“I try not to miss them,” Fargo replied. They were more than poker games. It was a week of whiskey and women, and who could ask for more?
“You're the last to show,” Senator Deerforth informed him. “Midnight is the deadline. You cut it close, as usual.”
“I had a far piece to come,” Fargo told him. Clear from the Green River country.
“Let's get you settled in and you can join me for drinks in my study.”
“My horseâ” Fargo said, and gestured at the Ovaro.
“My stable boys will take care of it as if it were my own.” Deerforth gave him a jovial poke. “You should know that by now.”
They were almost to the front door when a female version of Deerforth bustled out to greet them. She was just as wide and had just as many chins. “Skye!” she squealed in delight. “You handsome devil, you.”
“Virginia,” Fargo said.
“I prefer Ginny.” She crushed him against her more-thanample bosom. “How many times must I tell you that?”
“Now, now, my dear,” the senator said. “Quit throwin' yourself at him.”
“Be sensible,” Ginny scolded. “He's young enough to be my son.”
“Your grandson,” Senator Deerforth said, and she playfully clipped him on the shoulder with her fist.
“True gentlemen never allude to a lady's age,” Ginny scolded.
“Who says I'm a gentleman?”
“You'll be one in my presence, or else.”
Fargo chuckled. They were always bickering, good-natured jibes that rolled off their backs like water off a duck. “Who showed up this year?”
“Lacey Mayhare,” Ginny said, and winked. “She's been asking about you.”
“Fine figure of a woman, that gal,” Senator Deerforth said. “Were I single I'd show an interest.”
“Show an interest and you will be,” Ginny jousted. “Or dead, if I can find my derringer.”
“Did you hear her?” Senator Deerforth said in mock dismay. “She wants my fortune for herself.”
“Damn right I do,” Ginny said, “and while I'm still young enough to enjoy spending it.”
“Fifty-three isn't young, my dear.”
“It sure as hell isn't old, either.”
Fargo hoped he had half her spunk when he was her age. He'd rather not end his days in a rocking chair, twiddling his thumbs and counting the minutes until they planted him.
The parlor was as luxurious as Fargo remembered. A piano sat in a corner. The fireplace mantel was mahogany. Overhead, a chandelier sparkled. The people lounging and talking looked around as their hosts entered.
“Damn, not Fargo,” said a handsome man in gambler garb. “I had my fingers crossed he wouldn't make it so I'd have a chance at winning.” Smiling, he came over and offered his hand.
“Vin Creed, be nice to my other guests,” Ginny chided.
“Fargo and I are well acquainted,” Creed said as they shook. “If I have to lose to anyone, it might as well be him.”
Beside Fargo a woman cleared her throat.
“It's a pleasure to see you again.”
Fargo turned. Her voice was the sultriest in creation, a perfect fit for as fine a body as he'd ever come across.
From her golden hair to the tips of her small feet, she was exquisite. Her eyes were bluer than his, her lips as red as strawberries. “Lacey.”
“Hard to believe a whole year has gone by.”
At her touch a tingle shot up Fargo's arm. She always had that effect. Normally he wouldn't mind but her beauty distracted him from his card playing, and she knew it.
“I'm looking forward to taking more of your money.”
Fargo winced. Last year he came to the tables with the entry fee of five thousand in his poke and left with forty-three dollars, mostly thanks to her. “You better not wear that perfume you did last time.”
“You don't like ladies who smell nice?” Lacey rejoined, and laughed.
Senator Deerforth had his thumbs hooked in his vest and was rocking on his boot heels. “This year promises to be the best yet. We have twenty players, which brings the total pot to one hundred thousand dollars.”
Vin Creed whistled. “I'd kill my own mother to win that much.” He grinned at Fargo. “Or anyone else.”
3
Another thing Fargo liked about his host was that Deerforth shared his fondness for liquor. The senator started each morning with whiskey in his coffee and the last thing he did before he went to bed each night was have a nightcap. It was rumored that Deerforth put down a bottle a day. Yet it never showed. Not once in the time Fargo had known him had he seen the senator drunk.
And now Deerforth ushered him to the liquor cabinet and said the words Fargo liked to hear.
“Help yourself, my friend.”
Fargo was glad to. He opened a bottle of Monongahela, filled a large glass, and savored a sip. As the warmth spread through his gut he casually asked, “Do you happen to know anyone who'd want me dead?”
Deerforth studied him. “Are you implying someone tried to kill you?”
“They had it in mind,” Fargo said, and briefly related his clash with Ranson and Jules.
“That's an outrage,” the senator declared. “I'll fix their hash. I'll contact Marshal Moleen and have them arrested.”
“For what? Waving knives around?”
“Damn it, man. You said that you heard them plotting to kill you.”
“Can't arrest a man for talking.” Fargo used Ranson's own argument.
“Why are you defending them? At least let me send Garvin and some men into town to find them and persuade them our climate isn't to their liking.”
“Garvin” was the name of the hulking slab of muscle who ran the plantation. “No,” Fargo said.
“Give me a reason.”
“I'd like to find out who sicced them on me, and why.”
“Garvin can find out.”
“I stomp my own snakes,” Fargo said, and treated himself to another swallow of liquid velvet.
“Suit yourself. But I think you're making a mistake.”
“I do that a lot.”
The senator put his hand on Fargo's shoulder. “I can't tell you how good it is to see you again, Skye. I get so tired of the silly bastards I have to put up with every day. The whiners and complainers and those with their hands out.”
“You sound tired of it all.”
“I am.” Deerforth ran a hand over his white hair. “In case you haven't noticed, I'm getting on in years. I'm not going to run for reelection. I'm retiring at the end of this term.”
“What will you do with yourself?”
“Drive poor Ginny crazy.” Deerforth chuckled. “I don't know. Write my memoirs. Fish. Hunt. Drink a little.”
“A little?”
They laughed, and the senator refilled his glass. “To old friends,” he said, and started to raise it.
A girl swept into the room. Her black curls framed a round face that sparkled as bright as the chandelier. She wore a white cotton dress and white shoes. She went from guest to guest, smiling and friendly and bubbling with vitality.
“Ah, my sweet Roselyn,” Deerforth said. “Our miracle baby, as Ginny likes to call her.”
Fargo knew it had come as a surprise to the Deerforths to learn that Ginny was pregnant so late in life. That was fourteen years ago, and now the girl was the apple of their eye. They treated her like a princess yet she didn't act spoiled. Now she threw her arms around him and pressed her cheek to his chest.
“Uncle Skye!”
“We're not kin,” Fargo always reminded her when she called him that.
Roselyn stepped back, grinning. “A good thing, too, or when I'm older it could cause a scandal.”
“That's no way for a lady to talk,” the senator said.
They hugged, the adoration in the father's eyes shining for all to see.
Fargo left them and mingled. He talked to a few players and came around a high-backed chair and there was Ginny with a glass in her lap. He was mildly surprised. She hardly ever touched the stuff. “What's the occasion, ma'am?”
“Old age.”
“You don't look a day over forty.”
Ginny's mouth crinkled. “Flatterer.” She wagged the glass. “I'm getting into practice. Or haven't you heard that Marion is retiring?”
“I've heard.”
“With him home all the time, I'll need it to steady my nerves.”
“He's a lucky gent.”
“No,” Ginny said, “he's not.” She drained half the glass without batting an eye or coughing.
“Damn, woman,” Fargo said.
“It's not as if I never partake,” Ginny confided. “I like a nip now and then.”
“I'm shocked.”
“We all have our secrets,” Ginny said.
They happened to be near a window. About to take a swallow, Fargo glanced out of it and saw two men not twenty yards from the mansion.
It was Ranson and Jules.
4
In the time it took Fargo to reach the front door, the pair had vanished. He went down the steps three at a bound and paused at the bottom.
The plantation sprawled for hundreds of acres. Most of the land was devoted to cotton. Besides the mansion, there was a stable and more than a score of outbuildings.
The stable was lit as brightly as the house. Some of the guests were staying at the hotel in town, and carriages were lined up, the drivers waiting. A few had arrived on horseback and their animals were tied to a hitch rail.
Fargo went to the first carriage. The driver's arms were folded and his chin was on his chest; he appeared to be dozing.
“Did you see two men near here a minute ago?”
The man gave a start and looked up. “What? No, I didn't, mister.”
The answer was the same at the next carriage and the one after that.
Fargo entered the stable. A black man was forking hay. No, no one had come in.
In a stall partway down stood the Ovaro. Fargo patted it and pondered and went out the back to the corral. Beyond were shacks, their windows aglow, and past them tilled fields.
Fargo saw no one and turned to go back. Out of the corner of his eye he caught movement. His hand on the Colt, he approached the corral. A dozen horses milled. A trough was near the gate. He started around it and a figure reared and was on him in the bat of an eye. He got his hand up as a knife speared at his chest and caught hold of a bony wrist. Fingers clamped onto his arm, preventing him from drawing the Colt.
“Got you now,” Jules said, and kneed him.
Pain exploded in Fargo's groin. He tried to backpedal but Jules clung on. The man was strong, and determined. A foot hooked Fargo's ankle and the next he knew, he was on his back with Jules on his chest and the tip of the knife sinking toward his throat. He held it at bay but it took all his strength.
“Die, damn you.”
Fargo was worried that Ranson would join in. He'd be easy to finish off, pinned as he was. To remedy that he bucked and rammed his head against Jules's chin. It was like ramming an anvil. His senses swam and he almost blacked out. He felt Jules wrench free and braced for the sting of the blade.
“What the hell is going on here?” a familiar voice demanded.
Suddenly the weight was off of Fargo's chest. He shook his head to clear it and saw Jules scrambling over the fence into the corral. Pushing to his knees, he palmed his Colt. Before he could fire, Jules was in among the horses. Fargo lost sight of him. Rising, he spotted a figure going over the rails on the far side. “Damn.”
Vin Creed came up, a pearl-handled derringer in one hand, an unlit cigar in the other. “I repeat,” he said. “What the hell was that about?”
“You tell me and we'll both know.” Fargo shoved the Colt into his holster and turned. “He would have stabbed me if not for you. I'm obliged.”
“What are friends for?” Creed's arm moved and the derringer disappeared up his sleeve.
Fargo had known the gambler for a few years now and considered him one of the best of the breed. But he still had to ask. “What are you doing out here?”
Creed raised the cigar. “I wanted a smoke and you know how fussy Ginny is.”
Fargo grunted. He did indeed know that she couldn't abide the habit; cigar smoke made her ill. The senator had to smoke on their balcony or the porch.
“I came over to the stable and thought I heard someone out back,” Creed went on. “Reckon I showed up at just the right time.”
Fargo told him about the earlier attempt.
“Ranson and Jules, you say?” Creed scratched his chin. “I seem to recollect hearing those names around. Hired muscle, you could call them. They beat up renters behind on their rent. That sort of thing. This is the first I've heard of them killing for pay.”
“They're moving up in the world.”
“Why murder you?”
“You tell me and we'll both know,” Fargo said again. He was disgusted with himself at how Jules had almost gotten the better of him.
“You should tell Marion,” Creed advised.
“Already did.”
“He has no idea either?”
Fargo shook his head and rubbed his chest where Jules's knee had gouged him.
Creed proceeded to light his cigar. When the tip was glowing he let out a few puffs and remarked, “You know, it's not as if you haven't made a few enemies. Maybe one is trying to pay you back.”
Fargo had thought of that. Most of his enemies, though, were dead. The few that weren't were either behind bars or far away. “I don't think it's someone I know.”
“Then I reckon all you can do is wait for them to try again.”