“What are you doing here?” Fargo couldn’t keep the suspicion out of his voice.
“Marshal Tibbit sent me.” Worthington patted the animal he was riding. “This is his horse. I was in town with my family and he came up and said as how you were out here alone looking for whoever took Myrtle and he’d feel better if you had someone to watch your back.”
That sounded like something Tibbit would do. Fargo lowered the Henry. “Seen any sign of anyone?”
“Besides you?” The farmer shook his head. “Not many folks come out this way except a few hunters now and then.”
“Do you know the area pretty well?” Fargo thought to ask.
“Fair, I’d say,” Worthington replied. “Me and mine mainly eat beef and chicken but now and then I get a hankering for venison so I’ve roamed these parts some. Why?”
“Come with me.” Fargo climbed on the Ovaro and led the farmer to the canyon. “Ever been down there?”
“Clear at the bottom? I sure haven’t. Far as I know, there isn’t a way down. Not on a horse, anyhow.”
“But you’ve never really tried.”
“No, I haven’t. Never had any need. Why? Are you trying to figure out where Myrtle got to?”
Fargo nodded.
“You ask me, it’s a townsman. None of the farmers or ranchers would do so terrible a thing.”
“Know all of them well?”
“Only a few,” Worthington admitted.
“Then you can’t really say.”
“No. But when you work with the soil day in and day out it gives you a respect for life. Plus all the farmers hereabouts are family men. Quite a few, like me, have daughters. A father would never be so vile as to abduct one.”
Fargo wasn’t convinced. He’d witnessed more than his share of the unsavory side of human nature, enough to know not to take anyone for granted. “Let’s head for town.”
“I came all this way for nothing?” Worthington chuckled. “That Tibbit. I like him, you understand, but he’s not cut out for the law business.”
“To hear him tell it, he’s done fine except for the missing girls.”
“It’s easy to be a lawman when no one ever breaks the law,” Worthington said. “Haven is plumb peaceable. No shootings, no knifings or fights.” He paused, and grinned. “Not until you came to town, anyhow. The most Tibbit ever has to do is shoo a pig off the street or once in a blue moon have a drunk sleep it off in his jail. The rest of the time he sits in his office with his boots on his desk and takes naps or reads or stuffs himself.”
“You must have talked to others about the missing girls,” Fargo said. “Doesn’t anyone have any ideas?”
“Mister, we have talked ourselves hoarse. Every time one goes missing, it’s all we talk about for weeks.”
“I take it everyone would like to see whoever is to blame be caught?”
“That goes without saying. I ever catch the bastard ...” Worthington held out a big hand and closed it tight, his knuckles crackling like walnut shells under a nutcracker.
The farmer was a talker. The rest of the ride, he related to Fargo about how irrigation was the key to raising crops and how the soil wasn’t the most fertile in the world but it sufficed and how much he loved working the land and seeing things grow and selling the harvest.
“Farm life is the only life for me.” Worthington ended his recital. “My pa was a farmer and his pa before him. It’s in the Worthington blood.”
Ahead spread the field and beyond it the buildings. Fargo was looking forward to a visit to the saloon. He would treat himself to a bottle of whiskey and a game of cards. Or maybe he would pay the widow Chatterly a visit. He smiled, only to have it turn into a scowl as three figures with drawn six-guns separated from the last of the trees and blocked their way.
“Hold on there,” Worthington said, drawing rein. “What’s this about?”
“He knows,” Harvey Stansfield said with a curt nod at Fargo.
Dugan nodded. “Thinks he can thump us and get away with it. In broad daylight in the saloon, no less.”
“I heard about that,” the farmer said.
McNee pointed his revolver at Fargo’s chest. “No one does that to us. Not ever.”
“Ten-year-olds,” Fargo said.
Harvey came close to the Ovaro. “You walloped us good this morning, mister. Now it’s our turn. Climb down. Do it real slow or we’ll blow you to kingdom come.” He glanced at Worthington. “You stay out of this, Sam. It’s between the scout and us.”
“Marshal Tibbit won’t like it.”
“As if we care what that lunkhead likes or doesn’t. The bartender told us that Tibbit stood and watched Fargo, here, tear into us, yet he didn’t lift a finger to stop it.”
“The law dog will get his one day,” McNee vowed.
Fargo’s right hand held the reins. His left was on his hip. He started to inch his right toward his holster and Dugan took a long stride and jammed the muzzle of a Smith & Wesson against his knee.
“Go ahead and try but you’ll be using a cane the rest of your days.”
Harvey Stansfield said, “Look at him, boys. Sitting that saddle so calm and peaceable. He doesn’t suspect what we have in store.”
“You’re not fixing to shoot him, are you?” Worthington asked. “I won’t have any truck with killing.”
“As much as I’d love to blow out his wick, he’s not worth going to prison for, or worse,” Harvey said. “We aim to give him what he gave us, is all.” He wagged his revolver and said to Fargo, “Get off that pinto.”
“It’s an Ovaro.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The markings.”
Harvey swore. “Quit your damn stalling and get down. I won’t say it again.”
Dugan bared his teeth. “I can’t wait to start pounding on you, mister. By the time we’re done half your ribs will be stove in.”
“And most of your front teeth,” McNee added.
Fargo put his hands on the saddle horn and slid his boot from the stirrup. He slowly swung his leg over and down. The stallion was now between him and Dugan and McNee.
“About time,” Harvey snapped. He glanced toward his friends. “Who wants to start the dance?”
“I do,” Fargo said, and sprang.
7
Skye Fargo wasn’t an ice-in-his-veins killer. He didn’t go around shooting people unless they were trying to shoot him. Harvey, Dugan and McNee—the three jackasses, as Fargo was starting to think of them—had made it plain they intended to stomp him into the dirt. That was why he leaped at Harvey with his fists flying instead of resorting to his Colt and blowing all three to hell.
Fargo slammed his fist into Harvey’s jaw and Harvey tottered. Fargo went after him; he swatted Harvey’s gun arm and punched Harvey in the gut and in the face. Sputtering and wheezing, Harvey sank to his knees. Fargo whirled and slipped close to the Ovaro as McNee and Dugan came running to help Harvey.
McNee was looking past the Ovaro and never saw Fargo or the cross to the jaw that pitched him facedown in the grass. Dugan was running so fast that he tripped over McNee, squawked like a startled hen, and fell on top of him.
Fargo drew his Colt. He slammed it down hard on the back of Dugan’s skull as Dugan sought to rise, then smashed it against McNee’s temple as McNee tried to push Dugan off. That left Harvey, who was still holding his stomach and taking great gulps of air. Fargo stepped over to him and Harvey looked up.
“Not again.”
“You are one stupid son of a bitch,” Fargo said, and whipped the Colt up and in. The thud was music to his ears. He poked all three with his boot to be sure they were out cold and then slid the Colt into his holster.
