Fargo crouched and bent lower and his skin crawled as if with a thousand ants.
It was a woman’s head. Most of the flesh had long since rotted and her skin had withered. Her hair was plastered to what was left of her face and down over the sides of her skull. She had died with her mouth agape in a twisted scream.
Fargo gripped the hair and turned the head so the face was to the ground. Wiping his hand on his pants, he edged forward. More lightning revealed a cliff that he took to be solid stone until he discerned the black maw of what might be a cave.
The Ghoul’s lair, Fargo suspected. He wedged the Henry’s stock to his shoulder. Staying low, he moved each foot with care. He was at the cave opening when his foot bumped something. He glanced down and his skin did more crawling. The thing he had bumped was a withered hand, possibly from the same woman.
Fargo looked up just as lightning streaked the firmament. A dozen feet in stood a figure.
There was only one person it could be.
Fargo had found the Ghoul.
18
Fargo trained the Henry on the center of the figure and curled his finger around the trigger. Another instant and he would have fired. But something about the figure gave him pause. He waited for the next bolt to light up the shelf, and when it did, he slowly straightened. As wary as a cougar, he moved into the cave.
It smelled of food odors and woodsmoke and human sweat. He was close enough now that the next flash confirmed what he thought he had seen—the figure had long flowing hair and its arms and legs were outspread. More bolts revealed more details: the blackened embers of a fire; a mess of blankets; a shovel and an ax; the haunch of a deer; a lantern, and beside it a box of lucifers. Hunkering, he soon had the lantern lit.
In its glow Fargo saw the figure clearly. She was young, barely twenty, and as naked as the day she had been born. Her wrists and ankles were bound to poles imbedded in the cave floor. Her head hung low, her hair half over her face, and her eyes were closed. Either she was unconscious or she was dead. A gag suggested the former.
Fargo raised the lantern higher. The cave went back another ten feet and ended at a rock wall. Lying over near the right wall were female undergarments and a pair of shoes. The woman’s, he suspected. He went up to her, set the lantern down, and lightly touched a finger to her throat. There was a pulse, weak but steady. He was lowering his hand when her eyelids fluttered and her eyes slowly opened. They were dull and vacant.
“Are you Myrtle Spencer?”
At the sound of his voice she stiffened and stark terror wiped away the dullness. She mewed in fear and weakly tugged at the ropes. Her wrists and ankles, he saw, were caked with dried blood.
“It’s all right. I’m here to help you.”
The woman stopped mewing and blinked. Tears started to flow and she quaked from head to toe.
“Where is the man who did this to you?” Fargo asked. “Where is the Ghoul?”
The woman went on quaking. Her tears went on flowing.
Fargo set down the Henry and drew the Arkansas toothpick from his ankle sheath. “I’ll have you down in a moment.” He cut the rope on her right ankle and then on her left, careful not to cut her. Rising, he sliced the rope on her left wrist and she sagged and would have collapsed if he hadn’t hooked an arm around her to support her. She was still quaking. He cut the rope on her right wrist and she fell against him. With great care he carried her to the blankets and went to lay her on them.
Myrtle Spencer, if that is who she was, looked down and broke into violent convulsions. She shrieked and struck at his chest and kicked but she was so weak he hardly felt the blows. Baffled, he drew back.
“What’s the matter? I need to put you down.”
The woman grew still. But when he went to lay her on the blankets she whimpered and kicked. At last he understood. Backing away from the blankets, he eased her to the ground. She didn’t resist. He pried at the gag but the knots were so tight he had to resort to the toothpick. “Are you Miss Spencer?”
She stared at him without answering. Or, rather, past him, at the roof of the cave.
“Myrtle Spencer?” Fargo tried once more.
The vacant quality was in her eyes. They lacked any spark of vitality whatsoever.
“I’m with a posse. We’re after the Ghoul.”
She might as well have been on another world.
“Do you know where he got to?”
Nothing.
“Would you like water or food?”
Nothing at all.
Fargo stood and brought the undergarments over and with a lot of lifting and him doing all the work, he slipped a chemise over her head and shoulders and pulled it down as low as it would go. He had just finished and stepped back when Marshal Tibbit bellowed.
“A cave, by God, boys!”
Boots thudded and scraped.
Into the cave rushed Joseph Spencer. He came to Fargo’s side, and groaned. His face was pale as a sheet. “Myrtle, honey? It’s your pa.”
She showed no more life than she had with Fargo.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Joseph knelt and gently clasped her hand. “You’re safe now, girl.”
Fargo was aware of other men ringing them. Tibbit was on his left, dripping wet and grinning.
“We found her! We actually found her. This will show everyone I’m not worthless.”
Fargo almost hit him.
“Myrtle?” Joseph touched her cheek and her brow. “What’s wrong with her? Why won’t she say anything?”
“Could be she’s in shock,” a man said.
“Could be she’s been scared out of her mind,” said another.
“Myrtle?” Joseph lightly shook her shoulders but all she did was go on staring her eerie empty stare. “God, no.”
“Where’s the Ghoul?” a townsman asked, and the rest of the men began moving about the cave searching when it was plain he wasn’t there.
Marshal Tibbit beamed at Fargo. “You did it. You said you would find him and you did. We’re all in your debt, me most of all.”
“It’s not over,” Fargo said.
Outside, the storm was abating. The rain had reduced to a drizzle and the lightning flashes were fewer and farther between.
“Did you see the Ghoul? Did you get a good look at him?”
Fargo shook his head.
“Well, he can’t have gotten far. We’ll get him yet. With your help he’s as good as caught.”
Fargo could have pointed out that the rain had washed away any tracks.
He reclaimed the Henry and went to the cave mouth. The worst of the thunderhead was to the east and the clouds overhead had gone from black to gray.
Sam Worthington came over and stood staring into the drizzle. “He’s gotten clean away, hasn’t he?”
“He has,” Fargo said.
“Damn.” The big farmer looked over his shoulder. “That poor girl. She’s a friend of my daughter’s. You should have known her. Always so sweet and kind and forever smiling.” He ran a callused hand across his brow. “What could he have done to her?”
“You know as well as I do.”
“Yes. Yes, I suppose I do. I just don’t want to admit it. It goes against everything that is decent in this world. I don’t understand how a thing like this can happen.”
“Ask God,” Fargo said.
