Blood Wedding

Fargo didn’t really blame them. They had their own homes and families to think of. On the other hand, Fargo couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t want to help out a neighbor, even though it would be a risk. Maybe that was another reason he’d never become a farmer.

He left the Ovaro on the far side of the cornfield and made his way through the tall rustling stalks. He didn’t have to worry about making noise. The gang members were riding around the house and barn, brandishing torches, shooting their pistols into the air, and yelling as if they’d had plenty to drink before coming to raid Wesley’s property. They weren’t going to hear a man walking through a cornfield. They probably wouldn’t have heard a buffalo stampede.

In the light of the moon and the flickering torches, Fargo could see Alf Wesley’s body lying sprawled a few feet away from the front of his house. He wasn’t moving, and Fargo didn’t doubt that he was dead. A rifle lay a short distance from one outstretched hand.

Peter Murray sat astride his horse near the house and watched the frolic with the dignified air of a circuit-riding preacher. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and a little thick through the middle. He had a thick, bushy beard that was mostly black, though it was silvered by the moon. Fargo couldn’t really see his eyes, but they glowed crimson in the reflected torchlight, and Fargo thought he could see the ghost of a smile through the wild tangle of beard.

Angel was near her father, but she didn’t seem quite so pleased with what was going on. She wasn’t smiling, and her shoulders slumped. That could have been a result of her wound, but Fargo thought it was the result of her disapproval. He chuckled to himself. He was getting soft if he thought Angel didn’t endorse what was happening. She knew what was going to happen before she rode out with the gang.

Fargo was a little sorry she was there because he was about to do something that would hurt her more than the death of her brother. He was going to kill her father. He didn’t see anything else he could do. He couldn’t fight the whole gang, which had grown back to its original size or larger already, so he’d deal with it the way he’d deal with a snake: cut off the head and hope the body would die. It was a little like bushwhacking, and Fargo didn’t like it. However, Murray hadn’t given Wesley much of a chance, either.

Fargo pulled his Colt from the holster and brought it up to shoot, but before he could pull the trigger, someone came riding up, firing a shotgun and shrieking like a gut-shot antelope.

It was Molly Doyle, the only farmer with the gumption to take a hand in things. Instead of sneaking up on the gang like Fargo, she’d apparently decided to shoot it out single-handedly. Maybe she thought that they’d believe she was crazy and that would scare them away. If that was her idea, it didn’t work, but it did slow things down a little.

Not because anybody was afraid of her. Crazy or not, she was using a gun with a limited range and with only two shells in it, not the kind of ordnance to strike fear into the heart of anybody with even a little knowledge of firearms. Anybody who got nicked by the buckshot fired from a distance was going to be more peeved than hurt. Several of Murray’s men stopped riding around in circles and sat watching to see what Molly would do next.

Not having hit anybody with her shotgun, Molly simply tossed it away from her and pulled her pistol. She did a little better with that, and Fargo was surprised to see her shoot one man out of the saddle.

Probably just luck, Fargo thought. It wasn’t easy to shoot straight while you were riding full tilt on horseback.

When the man fell from his horse, Molly turned and rode toward the spot where Murray and Angel had been. But they were no longer there. As soon as Molly had come into view, they had ridden away, and Fargo didn’t know where they had gone. All he knew was that Molly had spoiled his chance of killing Murray and that she wasn’t likely to catch up with him and do the job herself.

All she was going to do was get herself killed.

Unless Fargo did something to help her out.

He ran out of the cornfield, firing his pistol. He didn’t think he’d hit anybody. He was just trying to create a momentary distraction, to do something that would turn the attention to him and away from Molly.

It worked. Murray’s men started shooting at Fargo, who ran a zigzag trail toward Molly. Approaching her horse from behind, Fargo holstered his pistol. He made a running jump, placed his hands on the horse’s rump, and propelled himself onto the horse’s back behind Molly. The horse reared up in surprise, but Fargo held onto Molly’s waist and didn’t fall. Reaching around her ample body, he grabbed the reins from her hands and snapped them against the horse’s neck. The horse had recovered from its shock at the sudden addition to its load, and it jumped forward at a run.