“Except for one thing,” Roland said.
“What would that be?”
“I took the chest to the hunting lodge and turned it over to Jarvis and the other servants for safekeeping.”
“You’re lying.”
“You would like to think so, wouldn’t you? But if you have us murdered now, you face the gallows.”
“To the contrary,” Pickleman said. “You’ve just made my alibi foolproof. I’ll say that Tom went berserk when you told him you dug up the chest. He couldn’t stand the thought of losing the inheritance and snapped. It’s perfect.”
Tom had been quiet but now he pushed to his feet and furiously declared, “You rotten scum.”
“Shoot him,” Pickleman said to Jacques.
The brother started to raise his revolver.
Fargo couldn’t hold off any longer. He exploded up off the ground and flung the dirt in Jacques’s face. Jacques instinctively ducked and sidestepped and swung the Remington toward him. Fargo sidestepped, too, as the six-gun went off. He dived, hitting Jacques low in the legs and bringing him down. He grabbed Jacques’s wrist and Jacques grabbed his, and they grappled.
Pickleman was screeching for Jacques to kill him and for Julienne to help. Only Julienne couldn’t.
Out of the corner of his eye Fargo glimpsed her on the ground, struggling with Roland. Despite his wounds, Roland had tackled her. He was trying to pin her and received a jolting blow to the jaw.
“Hang on!” Tom cried, and leaped to help his brother.
Fargo winced as a knee caught him high on his leg. It had missed his groin by inches. He returned the favor and Jacques grunted but his grip didn’t weaken.
Hissing, the young assassin bared his teeth. “I have wanted a rematch with you.”
Jacques drove his forehead against Fargo’s chin.
The world burst into fragments of swirling colors. Fargo lost his hold. A blow to his chest knocked him onto his side. His vision cleared, and he saw Jacques already rising and the revolver being pointed at him. He was about to die and there was nothing he could do.
That was when Theodore Pickleman darted in and grabbed Jacques by the arm. “Kill them!” he shrieked. “You must kill them, do you hear?”
“Let go, you fool!” Jacques threw him off .
By then Fargo was up. He seized Jacques by the wrist just as the revolver went off and the lead dug a furrow in the earth. Pivoting, Fargo heaved and threw his foot out. Jacques’s legs and head switched places and Jacques’s arm gave a terrific wrench and a snap.
Jacques screamed.
“Brother!” Julienne cried.
Fargo glimpsed her battling Roland and Tom. She had lost her pistol and had a knife in each hand. It was two against one but Fargo knew they were no match for her. He had to help, only he wasn’t give the chance.
Jacques came up off the ground with a knife of his own. He stabbed at Fargo’s chest and Fargo twisted aside. Jacques came after him, cutting, slashing, trying to bring Fargo down.
Samantha called out Tom’s name in horror.
Fargo glanced over. Tom was down, crimson misting from a wound in his side. Now only Roland prevented the sister from coming to the aid of her brother, and Roland wouldn’t last long alone.
A grim grin curled Jacques’s mouth. His next several swings were intended to keep Fargo at bay until Julienne could spring to his side.
Jacques had dropped the Remington when Fargo broke his arm, and apparently forgotten about it. Fargo hadn’t. There it was, almost at his feet. He kicked at Jacques, forcing Jacques back, and dropped to his knee.
“Non!”
Jacques had seen the revolver.
Fargo scooped it up. The grips molded to his palm and he thumbed back the hammer.
Jacques raised the knife to slash.
Fargo fired as Jacques leaped at him, fired as Jacques twisted to the impact, fired as Jacques sought to sink the knife in his neck, fired as Jacques swayed and fired as Jacques tottered and fired the last cartridge in the cylinder into Jacques’s forehead.
“Noooooo!”
The wail was torn from Julienne. Roland was down, and she started toward Fargo, blood dripping from both her knives.
Fargo whirled, the Remington held low. He figured she hadn’t counted the shots because she spun and bolted into the trees. He didn’t hesitate. He went after her.
Samantha shouted his name but Fargo didn’t slow. Julienne wasn’t the kind to forgive and forget. If he didn’t catch her here and now, if he didn’t end it, she would come after him later and exact her vengeance at a time and place of her choosing.
But God, she was fast. Fargo had been in a footrace once against some of the fastest runners in the country, including an Apache girl famed for her speed, and Julienne was every whit their equal. He kept her in sight but it took all he had. She flew through the vegetation as if she had wings on her feet. She looked back once and only once, and did a strange thing; she smiled.
Fargo concentrated on running and nothing but running. He avoided a pine and vaulted a stump and lost a few yards.
Up ahead were a cluster of big oaks. Julienne streaked in among them—and disappeared.
Fargo reached the oaks and stopped. There wasn’t much undergrowth. He figured she had ducked behind a trunk and was waiting to ambush him. Warily, he advanced, holding the Remington by the barrel. He passed several trees without seeing sign of her.
A sound overhead caused Fargo to glance up. Julienne had just launched herself from a tree limb. He dodged but wasn’t quite quick enough and felt a stinging sensation in his right shoulder. She had cut him. He whirled toward her as she alighted in a crouch. He swung the revolver like a club.
With incredible swiftness, Julienne dodged. Before Fargo could draw his arm back, a knife flashed and blood welled. She had cut him again. He retreated a few steps and she came after him.
“For what you did to Jacques I will kill you piece by piece. You will be a long time dying.”
“Big talk, bitch,” Fargo said to goad her. He watched her knives, only her knives. When the left blade swept at him he was ready and skipped aside. The other knife flicked at his neck but he slipped out of reach.
“You are uncommonly quick, monsieur.”
“Your brother said the same thing shortly before I blew him to hell.”
Julienne’s features hardened. Her eyes were smoldering volcanoes. She came in fast and she came in low, windmilling both blades, a human threshing machine bent on his destruction.
Fargo backpedaled. He ducked. He weaved and turned, always a hairsbreadth from harm. But he couldn’t keep it up. Sooner or later she would bring him down.
The tip of a knife narrowly missed Fargo’s throat. The keen edge of the other caught his wrist.
Fargo drew back as if in pain and again she came after him. He wanted her to. He cocked his arm as if to club her with the revolver and when she jerked back he threw it with all his strength and hit her full in the face. She cried out and blood sprayed; then Fargo had her by the wrists and she was twisting and pulling to break free and he was trying to hurl her to the ground.
Fargo had seldom encountered a woman so strong. He locked a foot behind her leg and sought to trip her. With amazing agility Julienne hopped over his leg and her right foot rose and caught him on the side of the head. His ear flared with agony. She hopped again and this time kicked him in the side of the neck.
A part of Fargo admired her skill. She was one of the toughest fighters he had ever tangled with. He tried to pin her arms but she was as slippery as a wet eel. She kicked him in the leg, in the ribs.
Fargo was losing. He was bleeding and tired and growing weak. But she wasn’t the only one who could kick. He buried his boot in her gut and she doubled over. With a wrench, he tore the knife from her right hand, reversed his grip, and as she straightened, sank the blade to the hilt in her eye.