Hannibal Rising (15 page)

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Authors: Jon Sharpe

BOOK: Hannibal Rising

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Brun stopped. “You beat me. I’m bleedin’ to death. If I don’t hurry I might die.”

“Who hired you?”

Brun licked his thick lips. “Tom, there.”

“Who hired Anders and you,” Fargo clarified.

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

Fargo moved in front of him, blocking his way. “You want to go on lying, you can go on bleeding, too.”

“Damn you.”

“Skye,” Sam said. “You don’t have any proof. Let him go or his death will be on your conscience.”

“I don’t have a conscience,” Fargo lied. But he wouldn’t lose sleep over Cletus Brun. If Brun died it was on Brun’s shoulders, not his.

“You heard her,” the big Missourian said. “You ain’t got any proof.”

“You’re not leaving until you tell me.”

Tom intervened, saying, “This is absurd. I hired Brun. No one else.”

“Stay out of this.”

Brun tried to go around but Fargo again barred his path.

“Get out of my way.”

“Who?”

“What makes you think you’re right?”

“Anders said he had a partner. You’re the only one who fits.”

“You’re guessin’.”

“It’s a good guess.”

Brun glanced at the knife he had dropped but didn’t try to pick it up. His side was stained and his fingers were covered with blood. “I don’t have time for this.”

“No, you don’t,” Fargo agreed. “Tell me and you can go for the doctor.”

“You don’t give an inch, do you?”

“Talk yourself to death if you want.”

“All right.” Brun swore some more, and looked at Tom and Sam. “It’s true. Bucklin Anders and me were hired to see that none of you got that chest. I was to work on the inside and Anders was to shadow us and pick some of you off whenever he could.”

“You miserable clod,” Tom said.

“Who hired you?” Samantha echoed Fargo. “Was it Roland or Charlotte? They are the only two not here.”

Brun grinned. “It will shock you, the one it is. You’d never have figured it in a million years.”

“It was Roland then?”

“I’ll tell you,” Brun said. “I’ll tell you and then I’m goin’ for the doc.” He paused, and opened his mouth.

At last
, Fargo thought.

A shot boomed and a hole appeared in the center of Brun’s forehead. His head snapped back and his huge frame shuddered. He collapsed without an outcry and lay twitching.

Fargo dropped down. He expected more shots but there were none. Pushing up, he ran toward the spot where he thought the shot came from. He saw no one. He heard no one. The undergrowth was so thick that the shooter could be hiding ten feet away and be invisible. Thwarted, Fargo went back.

“Anything?” Tom asked.

Fargo shook his head.

“Wonderful. Whoever it was might kill one of us next.”

Samantha was by Charles, her head bowed in sorrow. “Whoever it is, they won’t stop until they have what they’re after. I’m afraid the worst is yet to come.”

So did Fargo.

Fargo was wiping the toothpick clean on Brun’s shirt when the underbrush rustled. He spun, thinking the killer was going to try and finish the job but it was Theodore Pickleman, sweaty from running and clutching his valise as if afraid he would drop it.

“I thought I heard a shot,” the lawyer began, and saw the two bodies. “Oh, my word. What on Earth has happened?”

Samantha told him, and gestured at her fallen brother. “We have to call off the hunt. We can conduct it again after Charles’s funeral.”

“No, my dear, we can’t,” Pickleman said, shaking his head. “Your father was explicit. Once begun, the hunt can’t be stopped, not for any reason. I’m afraid that you must see it through to the end or forfeit your chance at the inheritance.”

“But Charles is
dead
,” Sam practically shouted. “Call everyone in and we’ll tend to the body and then start over again.”

“Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said? I can’t do that. It’s not permitted.”

“To hell with the inheritance.”

“Speak for yourself, sister,” Tom told her. “I, for one, am not giving up until the chest is mine. I refuse to forfeit.”

“I’m afraid you already have,” Pickleman said.

Tom whirled on him. “What the hell are you talking about? I’ve done no such thing.”

Pickleman sighed and put his hands to his temples and rubbed them. “I swear. This ordeal is giving me a headache. How many times must I repeat myself? Or didn’t you hear me when I read the clause about no weapons?”

“I don’t have any,” Tom said.

The lawyer pointed at the knife that lay near Cletus Brun. “He had one. He broke the rules, and if he were alive I would disqualify him from taking part.”

“I didn’t know he had it.”

“Maybe you didn’t, maybe you did. The point is that Mr. Brun was your partner, and if one is disqualified, so is the other.”

“The hell you say.”

“I’m afraid you are out of the running for the inheritance,” Pickleman informed him. “You and Samantha might as well wait at the hunting lodge until this is over.”

“Me?” Sam said.

Pickleman pointed at Fargo. “Is that or is that not a knife I see in your partner’s hand? What applies to your brother equally applies to you. Both of you are out of the hunt.”

Tom walked up to the attorney. “Think again.”

“Be reasonable. I’m only doing what your father required of me.” Pickleman smiled and placed his hand on Tom’s shoulder. “Put yourself in my shoes and I’m sure you’ll understand.”

Tom swatted the hand off. “No, you put yourself in ours. You never said anything about both partners being removed if one broke the rules. I won’t stand for it. Either Sam and I continue or we’ll hire another attorney and sue you, you bastard.”

“Now, now. No name calling.” Pickleman appealed to Samantha. “Talk to him. Make him understand.”

“I agree with Tom on this,” Sam said. “You never explained any of this at supper last night. I refuse to be blamed for Fargo having a knife. I didn’t even know he had one on him.”

“That’s true,” Fargo spoke up.

“Be that as it may . . .” Pickleman began, and got no further.

Lunging, Tom grabbed him by the shirt and shook him, hard. “You listen, and you listen good, you little weasel. Murders have been committed. If I have to, I’ll send for the sheriff and I can damn well guarantee that
he
will stop the hunt whether you want him to or not.”

“That would complicate things.”

“You don’t know the half of it. It wouldn’t surprise me if he raised a posse and scoured these woods for the killers and then made each of us go to his office for questioning. It could be a week or more before you can hold another hunt, if he even lets you.”

“It’s in the will. The sheriff can’t stop it.”

“He can go to a judge and have the judge stop it,” Tom predicted. “Then where will you be? No hunt, no way to settle the inheritance except in court. The case could be tied up for years.”

Pickleman looked worried. “I wouldn’t want that. The cost to the estate would be enormous.”

“There’s even a chance the judge might declare the will invalid. And you couldn’t do a thing about it.”

Prying at Tom’s hand, Pickleman said, “Please. Let go of me. You’ve made your point.”

“I’m not disqualified?”

“No. Neither is Sam. I’ll permit both of you to continue under two conditions.”

Sam asked suspiciously, “What are they?”

“First, that neither of you tell anyone I broke the rules for your benefit. It could cause all sorts of trouble for me, legally.”

Tom shrugged. “All I care about is staying in the hunt. What’s the second condition?”

“While I am willing to reinstate the two of you, I can’t reinstate Mr. Fargo. He’s out, and that’s final.”

“No,” Sam said.

“Come on, Samantha.” Pickleman was growing flustered. “I’m trying to meet you halfway. You could at least do the same.”

“I need him.”

“He has a
knife
.”

“That’s easily remedied.” Sam walked over to Fargo and held out her hand. “You’ll get it back, after.”

Fargo was loath to part with the toothpick. It left him unarmed, with two killers out there somewhere.

“Please, Skye. It’s the only way.”

With great reluctance Fargo placed it in her hand. “Hell.”

Sam turned and held the toothpick out to Pickleman. “Take this. Problem solved. He doesn’t have a weapon and can continue as my partner.”

“You’re making a mockery of the will,” Pickleman complained, but he put the toothpick in his valise. “Carry on as you were. I’ll arrange for these bodies to be taken to the lodge and will hold them there until the hunt is over.”

Sam smiled and patted his cheek. “I knew I could count on you, Theodore. You’ve always been a friend as well as our counselor.”

“To you, perhaps, but to your father I was never anything but his lawyer. Another menial to be bossed around as he saw fit.”

“He confided things in you he never confided in the rest of us.”

“Only because he knew my lips were sealed against ever revealing his secrets. There’s such a thing as attorney-client privilege.” Pickleman regarded the bodies. “Off you go. There’s a lot I must get done and still do my duty as monitor of this horrible hunt.”

“Even you agree it’s wrong,” Sam said.

“But not for the same reasons.” Pickleman gazed at the wall of green. “Let me see. Which direction would the lodge be?” He started walking to the east.

“Not that way,” Fargo said, and extended his arm in the direction the lawyer should go. “The lodge is that way. To the northwest.”

“Thank you. But if you don’t mind my asking, how can you tell which is which?”

Fargo squinted up at the sun. “There’s all the help you need. It rises in the east and sets in the west. Remember that and you can never get lost.”

“Maybe you can’t but I can.” Pickleman gazed uncertainly skyward. “What about north and south?”

“It’s early yet so the sun is still in the eastern half of the sky,” Fargo explained. “Raise your left arm and point at it. Like that. Now raise your right arm. Your left is pointing east, your right is pointing west, your face is to the north and your backside to the south.”

“How do you remember all that? And what if it happens to be the afternoon and the sun is to the west?” Pickleman shook his head. “I would make a sorry plainsman. Give me my law books any day.” He hurried off in the right direction.

Sam said to Tom, “Thank you for standing up for us and getting him to change his mind.”

Tom laughed. “I didn’t do it for you, stupid. I did it for me. I couldn’t very well demand he permit me to continue the hunt and not you when both our partners broke the rules.” He headed off. “Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a chest I need to find.”

“He’ll never change,” Sam said.

Fargo was thinking of the toothpick and his Colt. Thank God it wasn’t the Rockies where he’d have to be on the look-out for roving grizzlies and painted hostiles.

Sam looked down at her hands. She gave a slight shudder and said in horror, “I just noticed. I have Charles’s blood on me.”

“Wash it off. I’ll keep watch.” Fargo turned his back to the creek and assumed she would do as he suggested. Instead, she came over and stood so close to him, her breasts brushed his arm.

“Do you know what would be wonderful right about now?”

“For you to have a six-gun hid under your dress.”

“No, silly. A bath.”

All Fargo could do was stare.

“Why are you looking at me like that? I’m sweaty and smelly and I have blood on me. What’s more natural than to take a bath? That pool is deep enough. We could sit and let the water wash over us. It will be grand.”

“We?”

“You can’t expect me to do it alone. Shed your buckskins and join me. It won’t take long.”

Fargo glanced at Charles and then at Brun and then at the shadowed woods and finally at her. “Was everyone in your family born with empty space between their ears?”

“Whoever stabbed my brother and shot that oaf are long gone. Please. I really want to wash this blood off.”

“You can jump in the creek if you want but not me.” Fargo had credited her with more common sense. “I like breathing too much.”

“All right, then. Be that way.” Sam flounced to the bank and slid down to the water’s edge where she began stripping with her back to him.

Fargo moved to a log and sat facing the woods. He heard her mutter, and grinned. His grin died when he thought he spied movement off in the undergrowth. He tensed and braced for the crack of another shot.

The vegetation parted and a brown shape stepped timidly into view. It was a doe, her ears up, looking right and left. She had caught his scent but didn’t know where he was.

“Howdy, girl.”

That was all it took. Wheeling, she showed her tail and bolted in long leaps that swiftly carried her out of sight.

“What did you say?” Samantha asked.

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“You were talking to yourself? And you accused me of having space between my ears.”

Fargo chuckled. Her dander was up. Most females took criticism about as well as most males took being called yellow. He glanced back and saw her bare back and her luxurious hair falling past her shoulders and entertained a notion he shouldn’t. “No,” he said out loud.

“What was that? Or are you talking to yourself again?”

“Hurry up and wash and get dressed,” Fargo said more gruffly than he intended.

“I’ll thank you not to be so bossy. I hired you, remember? Not the other way around.”

Fargo heard her wade out.

“Goodness, this water is cold. I have gooseflesh all over me.”

“No,” Fargo said again.

“I beg your pardon? You’ll have to speak up.”