“It’s about your brother, sir.”
Noah sighed and said wryly, “Bad news, of course, Manuel?”
“I assume so, sir.”
“Been trying to get into my safe again?”
“No, sir.”
“Stealing wine from my personal collection in the basement?”
“Afraid not, sir.”
“Then it’s really serious?”
“It could be, sir. That’s why I thought you ought to know what’s going on.”
Noah pitched the invoices he’d been studying to his desk top, leaned back in in his chair, closed his eyes, and said, “What’s he up to now, Manuel?”
“I watched him saddle up his horse about half an hour ago. But he didn’t leave the ranch.”
“No? Then what did he do?”
“He waited in the pines to the north of the house, sir.”
“Any particular reason?”
“That’s what I couldn’t figure out, sir. But then Fargo left and your brother followed him.”
With his eyes opened wide, Noah sat upright in his tall leather chair. “Followed him? For what?”
“I’m not sure why he’d follow him, sir. But right now they’re on the stage road. Talking.”
“You followed them?”
“Yessir. But I couldn’t get close enough to hear what they were actually saying.”
But Noah was already speculating on what they might be saying. What with all the sudden talk about the disappearances, he knew damned well what they might be saying. The time had finally come—as he knew it would someday—to deal with his brother in a permanent way. This wasn’t about liquor or gambling or womanizing. This was about something far more basic. This was about trust. After all that Noah had done for Aaron.
“When he comes back here, I want him locked in his room.”
“Yessir.”
“Have Ekert help you. Wait up ’til Aaron comes home, do you understand?”
“Yessir.”
“No matter what time it is.”
“Yessir.”
After Manuel left, Noah sat brooding in his chair, in his study, in his mansion, in the area of the state that could truly be called “his.” He should have felt all-powerful and completely invulnerable. But vulnerability and betrayal creeped in. Aaron didn’t know as much about Noah’s “special project” as he probably thought he did. But he knew just enough to point a man like Fargo in the right direction. And Fargo, with this new information was going to be a problem for sure.
He got up, poured himself more brandy, and carried the snifter to one of the long, mullioned windows. He’d always known that he would someday have to murder his brother, that Aaron would force him to commit the ultimate crime. The time was here and now.
This did not make him happy. But what could he do? Aaron could bring it all down, everything, unless he was stopped and stopped for good.
Noah wondered for a long time if he could actually do it. His own brother? He stared out at the starry night. But what was he thinking? Of course he could do it. What other choice did he have?
“It’s called Skeleton Key,” Aaron Tillman said. “It’s an island about ten miles from the bluffs you see on the east end of our property. A man named Deke Burgade operates it for my brother. Supposedly, he’s checking out the minerals there. But it’s been going on for five years. The island’s big but not that big. And Burgade is no mineral expert. He’s a tough who’s worked for Noah for at least ten years.”
They sat their horses just off the road. The warm night lacquered both of them with sweat. The moonlight gave an ominous yet beautiful look to the countryside.
“I’m not sure what all this has to do with these disappearances,” Fargo said.
“I’m not, either, exactly. But since the disappearances have taken place around the Fourth of July every year, and since Burgade always shows up at about the same time—in the house, I mean; he rarely leaves the island—I’m just wondering if there isn’t some connection.”
Fargo watched the man. Aaron seemed sober but not comfortably so. His arms and his voice shook. And he kept licking his dry lips.
“I guess I’m wondering why’d you go against your brother this way?”
“Because I know what my brother’s like. He’s had some strange—pastimes, I guess you’d call them.”
“Like what?”
“Well, there was a time when he led every posse that had to be got up.”
“A lot of men join posses.”
“Not posses like these. He’d take only trackers. He wouldn’t let them use their firearms unless it was self-defense. He wanted them to locate the fugitive and then come and get him. He insisted on killing the fugitive himself.”
“He never brought them in alive?”
“Never.” Aaron took out a long, thin cigar, bit off the end, spat it out. The lucifer was bright in the bird-cry darkness. He inhaled smoke deeply and then exhaled it. “He always worked it around so that he had some excuse to kill the man. And nobody was about to challenge him. You don’t challenge my brother. Or maybe you’ve learned that already.”
Another long drag on the cigar. “And that isn’t all, Fargo. A couple of prostitutes visited his fishing cabin over the years and were never seen or heard from again.”
“No explanation?”
“None. Nobody really gives a damn when soiled doves vanish anyway. And also you come back to the same problem—who’s going to challenge Noah?”
“I hear his stepson is pretty honest.”
“Very honest. And a good lawman. But I convinced him to let the whole thing slide.”
“Hell,” Fargo said, “why would you do that?”
“Simple. I like the boy. Even with all my personal problems, I’ve always been more of a father to him than Noah ever was. I don’t want to see him get himself killed.”
“Your brother would kill his own stepson?”
“If he felt he needed to.”
The Trailsman had met many different kinds of people during his years of wandering through this noisy, vibrant country called America but he’d met only a very few who’d turn on their own blood kin. Aaron and Noah Tillman had to genuinely despise each other for Aaron to give him this kind of information. Or was Aaron simply using him? What if he was lying about Noah so that Fargo would go after him? It wouldn’t be the first time a weak man had tricked a surrogate into doing his work for him.
But Aaron was convincing enough that Fargo knew he’d have to investigate these allegations. People were disappearing and so far this was the first reasonable explanation he’d heard.
“Aren’t you afraid of your brother?” Fargo asked.
“Terrified of him.”
“Then why don’t you leave?”
Aaron sighed. “Because life is too easy for me here. I get drunk and he dries me out. And in the meantime, I get to live in a mansion, eat the best food available, and have servants wait on me hand and foot. I’m not exactly an honorable man, Mr. Fargo. I leech off my brother because it’s the only way I can keep myself in a steady supply of liquor. My visits to the hospitals are short enough. And then I come right back and start imbibing again. Free of charge. I drink only the best brands of liquor, too. And Noah pays for it.”
He paused. “But I can’t countenance murder—or whatever the hell’s going on with my brother. I need to find out what Noah has been up to all these years. And you can help me.”
Fargo nodded. “I’ll see what I can do, Aaron.” He gripped the reins tighter on his stallion and said, “You might think of moving out. Might do you some good to stand on your own two feet.”