As she was shuddering and falling into him, he blessed her nipples with a quick kiss, and she shuddered all the more.
Fargo had to give them credit. They’d worked out a pretty effective plan.
He woke to the sound of the revelers, wondering what time it was. The drinkers and the dancers were going to be completely spent by dawn. They’d spend the Fourth tending to hangovers instead of getting into the fun.
Darkness. The faint squeak of a doorknob in need of oil as it was turned to the right. Fargo slid his hand to the floor, where he kept his Colt. He filled his hand with it as he came up off the bed, waiting for his intruder.
A silhouette of a man in the tallest western hat Fargo had ever seen. Too bad the man wasn’t as slick at his hat. He came creeping in on cowboy boots with all the grace of an elephant turned ballerina. Always in sight thanks to the flickering sconce in the hall.
The intruder’s eyes obviously hadn’t adjusted to the darkness yet.
Fargo said, “Hand the gun over, mister.”
Fargo stepped out of the gloom and slapped the barrel of his Colt across the face of the startled, blinking man.
Since he resented being wakened from a sound sleep, Fargo swatted the man around for a time, hitting him on the jaw, knocking the wind out of him with a punch delivered straight to his sternum. He finished by taking the man’s fancy new six-shooter from him.
He was just busy enough that his mind didn’t quite register the other sound in the room. By the time he started to turn, it was too late.
A man was climbing through the window where there was a fire escape that ran from ground to roof. The man had had no problem.
“Couple of ways we can do this, Fargo. Your way or my way.” He pointed a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun at Fargo. “Toss your gun onto the bed.”
Fargo recognized the voice of the white man who’d been with the Mexican yesterday morning. They’d taken Daisy.
The gunny who had come through the door was picking himself up and cursing. He’d just been humiliated and physically hurt in the process.
He staggered to the table and turned up the lamp.
“Name’s Ekert,” said the man with the shotgun. “Guess I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself yesterday.”
“Let’s get going,” said his partner. He was still nervous from the humiliation. A man like him preferred to think of himself as tough. That was the only thing he could claim to be. Smart, no. Cunning, no. Successful, no. But tough—damned tough. Except he wasn’t damned tough, was he? Not anymore, not in the eyes of Ekert, anyway.
“We’re taking a trip, Mr. Fargo.” Ekert glanced around the room suspiciously, as if expecting a leprechaun with a six-gun to be hiding somewhere.
“Same kind of trip you took Daisy on?”
“Believe it or not, nobody told the Mex to kill her,” Ekert said. “He was just supposed to keep her hidden ’till the boat came.”
The boat. Fargo thought about the island Aaron Tillman had alluded to. Maybe this was the fastest way to find out what was going on. Let himself become a captive of these two gunnies—given the fact that they had the drop on him didn’t leave him much choice, anyway—and see if that led him to the boat and the island.
“Get your clothes on,” Ekert said.
“You’re gonna be sorry you hit me,” said the other gunny.
Fargo dressed.
“I take it Noah sent you,” he said as he pulled on his boots.
“Who sent us is none of your business,” Ekert said.
“It’s gonna be a pleasure to pay you back,” the other gunny said.
“We don’t hurt him,” Ekert said. “The island, remember?”
“The Mexican was a lot tougher than this one,” Fargo said, smiling at the other gunny. “This one isn’t tough and he isn’t smart.”
Fargo saw an easy chance for escape. He could smash the lamp. He was close enough to the open window to dive through. In the darkness, Ekert wouldn’t be able to figure out what was going on until it was too late.
But as salty—not to mention crazy—Cap’n Bill had told him, the easiest way to get on the island was to have somebody kidnap him and take him there.
Well, here was his chance.
He buttoned his shirt, hefted his manhood to a more comfortable angle inside his breeches, and then said, “Let’s go, gentlemen.”
“What the hell’re you so happy about?” the other gunny asked.
“Well, hell, friend,” Fargo said. “It’s the Fourth of July. Why wouldn’t I be happy?”
“He sounds like he’s got somethin’ funny planned,” the other gunny said to Ekert.
“Shut up,” Ekert said.
They left the room by way of the fire escape.
15
Fargo was thrown into the back of a buckboard, marked by slivers in the wood of the wagon bed. He lay beneath a horse blanket that smelled of animal urine and hay. Ekert and the other gunny sat up front.
It was hot as hell, and his sweat added to the urine scent and the bouncing ride to make the trip miserable. Plus it made him need to piss. But he’d play hell getting them to stop and let him empty his bladder.
He was hoping they’d talk to each other, fill in a few details about where they were going and what their plans were. But they said nothing.
Fargo stared into the darkness.
Somehow, despite everything working against it, Fargo managed to drift into a light sleep.
He woke to find that the buckboard had pulled off to the side of the stage road.
“Where are we?” he said.
“Don’t worry about it, Fargo,” Ekert said.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it, Fargo,” the other gunny said, sounding like a dumb little kid imitating his old man.
The silence returned.
After awhile the other gunny said, “They’re late.”
“Yeah, I noticed that, McGarth,” Ekert said sarcastically. “I’m sittin’ here with you, remember?”
“Who they bringin’ us?”
“I don’t know. All Manuel said was that we were to meet ’em here and they’d have somebody else for the boat.”
“Well, they’re late,” McGarth said.
Ekert sighed. “You say that one more time, McGarth, and I’m makin’ you walk.”
The silence again. Fargo had a few second thoughts about putting his fate in the hands of two idiots like these. What was to say McGarth wouldn’t say “screw it” and shoot him, anyway? Fargo had humiliated him, or that was how McGarth saw it, and it was obvious the man was eager to pay Fargo back.
After a long time, the clatter of an approaching wagon could be heard.
“About time,” McGarth said.
Fargo tried to sit up but the way they had lashed his wrists and ankles made it impossible to raise his head more than a few inches. But at least when he sat up this way, the blanket fell away and the air, hot as it was, smelled clean.
The buckboard pulled up alongside the wagon.
“How come you’re so late, Manuel?” McGarth said, sounding angry.
“I don’t answer to you,” Manuel sneered.
“Never mind him, Manuel. I thought maybe something went wrong.”
“Something did go wrong. My friend here managed to escape when we were loading him on the buckboard. He faked being unconscious. You’ll have to watch him carefully. He’s a wily one.”
“He ain’t gonna escape while I’m around,” McGarth said.
Manuel laughed. “You have a brave one with you, I see, Mr. Ekert.”
“If he was as good with his gun as he is with his mouth, he’d be a dangerous man,” Ekert laughed.
“You two think you’re pretty funny, don’t you?”
“Go help him load up the other one,” Ekert said to McGarth.