“Damn you! No one has ever lasted this long!”
“I intend to last longer,” Fargo assured him.
“Think again,” Layton said, and clawed for his revolver. He had it half out when Fargo’s shoulder slammed into him and they pitched backward into the fire. He stabbed at Fargo’s neck but cleaved empty air.
Fargo gained his feet first. He lashed out with his right foot and Layton’s Remington sailed into the dark.
“Enough is enough!” Layton growled. He was growing desperate, and he proved it by throwing himself recklessly forward, his knife arcing right and left.
Fargo retreated. He made Layton come after him, made Layton overextend himself, and at the next wild slash, he drove the toothpick’s double-edged blade into Layton’s forearm.
Crying out, Layton backpedaled, then stopped and regarded the blood seeping from the wound. He was winded and could not last much longer, and they both knew it. “How about if we call this a draw and you let me take my horse and go?”
Shaking his head, Fargo resumed circling. “You tried to kill me. This ends only one way.”
“Bastard.”
Struck by a thought, Fargo stopped and said slowly, “Unless—”
“Unless what?” Layton eagerly responded.
“Unless you tell me the name of the man the League wants dead. Do that, and I won’t try to stop you from leaving.”
Layton straightened, blood dripping from his wrist. “I can’t. I took a vow. I pledged to be loyal to the League.”
“Is your vow worth dying over?”
“The stakes are. This isn’t about you or me. It’s about sticking up for what I believe in.”
“You’ve lost me,” Fargo admitted.
“The judge calls them ‘causes greater than ourselves, ’ ” Layton recited. “I have an obligation to do what is best for everyone, not just for me.”
“How is murdering someone good for anyone?” Fargo skeptically asked.
“It depends on who. And it’s not really a murder. Not in the way you mean.”
The quibbling annoyed Fargo. “What other way is there?” he demanded. He wondered if Layton was stalling to regain his strength.
“Nice try, mister. You’re fishing, hoping I’ll give it away. But I won’t. I’ve made my decision. I would rather die than betray the cause.”
Fargo’s puzzlement grew. The Secessionist League was devoted to one cause and one cause only. “All this has something to do with the South?”
Desperation compelled Layton to snarl and recklessly throw himself into an attack yet again. He feinted high but sliced low, his intent to bury his knife in Fargo’s groin. But the backwoodsman was not the only one with superb reflexes. Fargo’s had been honed in clashes with Comanches and Sioux, grizzlies and wolves. His arm moved like lightning. He blocked the knife, and before Layton could recover, Fargo reversed his grip on the toothpick and slashed it across the other’s throat.
For all of five seconds Bill Layton stood in stunned disbelief. Then he bleated and staggered, clutching at the cut in a vain bid to stanch the crimson spray that moistened the front of his buckskin shirt. “No!” he gurgled. “Not like this!”
Fargo did not move closer. So long as the man lived, he was dangerous. “Who is the League after?”
Layton glared.
“His name,” Fargo persisted.
“Go to hell!” The words were spat out in a blubbery hiss matched by the hiss of scarlet.
“You first.”
Layton tottered, swore, and fell to his knees. Blood gushed over his lower lip in a thick red flow. He glanced wildly about, as if seeking the Remington, then raised his knife to the star-speckled heavens and tried to shout something, but all that came out of his mouth was more blood and inarticulate sounds. He looked at Fargo and weakly cocked his arm to throw his knife. Life fled, and with a final groan he toppled.
Fargo felt for a pulse to be sure. He searched Layton’s pockets and saddlebags in the hope of finding a clue to the League’s plot, but there was nothing. With a sigh of frustration, he faced to the southwest and then to the northeast. He had a decision to make. Should he go after Harding and Draypool and the rest? Or should he continue tracking and find out who they were after?
Which would it be?
15
Hour after hour the tracks led Fargo north by northeast. The morning passed and the sun was at its zenith when he came to a river. He heard it before he saw it, heard the unmistakable watery rustle, like a sheet sliding across a bed.
The tracks went right up to the river’s edge. There, the killer had sat in the dirt, the impression of his buttocks confirming his lean build. He had removed his shoes and socks. Fargo knew because the tracks to the water were those of bare feet.
The killer had waded right in.
Fargo gazed toward the opposite shore. If the killer could cross at that point, so could the Ovaro. There were no rapids to contend with and the water was not deep.
After so much time in the forest, venturing into the open grated on Fargo’s nerves. The whole way across, he scoured the other side for a possible ambush. It was an ideal spot. He had nowhere to take cover except in the water. One shot was all it would take to pick him off. But none shattered the muggy air, and presently the Ovaro stood on a flat stretch of shore and shook, spraying drops every which way.
The killer had sat to put on his shoes and socks, then jogged into the trees. Instead of traveling northward though, he bore east along the river, paralleling it.
Fargo sensed a purpose to the change of direction. Not quite half an hour later he came on a wide trail that saw frequent use. The trail started at the river and wound to the north. Dismounting, he walked to the Sangamon. The spot was a regularly used crossing. In the distance, to the south, was a small town.
Fargo scratched his chin in thought. Why had the killer crossed farther down rather than use the normal crossing? To avoid being seen? Then why come to the regular crossing at all? The answer lay at his feet: the jumble of tracks. The killer’s were now amid a maze of others. Anyone tracking him would find it that much harder.
Leading the Ovaro by the reins, Fargo walked the first half mile, to a fork where a small trail angled to the northeast. Fewer people used it, and there were fewer tracks. He had no difficulty distinguishing those he had been following from the rest. Smiling to himself, he climbed into the saddle.
Ten minutes later Fargo passed an isolated homestead. In a corral attached to the large cabin were two horses. Several small children stopped playing to stare. So did their father, who was curing a hide. A rifle was propped against a nearby stump. Fargo lifted a hand in greeting and the man did likewise.
Twenty minutes more, and another homestead. This one was smaller than the first, with no corral and no horses. No children, either, but a woman was hanging wash on a line, and on hearing the clomp of the Ovaro’s hooves, she called out, and a man emerged with a rifle in his hands. Again Fargo waved. Again the homesteader raised an arm in acknowledgment.
Cautious but friendly. Typical backwoodsmen.
Over an hour later Fargo came on the next homestead, the smallest yet. A dog tied to a stake barked in warning, and a young man and young woman came out, the woman cradling an infant to her bosom, the man with the inevitable rifle. They smiled, and the young man called out, “You’re welcome to light and set a spell if you want!”
Fargo reined across the clearing and stopped. “Mind if I ask you folks a question?” he asked politely.
“Is that all?” the man said. “We don’t get many visitors. How about a cup of coffee? My wife makes the best you’ll taste anywhere.”
The woman blushed and said, “Oh, pshaw.”
Fargo wouldn’t mind, but he had to push on. “Maybe on my way back. I’d like to know if you saw anyone else go by today?”