Blood Wedding

As if to prove it, she stuck out her hand for Fargo to shake. It was as big as his own, and callused hard as bone by a lifetime of labor.

“Got my own place close by here,” Molly said. “It’s small, and I pretty much run it by myself, but I can outwork any man in this barn.”

“There’s some might question that,” Conner said, and Molly gave him a hard look. “Not that I’d be one of them. I know better than to say a thing like that. I’ll tell you, Fargo, Molly could probably whip half the men in here.”

“Half, hell,” Molly said. “All of ’em.”

“I won’t argue that with you either,” Conner told her. “I know it’s rough on you about Jed, and I’m sorry for that.”

“Jed never gave a rat’s ass for me, and you know it, Frank Conner. Now, let’s get busy and get those bodies out of here.”

“I’ll hitch Lem’s mules to his wagon, and we can pile ’em on there,” Conner said. “Be a lot easier than dragging them.”

“Good idea,” Fargo said, and Conner walked away.

“He’s one who won’t be all that sorry that Jed got killed,” Molly said when Conner was out of earshot.

“Why’s that?” Fargo asked.

“ ’Cause he was sweet on Abby before Jed moved in on him. He thought he was the one who’d be marrying her and getting himself set up with this farm.”

“I thought he already had a farm.”

“He does, but it’s nothing to speak of. He’s not much of a worker, and he doesn’t make good crops. Not much of a builder, either. You could put his house and barn inside this place here and still have room for a few cows and mules.”

“Maybe he just had an eye for a pretty woman.”

Molly considered that. “Could be. There were a couple of others who had the same idea he did, and one of ’em was even married.”

Fargo didn’t care to hear about Abby’s suitors right at the moment. He said, “Judging from what Conner said, I’d guess you were sweet on Jed.”

“You’d be right about that, for all the good it ever did me. I’m not a delicate little flower like Abby, and I guess Jed didn’t want a woman who could work just as hard and as long as he could. He wanted somebody he could sit in a parlor and look pretty.” Molly grinned. “Not a damned thing wrong with that. It’s just not my style, as you can see.”

She wasn’t exactly pretty, Fargo thought, but she wasn’t ugly, either. She had a good smile, and while she was big, covering up her body in men’s clothes, he could see the outlines of generous curves.

“Maybe Jed didn’t know what he was missing,” Fargo said.

Molly’s smile widened, and she said, “You got that right, Fargo, but then most men are afraid of a big woman. Maybe you’re not.”

“Maybe,” Fargo said.

At that point Conner came back into the barn, leading a couple of lop-eared mules hitched to a wagon. He led the mules over to where the bodies lay and looked around for help.

Fargo looked at Molly. “I guess we’d better help him load them.”

“Doesn’t look like anybody else is rushing to do it. Let’s go.”

“I’ll get us some help,” Molly said. “Johnson, Talley, get over here. You, too, Wesley.”

At the sound of her yell, three men detached themselves from the group and looked at her.

“We’re gonna take care of the bodies,” Molly said. “Come on and make yourselves useful.”

If the men were bothered that a woman was ordering them around, they didn’t show it. Fargo and Molly walked over to the bodies where Conner was already standing, and the three men joined them there. Nobody said anything, and Fargo bent over to grab a man’s body by the shoulders.

“Somebody get his legs,” Fargo said, and Molly grabbed his ankles. They swung the body once and pitched it in the wagon bed.

A short man with a red face and a thick neck bent over the next body, took a good look at the face, and said, “Shit.”

“That’s no way to talk in front of a lady, Alf Wesley,” Molly said.

“I don’t see no ladies real close by here, Molly,” Wesley said. “What I do see is trouble. How about it, Talley?”

Talley, who had a thin face with its features all squashed together in the middle of it, said, “I think you’re probably right, Alf. Goddamn, how was anybody to know? I wish to hell I’d stayed home tonight.”

“You came for the same reason I did,” Wesley told him. “You wanted one last sniff of Abby before she got married. And now that she ain’t getting married, maybe both of us still have a chance.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say,” the third man told them.

“You can’t fool us, Rip Johnson,” Talley said, squinting his close-set eyes. “You might be a married man, but you’ve been sniffing around Abby as long as I can remember, hoping to get you a little piece on the side.”

Fargo looked at Molly. Far from being offended by the rough talk, she seemed to be enjoying herself. As for the men, they seemed to think she was one of them. Fargo knew they would never have talked that way in front of somebody they considered a proper lady.

Conner was the only one who seemed embarrassed. He said, “There’s no call for that kind of talk, fellas. Besides, you’re getting off the subject. What is it that’s going to cause so much trouble for us?”