The farmer scowled. “That’s a terrible thing to say. The parson would call it blasphemy.”
“Have the parson ask Myrtle Spencer how she feels.”
Worthington looked at him and said, not without admiration, “You’re a hard man.”
“It’s a hard life.”
Marshal Tibbit bustled over looking as happy as if he had just eaten a fresh-baked apple pie. “We can’t get a word out of her but I bet the doc can.” He scanned the wet wasteland and nudged Fargo. “The rain has about stopped. How soon can you head out after the Ghoul?”
“He’s long gone.”
“He can’t have more than half an hour start on us,” Tibbit said. “Forty minutes at the most. Find which direction he took and me and five or six others will go with you. The rest are taking Myrtle back to town.”
“I’ll look around,” Fargo said. Now that he thought about it, there hadn’t been any sign the Ghoul kept his mount in the cave. It had to be elsewhere. He hiked to the north end of the shelf. The slope beyond was too steep for a horse. He walked to the south and was thirty feet past the cave when he spied a game trail leading toward the crest. Made, no doubt, by whatever used the cave before the Ghoul moved in. Fargo headed up, the footing treacherous on the wet rocks. In spots the climb was almost sheer. Eventually he gained the summit and found what he was looking for: a stake and a rope.
Essentially flat, the top of the mesa was sprinkled with brush and boulders. The ground was mostly dirt, not rock. Old tracks, extremely faint but not entirely washed away, pointed to the south.
Fargo turned and hurried down the mesa to the Ovaro. As he was crossing the shelf someone called his name.
Most of the posse had gathered outside the cave, apparently waiting for Joseph Spencer and his daughter.
Marshal Tibbit had spotted him and came over. “Where are you off to in such a rush?”
“With luck I can end this by nightfall.” Fargo continued walking, forcing the lawman to keep up if he wanted to keep talking.
“What do you mean by end it?”
“Don’t play stupid.”
Tibbit gripped his arm. “Hold on. Why must I keep repeating myself? If we can, we’re to take the Ghoul into custody.”
“If
“Damn it. You’re the most pigheaded individual I’ve ever met. You can’t go around killing people because you feel like it.”
“The Ghoul does.”
“But you’re not him!” Tibbit exclaimed in exasperation. “You are obligated by law to take him alive.”
“Your law, not mine.”
Tibbit puffed out his cheeks in anger. “You’re a citizen of the United States, are you not? As such, you are under her jurisdiction, and the law of the land is that you can’t go around killing folks because they cross you or you blame them for nearly being lynched.”
“Save the speech.”
Marshal Tibbit jerked on Fargo’s arm. “Goddamn you. No one is above the law. Not me, not you, not anyone.”
Fargo patted his Colt. “Out here the only law is this.”
“I refuse to bandy words. If you go after the Ghoul you’re to bring him back alive if it is at all possible. I mean it.”
Fargo looked at him. “You don’t get it yet, do you?”
“Get what?”
“You never mean anything. You have no more backbone than mud.”
“That’s not true.”
Fargo pulled his arm from the lawman’s grasp and was over the side before Tibbit could object.
By now the storm was miles away. Here and there a golden shaft pierced the clouds. Fargo came to the stand and climbed on the Ovaro and descended to the bottom of the mesa. He rode to the south and was at the extreme southern end when his face lit with a smile. “Got you,” he said.
The tracks were so fresh some had rainwater in the bottom. They came down off the mesa and went off across the wasteland, passing close to the charnel pit. Fargo averted his face and held his breath until he was well past it.
Save for the clink of the Ovaro’s hooves and the creak of Fargo’s saddle, silence reigned. Again and again he rose in the stirrups but he failed to spot his quarry.
The clouds broke apart and the sun shone steady, as hot as ever. Steam rose from the ground and the air shimmered to invisible waves. In no time the puddles had burned away and the land looked as parched and barren as ever.
So far off they were stick figures, Fargo spotted a man on a horse. He brought the Ovaro to a trot. Soon the distance narrowed. He slowed after a while to spare the stallion but he chafed at the need.
The wasteland gave way to forest. By Fargo’s reckoning he was ten to twelve miles west of Haven. He found the Ghoul’s tracks easily enough and was surprised to discover that the Ghoul had turned east. He’d figured the killer would stay away from human habitation but it appeared that the Ghoul was in fact making a beeline for town. At first it made no sense. Why would the Ghoul risk being lynched? Fargo wondered. Then it hit him. No one knew who the Ghoul was. The killer could mingle with the townsfolk with no one the wiser.
Fargo rode faster but it was several hours after sundown when he finally reached the outskirts. He lost the tracks in the jumble of prints in the main street, and swore.
Fargo doubted the posse had returned yet. Haven lay quiet and deceptively peaceful under the stars. Two men were talking in front of the livery and an older woman was enjoying the night air in a chair on her front porch. Those were the only people he saw.
Fargo went to the boardinghouse. He tied the Ovaro to the picket fence and walked up the steps to the front door. He didn’t knock. He was about to take the stairs to his room when he heard voices in the parlor. One was Helsa’s. Thinking she might be willing to fix him a meal, he walked down the hall and stopped in the doorway.
Helsa was in the rocking chair, her knitting in her lap. She had a strange expression on her face and appeared almost as white as her picket fence, as if all the blood had drained from her body. The skin under her eyes glistened with recently shed tears. On seeing him she gave a tiny shake of her head as if to suggest he was intruding.
“I thought I heard you talking to someone.”
“You did,” said a male voice, and a man rose from behind the rocking chair with a Spencer in his hands. He wore a black hat and a black jacket and was in need of a shave. “Permit me to introduce myself,” he said with exaggerated politeness. “Most everyone hereabouts calls me the Ghoul.”
19
Fargo made no move to draw his Colt. He would be shot dead before he cleared leather. He looked at Helsa and then at the Ghoul, trying to figure out why the Ghoul had come here, of all places, and then he noticed that the Ghoul was about her age and what women would call handsome and had piercing blue eyes.
“Oh, hell.”
Helsa coughed and said hoarsely, “Mr. Fargo, I’d like you to meet my husband, James Chatterly.”
“Your dead husband,” Fargo said.
“I thought he was,” Helsa said softly. “All this time I’ve been in misery, and it was a ruse.”
James Chatterly grinned. “A damned clever ruse, my dear, you’ll have to admit.” He stepped clear of the rocking chair, the muzzle of the Spencer fixed squarely on Fargo.
“You’ve been taking the young women,” Fargo said.
“I’ve been taking the younger women,” James Chatterly echoed.
“And others when you find them.”
“And others when I find them, yes. Once I started I couldn’t stop. It felt too good.”
