“Sure didn’t,” the young man responded. “But I’ve been inside mostly, making a cradle for the baby.”
“I did,” the woman said. “I saw him out the window. It wasn’t the usual one.”
“How’s that?” Fargo asked.
It was the husband who answered. “There’s a fella who has a cabin deeper in. We don’t often see him, maybe once every three or four months.” He looked at his wife. “But it wasn’t him?”
“No,” the woman confirmed. “About the same height and just as skinny, but this one didn’t have a beard and was carrying a rifle, not an ax.”
“An ax?” Fargo said.
The husband nodded. “The man who lives past us always has an ax with him. Never a gun, just the ax. Carries it like it’s part of him.”
Fargo touched his hat brim. “I’m obliged.” He reined around, then stopped to say over his shoulder,
“Keep your eyes peeled. More men might come by, late today or early tomorrow. Stay shy of them. They’re not to be trusted.”
“What’s it about?” the young man asked in sudden concern.
“I’m not sure,” Fargo said. “But I suspect they’ve already killed one family and wouldn’t hesitate to harm your wife and you.”
“You should go to the law.”
“Without proof there’s not much a lawman could do,” Fargo said, and gigged the stallion.
“Thanks for the warning, mister!”
Fargo had a lot to ponder. For starters, what was he to make of the fact that the man he was following looked a lot like another man who had a cabin farther in? Could it be the woman was mistaken? That the man she saw was the same man, only he had shaved his beard and traded his ax for a rifle? Or was the second man a friend of the first? Or was it something else entirely? Answers were elusive. He had too little information to go on.
The trail meandered interminably into the shadowed depths of the woodland. Birds were everywhere. Squirrels scampered in the upper terrace. Deer that had seldom set eyes on human beings stared without fear.
Once, Fargo spooked a young black bear that ran off grunting and huffing.
It was the ring of an ax that alerted Fargo he was close. Coming to a stop, he dismounted, drew his Colt, and led the Ovaro warily forward. The steady thunk-thunk-thunk of the ax grew louder.
The homestead was a work in progress. The cabin was the smallest yet. Many of the trees around it had yet to be cleared. A tall, lanky man with a broad chest was attending to that task, his shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal muscular arms. Every stroke of his ax was powerful and precise. Another backwoodsman, if ever there was one.
The tracks Fargo had been following did not enter the clearing. They veered off the trail into the forest.
Squaring his shoulders, Fargo walked into the open. The man swinging the ax did not appear to notice him. Ten feet behind him, Fargo stopped.
Without stopping, the man asked, “Are you fixing to shoot me, citizen?”
“Put it down,” Fargo said.
The tall man turned and regarded him intently but not unkindly. He acted more amused than anything else. “This?” He held out the ax.
“That,” Fargo confirmed.
“It would be foolish of me to drop my only weapon while a complete stranger holds a gun on me, wouldn’t you agree?”
“You don’t have any choice.”
“I beg to differ. I can go on chopping, or I can invite you in for some refreshment. I have lemonade. It’s not cold, but it will slake your thirst.”
“Drop it,” Fargo repeated, mystified by the man’s behavior.
“Or what? You’ll shoot me?” The backwoodsman chuckled. He had an easygoing manner about him. “I pride myself on being an excellent judge of character, and you are not the kind to kill someone in cold blood.”
“You take awful chances,” Fargo said.
“We take risks our whole lives. Day in and day out we must choose between a course that is safe and a course that is less so. But we can’t take the safe course if the safe course is not the right one.”
The man spoke so earnestly. Fargo studied him anew; his face was bony and angular, the nose prominent, the ears large, but then the man’s head was large, too, large and craggy and stamped with character born of experience. It also mirrored an indefinable hint of sadness. One look at him, and Fargo could not imagine him slaughtering an innocent family. He lowered his Colt.
A smile touched the tall man’s lips. “You’re not going to kill me, then?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Fargo said. “I don’t savvy any of this. Why do they want you dead? Who are you?”
“You don’t know?” The man placed the head of his ax on the ground and leaned on the handle. “But why should you, unless you have heard me speak, or seen a likeness in a newspaper?” He gestured at the cabin. “My place is a carefully guarded secret. I like to get away by myself from time to time, to go back to my roots, as it were, to spend my evenings reading Shakespeare or the Bible.” He paused, then bluntly asked, “Who is it wants me dead?”
“They call themselves the Secessionist League—” Fargo began.
The backwoodsman held up a bony hand. “We will finish this discussion inside. I would be remiss as a host if I did not offer you that refreshment.” Without awaiting a reply, he swung the ax to his shoulder and strode toward the cabin.
More perplexed than ever, Fargo twirled his Colt into his holster and followed. There was no hitch rail, but there were several pegs in the front wall for hanging tools and whatnot, and Fargo looped the reins around one of them. The cabin was a single room, sparsely furnished, with the bed over against the rear wall. There was a table with a lantern on it, and a rocking chair. A bookcase was the only other furniture. A black pot hung on a tripod in the fireplace.
“Would you like some of my lemonade? Or I can make coffee or tea.”
“I’m not all that thirsty.” Fargo stayed in the doorway so he could watch the woods, and the trail. “I don’t see a gun anywhere.”
The man was about to place his ax on the table. Patting it, he said, “I’ve carried one of these since I was knee-high to a calf. It is the best tool a man can own.”
“You can’t drop an enemy at a hundred yards with an ax,” Fargo replied.
“I would rather persuade an enemy than slay him. Alive, a man has worth and can contribute to the common good. Dead, he is of no use to anyone.” He set the ax down. “But I am willing to concede there are times when that is impossible. Times when an enemy leaves us no recourse but to resort to violence.” The sadness in his face became more pronounced. “You have slain quite a few, I take it?”
“More than my share,” Fargo confessed. “But I never go hunting trouble. Somehow, it just seems to find me.”
The backwoodsman grinned. “In that we are much alike. But with the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attends us, we can overcome any difficulty.” He moved to the counter, where a half-empty pitcher of lemonade sat beside a bucket of water. “I am being remiss. I will have your water in a jiffy.”
“There’s no hurry. I’m not going anywhere.” Not until Fargo got to the bottom of the mystery. “You still haven’t told me your name.” He gave his own.
“How unusual. I seem to recall it from somewhere. What is it that you do for a living, if I may ask?” The man poured water into a glass.
“I work as a scout,” Fargo disclosed. “I also guide wagon trains now and then. Sometimes I’m hired as a tracker.”
“I see.” The man brought the glass over. “Did the Secessionist League hire you to track me?”
“To track someone,” Fargo said, and briefly related the trail he had followed for the past day and a half.