“I don’t like those red heathens,” a rawhide-complexioned gent by the name of Wiley mentioned. “There’s nothing they like more than lifting white hair unless maybe it’s slitting a white throat.”
“You’ll post the extra men?” Fargo said to Owen.
“Sure. And maybe you should make clear what we’re to do if they pay us a visit? Do we shoot them on sight or would you rather we don’t give in to itchy trigger fingers without your say-so?”
“Only shoot to kill if you have to.” Fargo turned to go.
“Say,” Owens said quietly. “About that disagreement you and me had earlier. No hard feelings? I might have been a little rude.”
Fargo considered pinching himself to make sure he was awake. “It’s over and done with.”
“Good. I admire an hombre who doesn’t hold a grudge.” Owen held out his calloused hand. “How about we shake?”
Fargo could hold a grudge as good as the next man, but he shook, anyway. Again he went to leave.
“Hold on there, mister,” Lichen said. “Folks say you’ve lived with the Sioux. Is that true?”
Fargo nodded.
“Then you must know them pretty well. Why don’t you pay one of their villages a visit and ask them to leave us be?”
Owen said, “The senator wouldn’t want him to do that.”
“Why not? Injuns are always willing to bend backward for Injun lovers like Fargo, here.”
Fargo kicked him, a short, hard kick to the chest that knocked Lichen flat on his back. Instantly, Lichen clawed for the knife on his hip but apparently he thought better of the notion and held his hands out from his sides. “You had no call to do that.”
“It’s what happens when you insult folks.”
“Calling you an Injun lover was an insult? I’d say it fits any gent who’s lived with them.”
“It’s not what you say,” Fargo set him straight. “It’s how you say it.” He left them to ponder that and went to the other fire. Senator Keever was lighting a pipe. Gerty was doodling in the dirt with a stick. “Mind if I join you?”
“I do,” Gerty said without looking up.
The senator chuckled. “Pay no attention to her. She thinks she can boss people around as she likes.”
“Usually I can,” Gerty said. “But not him. He never does anything I want him to. He’s as contrary as a mule.”
“When will you get it through your head that you can’t go around telling people what to do?”
“You do.”
Keever lowered his pipe. “That’s not quite true. In my capacity as a senator it might seem that way, but the only people who jump at my commands are my personal staff.”
“You boss all kinds of people. I’ve seen you,” Gerty persisted, still without looking up from her doodle. “You boss Rebecca around all the time.”
For the first time since Fargo met them, Keever showed a real flash of anger.
“She’s your mother and you will address her as such.”
“She’s not my real mother. I only call her that because you pay me to.”
Fargo wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “He pays you?”
Gerty glanced at him, deviltry on her face. “He pays me. Five dollars extra on my allowance. He has ever since I found out about my real mother.”
Senator Keever was pink in the cheeks. “Pay her no heed. She constantly forgets her station in life.”
Gerty laughed. “Father explained it to me once. How we all have our place. How it doesn’t do when those who are lower act as if they are higher. Like Rebecca.”
“I’m warning you,” Senator Keever said.
Bestowing her sweetest smile on him, Gerty replied, “Certainly, Father. Whatever you say, Father. I will always do as you wish, Father.”
“You can be a trial, little one.”
“I’m thirteen, Father. I’m not little anymore. But I’ll try harder to be as you want me to be. I won’t talk unless I’m spoken to. I’ll eat all my vegetables. I’ll say my prayers before bedtime. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Senator Keever nodded. “That’s better.”
“How does the rest of that go?” Gerty said, tapping her chin. “Oh. Now I remember.” She quoted the rhyme. “Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my mother’s eyes.” She paused. “Or should I change that to stepmother?”
Keever rose and regarded her as he might a new form of insect. “You are vicious beyond your years, daughter.”
Again Gerty smiled ever-so-sweetly. “I have you to thank for that, don’t I, Father?”
The senator made for their tent.
Laughing, Gerty winked at Fargo. “Aren’t I the luckiest girl alive? To have a loving father like him and a doting mother like Rebecca?”
Fargo shook his head in disgust. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Gerty clasped a hand to her mouth in mock shock. “Oh my. Such language. But that’s all right. You’re so wonderfully dumb, I forgive you.”
“You didn’t answer me.”
Gerty sighed and set down the stick. “You’re trying to figure me out, is that it? Would you like me to help you? I’ll give you a hint as to what I’m truly like.” She pointed at the dirt.
Fargo moved closer so he could see. “How is that a hint?”
“Silly man. That’s me.”
Fargo looked at her and then at the dirt again. She hadn’t been doodling. She’d drawn a remarkable likeness—of a rattlesnake.
6
Finding a buffalo herd wasn’t that easy. Most of the buffalo were well to the south at that time of year, although here and there small herds could be found if one looked long enough and hard enough.
“Where the hell are they?” Lichen groused. He had been doing a lot of grousing since they started out shortly after daybreak.
“We’ll find some,” Lem Owen said.
“We better,” Senator Keever declared. “I’m paying good money. I expect results.”
Fargo kept his eyes fixed on the ground, seeking fresh sign.
“I have an idea,” the senator said. “Let’s split up. We’re bound to find them that much sooner.”
“No.” Fargo was thinking of the Sioux.
“What do you say, Mr. Owen? You have almost as much experience as Mr. Fargo.”
“He’s right. It’s safer if we stick together. Killing a buff is fine and dandy but not if it gets you scalped by savages.”
“I daresay the two of you are a disappointment,” Keever told them. “I was under the impression frontiersmen are bold and reckless.”
“Only the dead ones,” Owen said.
The country was becoming increasingly broken by hills, ridges of rock, and stone outcroppings that towered like gigantic tombstones against a backdrop of hazy blue sky.
Senator Keever noticed. “By the way, when do we reach the Black Hills?”
“You’ve been in them for a day and a half now,” Fargo enlightened him.
“Finally!” Keever grinned and excitedly rubbed his hands. “I can see that trophy on my wall now.”
Fargo didn’t ask him which one. Then the Ovaro nickered, and he looked up to behold the object of their quest in the form of an old bull not fifty yards away. Head high, it sniffed the air to get their scent.
“I’ll be switched,” Owen blurted.
Senator Keever had been gazing to the south but now he looked in the direction they were looking and exclaimed, “I knew it! I knew God wouldn’t let me down.” He bent and yanked his rifle from the saddle scabbard. “Move aside, gentlemen. I’m not about to let an opportunity like this pass by.”
“Senator, wait,” Fargo said, but Keever did no such thing. He spurred his horse toward the bull.
“That jackass sure is trying to get himself killed,” Owen remarked.
Fargo used his spurs. But the Ovaro couldn’t overtake the senator’s mount, not in the short distance they had to cover. He saw Keever jerk the rifle up and shouted, “Don’t do it!”