Texas Timber War (9 page)

Fargo's aim was good. The branch slammed against the gator's snout, taking it by surprise and making it jerk around and thrash in the water as it searched for whatever had hit it. That distracted the other gators, too, and gave Dirkson time to launch himself out of the water in a frantic dive toward the bank. He landed on the ground and rolled to put even more distance between himself and the alligators. The beasts would sometimes leave the water and pursue prey on solid ground, and they were fast there, too.

Dirkson was already running when he came to his feet. He dashed into the woods, vanishing from Fargo's sight. Fargo figured Dirkson had forgotten all about wanting to kill him. Nearly getting eaten by alligators had scared that desire right out of him.

The other bushwhackers were around somewhere, and the threat from them, as well as the gators, convinced Fargo not to linger in the vicinity. He pulled back into the woods, far enough so that the alligators would be unlikely to come after him, but still close enough he could see the slough and follow it back to Big Cypress Bayou.

Fargo moved fast, trotting through the pines and keeping an eye out for more trouble. Nothing else happened, though, and about a quarter of an hour later he came out on the bank of the bayou. The Ovaro stood there cropping at grass. The big stallion threw his head up and nickered a greeting as Fargo appeared.

‘‘Told you I'd be back,'' Fargo said to the horse with a smile. He hadn't really been gone all that long, he realized as he looked up at the sun, maybe a couple of hours. But a lot had happened during that time.

He had found the camp of the river pirates, discovered a definite link between McShane's gang and Jonas Baxter, and prevented Nick Dirkson and the other bushwhackers from murdering three of Lawrence Kiley's men. Any way you looked at it, that was a good day's work.

But the day wasn't over yet, Fargo told himself as he swung up into the saddle and headed back toward Jefferson.

 
By the time he reached the settlement, he realized that something he had seen or heard today didn't seem right. But his sojourn in the piney woods had been so hectic that he couldn't put his finger on whatever it was that was bothering him.

His buckskins had dried after his dunking in the slough. He left the Ovaro at the stable and walked toward the Excelsior House, thinking he might change clothes anyway. Along the way, however, he passed a building with KILEY TIMBER COMPANY lettered in gilt on the front window. Fresh buckskins could wait. He went inside and found Lawrence Kiley working behind a desk with a lot of papers and ledgers spread out in front of him.

‘‘I'm surprised you don't have a clerk to handle all those chores,'' Fargo said with a smile.

‘‘I do, but he's sick,'' Kiley replied. ‘‘Came down with the blasted swamp fever. Anyway, I'm trying to figure out what to do about my shipping problems, so this needs my attention.'' A hopeful look lit up his round face. ‘‘You don't have any good news to report about that, do you, Mr. Fargo?''

‘‘Well, I don't know.'' Fargo perched a hip on a corner of the desk. ‘‘I found McShane's hideout. Captain Russell told me the
Bayou Princess
was attacked not long after she passed Alligator Slough, so I rode up there and had a look around.''

Kiley looked excited now. ‘‘And the pirates' camp was up the slough?''

‘‘That's right,'' Fargo said with a nod. ‘‘About a mile north of the bayou.''

‘‘That's isolated, dangerous country out there, even though as the crow flies it's not all that far from town.'' Kiley thumped a fist on the desk, making some of the papers jump a little. ‘‘By God, once we tell Sheriff Higgins about this, he'll
have
to do something!''

‘‘There's more,'' Fargo said. ‘‘Did you have some men scouting for good timber to cut out in that area today, say a half mile or so west of the slough?''

Kiley nodded. ‘‘I recently signed a lease out there, so I sent three men in that direction to check it out, but I don't know how far they got. They haven't reported back in yet.''

‘‘One of them has been shot,'' Fargo said. He knew that was breaking the news in a pretty blunt fashion, and Kiley looked shocked. ‘‘I don't think he was hurt too bad. He and the two men with him got away from the varmints who bushwhacked them.''

‘‘You saw this yourself?''

‘‘I pitched in to give them a hand. The bushwhackers got away, though.''

‘‘Did you see who they were?'' Kiley asked, his expression a mixture of anger and eagerness.

‘‘One of them was Nick Dirkson,'' Fargo said. ‘‘I didn't know the other men, but I reckon they were some of Baxter's men, too.''

Kiley slammed his fist down on the desk again. ‘‘I knew it! I just knew it! That bastard is behind everything!'' He came to his feet. ‘‘I'm going to go have it out with him right now!''

Fargo straightened from his casual pose. ‘‘Are you sure that's a good idea?''

‘‘Now that we have proof, why not? I'm going to get Sheriff Higgins and demand that he arrest Baxter!''

Kiley grabbed his beaver hat from a hook and started toward the door. Fargo went with him, thinking that maybe Kiley was right. It might be time to bring everything out in the open.

Kiley marched straight down the street to a sturdy, timber-and-stone building that housed the sheriff's office and the jail. He threw the door open, stomped in, and roared, ‘‘Higgins! Where are you?''

A bulky middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair and a drooping mustache came into the room through a door that probably led into the cell block. He glared at Kiley and asked with obvious dislike, ‘‘What do you want?''

‘‘Three of my men have been attacked, and Jonas Baxter was responsible for it!''

Sheriff Higgins frowned. ‘‘That's a mighty serious charge,'' he said. ‘‘You got any proof?''

Kiley threw out an arm and pointed dramatically at Fargo, who had come into the office behind him. ‘‘Mr. Fargo saw the whole thing!''

Higgins looked at Fargo with narrowed eyes. ‘‘Fargo, eh? I heard you were in town. Heard a lot of stories about you, too, but I never believed 'em. Sounded like a bunch of bull to me.''

‘‘Well, you can believe this,'' Fargo said. ‘‘I saw Dirkson and a few other gents ambush those men who were working for Mr. Kiley. Dirkson did his damnedest to kill me, too.''

Acting unconcerned, Higgins sauntered over to a cast-iron stove on which a coffeepot was staying warm. He poured himself a cup, blew on the hot liquid, and took a deliberate sip before saying, ‘‘Is that so? What happened to the fellas who allegedly got bushwhacked?''

‘‘One of them caught a slug in the leg, but he was able to get away with the help of the others.''

‘‘Where are they now?''

Kiley said, ‘‘We don't know. They haven't gotten back yet.''

‘‘And the bushwhackers?'' Higgins asked as he looked at Fargo. ‘‘You catch any of them?''

‘‘They got away,'' Fargo replied.

Higgins took another sip of coffee. ‘‘So what it amounts to is I got nothin' to go on but your word, Fargo. For all I know, none of these things you're talkin' about ever even happened.''

Fargo's voice was hard as flint as he replied, ‘‘You've got my word. That's enough.''

‘‘Not for the law,'' Higgins said.

Kiley let out a bitter curse. ‘‘I should've known better than to think you'd do your job, Higgins. You're so deep in Baxter's pocket you may never see daylight again!''

The coffee cup clattered as Higgins set it on the stove. ‘‘Hey, now!'' he said as his face darkened in anger. ‘‘You can't talk to me that way! I'm the law in this county.''

‘‘Then act like it, damn it!''

‘‘I
am
acting like it. I want real proof before I go accusin' a prominent citizen of any wrongdoing.''

Kiley turned away in disgust and said to Fargo, ‘‘Come on. We're wasting our time here.''

‘‘What are you gonna do?'' Higgins demanded.

‘‘That's none of your business,'' Kiley said over his shoulder.

‘‘It damned sure is! If you try to take the law into your own hands, Kiley, you'll be sorry. And if I hear anything about you harassing Mr. Baxter, I'll lock you up. I swear I will!''

Kiley ignored the sheriff and stomped out of the office without looking back. Fargo lingered for a moment, saying to Higgins, ‘‘When those men who were bushwhacked by Dirkson come in, you'll see that I was telling the truth.''

‘‘Bring 'em here when they do,'' Higgins said. ‘‘I'll be glad to listen to their story.''

Fargo gave the lawman a curt nod and followed Kiley out of the office. Kiley had paused in the street to mutter darkly to himself. He turned to Fargo and said, ‘‘I'm going to talk to Baxter.''

‘‘Are you sure that's a good idea, as upset as you are right now?''

‘‘I won't be any less upset later. When Baxter resorts to attempted murder, he's gone too damned far!''

Fargo felt pretty much the same way, so he nodded and said, ‘‘I'll come with you.'' After hearing so much about Jonas Baxter the past couple of days—and none of it good—he wanted to get a look at the man for himself.

Kiley led the way down Austin Street and turned the corner onto Polk. ‘‘I've been staying at the Excelsior House,'' he explained to Fargo as they headed for the edge of town, ‘‘but Baxter rented himself a house.''

It was more than a house, Fargo saw a couple of minutes later as they came up to the place. It was a mansion, a three-story heap with lots of gables and cornices. Set against the backdrop of the thick piney woods the way it was, the house had a distinctly sinister air about it. Fargo wondered wryly if anybody named Usher or Pyncheon had ever lived there. The mansion looked like it could have come right out of a story by Poe or Hawthorne.

Kiley opened a gate in the fence around the house and marched up the walk to the porch. He crashed the heavy brass knocker against the door several times. The way the place looked, Fargo halfway expected some cadaverous gent in butler's livery to answer the summons.

Instead, when the door swung open one of the prettiest women he had seen in a while stood there, a smile on her face. Thick auburn curls spilled around her shoulders, and green eyes took in the visitors. She had a slight dimple in her chin and well-formed cheek-bones. A long-sleeved, high-necked, bottle-green dress was tight enough to show off the trim waist and the ample curves of her breasts. Something about her immediately struck Fargo as familiar, as if he had seen her somewhere before, even though he knew the likelihood of that was slim.

‘‘Mr. Kiley,'' she said, and even though she was smiling, her voice was cool, ‘‘what can I do for you?'' Her gaze moved to Fargo, and he saw appreciation flare in her eyes as she looked him over. ‘‘And who is this?''

‘‘Mr. Fargo, an associate of mine,'' Kiley said as he and Fargo both took their hats off. ‘‘I need to talk to your husband.''

‘‘Won't you come in, then?'' the woman asked as she moved back, still holding the door. Fargo and Kiley accepted the invitation and stepped into a foyer with a fancy hardwood floor and several gloomy paintings on the walls.

‘‘Jonas is in the library,'' she went on as she closed the door. ‘‘I'll take you to him.''

As the two men followed her along a hallway, Fargo admired the sway of her hips. It seemed to be a natural motion, not something that was calculated . . . although with a beautiful woman, you could never tell what was calculated and what was not.

She came to a pair of double doors and opened them. ‘‘Jonas, Lawrence Kiley and a Mr. Fargo are here to see you,'' she said.

An explosive grunt came from inside the room. ‘‘Kiley! What the hell does he want?''

Kiley started to bull past the woman, but something stopped him, probably ingrained chivalry. He took a deep breath, controlling his anger with a visible effort, and gave her a polite nod. ‘‘Thank you, Mrs. Baxter.''

Still smiling, she held out a hand, indicating that he and Fargo should go in. They stepped into a room made dim and shadowy by the dark wood of the walls and the leather bindings of hundreds of volumes that filled bookshelves.

A man stood behind a desk, where he had obviously just risen from a big leather chair. He had a rugged face, graying dark hair, and was tall and broad-shouldered enough that he looked like he could pick up an ax and fell a tree by himself, even now. Looking at Jonas Baxter, Fargo had a strong suspicion that the man had started out in the timber industry by doing just that.

Baxter regarded Fargo with narrowed eyes for a moment and then said, ‘‘So you're Fargo. I've heard about you.''

‘‘From Nick Dirkson?'' Fargo asked.

‘‘That's right. He told me about the fight you picked with him and some of the boys yesterday.''

‘‘Have you talked to him today?''

The question seemed to take Baxter a little by surprise. He shook his head and said, ‘‘Not since early this morning.''

‘‘Then you don't know about how he tried to kill me, after he and some other men bushwhacked three of Mr. Kiley's men and tried to kill
them
.''

Another grunt escaped from Baxter. ‘‘That's a damned lie,'' he declared. ‘‘Kiley's always trying to stir up trouble.''