“None of them ever got into an argument or a fight with Jed about Abby or about anything else?”
“Not that I know of. Like I say, they’re not the fighting kind. You should ask Abby about it, though. She could tell you if there was ever any trouble.”
“I’ll do that,” Fargo said.
He stared out over the cemetery. The grave had been filled, and the grave diggers were putting their shovels away in the undertaker’s wagon. All that was left to remind anyone of Jed was a mound of fresh earth that would eventually sink back level with the rest of the ground and maybe a little below that. Grass would grow over it, and there would be another white marker to remind people that someone who’d once had a name was buried there.
The sun was going down behind a slate-gray cloud just above the horizon. The sky above the cloud was red and pink and yellow.
And on the horizon just off to the right, a thick column of dark smoke rose lazily upward.
Fargo pointed it out to Molly, who jumped to her feet.
“Son of a bitch!” she said. “That’s my farm!”
7
Everybody who didn’t have a horse piled into wagons and buckboards, and lit out for Molly’s farm.
Molly was in the lead, riding a bay that was almost a match for Fargo’s Ovaro. The Trailsman didn’t try to overtake her, however. She deserved at least a few minutes alone when she reached whatever was going to be left of her farm. Fargo didn’t think there would be much.
And he was right. When he got there, not long after Molly, the farmhouse was nothing but a chimney, a heap of smoking ashes, and a few smoldering boards that hadn’t fallen over yet. Red spots glowed in the boards, and there was still some smoke wafting around. The air was thick with the smell of it.
Dead birds lay scattered all around the chicken yard, blown to pieces, blood all over the white feathers as if the birds had been used for target practice by Murray’s men, which was probably close to the truth.
There had been a flower bed in front of the house, and the Murrays had ridden their horses through it destroying all the plants, leaving nothing standing, which was also pretty much true of the cornfield. They’d probably ridden through that while the house was burning, having themselves a high old time.
For some reason the barn, which was smaller than the one at Lem’s, hadn’t been burned. But there were two dead mules lying not far from it, both of them shot through one eye, their legs sticking out stiffly.
Molly was standing beside her horse when Fargo rode up. Her eyes were dry, and her face was drawn into hard lines.
“Those son of a bitch Murrays did this,” she said.
“Why?” Fargo asked. “What did you do to them?”
“You don’t have to do anything to them. They’d burn a house just for the meanness of it. But what I did was help bury Paul last night. They’ll do something to everybody who had a hand in it, sooner or later.”
Fargo thought over what she’d just said. There was something about it that bothered him.
“How will they know who helped?” he asked.
Molly turned slowly and looked up at him. Her eyes were hard and dark.
“You’ve asked a lot of questions today, Fargo, but that’s the best one of all. How the hell did they know?”
She was going to say more, but by then some of the others on horseback were beginning to arrive, and Molly turned back to the rubble that had been her house. Maybe there were other reasons why the Murrays had it in for Molly. None of them had been there when Paul was buried. Someone could have been watching, but Fargo didn’t think that was the case. He would have known.
Fargo caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and took a glance over toward the barn. The door was open, but Fargo didn’t think the Murrays would have left anything alive inside.
“Get on your horse,” Fargo told Molly. “Don’t say anything. Just get out of here. Do it now.”
She looked at him as if she didn’t have any intention of leaving, but the urgency of his tone must have convinced her. She mounted up and did what he said as he went around telling the others who had arrived the same thing.
He wasn’t sure he’d get away with it, and he didn’t. Before he’d managed to get everyone started away, the first shot came from the barn.
Tom Talley was hit and fell off his horse. The gunshot helped people who had lingered figure out why Fargo was warning them, and they started riding away, yelling at those in the slower wagons and buggies to turn around.
By that time there were more shots coming from the barn, and seven or eight of the Murray gang came riding out from behind it, pistols firing.
Fargo had his Colt out, and he returned their fire. Farmers didn’t generally take weapons to funerals, which of course the Murrays had counted on, and Fargo figured he was pretty much on his own. The odds weren’t exactly fair.
The Murrays wouldn’t care about that in the least, unless it was to be glad of it. They’d ride Fargo down and go right on after the others, killing as many as they could.
Or that’s what they’d do unless Fargo could do something to stop them. Stopping them was a good idea, except he didn’t have any idea how to stop that many men.
Of course one of them was a woman. Angel Murray was one of the riders charging at Fargo. She was beside her father, a wild grin of exhilaration on her face, and she was firing a pistol just like the rest. A bullet buzzed by Fargo’s ear. Another one tugged at his shirt.
There was only one thing he could do. He wasn’t sure it would work. In fact, he was almost certain it wouldn’t. But he didn’t have a lot of choice, so he did it.
He shot Angel Murray.
She fell from her horse and hit the ground hard. Fargo was running straight toward her before the other gang members even knew she was shot. They must have thought he was crazy, charging them like someone who believed he had them outnumbered instead of waiting for them to ride right over him.
They were so surprised that they couldn’t shoot straight. Their bullets went far over his head, and he managed to shoot two more of them out of the saddle before he reached the spot where Angel was lying on the ground.
The others he’d shot were dead, but Angel was still alive, which was part of Fargo’s admittedly shaky plan. There was a dark stain on the shoulder of her shirt where the bullet had struck her. Her hat had come off, and her black hair was spread out around her head.
Fargo reached down for her, grabbed hold of her good arm, and jerked her roughly to her feet. She screamed in pain, but Fargo didn’t much care. In fact, he was glad she’d screamed. It let her father know that she was still alive.
As soon as she was upright, Fargo twisted her good arm behind her back. He stuck the barrel of his pistol right into the tender skin under her chin, pushing her head up so far that she was looking at the sky. The pistol barrel was hot. It burned her, and she yelled again, but not as loud as before.
The gang had given up on their pursuit of the farmers and turned back. The men in the barn came out, pistols at the ready.
Between the two groups, Fargo stood supporting Angel, with his pistol tight under her chin.
Peter Murray was getting close, so Fargo said, “That’s far enough, Murray. Tell your men to keep their distance, or I pull the trigger.”
Murray stopped, and although he gave no signal, so did all the others.
“You must be the one they call Fargo,” Murray said, leaning forward casually in the saddle as if they were just two friends who’d met on the trail and were having a little talk.
Murray had a black beard shot through with white, and his hair, almost as long as his daughter’s, hung below his hat. His eyes were as black as the ashes of Molly’s house, but shinier.