Blood Wedding

Instead of heading away from the house, Fargo ran the horse straight toward Murray’s men, who were so surprised at his audacity that they forgot to shoot for a second or two. By the time they remembered, Fargo was right in the middle of them, and then past them.

“It’s Murray!” Molly yelled, and Fargo looked over her shoulder to see the leader of the gang, with Angel still at his side, not far away.

Murray and Angel weren’t running away. They were sitting on their horses, silhouetted against the night sky, waiting with drawn pistols for Fargo and Molly to get closer.

Molly got off a couple of shots, but then the hammer of her pistol clicked on an empty chamber.

“Damn!” she said.

With the gang coming up behind him and Murray waiting in front, Fargo didn’t have much choice of where to go. He jerked on the reins, hoping to turn the horse to the right, but the animal was moving too fast and the footing wasn’t certain. The next thing Fargo knew, he and Molly were flying through the air, asses over elbows, and then he hit the ground, hard, and didn’t know anything for a long time.

When Fargo came to, he had no idea where he was. Total darkness surrounded him. He might as well have been tied up inside a heavy leather bag for all that he could see. He was in a sitting position, and there was something hard against his back, something that felt like a rock. His head throbbed as if he’d been kicked by a horse.

The thought of being kicked in the head brought back the memory of his fall. He must have hit his head somehow. He was lucky that his neck wasn’t broken. Maybe it had been. Maybe he was dead and in hell. He knew there were plenty of people who’d wished him there over the years. The place he was in now didn’t seem hot enough for hell, though. In fact, it was a little cool, and the rock at Fargo’s back seemed damp. He had a feeling there wouldn’t be a lot of damp rocks in hell. He couldn’t smell any brimstone, either, and there weren’t any fires. There was nobody with hooves and a forked tail. There was nothing, in fact, but the blackness. And the silence. Fargo realized for the first time that he couldn’t hear a thing.

Then he realized that he couldn’t feel his hands.

Had he gone deaf?

Had someone cut off his hands?

He tried to move and found that he couldn’t. His feet were tied together, and his arms were behind him. Probably tied at the wrists, tied so tightly that the circulation was cut off. Which was why he couldn’t feel them. That wasn’t good. It could lead to some serious problems later on.

“Anybody here?” Fargo said. His voice was a hoarse croak.

His voice echoed off stone walls, and a voice not far away said. “Just me.”

“Molly?”

“That’s right. Are you all right, Fargo? I thought for sure you were dead.”

Fargo’s head pounded and his shoulders had started to ache.

“I might be better off if I was. Do you know where we are?”

“Murray’s hideout. Don’t talk too loud or somebody will hear us.”

Fargo didn’t think he could talk loud even if he wanted to. His throat felt as if it might be full of sharp-edged stones.

“I was wondering where the hideout was,” he said, his voice rasping. “But now that I’m in it, I still don’t know where it is.”

“It’s a cave. We’re in a little valley not far from the Missouri River. This cave was carved out a long time ago when the river first came this way, I guess.”

Fargo tried to take that in. “How far from Wesley’s farm are we?”

“A pretty good distance. You’ve been out for a long time.”

Fargo thought about that. The inside of his mouth was dry and tasted like it had been stuffed with burned chicken feathers.

“Why didn’t they just kill us?”

“They were going to at first. That’s what Murray wanted to do, but Angel talked him out of it. She said something about you being different from the rest of the farmers, that maybe you’d throw in with them, but I don’t think she fooled Murray much. He knew what she really meant.” Molly chuckled. “You get around, don’t you, Fargo.”

Fargo didn’t see any point in talking about that. He said, “What about you? They could have killed you.”

“I guess they figured that if they were going to keep you around for a while, they might as well keep me, too. Or maybe Murray fancies me.”

“I wouldn’t blame him if he did,” Fargo said.

“That’s mighty gallant of you, Fargo, especially considering that we’re trussed up like a pair of turkeys. But I don’t really think Murray fancies me. I don’t think they’ll keep either one of us alive for very long.”

As he got more accustomed to the dark, Fargo realized that the blackness wasn’t quite as intense as he’d at first believed. There was a faint glow almost directly across from him. It wasn’t much, but he knew that the cave must have several rooms. Murray’s gang was in one where there was light from fire and torches, while Fargo and Molly had been stuck back in one of the other, darker rooms.

Fargo wiggled his arms, trying to stimulate the circulation in his hands. He didn’t have any luck.