Blood Wedding

“Free, but that’s not the real problem around here.”

“What is, then?” Fargo asked.

“The Murray gang, that’s what. Have you heard of them?”

Fargo had heard of them, all right. You didn’t have to be where you got a newspaper every day to hear about the Murrays. Father, son, and daughter had joined together with a bunch of ragtag outlaws who killed as much for the fun of it as for the profit they might find.

“What does Jed have to do with the Murrays?” Fargo asked.

“He’s spoken out against them. He’s even tried to talk some of the farmers around here into forming a vigilance group to fight them.”

“Does your father know about this?”

“Jed doesn’t talk about it around him, but he hasn’t made a secret of the way he feels when he talks in town.”

“As long as Lem isn’t around.”

“That’s right. Jed doesn’t want him to get upset.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because he knows how Murray is. Most people who talk against him get their houses and crops burned. If they’re lucky.”

“What if they’re not lucky?”

“Then they get killed.”

“I can see why Lem doesn’t want to get mixed up in it. But Jed has always had a mind of his own.”

“He has more responsibilities now,” Abby said.

If Fargo was peeved by her casual assumption that men like him had no responsibilities, he didn’t show it. After all, it wasn’t her fault that she didn’t know how things were out on the trail or in the settlements farther out west. There were responsibilities aplenty for anyone who’d take them, and Jed had never been shy about doing it. He wasn’t shying away now, either, to hear Abby tell it.

“So you want Jed to forget about Murray and stick to his farming,” Fargo said.

Abby smiled. She had a nice smile that made little dimples appear in both cheeks.

“That’s right,” she said. “I want him to. But do you think he will?”

“Not likely.”

“You do know him, don’t you? But I haven’t told you everything.”

No wonder Jed had looked so shifty, Fargo thought. He asked what else Abby had to tell him about.

“Angel Murray,” Abby said. “She and Jed used to be . . . friends.”

Angel was the daughter of Peter Murray, the gang leader, and the sister of Paul, Peter’s son and second in command. Fargo didn’t have to ask how Angel and Jed had known each other. If Angel was as pretty as the stories had it, Jed wouldn’t have asked her much about her family’s habits when he first met her.

“I guess they were pretty good friends,” Fargo said.

The look in Jed’s eyes when they’d discussed the outlaw gangs was pretty much explained now, and Fargo figured that there had been other women as well, knowing Jed, even though he was interested only in Abby now.

“Yes, they were good friends,” Abby said. “If that’s what you want to call it. But now they’re not. She hates Jed because he quit seeing her when he found out about what she and her family did. And that’s why he needs a friend like you. Most of the people in there . . .” Abby paused and looked back at the barn. “Well, they’re good people. Like my father. He’d do anything for me, or for his neighbors. But they think they can stay out of a fight if they just look the other way. It doesn’t work like that.”

Fargo thought maybe he’d underestimated her. She wasn’t as naive as she’d sounded only a few seconds before.

“So,” she went on, “I was hoping you could stay around for a while. We could use a good hand around here.”

“I’m not much good at farming,” Fargo told her.

“I wasn’t thinking about farming.”

“I was afraid of that,” Fargo said. “You think Jed’s in danger, then.”

“I think we all are. You said you knew about the Murrays.”

“Revenge,” Fargo said. “That’s what they claim causes them to be the way they are.”

“That’s right. Their story is that they’ve been done wrong by everybody in the territory, and all they’re doing now is getting a little of their own back.”

“By killing and burning and stealing,” Fargo said.

“Any way they can. That’s what they say. I think they just do it because they like it.”

Fargo thought the same thing, but he was surprised that Abby did. She was seeming less innocent by the minute.

“You didn’t happen to invite them to the wedding, I guess.”

“No, of course not. Why do you ask?”

“Because I think they might be on the way,” Fargo said.

2

Fargo could hear the music coming from the barn, the clucking of the chickens on their roosts, the sound of the wind in the cornstalks. Those were the things that most people could have heard, if they’d listened for them. But Fargo had spent most of his life listening for things that not just anyone could hear, and now he heard the distant sound of hoofbeats, headed in the direction of the farm.

“You think the Murrays are coming here?” Abby said.

“It might not be the Murrays,” Fargo said, “but it’s a lot of riders. I think we should get back to the barn.”

Abby didn’t waste any time questioning him further, another point in her favor. She gathered her skirts and ran for the big open doors of the barn.