Fargo figured she was joking until he saw the look on her face. “I doubt the Almighty brought me here.”
“I take it you’re not a religious man? Well, I can’t claim to be all that God-fearing myself. But I have been praying for deliverance, and there you sit, willing to help us. If that’s not a miracle, I don’t know what is.”
Fargo wasn’t one of those people who saw omens in everyday occurrences. Some Indian tribes did. An owl would fly over their village, and they would take that as a sign of good fortune. To him, it was just an owl that happened to fly past at that moment. Some whites were the same way. A man dying of thirst in the desert might stumble on a tank in the rocks and call it divine deliverance. To Fargo, it was coincidence or a lot of luck.
“Be that as it may,” Mary was saying, “I don’t want you hurt on my account. Sorry, on our account.”
Nelly broke in with, “I don’t want you hurt, either.”
“Me, either,” Jayce evidently felt obliged to add.
Fargo swallowed some coffee and put his cup on the saucer. “There’s just one thing I need to know. Do you want to get out of here or not?”
Mary sighed. “Have we had enough of mountain life? Of barely scraping by? Of going days without food? Of not having decent clothes? Of having to haul water from the stream? Are we tired of the scorching heat of summer and the freezing cold of winter? Of having to chop down a forest of wood to make it through until spring?” She paused. “What do you think?”
“I want out of here so much, I cry myself to sleep at night,” Nelly said softly.
“I sort of like it,” Jayce said. “except for the bears and the mountain lions and the wolves. Oh, and the rattlesnakes. Oh, and the hostiles, too.”
Fargo nodded. “I’ll get you out, but you have to abide by what I say. We do things my way and only my way.” Otherwise they were likely to get themselves killed.
Mary looked at her children. “He’s saying it will be dangerous. He’s saying we could die.”
“Whatever you need, Mr. Fargo,” Nelly said.
“I’ll do whatever Ma says to do,” was Jayce’s response.
Fargo pushed back his chair. Thanks to the sleep and the food, he truly felt like a new man. His wounds hurt but he had always been good at bearing pain. “I’m going for a ride,” he announced. “I want to look the valley over.”
Mary quickly said, “I can go with you to show you around if you’d like. That is, if you don’t mind riding double.”
“I reckon I could put up with you,” Fargo said with a grin. “But the kids aren’t to step out that door until we get back.”
“You heard him,” Mary said.
“Yes, Ma.”
“What if I have to. . . . you know?”
“Then you use the outhouse. But you scoot right back inside and you keep the door barred.”
Tull’s horse was a sorrel. It was in a corral made of trimmed limbs at the back of the cabin. The saddle and saddle blanket had been hung over the top rail. Fargo went up to the horse and patted it, taking its measure. Some horses spooked easy or were biters or would as soon stomp a man to death as let him ride them. The sorrel seemed to have a good disposition. It didn’t fight the bridle, and it stood still as he threw the saddle blanket on.
“Let me,” Mary said, coming up beside him. She had a red shawl over her shoulders and an old blue bonnet on her head. What with her golden hair and her green eyes, she compared favorably to other beauties Fargo had known.
“I’m not helpless.”
“Oh, I forgot. You’re male.”
Grinning, Fargo swung the saddle on top of the saddle blanket. He raised the stirrup and did the cinch.
“We can take as long as you want looking around,” Mary said. “I told Nelly and Jayce we might be awhile.”
“Did you?” Fargo asked, and was rewarded with another blush.
“I didn’t know what you have in mind. I mean, how far you want to go. Or how much you want to see.”
“I want to go all the way.” Fargo locked eyes with her. “I want to see all there is to see.”
“I’m at your disposal.” Mary’s blush deepened.
Before climbing on, Fargo shoved the Sharps into the scabbard. He gritted his teeth, gripped the saddle horn, and forked leather, expecting the pain to be a lot worse than it turned out to be. Leaning down, he offered his hand.
“Are you sure? I can do it myself. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Fargo hoisted her up. A tap of his spurs and they were out of the corral. She looped her arms around his waist.
“I haven’t had time to myself in a coon’s age,” Mary mentioned. “This will be a treat. If only it wasn’t so bitterly cold.”
“Don’t worry,” Fargo said. “I have ways of keeping us warm.”
9
Frank Harper had built the cabin fifty yards from the nearest stream. He could have built it closer for convenience, but as Mary explained to Fargo, “My husband thought it best if the cabin was deep in the trees. He figured we were less likely to be visited by hostiles.”
Fargo grunted. Yes, the cabin was well hidden, but the smoke from the chimney gave their presence away just as surely.
The valley floor was mostly open. Again, Frank had liked it that way. “He had dreams of a big cattle ranch someday,” Mary related. “With hundreds of heads of cattle.”
Again Fargo grunted. Even if Frank Harper’s dream had come true, it would have taken Harper weeks—no, months—to get his cattle to market, and by the time he got them there, the cows would be so worn-out, it was doubtful he would get top dollar.
The more Fargo learned of Frank Harper, the more the man impressed him as one of those dreamers whose grand schemes seldom amounted to much.
“Frank figured that one day there’ll be towns and settlements out here. We’d be well set by then, and live prosperous and happy.”
Again Fargo grunted.
“Why do you keep doing that? Didn’t my food agree with you?”
“I’ve never tasted better.”
“It’s my husband, isn’t it? You don’t agree with how he thought things would be.”
Fargo shrugged and felt his shoulder blades rub her bosom. “There’s an old saying about not speaking ill of the dead.”
“I’m a grown woman. I can take it.”
Fargo turned his head to look at her. Her face was so close, his mouth almost brushed her cheek. “Your husband was a good man. He tried to do right by you and the kids.” He chose his next comment carefully. “But he wasn’t very practical.”
“No, he wasn’t. He had his head in the clouds. I didn’t want to come here. I honestly didn’t. But he had his heart set on it. He believed we’d be happy and I let him convince me we would, even though I knew how hard we would have it.”
“A lot of men would give anything to have a wife like you.”
“What a nice thing to say.” Mary paused. “How about you? Any plans to ever get hitched?”
Fargo suppressed the urge to grin. “No.”
“Not ever in your entire life long?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Oh.”
They rode in silence for a bit save for the clomp of the sorrel’s hooves and the swish of the snow. Ahead, a flurry of black wings rose from the first of the dead wolves.
“How do they do that?” Mary wondered. “How do they find dead things to eat in all this vast emptiness?”
Fargo shrugged again. He liked rubbing against her. “Buzzards have their ways.”
A half dozen were feasting on the second wolf. They rose into the air as Fargo rode up.
“Look at that. They’ve picked it down to the bone. Another week and you’d never know there had been a live animal.”