Blood Wedding

“She could’ve shot him before all that. Those Murrays don’t like to be slighted. They always get back at whoever does it.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“You say that like you’ve had a little experience.”

“I have,” Fargo told him. “I’d better go to the barn and help with those bodies.”

“Hell, we oughta just put ’em in a pile and burn ’em. Sons of bitches.”

Fargo knew the old man didn’t really mean it, though he wouldn’t have blamed him if he did.

“You go on,” Lem said. “I’ll go see how Abby is doing.”

He left the kitchen and Fargo looked down at Jed’s body, which lay under a sheet on the wooden table.

“You have to get them,” Abby said at his back.

Fargo turned slowly. He said, “I thought your father had gone to see about you.”

“I don’t need anybody to see about me. I sent Sue Ballew home, and I told my father to go on to bed. You’re the one I want to talk to. You’re the one who knows what to do when something like this happens.”

“What makes you think that?” Fargo asked.

“The way you look. The things Jed told me about you. He said you were a man who knew a thing or two about revenge.”

Fargo thought about it. He’d gone on the vengeance trail long ago, family business as it was. But it hadn’t been any good, not in the long run. His life was no longer consumed by a need for revenge. He’d gone past that a long time ago.

“A man who goes looking for revenge usually finds a lot of things he wishes he hadn’t,” Fargo said.

“That may be so,” Abby said, “but don’t bother telling it to the Murrays. Do you think they’ll forget what happened tonight?”

“They did what they came to do.”

“But they didn’t get an even exchange. Jed’s dead, but so are four of the gang members. And one of them is Paul Murray.”

“The father?” Fargo asked.

“No, the son. The father’s name is Peter. It would have been better if he’d been killed because they say Paul wasn’t quite as crazy as his old man. And his sister. They’ll come after us again, and after everybody who was at that dance.”

“How will they find out?”

“They already know. You can count on that. They know everything that goes on around here.”

Fargo wasn’t surprised to hear it. There was already plenty of talk in and around small communities. You didn’t have to be too clever to pick up any information you wanted.

“The Murrays operate out of this area?” he asked.

“Nobody knows just where they stay. I don’t think they ever stay in one place for long. They’ve robbed and killed all over the state. You have to do something about them.”

Fargo started to tell her that it wasn’t his job. He had other places to go and other things to do. But for some reason he kept his mouth shut. Finally he said, “I’ll think it over. Right now, I have to go to the barn.”

“Jed was your friend,” Abby said, as if that settled everything, and in a way it did. But Fargo wasn’t ready to tell her that.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” he said.

3

Many of the people who had come to the dance had gone on back home, but there were still several men and a few women in the barn. They had pulled the bodies of the dead outlaws to the side and raked dirt over the blood on the floor. The outlaws’ weapons were stacked on the table with the food that would now serve for a funeral meal. Most of the men were standing around in a little knot, talking in low voices. The women were standing by the table, not saying much of anything to anybody.

“We caught most of the horses,” a tall, gangly man said to Fargo. “Got ’em over to the little corral, but that won’t hold ’em. It’s not meant for more than a couple of mules. Name’s Frank Conner, by the way.”

“Mine’s Fargo.”

“Yeah. Jed’s friend from out west. I heard about you. I figger you’re more or less in charge tonight, since Lem’s not here and Jed’s dead.”

Fargo didn’t want to be in charge, but he didn’t see any way out of it. He said, “We need to see about getting those bodies buried tonight. No sense leaving them to ripen till morning.”

He thought about Jed in the kitchen. Well, Jed would keep.

“Where we gonna bury ’em?” Conner asked. “I don’t know that they’re worth hauling to the cemetery, and it’s certain and sure nobody wants ’em in the churchyard.”

Fargo had looked the Watkins place over when he arrived the day before, and he knew it was located on a little creek. There was some marshy land down by the creek that wasn’t fit for farming, and the digging would be easy enough. He told Conner to take the bodies there, and asked if there were any other men who could stay and help with the work.

“I’ll help,” someone said at Fargo’s shoulder.

He turned to see a woman almost as tall as he was. She was wide through the shoulders and narrow at the waist, but she flared out at the hips. She wasn’t wearing a dress as the other women had been. She had on a pair of heavy work boots, a cotton shirt, and thick denim pants.

“I’m Molly,” she said in a voice almost as deep as a man’s. “Alice, really, but everybody calls me Molly. Molly Doyle. And I can dig as long and deep as any man here.”