“I should say so!” Mayfair exclaimed. “We grew up in South Carolina not twenty miles from one another.” He went to say more, seemed to change his mind, and instead gestured at the trio coming down the steps behind him. “This is my wife, Margaret, my son, Jace, and my daughter, Priscilla.”
“How do you do, sir?” the wife said. Her hair was graying and she had a plump body that jiggled when she moved.
“A pleasure, sir.” Jace gave a courtly bow. He was in his twenties, and the spitting image of his sire.
Fargo was more interested in the daughter. Tall and willowy, Priscilla Mayfair filled out her dress in the shape of an hourglass—a rather tight dress for a farm girl, cut low in front to accent her cleavage and snug at the thighs to accent something else. She offered her hand with a graceful flourish.
“I do declare. Aren’t you a handsome devil!”
Grinning, Fargo imitated the son’s bow and kissed the back of her hand. Only she was aware that he pressed the tip of his tongue to her skin. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Not half as pleased as I am,” Priscilla said, her lovely green eyes twinkling. She did not resent the liberty he had taken. Quite the contrary.
“Why don’t we all go inside?” Clyde Mayfair proposed. “I will have refreshments brought.”
Fargo shucked his Henry from the saddle scabbard, untied his saddlebags, and followed Draypool and their hosts indoors.
A butler and two maids, all of them black, snapped to attention as if they were soldiers on a parade ground. Clyde Mayfair had one of the maids take Fargo’s personal effects upstairs. Then he said, “Follow me, gentlemen,” and led the way to a sitting room.
The house was a model of elegance. Mayfair was no simple farmer. He had money, lots of it, and he was lavish in spending it. Fargo found himself in a plush chair across from a giant window that afforded a sweeping vista of the thousands of acres Mayfair owned. The butler brought him a cup of coffee on a sterling silver tray. The cup itself was of the best china.
Draypool sank into another chair with a contented sigh. The maid gave him a glass of brandy, which he sniffed, then sipped, savoring it as if it was liquid gold.
“You have no idea, Clyde, how wonderful it is to be back among civilized society.”
“Had a rough time, did you, Arthur?” Margaret Mayfair asked.
“You have no idea. I cannot describe it in mixed company,” Draypool assured her. “Suffice it to say that everything you have heard about the frontier is true. It is overrun with barbarians who have no appreciation for the niceties of life.”
Fargo almost laughed. If Draypool thought Kansas City was wild and woolly, he should visit a few prairie towns or some of the mining camps up in the Rockies. Compared to them, Kansas City was as tame as Paris or London.
“How sad.” Margaret Mayfair sniffed. “People these days have lost all sense of decorum. It comes from bad breeding.”
Clyde glanced sharply at Fargo, then cleared his throat and said, “Yes, my dear. I wholeheartedly agree. But we don’t want to bore our guest with a discussion about the decline and fall of American culture.”
“It would bore me,” Priscilla remarked, drawing a barbed look from her mother. “We hear it nearly every day.”
“That will be quite enough, young lady,” Margaret chided. “When I was your age I would never have presumed to be so impertinent.”
“When you were my age,” Priscilla said sweetly, “you were as straitlaced as your corset, Mother, and nothing has changed.”
Clyde flushed and started to rise, but caught himself. “That will be enough, young lady. Must you constantly bait your mother and I over trifles?”
“My apologies, Father,” Priscilla said with mock sincerity. “I meant no disrespect. But we have talked about it endlessly, and it does so bore me.”
Bestowing an embarrassed smile on Fargo, Clyde said, “Please excuse my daughter’s antics. We spoiled her growing up, I’m afraid, and her maturity has suffered as a result.”
Now it was Priscilla who colored and clenched her small hands into fists. “There you go again. Carping on my presumed flaws. But I do not have to sit here and listen.” She began to rise.
“Sit back down!” Clyde’s command had the same effect as the crack of a bullwhip; his daughter flinched, and did as she was told.
Arthur Draypool was nervously running his hands along the polished arms of his chair. “Perhaps we have come at an awkward time and should take our leave.”
“Nonsense,” Clyde said. “Parents must keep their offspring in line. I am sure our other guest does not think less of us.”
All eyes swung to Fargo. “I will if I don’t get a glass of whiskey,” he said good-naturedly.
“You would rather have that than coffee? How remiss of me.” Clyde snapped his fingers and the butler scampered to comply.
Jace Mayfair had not said a word the whole time. He had been studying Fargo, and now he shifted toward him, crossed his legs, and remarked, “I have heard you are one of the best trackers alive.”
Since no one had mentioned anything about Fargo’s profession since they had arrived, he responded, “Who told you that?”
“Mr. Draypool, before he left.”
Arthur smiled and spread his hands. “Clyde is one of my oldest and dearest friends. He believes, like I do, that we must take steps to clean up our fair state. In fact, he put up a portion of the ten thousand dollars.”
Clyde Mayfair nodded. “When the law can’t do what it is supposed to do, decent men must take the law into their own hands. I frown on vigilantism, but it can’t be helped. Our group is devoted to the greater public good.”
“How many of you are there?” Fargo inquired.
“Oh, about a dozen so far,” Clyde said vaguely. “But more will rally to our cause before too long. Wait and see.”
“Ours is a great and holy crusade,” Margaret commented. “We will not rest until Illinois is exactly like the sovereign and law-abiding state of South Carolina.”
Jace had not taken his eyes off Fargo. “I like to hunt, and I have done some tracking, but I am an amateur compared to men like you and Hiram Trask.”
“Who?”
“Trask is from down South,” Jace explained. “He lives deep in the backwoods. He’s not as famous as you, but he can track anything that lives, anywhere, anytime. Maybe you will run into him someday.”
“You never know,” Fargo said.
Jace’s mouth quirked upward. “It would be interesting to have a contest between the two of you to determine who is the king of the trackers, as it were.”
Clyde Mayfair made what Fargo took to be an impatient gesture. “Don’t be silly, son. Trask operates out of Georgia, and it is unlikely Mr. Fargo will venture south of the Mason-Dixon Line anytime soon. His usual haunts are much farther west. Isn’t that right?”
Fargo acknowledged that it was.
“Still, it would be interesting,” Jace insisted with that enigmatic grin. “It isn’t often that men of their caliber are pitted against one another.”
“Let’s change the subject,” Arthur proposed, and he began asking Mayfair questions about the state of the farm, the state of Mayfair’s crops, and the weather.
Now it was Fargo who was bored. He gulped the whiskey the butler brought and nursed a second. With nothing better to do, he admired Priscilla Mayfair’s tantalizing figure. She met his scrutiny with amused interest, undressing him with her eyes. When she thought no one else was looking, she grinned and winked.
The night ahead promised to be entertaining. Fargo looked forward to getting to know Priscilla a lot better. But first he had to endure another half hour of idle chatter. Then Clyde Mayfair took it into his head to give him a tour of the grounds.