Death Devil (9781101559666) (21 page)
Read Death Devil (9781101559666) Online
Authors: Jon Sharpe
“Neither are you, my dear.” Dogood sighed and stood. “And now look at what your stubbornness has brought us to.”
“Mine? What about your own?”
“I tried to be reasonable,” Dogood said. “I've asked you politely a hundred times to ply your doctoring somewhere else. But you've refused. And now this rabies business has taught me that the only way to get rid of you is to, well, to get rid of you.”
“You plan to kill me?”
“No, my dear. Your friend will.”
“Friend?” Belinda said. “Do you mean Mr. Fargo?”
“I do indeed. You see, he's been running around setting McWhertle barns on fire. So no one will think twice if Harold's barn goes up in flames”âDogood pausedâ“and the fire happens to spread to this house.”
“You wouldn't,” Belinda said.
“Can you think of a more perfect means? Everyone will think that Harold and Edna and Abby perished in the blaze. No one will suspect they were dead before the fire started.”
“And me? How will you explain that?”
“The noble Dr. Jackson perished trying to save her patients.” Dogood laughed.
“You're despicable.”
“Now, now. Think of the adulation that will be heaped on you. Your sacrifice, your devotion, will be praised to high heaven. Your funeral should be well attended.”
“One last question,” Belinda said. “What about Fargo? What do you have planned for him?”
“I couldn't care less about him,” Dogood answered. “But Orville, now, is fit to be tied. His kin are scouring the entire county for your buckskin-clad Romeo.”
“And if they find him?”
“You might have noticed the violent streak that runs through the McWhertles. For the aggravation he's caused them, I'm afraid they intend to bed him with the worms.”
Fargo stepped into the doorway. “They're trying their damnedest,” he said.
Dogood started and took a step back. “You!” he blurted. “Here?”
“No. I'm back in town,” Fargo said.
“How did you know where I was?”
“Luck,” Fargo said, and motioned. “Suppose you untie her so we can get the hell out of here.”
“Whatever you want. Just don't shoot.” Dogood squatted and set to work on the knots. “This might take a while. Clyde tied her good and tight.”
“Clyde is no longer with us,” Fargo said. He would have related more but a hard object was jammed against the back of his head and a gun hammer clicked.
“Surprise, surprise,” a woman said.
Dogood stopped prying and chuckled. “Thank you, my dear. Now we have both of them exactly where we want them.”
26
Fargo looked over his shoulder. She looked to be all of twenty, if that, with long black hair and brown eyes.
Most would describe her as “plain.” She wore a simple cotton dress of a style popular with farmers. Her eyes were twinkling and the hand that held a derringer pointed at his head was steady.
“Want me to shoot him, Charlie?”
“Not unless I say to or he gives us cause.”
The young woman looked disappointed. She kept the derringer pointed and coughed and sniffled.
Dogood grinned and came over and held out his hand to Fargo. “Your Colt, if you please, and even if you don't, you buckskin-clad bumpkin.”
Fargo was debating if he could spin and shoot her before she shot him. Something warned him not to try.
“She'll do it, you know,” Dogood said. “Clementine will do anything I ask her.”
Clementine giggled. “I surely will. Charlie only has to snap his fingers and I'll put a hole in your head.”
“Killed before, have you?” Fargo stalled.
“Should I tell him, Charlie?” Clementine said.
“No,” Charlie said, and waggled his fingers. “I won't ask you again, sir.”
Reluctantly, Fargo gave him the Colt.
“Move over by the doc, there,” Dogood said.
Not taking his eyes off Clementine, Fargo sidestepped to Belinda. “Guess I was careless.”
“How were you to know about her?” Belinda said. “I only learned of their attachment on the way out here.”
“Attachment?” Fargo said.
Dogood chortled and stood next to the young woman and put his arm around her shoulders. “Clementine, here, is sweet on me, as they say in these parts.”
“Powerful sweet,” Clementine confirmed, and coughed a few times. “Have been for, what, eight or nine years now.” She giggled. “My pa would have a fit if he knew. Which is why we keep it secret.”
“Who is your pa?” Fargo asked. Not that he cared. So long as he kept them talking they might make a mistake.
“Orville McWhertle.”
Suddenly Fargo gave a damn. He looked at the patent medicine man and then at Clementine. “You're old enough to be her father yourself.”
“That I am,” Dogood acknowledged with pride. “Yet she adores me anyway.”
Clementine nodded. “It started when I went to see him for my female complaints. I was twelve and they'd just started and they hurt some.” She grinned. “Well, one thing led to another, and . . .” She beamed at her sweetheart, and sniffled.
“God, no,” Belinda said to Dogood. “You took advantage of a little girl?”
“She wasn't so little,” Dogood said. “Fact is, she was big for her age.”
“That's right,” Clementine said. “I was practically a woman.”
“It wasn't as if I was out to seduce her,” Dogood said defensively. “It just sort of happened, and the next thing I knew, we were in love.”
“Do I hear violin music?” Fargo said.
“Mock us if you must,” Dogood said, giving Clementine a squeeze and kissing her on the cheek, “but ours is a love that will endure forever.”
“A man your age,” Belinda said. “You should be ashamed of yourself. You are the lowest of the low.”
“That'll be enough out of you about him,” Clementine said, and coughed. “It's your damn fault we're still here.”
“I beg your pardon?” Belinda said.
“Him and me,” Clementine said, dabbing at her nose with her sleeve. “He promised to take me to New Orleans. We'd buy us a house and live like man and wife. But first he needs to save up money and he can't save it as fast as we'd like with you takin' his patients away like you done.”
“You do know he's stringing you along?” Belinda said. “He's just using that as an excuse.”
Dogood squeezed Clementine's elbow. “Don't listen to her, my dear. She'll say anything to belittle me in your eyes.”
“I can't wait for her to be out of the way,” Clementine said.
Fargo was pondering something else. “You sure your pa doesn't know about the two of you?” he asked her.
Both of them looked uneasy and Clementine said, “What's that to you?”
“How about your mother?”
Clementine took a step and pointed her derringer at Fargo's head. “I've about had enough of you.”
“Hold on, my dear,” Dogood said. “We don't want bullet holes in either of them, remember? It must appear to be an accident of their own devising.”
“I don't like him talkin' about my folks,” Clementine said. “You know how they are.”
To Fargo Dogood said, “Orville and Mabel would skin me alive if they knew. We've had to sneak around behind their backs all this time. Right now they think she is off with some of her cousins, searching for you.”
“Interesting,” Fargo said.
“You don't fool me,” Dogood declared. “You're thinking that if you tell Orville about us, he'll turn on me and run me out of Coogan County, or worse.”
Fargo sensed a note of fear. “Worse would be my guess,” he said. “A lot worse.”
“Let me shoot him,” Clementine said. “I want her and him dead so much.”
“Patience,” Dogood replied. “Watch him while I fetch rope from my wagon. I'll be right back.” He hastened out.
Fargo didn't like how Clementine's hand was twitching. “Easy on that trigger, girl.”
“Call me a girl one more time,” Clementine said. “I dare you.”
Belinda cleared her throat. “If you don't mind my saying, you deserve better than Charlie Dogood.”
“I do mind,” Clementine said, sniffling. “The both of you hush up until he gets back.”
“I'll hush if you'll answer a question that's not about you and him,” Fargo said.
“Go ahead and ask then.”
“How long have you been sick?”
“I ain't sick. I got me a cold, is all.”
“How long have you had it?”
“I don't know. A week or so, I reckon. What the hell does it matter?”
“Has Dogood given you anything for it?”
“You said one question,” Clementine said, and did more loud sniffling. “That makes three.”
“Has he?”
“I've taken some stuff, yes,” Clementine said. “Have been for a few days now.”
“How do you feel after you take it?”
Clementine began tapping her foot in anger, and coughed. “I'm commencin' to not like you a whole lot. You're a blamed nuisance, is what you are.”
“Do you break out in a sweat and your belly hurts for a while?”
“I do get a little sweaty, yes, butâ” Clementine cocked her head. “Say now. What's this about?”
“Yes,” Belinda said. “What are you getting at?”
“Timmy Wilson had a cold, remember?” Fargo said.
“Yes. I remember he was coughing and his nose was running that time he tried to rob us.”
“Timmy did what, now?” Clementine said. She coughed some more.
“Why are their colds important?” Belinda asked.
“Old Man Sawyer had one too. He was so stuffed up he could hardly breathe.”
“How do you know that?”
“He told me,” Fargo said, and gave a short recital of his encounter. “He didn't have rabies. He wasn't bitten by anything that had it. It was the medicine he was taking.” He looked at Clementine. “The medicine your lover gave him.”
“You're tryin' to rile me.”
“It fits,” Fargo said. “Old Man Sawyer came down with something and Dogood sold him medicine. A few days after, Sawyer came down with fever and the shakes and started to foam at the mouth.”
“You're lyin'.”
“Timmy Wilson came down with a bad cold and Dogood sold him the same medicine and a few days later Timmy ran amok in town.”
“Stop it,” Clementine said, and coughed.
“I bet Abigail was given the same medicine,” Fargo said. “And now you.”
“But I'm not foamin' at the mouth,” Clementine said, and smirked. “So much for turnin' me against Charlie.”
“You don't start foaming right away. Sawyer said it took four or five days.”
“It won't work,” Clementine told him.
“What could he be putting in his medicine?” Belinda wondered.
“You're the sawbones. You tell me.”
Belinda wriggled onto her back, her worry transparent. “It could be any number of toxins. Either he doesn't care or he's unaware of the properties of his ingredients.”
“Stop talkin' about Charlie like that,” Clementine said, and sniffled. “He cares for folks. He'd never poison 'em. And he sure as blazes wouldn't poison
me
.”
me
.”
“He cares about the money he makes,” Fargo said.
“That will be enough, goddamn it.” Clementine sniffled and pointed the derringer at Belinda instead. “Go ahead and talk Charlie down again and see if I don't put lead between the doc's pretty eyeballs. Just you see if I don't.”
Fargo stayed quiet. He wasn't about to tempt fate.
“That's better,” Clementine said. “You're finally showin' some sense.”
Ignoring her, Belinda said to Fargo, “If what you've said is true, there's no telling how many people he's infected.”
“Stop it,” Clementine said.
“I knew it wasn't rabies,” Belinda said. “It didn't fit the symptoms.”
“It wasn't Charlie,” Clementine declared, and coughed almost violently. Her forehead was slick with sweat and her cheeks were specked with tiny red dots.
“You don't look well,” Belinda said. “You don't look well at all.”
“Shut the hell up.”
“Trust me when I say I have your best interests at heart. I only want to help you.”
“Damn you to hell. You people don't listen worth shucks.” Clementine swore and kicked Belinda in the gut.
Fargo raised a hand to push Clementine away and found himself looking down the barrel of her derringer.
“Give me an excuse.”
They stood like that until shoes thumped in the hall and Dogood returned carrying a coiled rope. He took one look and said, “What on earth is going on here, my dear?”
“Your sweetheart doesn't like to hear the truth,” Fargo said.
“Has he been filling your head with lies about me?” Dogood asked her.
“Not you,” Fargo said. “Your medicine.”
“My nostrums do what I claim,” Dogood said. “I have glowing testimonials from people I've cured to prove it. In writing, I might add. I have them in my van.”
Clementine sniffled. “These two say you add stuff you shouldn't to your cures. Poisons, like, and you might not even know it.” She swiped an arm at her nose. “Tell them, Charlie. Tell them you'd never do a thing like that.”
“I'd never poison anyone,” Dogood said.
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