Myrtle Spencer, if that is who she was, looked down and broke into violent convulsions. She shrieked and struck at his chest and kicked but she was so weak he hardly felt the blows. Baffled, he drew back.
“What’s the matter? I need to put you down.”
The woman grew still. But when he went to lay her on the blankets she whimpered and kicked. At last he understood. Backing away from the blankets, he eased her to the ground. She didn’t resist. He pried at the gag but the knots were so tight he had to resort to the toothpick. “Are you Miss Spencer?”
She stared at him without answering. Or, rather, past him, at the roof of the cave.
“Myrtle Spencer?” Fargo tried once more.
The vacant quality was in her eyes. They lacked any spark of vitality whatsoever.
“I’m with a posse. We’re after the Ghoul.”
She might as well have been on another world.
“Do you know where he got to?”
Nothing.
“Would you like water or food?”
Nothing at all.
Fargo stood and brought the undergarments over and with a lot of lifting and him doing all the work, he slipped a chemise over her head and shoulders and pulled it down as low as it would go. He had just finished and stepped back when Marshal Tibbit bellowed.
“A cave, by God, boys!”
Boots thudded and scraped.
Into the cave rushed Joseph Spencer. He came to Fargo’s side, and groaned. His face was pale as a sheet. “Myrtle, honey? It’s your pa.”
She showed no more life than she had with Fargo.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Joseph knelt and gently clasped her hand. “You’re safe now, girl.”
Fargo was aware of other men ringing them. Tibbit was on his left, dripping wet and grinning.
“We found her! We actually found her. This will show everyone I’m not worthless.”
Fargo almost hit him.
“Myrtle?” Joseph touched her cheek and her brow. “What’s wrong with her? Why won’t she say anything?”
“Could be she’s in shock,” a man said.
“Could be she’s been scared out of her mind,” said another.
“Myrtle?” Joseph lightly shook her shoulders but all she did was go on staring her eerie empty stare. “God, no.”
“Where’s the Ghoul?” a townsman asked, and the rest of the men began moving about the cave searching when it was plain he wasn’t there.
Marshal Tibbit beamed at Fargo. “You did it. You said you would find him and you did. We’re all in your debt, me most of all.”
“It’s not over,” Fargo said.
Outside, the storm was abating. The rain had reduced to a drizzle and the lightning flashes were fewer and farther between.
“Did you see the Ghoul? Did you get a good look at him?”
Fargo shook his head.
“Well, he can’t have gotten far. We’ll get him yet. With your help he’s as good as caught.”
Fargo could have pointed out that the rain had washed away any tracks.
He reclaimed the Henry and went to the cave mouth. The worst of the thunderhead was to the east and the clouds overhead had gone from black to gray.
Sam Worthington came over and stood staring into the drizzle. “He’s gotten clean away, hasn’t he?”
“He has,” Fargo said.
“Damn.” The big farmer looked over his shoulder. “That poor girl. She’s a friend of my daughter’s. You should have known her. Always so sweet and kind and forever smiling.” He ran a callused hand across his brow. “What could he have done to her?”
“You know as well as I do.”
“Yes. Yes, I suppose I do. I just don’t want to admit it. It goes against everything that is decent in this world. I don’t understand how a thing like this can happen.”
“Ask God,” Fargo said.
The farmer scowled. “That’s a terrible thing to say. The parson would call it blasphemy.”
“Have the parson ask Myrtle Spencer how she feels.”
Worthington looked at him and said, not without admiration, “You’re a hard man.”
“It’s a hard life.”
Marshal Tibbit bustled over looking as happy as if he had just eaten a fresh-baked apple pie. “We can’t get a word out of her but I bet the doc can.” He scanned the wet wasteland and nudged Fargo. “The rain has about stopped. How soon can you head out after the Ghoul?”
“He’s long gone.”
“He can’t have more than half an hour start on us,” Tibbit said. “Forty minutes at the most. Find which direction he took and me and five or six others will go with you. The rest are taking Myrtle back to town.”
“I’ll look around,” Fargo said. Now that he thought about it, there hadn’t been any sign the Ghoul kept his mount in the cave. It had to be elsewhere. He hiked to the north end of the shelf. The slope beyond was too steep for a horse. He walked to the south and was thirty feet past the cave when he spied a game trail leading toward the crest. Made, no doubt, by whatever used the cave before the Ghoul moved in. Fargo headed up, the footing treacherous on the wet rocks. In spots the climb was almost sheer. Eventually he gained the summit and found what he was looking for: a stake and a rope.
Essentially flat, the top of the mesa was sprinkled with brush and boulders. The ground was mostly dirt, not rock. Old tracks, extremely faint but not entirely washed away, pointed to the south.
Fargo turned and hurried down the mesa to the Ovaro. As he was crossing the shelf someone called his name.
Most of the posse had gathered outside the cave, apparently waiting for Joseph Spencer and his daughter.
Marshal Tibbit had spotted him and came over. “Where are you off to in such a rush?”
“With luck I can end this by nightfall.” Fargo continued walking, forcing the lawman to keep up if he wanted to keep talking.
“What do you mean by end it?”
“Don’t play stupid.”
Tibbit gripped his arm. “Hold on. Why must I keep repeating myself? If we can, we’re to take the Ghoul into custody.”
“If you can,” Fargo said.
“Damn it. You’re the most pigheaded individual I’ve ever met. You can’t go around killing people because you feel like it.”
“The Ghoul does.”
“But you’re not him!” Tibbit exclaimed in exasperation. “You are obligated by law to take him alive.”
“Your law, not mine.”
Tibbit puffed out his cheeks in anger. “You’re a citizen of the United States, are you not? As such, you are under her jurisdiction, and the law of the land is that you can’t go around killing folks because they cross you or you blame them for nearly being lynched.”
“Save the speech.”
Marshal Tibbit jerked on Fargo’s arm. “Goddamn you. No one is above the law. Not me, not you, not anyone.”
Fargo patted his Colt. “Out here the only law is this.”
“I refuse to bandy words. If you go after the Ghoul you’re to bring him back alive if it is at all possible. I mean it.”
Fargo looked at him. “You don’t get it yet, do you?”
“Get what?”
“You never mean anything. You have no more backbone than mud.”
“That’s not true.”
Fargo pulled his arm from the lawman’s grasp and was over the side before Tibbit could object.
By now the storm was miles away. Here and there a golden shaft pierced the clouds. Fargo came to the stand and climbed on the Ovaro and descended to the bottom of the mesa. He rode to the south and was at the extreme southern end when his face lit with a smile. “Got you,” he said.