“I couldn’t sleep and was tossing and turning,” Draypool said. “Then I noticed you were missing. I must say, I was shocked. You should have told us that you were going off alone.”
“I don’t need nursemaids,” Fargo said gruffly. His momentary weakness had passed and he pushed past the Illinoisan, his teeth clenched against the pounding in his head.
“Wait!” Draypool cried, snatching at his sleeve. “Let my men take care of it. That’s what I pay them for.”
Fargo paid him no heed. He plunged into the woods, paused for only a second to listen, then raced toward the sound of crackling brush. A shot stabbed the dark with flame and smoke. Another answered.
Fargo ran as fast as he dared. He cupped a hand to his mouth to shout for Avril and Zeck not to harm Colter or Sloane, but he did not call out. They wouldn’t listen. They answered only to Draypool. To stop them, he must catch up, which proved easier to contemplate than to effect.
More shots were exchanged up ahead. It was impossible to tell who was doing the shooting.
From somewhere behind Fargo, Arthur Draypool shouted for him to wait, adding, “You could hurt yourself stumbling around in the dark!”
Fargo was insulted. He was a frontiersman. He had lived in the wild for more years than Draypool and his hired guns combined.
Another blast rocked the night. On its heels rose an outcry of pain, which was promptly smothered.
Indigo shapes moved a hundred feet away. To avoid being shot by mistake, Fargo halved his speed and bent low. Presently he stopped. The woods were as silent as a cemetery.
“Fargo, please!” Draypool bleated in the distance. “Where are you?”
Fargo warily advanced. Another flurry of man-made thunder caused him to drop flat. It was well he did. Slugs buzzed overhead. One clipped a leaf that gravity zigzagged onto his hand. He glimpsed more movement, but the source was gone before he could identify it.
A minute of quiet passed. Rising partway, Fargo skirted a log. To the east three shots crackled. A thicket barred his way and he angled to the left to go around. A sound stopped him, a low groan bit off short. He crept closer to the thicket and spied a figure sprawled at its base.
Jim Sloane lay on his back, his arms outflung. His hat was missing, his jacket open, revealing dark stains on his shirt. He gave a slight start when Fargo hunkered at his elbow, then blinked and croaked, “You again! Go ahead. Finish me off, you miserable bastard.”
Fargo whispered so no one else would hear. “Why were Colter and you following Arthur Draypool?”
“As if you don’t know,” Sloane spat out. It cost him a fit of coughing that brought flecks of blood to the corners of his mouth.
“If I did I wouldn’t ask.”
“Let me die in peace, damn you. But remember one thing, mister. You won’t win. We won’t let you.”
Fargo scanned their vicinity but did not spot anyone else. “I said it before, and I’ll say it again. I don’t know what the hell you are talking about.”
Sloane tried to respond but succumbed to more coughing. When he could finally speak, he rasped,
“Have your fun. But the government is on to you and the rest of the League. We won’t let you light the fuse.”
More puzzled than ever, Fargo said, “What League? What fuse? You don’t make sense.”
Instead of answering, Sloane laughed bitterly, a laugh nipped by an upwelling of dark rivulets from between his lips. “Damn!” he gurgled. “I’m not long for this world.”
“Listen to me,” Fargo said. “Draypool has hired me to track down a killer called the Sangamon River Monster. Have you ever heard of him?”
“Now who is not making any sense?” Sloane weakly rejoined. “Who ever heard of a monster in this day and age?”
“It’s a man who mutilates and murders whole families,” Fargo explained. “In the Sangamon River region near Springfield.”
Sloane blanched as pale as a sheet. His eyes swiveled and fixed on Fargo’s face. “What did you say?”
Fargo repeated it, elaborating with, “Draypool and some others want to end the bloodshed. That’s why they hired me.”
“Oh, God.”
“What?” Fargo asked, unsure of whether the man was agitated by the information or had gone stark pale due to his wounds.
“Those devils! It’s so simple!” Quaking violently, Sloane raised his head and feebly clawed at Fargo’s leg. “He has to be warned! Get word to—”
“To who?” Fargo prompted.
Jim Sloane went rigid. Tears streamed from his eyes as his mouth worked soundlessly. Abruptly going limp, he slumped onto his back and exhaled.
Fargo felt for a pulse but there was none. He heard Draypool huff and puff up behind him, but he did not turn.
“Is that one dead?”
“Yes.”
“Good riddance. Let’s hope Avril and Zeck do the same with the other.”
7
Fargo said very little to Arthur Draypool over the next several days. He did not tell Draypool what Sloane had told him. Better he kept the information to himself until he found out what was going on.
Avril and Zeck had seen to Sloane’s burial after they returned from chasing Frank Colter. Colter got away, which secretly pleased Fargo. He offered to help dig Sloane’s grave but Draypool would not hear of it. “Menial chores are why I have Mr. Avril and Mr. Zeck in my employ.”
As the pair in frock coats busied themselves with broken branches, scooping out earth, Fargo searched Sloane’s pockets. He hoped to find something that would tell him who Sloane had been and what Sloane and Colter were up to, but all he found was thirty dollars, a folding knife, and a compass.
In an effort to justify the shooting, Arthur Draypool had gone on and on about the dangers of traveling in that part of Missouri. “Scoundrels are everywhere. It shouldn’t surprise you that two of them were following us. No doubt at the first opportunity they planned to relieve us of our valuables, if not our lives.”
That was three nights ago. Over the subsequent days, Fargo racked his brain for an excuse to bow out. All he had to do was walk up to Draypool and flatly refuse to go another mile. But he could not bring himself to do it. Part of the reason was that he had agreed to do the job, and while his promise was not carved in granite, he never went back on his word if he could help it.
Curiosity was also a factor. Colter and Sloane had given the impression that Draypool was up to no good. The idea seemed preposterous. Fargo could not for the life of him figure out what Draypool hoped to gain by deceiving him. Why go to so much trouble to track him down and offer him so much money if the whole arrangement was underhanded?
For the time being Fargo was content to go along. But he was no man’s fool, and he stayed alert for gleanings of Draypool’s true intentions.
The day came when they crossed the border into Illinois. Fargo reckoned they would push on to the next town and rest there for the night. But to his surprise, after only a few miles, Arthur Draypool turned off the main road and down a long lane that brought them to a stately farmhouse. It reminded Fargo of mansions he had seen in the deep South. Scores of workers, nearly all of them black, were busy at various tasks.
“I hope you won’t mind if we stop early tonight,” Draypool commented. “I thought it might do to treat you to some Illinois hospitality.”
Apparently word of their coming had preceded them, for four people were waiting on a broad porch. For farmers, the four were dressed in remarkably nice clothes. A craggy-faced man with a bushy mustache came down the steps to greet them, declaring, “Arthur! What a pleasure to see you again!”
“Permit me to introduce Clyde Mayfair,” Draypool said while shaking their host’s hand. “He and I go back a long ways.”