4
After everyone had finally gone home, Fargo went back to the Watkins house. He had slept in the spare room the previous night, but he didn’t want to disturb anyone now. He could sleep just as well in the barn or outside. He’d spent many a night in less pleasant circumstances.
But there was lantern light shining through a window in the house, and Fargo was curious. He thought that Abby and her father might be talking about Jed’s funeral, so he decided to join them.
Fargo went inside the house and heard talking from the kitchen. Fargo walked to the room and looked through the door. Lem hadn’t gone to bed after all. He was sitting there not far from the table where Jed’s body lay covered with a sheet, and there were two other men with him. Fargo recognized them, having met them before the dance. They were Cass Ellis and Bob Tabor, two of Lem’s friends. Ellis was holding a bottle of whiskey, and it was evident from their red faces that they’d been passing it around.
“Come on in, Fargo,” Lem said. “We’re just sitting up with the body. You want a drink?”
“Might as well,” Fargo said.
Ellis extended his arm, and Fargo took the bottle. He took a swallow, and tears came to his eyes. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and passed the bottle back to Ellis.
“A little raw, ain’t it?” Ellis said. “But it’s not so bad once you get used to it.”
Fargo nodded and looked at the sheet-covered body on the table. He knew that sitting up was the custom in some parts of the country. He didn’t know the reason for it, unless there were places where you had to keep the animals away. There were no animals likely to get into the Watkins’ kitchen, so maybe it was just a matter of respect.
“We washed him while you were gone,” Lem said. “Dressed him nice and put wet soda cloths on his face and hands. They’ll keep his color looking natural. Couldn’t do much with that wound, though.”
Fargo thought about the wound. He wanted to take another look at it, so he walked to the table and lifted the sheet. Jed’s head, what was left of it, was supported on a stained pillow. There was another cloth over Jed’s face. Fargo lifted that one off, too.
It appeared to Fargo that the bullet had entered the back of Jed’s head and pretty much removed it, though Jed’s face was hardly altered. Fargo replaced the cloth and lowered the sheet.
“Gonna bury him tomorrow,” Tabor said. He had pale blue eyes and a fringe of white hair around his bald head. “Cass here will make him a good strong coffin in the morning, and we’ll bury him in the churchyard in the afternoon. Put him in a real grave, six foot long, six foot deep and four foot wide, not like the ones you dug down in the river bottom.”
Fargo didn’t think Tabor really knew what kind of graves had been dug for the outlaws, but he was right. Nobody had paid much attention to doing it right. The graves were deep enough to keep animals off the bodies, and that was about all.
“Jed was a fine fella,” Ellis said, flexing the fingers of his big hands. “We’ll put him facin’ the east, all right and proper, the way it should be. Him and Abby would’ve made a fine couple, Lem. You’d have had some good-lookin’ grandchildren, for certain and sure.”
Lem didn’t reply. Instead he reached out his hand, and Ellis passed him the bottle.
“How’s Abby taking it?” Fargo asked.
Lem drank from the bottle. When he could talk again, he said, “About as well as you could expect. She’s trying to get some sleep, but I don’t know if she’ll manage it. You might as well have a try, too. We’ll stay here all night, but there’s no need for you to do it.”
Fargo had thought of offering, but he was glad to be relieved of the responsibility. He’d liked and respected Jed, but now that his friend was dead, he didn’t see the need in losing sleep over the matter. He’d do what he could to see that Jed’s killer was brought to justice, however. He owed him that much.
“I think I’ll go on to bed, then,” Fargo said. “Abby asked me earlier if I’d stay around for a few days and help out around the place, and I might be doing that.”
“That’s mighty kind of you,” Lem said. “We could use some help around here, now that Jed’s gone.”
“She’s not worried so much about help as she is about what the Murray gang might do.”
“They’ve killed Jed,” Tabor said. “What else could they want around here?”
“More revenge,” Fargo told him. “It looks like somebody killed Paul Murray tonight.”
“Shit,” Ellis said.
“That seems to be pretty much the general opinion,” Fargo said.
“Murray’ll come after his boy,” Tabor said. “He won’t want him lying buried in some marsh with no marker. What’re you gonna do, Lem?”
“Bury Jed,” Lem said. “Then we’ll see.”
Murray’ll burn your house and barn,” Ellis said. “Kill you if he gets the chance.”
“We’ll just have to see that he doesn’t get the chance,” Fargo said. “That’s one reason I’m staying around.”
“What’s the other reason?” Lem asked.
“To find out who killed Jed.”
“Hell, we all know who did it. It was Murray’s gang.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Fargo said.
Fargo had had a rough night. First there had been the fighting and then the grave digging. It was well after midnight, and he was bone tired when he lay down on the feather bed to try to get some sleep. He sank into the mattress and was just about to drift off when he heard soft footsteps outside his door, which then slowly swung open.
Fargo looked over in that direction and saw Abby’s dark silhouette outlined by the faint lantern light from the kitchen. She entered the room and closed the door behind her.
“Fargo?” she said. “Are you sleeping?”
“Well, I was trying. But I hadn’t quite made it yet.”
“I didn’t mean to bother you, but I wanted to talk a minute. If you don’t mind.”
Fargo sighed, but not loud enough for her to hear him. She probably needed to talk about Jed, and he could understand that.
“I don’t mind,” he said. “Let me get up and light the lantern.”
It was quite dark in the room, which had only a small window through which the chalky moon shone faintly.
“We don’t need the lantern,” Abby said. “I’ll just sit over here in the chair.”
There was a hard-backed wooden chair near the wash-stand, and Fargo watched as Abby walked over and sat down. He couldn’t see her very well, but her blond hair shone palely in the dim light. Fargo couldn’t think of anything to say that would soothe her, so he just lay in the bed and waited for her to have her say.
After a few seconds she said, “I guess you think I need to talk about Jed.”
“I don’t blame you,” Fargo said. “You must want to know a little about him, maybe, things a man wouldn’t tell you himself. He was a good man, and a brave one. There was a time once when we were on the trail together . . .”
“I didn’t come here for that. I didn’t really need to talk. That was just an excuse.”
If she hadn’t come to hear about Jed, there must be something else that was worrying her, Fargo thought, and then he remembered that he hadn’t told her for sure that he’d stay around for a while.
“I’ve decided to stay here for a few days if that’s what you came to find out,” he said. He didn’t mention his suspicions about Jed’s death.
“Good. I was hoping you’d stay. But that’s not why I came, either.”
Fargo couldn’t think of anything else left unsettled between them, so he said, “Why did you come, then?”
“I don’t want to say.”
Fargo thought, not for the first time, and, he was sure, not for the last, that he would never understand women. He liked them. He enjoyed their company, and over the years he had enjoyed the company of more of them than he could count without using a paper and pencil to keep track. But he could never figure out how their minds worked. Abby had come to his room for a reason, but now that she was there, she wouldn’t tell him what it was. He wasn’t surprised. A man would have come right out and said what it was that he wanted, but a woman wouldn’t always do that. Sometimes she had to be coaxed.