, he might think it’s your sister and me.”