Blood Wedding

Fargo could see how it would discourage the farmers, but it didn’t bother him. He’d seen worse. Maybe he’d have a look around and see what he could find. Or maybe there was another way.

“We need to take good care of Angel,” he said. “Keep her in bed another day or so and then send her on her way.”

“We can’t be rid of her soon enough for me,” Abby said, and she crunched a bite of bacon between her teeth as if she were snapping a bone.

11

Two days passed without any real excitement, which was all right with Fargo. He needed the rest.

Sarah Johnson was buried quietly and without incident, and on the very afternoon of her burial, Rip showed up at Lem’s house, asking for Lem.

Fargo didn’t hear what the two of them talked about, but Abby told him later that Rip had asked her father for permission to come courting her.

“Can you believe the gall of that man?” she said. “His wife hasn’t been in the grave more than an hour. She’s hardly cold in the ground, and he shows up here asking to come around to badger me.”

“He didn’t say he wanted to badger you, did he?” Fargo said.

“It doesn’t matter what he said. It comes down to the same thing.”

Fargo knew it wasn’t funny, but he couldn’t help grinning.

“What did Lem tell him?”

“He told him that it was indecent to talk about any such of a thing until his wife had been dead for at least six months.”

“How did Rip take it?”

“You’d think he’d have been ashamed, but not him. You couldn’t shame him if you tried. He said that out here a man needs a wife and that he couldn’t afford to wait. He and his wife never had any family, and he wanted to have some children to help out on the farm.” Abby shuddered. “I don’t want to think about him touching me, much less doing anything else.”

“Maybe in six months he’ll have found himself somebody else.”

“He better have. He’s never getting his hands on me, I can tell him that.”

The way she said it, and the fierce look on her face, convinced Fargo that she meant every word of it.

Tom Talley was buried even more quietly than Sarah Johnson had been. None of the farmers wanted to leave their homes and property long enough for a proper funeral, so hardly anyone was there to hear the preacher say a few words and a prayer.

Molly Doyle was part of the small group at both funerals, as was Fargo. Molly told Fargo that she came because she liked both people, and, after all, she didn’t have a house to protect, unless she counted Talley’s. She figured that one wasn’t hers quite yet, though she told Fargo she was making some progress with the bank. She thought she would be the new owner within a few days.

Fargo went to the funerals because he thought there was a chance Murray might show up and try to get a little more revenge. But it didn’t happen, and Fargo hoped that Murray had given up harassing the farmers. He knew, however, that most likely wasn’t the case. Murray was probably waiting for the release of his daughter before becoming active again.

As for Angel, she improved rapidly. Her shoulder would have healed even faster if Abby hadn’t pounded on it during their scuffle, but even with that extra bit of stress, it did just fine. The wound would leave a scar, but only a small one, and Angel was feeling fine. There was really no reason to keep her at the Watkins place any longer. She had served her purpose, and Fargo wanted to keep his end of the bargain by letting her go back to her father.

“You know that if she goes back to that marauder, he’ll be right back up to his old tricks again,” Lem said. “We ought to keep her here as long as we can.”

“We ought to do worse than that,” Abby said, looking entirely too bloodthirsty to suit Fargo.

“If she stays here, someone will have to watch her all the time,” Fargo pointed out. “She’s already gotten away from us once, so we might even have to tie her up. And you’ll have to feed her. I don’t see the sense in going to all the trouble and expense.”

He had something else in mind, too, but he didn’t want to mention it.

“Sooner or later, you’re going to have to let her go, I guess,” Lem said.

It was clear that neither he nor Abby was fond of the idea, but they had to admit that they weren’t any fonder of having to keep Angel in the house for much longer.

“Murray might get it in his head to come after her,” Lem said. “And that wouldn’t be any good. No telling what kind of damage he’d do to this place if he got her away from us. Look at what he did to Molly’s.”

“We should go after him first,” Abby said. “Root him out of wherever it is he’s hiding, and take care of him and his whole gang once and for all.”

For a day or so, Fargo had thought the farmers might actually band together. There was some talk of it, but it died down without any action being taken. Lem had been right. If they’d been fighters, they wouldn’t have chosen farming as a way to make a living.

“No chance of this bunch around here getting organized against Murray,” Lem said. “No matter how bad things get.”

“Maybe when Angel goes back, he’ll move somewhere else,” Fargo said.