“And you must be the scout my men told me about. Mr. Fargo, I believe it is?”
“That’s me.”
“I want to thank you for what you’ve done, sir,” Victor Gore said.
“How’s that again?”
“You went to find the Nez Perce my men saw. To ensure they aren’t a threat to the settlers, I’d warrant. I’m grateful.”
Fargo cocked his head. This wasn’t what he expected. This wasn’t what he expected at all.
“Did you find them?” Victor Gore asked.
“It was a small hunting party,” Fargo informed him. “They don’t know about the wagons.”
Gore beamed in relief. “That’s good news, sir. Good news, indeed. These settlers are my responsibility, and I would be remiss if I were to let anything happen to them.”
The man could talk rings around a tree, Fargo reflected. “How is it you’re guiding this bunch? You don’t strike me as the kind to do this for a living.”
“I’m not. I’ve been in this part of the country before, though, back in my beaver days.”
“You were a trapper?”
Gore nodded. “Pretty near twenty years ago, yes. I came west with a fur brigade and spent an entire fall, winter and spring in this very area, laying traps and collecting plews.” He sighed wistfully. “Those were the days. I was young and carefree and thought the world was my oyster. The folly of youth, eh?”
“You don’t look much like a trapper now,” Fargo remarked.
Gore touched a hand to his suit. “You mean this? I shed my buckskins when I went back East. For the past dozen years or so I’ve lived in St. Louis, making my living as a merchant.”
“Why leave that to come back here?”
Motioning at the majestic peaks, Gore said sentimentally, “This country gets into your blood. I’ve never stopped thinking about my beaver days, and I got it into my head that I’d like to see my old haunts once more before I pass on.”
“You don’t say.”
“I got as far as Fort Bridger and learned of the difficulties with the Nez Perce. That’s where I hired Mr. Rinson and his friends as my protection, you might say. It’s also where I ran into Mr. Winston and his people.”
“He mentioned that.”
“Mr. Winston told me they were bound for Oregon, and went on and on about how wonderful it is there. I happened to mention that I knew of a valley every bit as fine, from my trapping days. That made him curious. He pestered me with questions, then called his people together and they decided they would like to see the valley for themselves. They asked if I would take them there, and here we are.”
Fargo considered it possible, just possible, that Gore was telling the truth. A lot of people fell in love with the Rockies. He knew of half a dozen trappers who had gone east after the beaver trade died but missed the mountains so much, they came back. Others never left. The mountains were their home. Some took Indian wives and adopted Indians ways.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Victor Gore said.
“You do?”
“That it’s most unwise of me to bring these people here, what with the current state of affairs with the Nez Perce.”
“I was thinking that, yes,” Fargo confessed.
“I tried to talk them out of it. I explained to Mr. Winston that the Nez Perce are upset over white incursions into their land. But he wouldn’t listen. He insisted he can make friends with them, and he said that if I didn’t bring him and his people, they would search for the valley themselves.”
Fargo frowned. Winston hadn’t told him that. “The damned fool.”
“So you can see I’m not entirely to blame. I hope to sneak them in without the Nez Perce noticing. After that, they are on their own. I’ve made it clear their fate is on their shoulders, not mine.”
“Tell me something.” Fargo had decided to come right out with it. “Have you ever run into a family by the name of O’Flynn?”
Gore seemed genuinely puzzled. “The who? They’re not with Winston, are they?”
“No. They came west about three months ago and vanished. They were last seen at Fort Bridger. The father of the wife hired me to find them.”
“Oh. I was still in St. Louis then. Maybe they went on to Oregon or California and just haven’t written to him. Or perhaps they decided to settle somewhere along the way, like Winston and his people are doing.”
Both were possible, Fargo supposed. The sutler at Fort Bridger had told him a family that sounded like the O’Flynns had made it that far. Where they went after they left, the sutler couldn’t say.
“I guess you’ll be on your way now,” Victor Gore said. “But you’re welcome to stay for supper if you’d like, as a token of my appreciation for you helping us.”
After what Fargo had overheard Perkins and Slag saying, he intended to hang around longer than that. But he nodded and said, “I’d be obliged.”
The others weren’t happy about it. Rinson shot him a dark glance. Slag scowled. Perkins fingered the hilt of his knife.
“Come join us,” Victor Gore requested, and reined his dun toward the covered wagons.
Fargo gigged the Ovaro up next to the dun. “If you want, I’ll try to talk the farmers into going on to Oregon.”
“That would be wonderful. Lord knows, I’ve tried. But they’re determined to settle the Payette River Valley.” Gore shook his head. “People can be so stubborn.”
Rachel was in the back of the wagon, and she smiled as Fargo rode past. He touched his hat brim to her and she did what he expected: she blushed.
Lester Winston and most of the other farmers came to meet him. Fargo told them about the hunting party. He left out the part about being captured and bound, and the part about the mother bear.
“So you see?” Victor Gore said. “All is well. Now why don’t we get under way? We can cover a lot more ground before dark.”
Fargo made it a point to ride alongside the Winston wagon. “Is it true what Gore told me?” he asked Lester.
“About what?”
“That he tried to talk you out of going to the Payette River Valley?”
Lester’s eyebrows puckered. “You must not have heard right. Didn’t I tell you? Mr. Gore was the one who told us about the valley. It was his idea we go there. And I have to say, after hearing how fertile the soil is, and how much game is about, I agree with him.”
“I wanted to be sure,” Fargo said.
“Some of my people didn’t like the idea. They were all for going on to Oregon. But Mr. Gore persuaded them to change their minds.”
“A wonderful man,” Fargo said. And a marvelous liar.
“He’s got a silver tongue, that Mr. Gore,” Lester declared. “My wife swears he could talk a patent medicine man into buying his own tonic.”
Fargo agreed. It was the first thing that had struck him about Gore.
“I happen to like him,” Lester had gone on. “If this valley turns out to be everything he claimed, he’ll have saved us weeks of travel and I’ll be forever in his debt.”
“You don’t think he could be lying?”
“To what end?” the big farmer demanded. “What purpose would it serve, him luring us off to the middle of nowhere? We hardly have any money and little else of value save our possessions and our wagons. I can’t see anyone doing us harm over that. It’s not worth the bother.”
Lester had a point, Fargo reflected. But if Gore wasn’t out to rob them, what was he up to?
Toward sunset another halt was called, and Fargo had to hand it to Gore’s men. They knew their business. They formed the wagons into a circle, gathered the horses and the teams and placed them under guard, and sent two men into the woods after firewood and two more out after something for supper. The farmers gathered in the circle while their womenfolk broke out pots and pans and whatnot.