Arkansas Assault (7 page)

“You wanna see a photograph of my sweet little kids, Fargo? That might change your mind.”

“Seen enough pictures for one day.”

“I could tell you about the farm I’m hopin’ to buy.”

“No, thanks. I already gave you your two things for the day. That’s my part of the bargain. Now I want you to keep your end of it.”

“I didn’t know I
had
a part of this bargain.”

“You sure do,” Fargo said, his face showing sudden anger, his body suddenly taut. “You quit followin’ me here and now or I push your face in for you. You understand me, Queeg?”

The anger was not for show. Fargo was sick of being tailed everywhere.

“Yeah, sure, Fargo,” Queeg said, licking his lips, nervous now. The easy-going, amiable Fargo had been replaced by the Trailsman of legend. And the Trailsman, to be sure, was nobody to get riled up. “I won’t be followin’ you anymore, I promise.”

 

The main street was so packed with day-before revelers that Fargo decided to get to the newspaper by walking the alleys.

He was halfway down the first alley, a friendly brown mutt bouncing along next to him, when the rifle shot came.

Fargo pitched himself away from the trajectory of the bullet, rolling quickly behind a line of small metal containers that held garbage. On this hot day, the stench was many times worse than it would normally be. Fargo didn’t have any choice, though. There was somebody on the roof two doors down. The building sat between smaller buildings with lower roofs. Somebody who’d been keeping a close watch on Fargo. This was one hell of a town for people tailing you. He must have been near Fargo, seen that Fargo was going to turn into the alley, and quickly made his way to the store roof he was using.

Two more shots.

Fargo returned fire but realized that shooting back was useless. A man with a rifle on a roof had the clear advantage.

Fargo decided that the best thing he could do was work his way back to the head of the alley, get on the boardwalk, run through the building the shooter was using, and confront him on the roof. Find out who the hell he was and what the hell he wanted.

But Fargo would have to move fast. Once the shooter saw that Fargo meant to come at him, he was likely to take off.

Fargo had to duck half a dozen more bullets, a couple of which came whistlingly close to hitting him, before he reached the head of the alley.

The shots had attracted a crowd and when he jumped to his feet, several men in Fourth of July duds said, “You all right, mister?”

But there was no time for reassurances.

Fargo worked his way to the haberdashery whose roof was being used. It wasn’t easy going in the packed walls of humanity lining boardwalk and street alike. A dozen different perfumes and a dozen different tobaccos tinted the air with their scents.

Purty, purty clothes for purty, purty men, Fargo thought as he moved between the aisles of shirts, cravats, hats, and suits. Not his type of attire at all.

He was looking for the owner or a clerk to show him the door to the stairs. Even with all the noise outside, the store was unnaturally quiet.

He soon found the reason why.

A man in a very expensive shirt, cravat, and trousers lay face down near a door in the back room. Fargo’s first impression was that the man was dead.

Fargo dropped to a knee, felt the man’s throat and wrist for a pulse. A strong one. Then he saw the bloody gash in the back of the man’s head where the shooter must have hit him. No wonder the man was still unconscious. He probably would be for some time.

Fargo nearly ripped the door at the top of the steps leading to the roof off its hinges. He was greeted by three quick shots.

Once again, Fargo had to dive for the ground—in this case, one hell of a hot roof—and roll away from the bullets. The roof was being repaired so there were stacks of construction materials here and there for both men to hide behind. The shooter was hidden behind a stack of two-by-fours very near the far edge of the roof.

Fargo chose a huge wooden barrel for shelter. He needed a moment to let his breath work its frantic way back to normal. He was breathing in gasps. That had been one hell of a run, from alley to roof.

He also took the time to peek around the barrel at exactly the same time the shooter was doing the same thing.

Fargo caught enough of a glimpse to know that his adversary was of Latin descent, either from Spain or South America. Not a Mexican. Fargo wasn’t sure why this was his impression but it was. Even from this distance, Fargo could see that the man was middle-aged, handsome, and arrogant.

The man squeezed off two more quick shots.

As Fargo reloaded his Colt, he heard the shooter make his escape. He had jumped from this roof to a lower one next door.

Fargo, still cramming bullets into his gun, jerked up and ran across the boiling rooftop, knowing already that he was too late. The shooter had had the advantage of the rifle. He’d also had the advantage of knowing the town and its best escape routes.

Fargo peered over the edge of the roof.

He didn’t see the shooter anywhere.

 

“Would you be Liz Turner?” Fargo asked.

“Why, yes,” she said from behind the counter of her newspaper office. “How may I help you?”

Liz Turner turned out to be a fetching woman who had not quite reached her middle age. She was lovely of face, sumptuous of body, and blessed with the grace and poise of the true lady. True ladies didn’t need money, expensive clothes, or a fancy family to possess all these gifts. Poise and grace were innate gifts and a simple woman could possess them just as readily as a princess. Liz Turner possessed them in ample measure.

“My name’s Fargo, ma’am.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Fargo.”

“I wondered if I could ask you a few questions. If that would be possible.”

Her smile was radiant. “Why, it certainly would be possible.”

“What I’m looking for is some background on this sheriff of yours.”

“Tom?” The way she blushed when she said his name surprised the Trailsman. He wondered instantly what her relationship with Tom Tillman was. “He’s a good man. Decent. And very hardworking.”

“Then he’s nothing like his father?”

“Stepfather, you mean. And no, he’s not. In fact—” She hesitated. “In fact, he and his father don’t get along very well. His father got Tom the sheriff’s job and expected him to do whatever Noah wanted him to. But Tom’s too honest. He did what was right, instead.”

“So Tom Tillman wouldn’t cover up a murder?”

“He certainly wouldn’t.”

“Your husband was murdered, ma’am. And I’m sorry about that. Has Tom Tillman been trying to find the killer?”

She leaned her elbows on the counter—a striking, sensual woman—and said, “You know a lot about me all of a sudden. Now I want to know a lot about you. Who you are and why all this interests you so much.”

“I guess that sounds fair,” the Trailsman said, and began to bring her up-to-date on some of his personal background. And on what had happened to Daisy and her brother.

 

 

The Tillman ranch was one of the places important Easterners always visited when they were in this area of the West. Noah Tillman—the man who’d created the ranch and so many different business holdings even he wasn’t sure exactly what he owned—was one of those big, powerful, quiet men who almost always avoided confrontation. He had plenty of enemies who felt that he’d somehow cheated them, mistreated them, bullied or bullshitted them.

He’d let you argue with him, pick a fight with him, even curse him in front of his minions. Of course, if you actually struck him, he’d likely lay you out. He’d been a bare-knuckle boxer for a brief period in his youth. He still had quick and deadly hands. But generally, he’d take any amount of verbal guff you cared to give him and say nothing. Just walk away.

A week, a month, maybe even a year later, Noah Tillman would express his displeasure. Not personally; not so you could even prove he was involved. But there would come a day when—after it was made sure that your family was not inside—your nice new house was burned down. Or you found your desperately needed line of credit at the bank had suddenly vanished. Or you found one of your regular visits to the local whorehouse resulting in a judge using you as an example of the kind of hypocritical church-going family man who was actually a whoremonger—and you would be forced to move and start all over again, shamed and scapegoated by your community.

That was how Noah Tillman got you. And he reveled in it. He knew you knew who was behind your sudden and disastrous misfortune, and he was damned joyous that you knew.

The Tillman ranch had more acres, more good grass, more water, more beeves, more cowhands, and more house than any place outside the gaudiest mansions of Texas.

Noah Tillman sat in his study. There was a touch of the extravagant about the huge room—mullioned windows, parquet floor, chairs and couches of Spanish leather, rugs from Persia and China, floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases, Noah being a well-read man—and a silence rarely broken. Noah never gave you much of his time, not even if you were an important personage. He found most conversations tedious and unrewarding. He spent most of his time reading books on the line of Caesars who both perpetuated and then ultimately destroyed Rome. He was especially interested in the games of the Colosseum, specifically the ones the Caesars created to honor themselves. He had accrued everything in his life. Now it was time to entertain himself in lavish and unique ways.

At the moment, he was not as impatient as usual. He had a real interest in what Ekert was telling him. He wasn’t happy with Ekert—he was rarely happy with anybody—but he was disturbed by what he was hearing and so he listened carefully.

“But at least we’ve got the third one now,” Ekert said. He was self-conscious sitting in such a fine leather chair. Sitting in front of a dangerous and completely incomprehensible white-haired gentleman with cruel, eagle-like features and dark eyes that seemed inhuman.

Tillman was always impeccably attired. Expensive, handmade suits ordered half a dozen at a time from Chicago; the finest linen shirts and cravats; and French cuffs adorned with large 24 carat gold cuff links that bore the heads of the Caesars. It was easy to see that he was hard of hearing. Despite his imposing presence, he had to tilt his head to the right to hear well and even then he lost a good deal of what was said.

“You seem very satisfied with yourself,” Tillman said.

“Well, things turned out all right.”

“You think so?”

It was easy to sense that Noah Tillman wasn’t going to turn the other cheek in this particular moment. He was going to confront Ekert and Ekert was just now realizing it.

“I pay you three times what you made before you went to work with me.”

“Yessir.” Nervousness in Ekert’s voice now.

“And when your mother was sick in Kansas last year, I let you take a full month off.

“And when your son took sick, I paid all the expenses at the Denver hospital.”

“Yessir.”

“I feel I’ve been loyal to you, Mr. Ekert.” He had started to play with his left cuff link. To cover it with his thumb and then rub it, as if the rubbing would produce a magical occurrence—a secret door sliding open, a genie in cowboy get-up suddenly appearing.

“Yessir, you’ve been very loyal to me, Mr. Tillman.”

“But now when I ask you to perform a simple task for me, you let me down.”

“Sir, as I told you, we killed the girl so she won’t be any trouble—”

“Yes, Mr. Ekert, you killed the girl all right. But that’s not the end of it.”

“It’s not?”

Tillman made a displeased face and sat back in his baronial leather chair. “A few minutes ago you sat there looking so smug, I wanted to slap you across the face.”

“I didn’t mean to look smug, Mr. Tillman.”

“Think, Ekert.” Tillman tapped his right temple. “Think it through. You’re not a stupid man.”

“Thanks for saying that, sir.”

“So sit there and think about it. There’s unfinished business here, Mr. Ekert. Business that could bring this whole thing down.”

“There is, sir?”

“Yes, Mr. Ekert. There is. Now I’m going to walk over there and get myself a brandy. And when I come back here, I want you to have your answer ready. All right?”

“Yessir.”

Ekert did his best to smile but couldn’t quite make it.

 

 

After Fargo told her about himself, Liz Turner told the Trailsman an interesting story, one that held elements of a late night campfire ghost tale.

Looking back through the
Clarion
files accumulated before she and her husband came to Tillman, she saw four stories over fourteen years that said basically the same thing. Eight travelers were reported missing over these years and the relatives of each one eventually ended up here in Tillman, insisting that their loved ones were last seen alive right here.

The funny thing was, Stan Tillman, Noah’s cousin, who had been sheriff before Tom, claimed not to have known anything about the disappearances. When Liz had confronted him with these stories, Stan said that these loved ones had to blame somebody for their relatives vanishing. Family troubles of various kinds was why these folks had vanished of their own free will.

When they’d first come here, Liz and Richard had paid the Tillmans the same homage that everybody else did. They walked wide of writing any stories that were in any way critical of the family. The newspaper thrived. Noah Tillman personally saw to it. They accommodated him in every single public dispute, even at those times when Noah Tillman was clearly acting illegally and being a bully to get his way.

Until the incident with the card game.