Blood Wedding

“Some son of a bitch shot you,” Lem said. “Probably thought you were dead same as I did, or else he’d have finished the job. You’re lucky he didn’t.”

Fargo didn’t feel lucky. He managed to stand up, but he had to put out a hand and grab Lem’s shoulder to steady himself.

“Where’s Abby?” he asked.

“Gone,” Lem said. “Those goddamned Murrays took her.”

Fargo’s head throbbed. He looked at the barn. It wasn’t burning, and he realized that he’d been tricked. The gang had fired shots at the house and thrown in a couple of torches to get his attention. When he’d come out of the house, he’d been fooled by the men at the barn into thinking they were the ones who’d be trouble. But the trouble had been behind him. The Murrays didn’t want to burn Lem’s barn. Peter Murray hadn’t lost a barn; he’d lost a son. So he’d taken Lem’s daughter in return.

“Is she alive?” Fargo said.

“She’s alive, for now. She might wish she wasn’t. If I hadn’t been half drunk, maybe I could have stopped them. Abby’s not the only one missing.”

“Ellis and Tabor?”

“Hell, those two are all right. Still trying to wake up. They weren’t any more help to Abby than I was. No more help to Jed, either. That’s who else is missing, Fargo. They came in and took Jed’s body. What are we going to do about it?”

Fargo wasn’t sure how he’d become the man with the answers, and his head hurt too much for him to think. He touched his wound again.

“You come on in the house, and we’ll put something on that,” Lem said, taking Fargo’s elbow. “Then we’ll figure out what to do.”

Fargo let himself be led inside, but he was afraid they were wasting valuable time. If Abby was alive, there was no telling what Murray might do to her. There was no need to worry about Jed. They couldn’t do anything to him that would matter to anyone now, least of all Jed.

Lem took the Trailsman into the kitchen. Jed’s body was gone from the table. In the flickering lantern light, Fargo saw that an empty whiskey bottle lay on the floor not far away. Ellis and Tabor sat in their chairs and looked up woozily. Tabor rubbed his bald head and groaned as if his head might be throbbing as much as Fargo’s.

“Don’t mind those two,” Lem said, rummanging around in the wood box. He raised up with another bottle of whiskey, about half full. He held it to the lantern light and shook it slightly, as if to appraise its contents. “Sure hate to waste good whiskey, but you need this more than we do. Come on over here.”

Fargo walked over, and Lem uncorked the bottle with his teeth. With his free hand, he tilted Fargo’s head at an angle and then poured whiskey on the wound. It stung like hell, and Fargo bit his lip. It was all he could do to stand still. Whiskey ran into his eyes, but he hardly felt it because of the other pain.

“Just hang on there for a minute,” Lem said, and went out of the room.

On his way he handed the whiskey bottle to Tabor, who took a quick drink. He shook his head like an angry dog and passed the bottle on to Ellis, who just held it and looked at it.

When Lem came back, he wrapped a piece of clean cloth around Fargo’s head and tied it in back.

“That ought to take care of you,” he said. “You’re might damn lucky. And your head must be hard as an oak root.”

“So I’ve been told before,” Fargo said.

His head was pounding a little less now, and he became more aware of things. The first thing he realized was that he didn’t have his Colt any longer.

“It’s lying out there where you fell,” Lem said when he saw Fargo reach to the empty holster. “I should have brought it in.”

“I’ll get it,” Fargo said. “What about my horse?”

Fargo’s big Ovaro stallion was in a little corral out behind the barn, along with Lem’s mules, Jed’s horse, and a couple of cows.

“Still where it was, as far as I know. Have you decided what we’re going to do?”

Fargo hadn’t answered that question the first time Lem asked it, and he wasn’t sure he could this time, so he asked a question of his own instead.

“Which way did Murray go?”

“Off down toward the creek. Tore through my corn with those horses of his and probably ruined half of it. I don’t care about the damned corn, though. We’ve got to do something for Abby.”

Fargo didn’t think the we included Tabor and Ellis, neither of whom looked capable of walking, much less facing the Murrays. They’d had considerably more to drink than Lem, and they still hadn’t said a word. Tabor sat looking at the floor. Ellis held the whiskey bottle and looked like he wanted another drink, but couldn’t bring himself to take it.

“I have an idea what Murray might be up to,” Fargo said. “I’ll go have a look. You and your friends had better stay here.”

“You won’t be a match for that gang if they catch you.”

Fargo knew that, but he didn’t think having Lem and the others along would be any advantage. In fact, he was pretty sure they would be a hindrance.

“I’ll try not to get caught,” he said.

He started out of the kitchen. Tabor and Ellis watched him wordlessly.

“I’ll get your gun and hat,” Lem said, and followed him outside.