Blood Wedding

She had a head start, but Fargo, with his long, loping strides got there just a little ahead of her. He started swinging the tall doors shut while Abby ran to stand beside the fiddler and shout a warning.

“The Murrays are coming!”

She had to yell it twice before anybody paid her any attention. The second time, the fiddler stopped playing, his lively song ending on a squealing note that trailed off into nothing. The dancers stopped and turned to the stage.

“The Murrays are coming,” Abby said again into the silence that had settled in the barn.

The only other sound was the squealing of door hinges, and Fargo thought he and Abby were going to look pretty foolish if the riders passed the farm by or if they were only more guests, arriving late to the dance.

“What are we going to do?” somebody called out.

Fargo hadn’t thought much about that, but then he realized that the people in the barn were farmers. They wore pistols. They didn’t carry rifles. Of all the men there, only he and a couple of others, including Jed, had weapons. And they weren’t carrying them. They’d put them aside when the dance started.

“Get your guns,” Fargo said. “And then see if you can block the door with something.”

Barn doors weren’t made to be barred from the inside, and there was nothing more needed than a gentle push to open them. The Murray gang could ride right on in.

Fargo went over to the wall where he’d hung his gun belt on a nail. He took the belt down and buckled it on while Jed and several other men started stacking grain sacks against the doors. Fargo knew the bags wouldn’t stop anyone for very long. He looked around the barn for more weapons. There were a few tools, but that was all.

“Pitchforks in the loft,” Lem said at his side. “I got a shotgun in the house.”

“Too late for the shotgun,” Fargo said. “Grab a hoe.”

He smelled the dry hay as he started up the ladder to the high loft that ran half the length of the barn. There were no lanterns hanging up there, but Fargo thought how easily the whole barn could go up.

“Put out the lanterns,” he called.

It wouldn’t matter if the barn were in darkness. In fact, it would make things better. There was no danger of any of Jed’s guests shooting each other, since they weren’t armed, and the darkness would make it harder for the gang to find targets.

He reached the loft and tossed down a couple of pitchforks with long, curving tines.

“Don’t hit anyone who’s not on a horse,” he said.

Lem caught a pitchfork and said, “Get those lanterns out, like he told us.”

Several of the young men ran around the barn and doused the lights as the thudding of hoofbeats shook the ground outside the door.

There was one lantern left on, and long shadows danced around the barn walls before it was extinguished. In the sudden darkness there was gunfire from outside, and bullets smacked into the hard wood of the barn doors.

No doubt about it, Fargo thought, it was the Murray gang, all right.

There were only a few shots and then more silence. Fargo could hear the people in the barn moving around as they sought through the darkness for a place to hide. One of the younger children started crying, but the noise was cut off as someone covered his mouth. Fargo didn’t blame him for crying. There wouldn’t be much use in hiding if the Murrays got inside. People were going to die, and most of them would be farmers, not gang members.

Fargo could hear yelling outside, and then the barn doors began to slide slowly back into the barn. Fargo pulled the big Colt from its holster and got ready. The only advantage he and the other couple of armed men had was that they were in almost total darkness, whereas the Murrays would be silhouetted against the faint light from the moon and stars. Fargo hoped Jed had enough sense to hold his fire until more of the gang was bunched in the doorway.

Fargo needn’t have worried. Jed had always been cool even in a tight spot, and apparently the few other men with guns knew what to do.

The doors opened wider, and when they did, riders started to plunge through them. There were fifteen or twenty of them, all whooping and yelling and spurring up their mounts. Fargo couldn’t tell which one was Angel, not that it mattered. She’d have to take her chances with the rest of them.

Fargo loosed off three quick shots, hoping that the Murrays were stupid enough to be riding in front of the gang. He didn’t think that would be the case, but he was gratified to see three dark figures pitch backward off their horses.

Jed and the others opened up about that time, and the gang members started firing off their pistols and rifles. The bright muzzle flashes lit up the dark and showed the faces of the men in reddish light. Fargo fired again, but by then the Murrays were all inside and it wasn’t easy to pick them off without endangering everyone else.