“She can wait,” Abby said.
The bacon smelled good while it was frying in the pan, and it tasted even better than it smelled. The fresh eggs were just as tasty, and Fargo, for just a second or two, could almost understand why someone might want to settle down to the farming life. But only for a second or two. Being stuck in one place, living day after day under the same roof, seeing the same people all the time: those things didn’t have any appeal for Fargo, and he was already getting anxious to get away from Kansas and back to some country where there were mountains with the snow still on top and streams that rushed down their sides instead of sliding along the flatlands.
While they were eating, Fargo asked Lem about the Murray gang, trying to find out a little more about them.
“Murray just showed up here one day a couple of years ago,” Lem said. “Nobody knows much about him, but I doubt that he got his start here. I think he came because things are so unsettled hereabouts. He could run that gang of his without too much interference, and that’s the way he wants it.”
“And nobody tries to stop them?” Fargo asked.
“They take whatever they want, whenever they feel like it,” Lem said around a mouthful of eggs. “They steal our chickens to eat, but they kill the rest of them for fun. They live off us, is what they do. We work, and they take what they please because we can’t stop them.”
“We could stop them if we did what Jed suggested,” Abby said.
“It’s hard to get farmers to turn to the gun,” Lem said. “That’s why they’re farmers. They might talk about doing something, but they never do. Hell, I should know. I’m one of ’em.”
“What about the town?” Fargo asked. “Does Murray ever go there?”
“Atchison? Sure, he goes there. He’s robbed the bank there at least twice, but the sheriff’s afraid of him. He might get together a posse, but they never seem to be able to find Murray. Pretty sorry posse, if you ask me.”
That fit with what Molly had already told Fargo, and the thought of Molly made him wonder where she was.
“She’s decided to stay at Talley’s,” Lem said when Fargo asked. “There’s nobody else to do it, and she doesn’t have a place anymore. The bank probably owns it now, but Molly might be able to take it over and pay off Talley’s loan. ’Course, it wouldn’t be easy, paying hers and his, too, but if anybody can do it, Molly can. She’s a worker.”
“Maybe she and Rip could partner up,” Fargo said, just to see what Lem thought.
But it was Abby who answered as soon as she could quit laughing.
“Molly and Rip? You must be crazy, Fargo. Molly likes that man even less than I do, which is saying a lot.”
Fargo knew that was true, and he decided it was time to bring the talk back to Murray.
“Why is it that nobody seems to know where the gang stays when they’re not out raiding the countryside?” he asked. “Hasn’t anybody tried to find them?”
“Not very hard,” Lem said. “Fella named Melton tried once. We found him a day or so later, hanging in a tree at the end of a rope with his neck all stretched out. That pretty much discouraged people from looking.”
Fargo could see how it would discourage the farmers, but it didn’t bother him. He’d seen worse. Maybe he’d have a look around and see what he could find. Or maybe there was another way.
“We need to take good care of Angel,” he said. “Keep her in bed another day or so and then send her on her way.”
“We can’t be rid of her soon enough for me,” Abby said, and she crunched a bite of bacon between her teeth as if she were snapping a bone.
11
Two days passed without any real excitement, which was all right with Fargo. He needed the rest.
Sarah Johnson was buried quietly and without incident, and on the very afternoon of her burial, Rip showed up at Lem’s house, asking for Lem.
Fargo didn’t hear what the two of them talked about, but Abby told him later that Rip had asked her father for permission to come courting her.
“Can you believe the gall of that man?” she said. “His wife hasn’t been in the grave more than an hour. She’s hardly cold in the ground, and he shows up here asking to come around to badger me.”
“He didn’t say he wanted to badger you, did he?” Fargo said.
“It doesn’t matter what he said. It comes down to the same thing.”
Fargo knew it wasn’t funny, but he couldn’t help grinning.
“What did Lem tell him?”
“He told him that it was indecent to talk about any such of a thing until his wife had been dead for at least six months.”
“How did Rip take it?”
“You’d think he’d have been ashamed, but not him. You couldn’t shame him if you tried. He said that out here a man needs a wife and that he couldn’t afford to wait. He and his wife never had any family, and he wanted to have some children to help out on the farm.” Abby shuddered. “I don’t want to think about him touching me, much less doing anything else.”
“Maybe in six months he’ll have found himself somebody else.”
“He better have. He’s never getting his hands on me, I can tell him that.”
The way she said it, and the fierce look on her face, convinced Fargo that she meant every word of it.
Tom Talley was buried even more quietly than Sarah Johnson had been. None of the farmers wanted to leave their homes and property long enough for a proper funeral, so hardly anyone was there to hear the preacher say a few words and a prayer.
Molly Doyle was part of the small group at both funerals, as was Fargo. Molly told Fargo that she came because she liked both people, and, after all, she didn’t have a house to protect, unless she counted Talley’s. She figured that one wasn’t hers quite yet, though she told Fargo she was making some progress with the bank. She thought she would be the new owner within a few days.
Fargo went to the funerals because he thought there was a chance Murray might show up and try to get a little more revenge. But it didn’t happen, and Fargo hoped that Murray had given up harassing the farmers. He knew, however, that most likely wasn’t the case. Murray was probably waiting for the release of his daughter before becoming active again.
As for Angel, she improved rapidly. Her shoulder would have healed even faster if Abby hadn’t pounded on it during their scuffle, but even with that extra bit of stress, it did just fine. The wound would leave a scar, but only a small one, and Angel was feeling fine. There was really no reason to keep her at the Watkins place any longer. She had served her purpose, and Fargo wanted to keep his end of the bargain by letting her go back to her father.
“You know that if she goes back to that marauder, he’ll be right back up to his old tricks again,” Lem said. “We ought to keep her here as long as we can.”
“We ought to do worse than that,” Abby said, looking entirely too bloodthirsty to suit Fargo.
“If she stays here, someone will have to watch her all the time,” Fargo pointed out. “She’s already gotten away from us once, so we might even have to tie her up. And you’ll have to feed her. I don’t see the sense in going to all the trouble and expense.”
He had something else in mind, too, but he didn’t want to mention it.
“Sooner or later, you’re going to have to let her go, I guess,” Lem said.
It was clear that neither he nor Abby was fond of the idea, but they had to admit that they weren’t any fonder of having to keep Angel in the house for much longer.
“Murray might get it in his head to come after her,” Lem said. “And that wouldn’t be any good. No telling what kind of damage he’d do to this place if he got her away from us. Look at what he did to Molly’s.”