Fargo was beginning to think so, too. Maybe they were afraid the shots would attract others. No sooner did the thought enter his head than hooves thudded out on the road, coming from the south. It was a single horse, coming fast. It stopped a pebble’s toss off. “I’ll be damned,” Fargo said, and grinned.
“What?”
“The best friend I have has four legs.”
The Ovaro had either pulled loose of the victoria or the reins had come untied. It stomped a hoof and nickered.
Fargo warily emerged from hiding. Pickleman tried to walk past him and he pushed him back. “The fourth rule is never take anything for granted.”
“How many rules are there?”
“The fifth rule is don’t ask stupid questions when the man who is trying to save your hide is busy saving it.” Fargo patted the Ovaro while probing the undergrowth. Nothing moved. No shots ripped the night. Quickly, he shoved the Henry into the saddle scabbard and forked leather, then reached down. “Come on. We’re lighting a shuck.”
The lawyer grasped his arm and Fargo swung him up.
“Goodness. I’ve never ridden double before. Do I hold on to you or the saddle or what?”
Fargo couldn’t resist. “What.” He reined around and tapped his spurs and brought the Ovaro to a trot. Thanks to the moonlight the road was easy to make out. He stayed in the middle, his hand on the Colt.
“I want to thank you for saving me back there.”
“We’re not safe yet.”
Fargo wasn’t convinced they could relax until a mile had fallen behind them. By then he had slowed to spare the Ovaro. As he felt the tension drain from his taut sinews, it suddenly occurred to him that this had been the second attempt on his life in twenty-four hours. There had been the man and woman on the steamboat and now two assassins in the dark of night in the forest. “I wonder,” he mused.
“You wonder what?”
“You’re going to make some woman a fine wife one day.”
Pickleman didn’t respond right away. When he did, he chuckled. “Oh. I get it. You’re quite the wit. I didn’t expect that of you.”
“Let me guess. You’ve taken the notion that my kind must be as dumb as tree stumps.”
“I’ve met very few frontiersmen, Mr. Fargo. Those I have struck me as uncouth louts only interested in three things. Liquor, women, and having a good time.”
“That’s me, sure enough.”
“No, it’s not. You might fool others but I suspect there is more to you. Much more.”
“If you say so.” Fargo rose in the stirrups. He’d heard the drum of hooves. Drawing rein, he waited.
“What are we doing?” Pickleman asked.
“Do you have ears?”
Presently three riders swept into view, riding hard. Fargo swung the Ovaro broadside so they couldn’t see his gun hand. It would give him a split-second’s advantage, should it come to that.
The three spotted him and slowed. The thick-shouldered man in the lead was holding a rifle and started to raise it but stopped at a bleat of relief from Pickleman.
“Roland? Is that you? Thank God.”
“Theodore?” The man gigged his sorrel up close and stopped. “My God, man. What is going on? The carriage came barreling down on us and we stopped it and found James dead. I remembered you had gone into town earlier and came straightaway to find you.”
“Highwaymen attacked us,” Pickleman said. “Had it not been for Mr. Fargo, here, I would no doubt be as dead as James.”
The man turned to Fargo. He had bushy brows and fingers as thick as spikes and wore a tweed outfit with Hessian boots and a cap. Across his chest was a bandolier of cartridges and on his hip a knife with a stag hilt. “So you’re the man Sam sent for? I’ve heard of you. They say you’re one of the best scouts alive.”
“I get around,” Fargo said.
“Not that it will do you any good this weekend. I know these hills better than anyone.”
Pickleman coughed and said, “Mr. Fargo, this is Roland Clyborn, the second of Thomas’s four sons. His passion is hunting.”
“What was that about this weekend?” Fargo asked.
Roland glanced at the lawyer. “You haven’t told him yet?”
“Sam’s orders.”
“Figures.” Roland turned to Fargo. “A word to the wise: Stay out of this. If I were you, I’d turn around and head back to Hannibal and take the first steamboat downriver.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You will be in trouble up over your head.”
4
Someone once told Fargo that rich people were different from ordinary folks. Fargo found the notion preposterous. He’d met enough of the well-to-do to know there were smart ones and dumb ones, gabby ones and quiet ones, nice ones and bastards, generous ones and selfish sons of bitches. The only difference Fargo could see between rich people and ordinary folks was that rich people had more money.
The Clyborns had enough to buy their own state.
Their mansion covered four acres. Patterned after a European manor, it was three stories high. The walls were made of stone taken from a local quarry. A bewildering array of arches and eaves and minarets ran the length of each side. Windows were everywhere: big windows, small windows, square windows, rectangular windows, even a few round ones. A fortune had been spent on the glass alone. Pickleman casually mentioned that the mansion had fifty-seven rooms. Fargo marveled that it wasn’t more.
Over a dozen outlying buildings surrounded it. There was a barn, a separate stable for the horses, a blacksmith shop, servants’ quarters, a gardener’s hut, a woodshed, and more. A quarter-acre of rosebushes was a testament to the money lavished on the grounds.
An army of servants attended to the family’s needs. All the male servants wore the same purple uniforms as the dead driver, James. All the maids and cooks and cleaning ladies wore purple dresses that went clear down to their ankles.
Roland Clyborn escorted them back to the carriage. He was quiet on the ride but kept glancing at Fargo as if puzzled by something. The only time he spoke was when Pickleman asked him what he had been doing on the road so late.
“I was on my way to the hunting lodge,” Roland replied. “No one has been there in a while and Sam wanted me to be sure the servants have gotten things ready. I don’t think it’s necessary but Sam never has seen the hired help as entirely reliable.”
The two men with him wore purple uniforms. Neither reacted to the insult.
“Is everyone else ready for tomorrow?” the lawyer asked.
“They more or less hate the idea but it’s not as if any of us have a choice,” Roland responded.
“Don’t blame me. All of this was your father’s idea and he
Roland snorted. “That’s a polite way of saying he wasn’t sane. But we both know better, don’t we? My father was the sanest man alive. He never did anything without a reason.”
“True,” Pickleman said. “Which makes me believe his motive in this case was to make all of you suffer.”
Fargo interrupted with, “Suffer over what?” He figured it had something to do with his being sent for.
“You’ll find out soon enough. I don’t daresay. Sam has reserved that right.”
“And what Sam wants, Sam gets,” Roland said.
After that, not a word until they came to the victoria. Roland had stopped the runaways and tied them so they wouldn’t go anywhere while he and the servants raced up the road to find out what had happened to
