Blood Wedding

Someone fired in the direction of the muzzle flash from Fargo’s Colt, but Fargo had already flattened himself on the floor of the loft. As he reloaded, he looked over the edge at the fighting that was going on below and saw the vague outlines of black figures striking out with hoes and pitchforks and a scythe or two. He heard the grunting of their efforts and the yells of men being jabbed by a pitchfork or sliced by a scythe. Men were being pulled off their horses now, and it was becoming impossible for Fargo to distinguish between friend and foe. He decided it was time for him to leave the loft, and when a horseman passed beneath him, he dropped over the edge and landed behind the rider.

The horse reared up, and Fargo put his arm around the rider, finding to his surprise that he wasn’t behind a horseman at all but a woman. His hands held her soft, pillowy breasts, but he didn’t have time to enjoy the experience. She snapped her head back in an attempt to catch him sharply on the point of the chin. He might have fallen if he hadn’t been ready for some such trick, and he had moved his head far enough to the side so that he caught only a glancing blow. He twisted her roughly and threw her from the horse. He wasn’t worried about where she landed or about whether she was under the horse’s hoofs. He pulled his pistol and looked around for other riders.

He saw muzzle shots as pistols were fired, but he didn’t know who was doing the shooting now, so he didn’t try firing any shots in the direction of the flares. He saw one big horse wheeling in the middle of the barn, and the dark rider was yelling something that Fargo couldn’t quite understand. He pointed his Colt in that direction, but before he could pull the trigger, someone grabbed his left leg and gave a hard yank, pulling him from the saddle.

Fargo landed hard on his back. Someone kicked him in the head, and his finger tightened on the trigger of the Colt, sending a wild shot along the dirt floor of the barn. Fargo’s head throbbed, and there was dirt in his eyes. He expected that his attacker would shoot him, or at least kick him again, but it didn’t happen. He pawed dirt from his eyes and saw that the woman he’d pulled from the horse was mounting it again, and then the Murray gang was helling it out the barn, yelling and waving their hats as if they’d won some kind of victory.

Fargo had to roll aside to keep from being trampled. The farmers fired a few shots after the riders, and then it was quiet in the barn except for some moans from the wounded and the crying of frightened children. The air was filled with acrid smoke from the pistol shots.

“Get those lanterns lit,” Lemuel Watkins called out, and after a few seconds someone followed his orders.

Fargo stood up, his knees a little shaky, and touched a hand to his head. There was no blood, but a lump was forming just above his right temple. He holstered his Colt and looked around the barn.

There were men standing with their hands to bloodied shoulders and heads, at least one woman had been hit in the arm. As far as Fargo could see, none of the children had been hurt. Several horses were milling around, and Lemuel gave orders to get them under control. They had belonged to dead outlaws, of whom Fargo saw at least five.

Over to one side of the barn, a man lay face down in the dirt, the back of his head blown off. Fargo felt his insides go hollow. Even from where he stood he could tell that the dead man was Jed Brand.

Fargo and Lemuel got Jed into the house and laid him out on the kitchen table. One of the women was with Abby in another room. Abby had cried wildly at first, but when Fargo had last seen her, she had been icily calm.

Lemuel looked down at Jed’s body and shook his head.

“Not much good you can say about a thing like this. We got more of them than they got of us, but I do hate it that they got Jed. He was a fine young man, and he’d have made a good husband for Abby.”

“He was the one they were after,” Fargo said, though something about the way things had happened bothered him. It seemed to him that there was more to it than met the eye, but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. “Abby told me he spoke out against them.”

“Yeah,” Lemuel said. “He thought I didn’t know about it, but I did. I didn’t like it because I knew what could happen. I’m not much of a man to go looking for a fight. I thought that if we’d leave the Murray gang alone, they’d leave us alone.”

“People like that don’t leave anybody alone.”

“I guess I know that now. Did Abby tell you that Angel Murray was sweet on Jed at one time?”

“She told me. I think I met Angel tonight.”

“Met her? How could you do that?”

“We had a little tussle,” Fargo said. “You wouldn’t say that we got properly introduced.”

“She’d be the one that shot him,” Lemuel said. He ran his fingers through his gray hair. “She’s a beauty, but she’s mean as a snake.”

“I don’t think she shot him. She was too busy. I threw her off her horse, and then she pulled me off it.”