but if you want me to spell it out, I will.”
“Enough,” Victor Gore said again. “What the young lady does or doesn’t do is her affair.”
“Not if it makes trouble for us,” Rinson broke in. “How can we protect them if they don’t listen? You told them not to wander away from the wagons at night, and what did she do?”
“We can’t force them to listen,” Gore said.
Perkins swore. “I can’t believe my ears. You’re siding with them against us? When we were only doing what you told us to do?”
“To hell with this,” Rinson said, and spun on a boot heel. “From now on these dirt-pushers can do as they please. I won’t lift a finger to help them.” He stalked off and Slag followed.
Perkins was bubbling like an overheated pan about to boil over. He stabbed a finger at Fargo. “This son of a bitch has a reckoning coming, and nothing you can say or do will change that.” He stormed after his friends.
“I’m sorry,” Victor Gore said to Lester. “Sometimes they forget they work for me. I’ll give them a while to simmer down and talk to them again.”
“I don’t think they like us much,” Lester said.
Martha was staring at Rachel, her arms crossed. “As for you, young lady, I can’t say as I approve of your antics. Coming out here to be alone with a man you just met today. What will everyone think?”
“I don’t care,” Rachel said flatly. “I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of.”
“Is that the truth, daughter?”
“All we did was stroll about and admire the stars,” Rachel fibbed. “Then those awful men attacked us.”
“It won’t happen again, miss,” Victor Gore assured her.
“I hope not,” Lester Winston said. “Not if they want the rest of their money. Our agreement was half in advance and half when we reach the Payette River Valley.”
“I’m well aware of the terms we agreed on. And so far I’ve honored them, haven’t I? This incident was regrettable. But my men were only trying to protect your daughter. If they were too zealous, I apologize.”
If Fargo was any judge of character, Victor Gore was sincere. And if that was the case, then there was more going on than met the eye. Unraveling the mystery could take a while. The only thing was, Fargo didn’t have a lot of time. In four days they would reach the Payette River Valley.
And then all hell might break loose.
8
Everyone was up an hour before sunrise. Hasty breakfasts were gobbled and washed down, in Fargo’s case with four steaming cups of coffee. The teams were hitched, mounts were saddled, the children climbed into the wagon beds and the farmers and their wives perched on the front seats. Outriders were sent ahead and to the rear. Flankers moved off to either side. And then, at a shout from Victor Gore, the covered wagons lumbered northward, heading deeper into the dark heart of the wild.
Gore asked Fargo to ride with him.
Fargo didn’t mind. He had been looking for an excuse to pump the man for more information about the Payette River Valley, and maybe glean a hint as to what Gore was really up to. But to Fargo’s surprise, by the middle of the morning he was convinced the former trapper truly did come west again for one last glimpse of his old haunts.
Gore was quite the talker. He went on and on about his trapping days, about the streams he had worked and the plews he had raised. He mentioned how much he missed the annual rendezvous the trappers held.
“Yes, sir. Those were the days,” Gore said fondly. “We were paid hundreds if not thousands for our peltries, and then spent most of it drinking and gambling and outfitting for the next season.”
“You sound as if you would gladly live those times all over again,” Fargo remarked.
“Would I ever! I was young. I was carefree. I lived on the raw edge.” Gore beamed. “Those were some of the best years of my life.”
The heyday of the trappers was a little before Fargo’s time. He had trapped on a few occasions, though, and sold a few mink and ermine pelts, among others.
“I remember it all so clearly,” Gore went on in a dreamy tone. “How cold the water was when I set my traps. How heavy the beaver were when I pulled them out. What it was like skinning and curing the hides so they were just right and would earn top dollar. I remember everything.”
“Did you regret having to give all that up?”
“I hated it so much, I was in a funk for half a year after I went back East. But a man has to make a living and beaver wasn’t in fashion anymore. Damn silk all to hell, anyway.”
Fargo chuckled. Silk hats had replaced beaver. But only until people switched yet again. The public was fickle that way. They were like butterflies flitting from flower to flower. Nothing held their interest for long.
“I envy you, sir,” Gore unexpectedly said.
“In what way?”
“The life you live. I often wish I had bit the bullet and stayed. I might now be as you are. A scout. A frontiersman. Going where I please and doing what I will. Most men would give anything to live as you do.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
“Isn’t that always how it is? We never appreciate the good things right in front of our faces. We’re always looking at the next pasture and thinking it’s greener than our own.”
“I could never go back East to live,” Fargo mentioned. “It would be like living in a cage. Always abiding by laws and rules.” He never had liked being told what to do.
“You have more grit than I, sir. I freely admit it. I gave up the good life too easily.”
After that Gore lapsed into silence.
Fargo thought about all he had learned. The important thing was that Gore’s interest in the Payette River Valley seemed sincere, and his mention of it to the settlers at Fort Bridger appeared to be no more than happenstance.
Fargo let some time go by before he gnawed at the truth anew. “Rinson and his men,” he said to strike up a new conversation. “I’m surprised a man like you would ride with them.”
“They are a bit too zealous, aren’t they?” Gore said. “But that’s only because they take their job seriously. They don’t want anything to happen to Mr. Winston and his people.”
“You say that you never set eyes on any of them before you met them at Fort Bridger?”
Gore nodded. “Coincidence. Or the hand of providence, if you were to ask Mrs. Winston. I needed men and they were available.”
“Lucky for you,” Fargo said.
“If it hadn’t been them, it would have been someone else.”
Fargo shifted in the saddle. Rinson and Slag were off to one side. Both met his gaze with glares. “I’m not one of their favorite gents at the moment.”
“I daresay you’re not. I talked to Mr. Rinson last night after that little incident in the cottonwoods. He thinks you are a troublemaker and up to no good.”
“Does he, now?”
“Yes, indeed. He suspects you are out to rob the farmers. So he and his men are keeping a close eye on you from here on out.”
Fargo tried to look at it from Rinson’s point of view. It was possible, just possible, that if Rinson was genuinely interested in protecting the settlers, he would think it suspicious of him to attach himself to the wagon train as he had done.
“I should tell you,” Victor Gore said. “Mr. Winston and his people don’t have much money. They spent most of what they had buying their wagons and outfitting for their journey.”
“I’m not out to rob them.”
“I hope not. You’re terribly quick with that pistol of yours, and you punch as hard as any man I’ve ever seen, but Mr. Rinson and his men are tough, too. They won’t hesitate to throw lead if they have to.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Gore swatted at a fly. “Rinson sure is clever. I never would have thought of offering myself as a
