Owen nudged Lichen with an elbow and said in mock delight, “We sure are glad you made it. I’ve been a bundle of worry. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t drink. It was plumb awful.”
Lichen cackled.
They didn’t know how close they came to being pistol-whipped. Instead, Fargo said loud enough for all to hear, “I want everyone to gather around in about ten minutes.” That would give him time to strip the Ovaro and wet his throat. “I have something important to say.”
“You’re leaving us?” Gerty teased.
“No. I sold you to the Sioux.”
“Father!” she squealed. “Did you hear him? Did you hear how mean he is to me?”
“Yes, daughter, I did. That was uncalled for, sir. You should set a better example.”
“She’s your brat, not mine. The only things she’d learn from me is how to play poker, drink red-eye, and make the acquaintance of saloon doves.”
“That will be quite enough of that kind of talk,” Senator Keever said indignantly. “Need I remind you in whose employ you are? I told you at the outset that you and the other men must watch your tongues around my daughter and my wife.”
Fargo noticed that he put his daughter first. Hunkering, he poured coffee into his battered tin cup, sat back, and let the hot liquid trickle down his dry throat. Senator Keever and Gerty went to their tent. The other men milled idly about, talking and joking.
“Mind if I join you?” Rebecca squatted across from him, her forearms across her knees. “I meant what I said. I really am glad you made it back safe.”
Fargo sipped more coffee. She had something on her mind, he could tell, and she would get to it in her own good time.
“You’re the only one I can talk to. If that sounds strange, it’s only because my so-called husband doesn’t care what I think or how I feel about things. As for Gerty—” Rebecca shrugged.
“She would make fine bear bait.”
Rebecca snorted, then covered her nose and mouth with her hand. “You can be awful at times.”
“Lady, you don’t know the half of it.”
“I wish I could be like you. I wish I had your courage. I’ve always been a mouse, myself. Too timid for my own good. I let myself be talked into things I shouldn’t.”
“Such as being here,” Fargo guessed.
“Such as being married.” Rebecca glanced at the tent and lowered her voice. “You see, our marriage isn’t quite what you think. Oh, I took the vows, and I go where he goes and do what he wants me to do. But only because he’s paying me.”
“I must have missed something.”
“You know that his first wife died in childbirth. He blames it on her consumption. She became so weak she didn’t want to live. But that’s only part of it. She wasn’t tired of living. She was tired of him!”
“How do you know?”
“I was one of the nurses who attended her. He didn’t tell you that, did he? Or that while his wife lay wasting away in her hospital bed, he was playing the satyr with every nurse on my floor.”
Fargo wondered why she was telling him this. “Including you?”
“No. Oh, he tried. He spouted the same honey-tongued lies about how beautiful I was and how he would love to take me out and wouldn’t it be grand if we went up to his house after?” Rebecca didn’t hide her disgust. “But I told him he should be ashamed. That what he was doing was despicable. And do you know what he did? He laughed and offered me money to be his new wife.”
“Maybe it was his way of getting up your dress.”
“No. He was serious. He offered to pay me two thousand dollars a year plus a thousand extra if I stick out the terms of the contract he had a lawyer draw up. I know, I know. You don’t understand. You’re going to say I’m crazy. But you haven’t heard the whole story yet.”
“My ears work fine.”
“Eh? Oh.” Rebecca nervously laughed. “The good senator is a pillar of Congress. All Fulton cares about is power. He wants to stay in office another twenty years. To do that, he has to be reelected, and to be reelected he has to convince the good folks back home that he’s a paragon of virtue and worthy of their support.”
“You’re saying he isn’t.”
Rebecca wrung her hands in her lap. “He’s the worst womanizer who ever lived. His wife despised him for it. She was thinking of divorcing him. Then she became pregnant. She didn’t want a baby. She hated the idea. But he insisted she go through with it. And look at what it got her.”
“I still don’t see where you come in.”
Tears filled Rebecca’s eyes but she blinked and wiped at her face with a sleeve. “I was a hard-working nurse who barely made ends meet. Two thousand dollars a year was a lot of money to me. I agreed, and he’s been putting the money in my bank account ever since. His only condition was that I never, ever tell anyone his secret. Which I never have until now.”
Fargo supposed he should feel flattered.
“I had conditions of my own,” Rebecca hastily went on. “I agreed to play his wife but only so long as he didn’t bring any of his tarts back home with him.” She stopped, and bit her lower lip. “My other condition was that he couldn’t lay a hand on me. I’m not his and never will be. Not that way.”
“Is there a point to all this?”
“Yes.” Rebecca looked him in the eyes and said so softly he barely heard her, “I haven’t been with a man in thirteen years and I can’t take it anymore. I want you to make love to me.”
9
Skye Fargo thought he had seen it all and heard it all. He thought he had stopped being surprised by the loco things people did. But he was wrong. “You haven’t slept with a man in thirteen years?”
“I didn’t say that, exactly,” Rebecca said.
“Then what the hell did you say?”
“I said I haven’t been with another man. I didn’t say I haven’t slept with a few.”
Fargo almost laughed in her face. Leave it to a female to split hairs. “How is that different?”
“When a woman says she’s been with a man, it means it was more than just physical. Oh, I’ve been attracted to a few, like I am to you. But I’ve only ever slept with them and nothing more. Understand?”
No, Fargo didn’t. But if she wanted to go on kidding herself, that was fine by him. He was about to suggest they get together later when Senator Keever and Gerty came out of their tent. Owen and Lichen and the rest of the men took that as their cue to converge.
“So what is it you wanted to discuss?” the senator asked.
Fargo had been thinking about it on the ride back and there was only one thing to do. “We’re packing up and heading for civilization in the morning. I want everyone up by six so we can be on our way by seven.”
Keever half grinned. “Is this some kind of joke? I came to the Black Hills to hunt and I’m not leaving until I have a few more trophies.”
“If we stay the Sioux will have trophies of their own and one might be your scalp. We’re caught smack in the middle of a gathering of the bands, and if we’re not real careful, we’ll be up to our necks in warriors out to slit our throats.”
Owen appeared to be skeptical. “What’s this gathering business? There hasn’t been a gathering of all the Sioux in years. What could bring the bands together now?”
“A white buffalo.”
Senator Keever and Owen exchanged looks and the senator said, “We’re talking about an albino buffalo, correct? There are albino animals all the time. I’ve seen an albino deer myself. So why are the redskins making such a fuss over this white one?”
“To the Lakotas it’s sacred.”
“Oh, hogwash. An albino isn’t exceptional. I grant you they’re rare. But it’s a buffalo, for God’s sake. A shaggy brute that spends it days grazing and grunting and leaving smelly droppings all over the place. How in the world can even simple savages think it’s sacred?”