Backwoods Bloodbath (10 page)

Priscilla could not stand still. She squirmed, she wriggled, she wrapped a leg around him and unwrapped it and wrapped it around him again. Her hands roamed everywhere she could reach, from the crown of his head to below his belt. She gasped when she touched him down there.

“You
are
a stallion!”

Pressing her against the wall, Fargo hiked her dress up.

“Standing up?” Priscilla said. “I love it! I just love it! Do with me what you will.”

Fargo intended to. Once again he covered her mouth with his. He had her dress midway up her legs, and it only took a few seconds to loosen the last obstacle and for his fingers to find her core. She was moist for him. At the contact, she rose up onto the tips of her toes and exhaled all the breath in her lungs.

“Ohhhhhhhh!”

Her cotton drawers slid down around her knees. Fargo glided his finger along her slit, and when he touched her knob, she threw her head back and bit her lower lip to stifle a carnal outcry. He slowly inserted his finger, immersing it in molten lava, and felt her inner walls ripple.

“Yes! Do me! I can’t wait!”

She would have to. Fargo was not quite ready. He added a second finger. Her sheath clung to them, sparking a deluge of hot, hungry kisses lavished on his face and throat.

Fargo commenced pumping his fingers, over and over, slightly faster as he went. Priscilla ground against his hand, her thighs clamped tight to imprison it. But that did not stop him from stroking on and on until she abruptly sank her teeth into his shoulder and moaned. She came, her bottom bucking wildly, threatening to snap his hand from his wrist. He waited, and when she subsided, temporarily spent, he slid his fingers out and brought both hands up to her bosom. He had not yet freed her breasts, but now he remedied that oversight and was rewarded when her glorious globes inflated to twice their previous size. Her nipples were irresistible. He inhaled one, switched to the other, then back again.

“I want you,” Priscilla breathed. “I want you inside of me.”

Her fingers enfolded Fargo’s member. She guided him between her legs, raised her chemise higher, and had him where she desired him. Eagerly, she ran his dripping knob across her nether lips. Then, rising up, she fed his pole into her, inch by inch by inch. She made no sound until he was all the way in. Then she leaned back, closed her eyes, and groaned.

To Fargo’s amazement, tears formed. “Are you all right?”

“I am in heaven,” Priscilla cooed. “I could do this every hour of every day.” She looked at him. “You don’t know how good this feels. You don’t know what it’s like, being denied for so long. I would shoot my mother if I didn’t love her so much.”

In one respect she was wrong; Fargo
did
know how good it felt. He held himself still, letting her savor the moment.

“I wish—” Priscilla began, and suddenly stopped and stiffened. “Did you hear something?”

Fargo shook his head.

“Are you sure?” Priscilla whispered. “I thought I heard a footstep out in the hall. Maybe Avril came back.”

Fargo leaned as far toward the door as he could, but it was not quite far enough. “Wrap your legs around me,” he directed, and when she had complied, he slid along the wall and peeked out. A maid was moving down the hall away from them.

“What if she heard us?” Priscilla asked, aghast.

“Unlikely,” Fargo said.

They watched until the maid was gone. The woman did not glance back or in any way betray that she knew they were there.

“Thank goodness!” Priscilla said. “Now where were we?”

Fargo eased the door shut and braced both legs. He gripped her hips, tucked at the knees, and thrust, the first of many. He did not count them, so he could not say if it was the fortieth or the sixty-first when Priscilla bucked in a wanton frenzy of release. His own explosion was not long after.

Breathless, they sagged against one another. Eventually Fargo stirred and began to peel himself from her.

“What do you think you’re doing, handsome?” Priscilla asked, wearing an impish expression. “That was only the main course. I haven’t had dessert yet. Are you up for it?”

Was he ever.

Much to Fargo’s annoyance, they did not leave the Mayfair farm until ten the next morning. He was up before daybreak, as was his habit, and ready to head out as a golden crown blazed the eastern sky. But Arthur Draypool wanted to have breakfast with their hosts, and breakfast for the Mayfairs was an affair almost as elaborate as supper. The family gathered around the big table and were waited on by the servants. The fare was worthy of a restaurant: coffee, tea, milk, or juice; ham, bacon, beef, or venison; eggs, flapjacks, johnnycakes, and cracklin’ bread.

Fargo had no intention of eating a big meal, but once he sipped some orange juice and nibbled at a johnnycake, his stomach imitated an earthquake, prompting him to heap food high on his plate. He blamed Priscilla. She had been insatiable. They had stayed in the sewing room until nearly two in the morning.

Now she sat across from him, as demure and prim and proper as a true lady was expected to be. She would glance at him every now and then, when she thought no one else was looking, and smile a quick secret smile that only the two of them understood.

Toward the end of the feast, after Fargo had pushed his plate back and patted his overfull stomach, Clyde Mayfair tapped a glass with a spoon to get everyone’s attention and declared, “We wish you all the best in your hunt for the Sangamon River Monster, Mr. Fargo. It is a dangerous enterprise, and I trust you will not take it lightly.”

“I never take killers lightly,” Fargo said.

“You must be diligent in the hunt, merciless when you catch him,” Mayfair went on. “If you find your resolve waning, just think of all the poor people that fiend has murdered.”

The man had gall, lecturing him, Fargo reflected. He nodded and responded, “I know my job.”

Mayfair glanced at Draypool, then said, “I am certain you do. Yet Arthur tells me that you refuse to shoot the Monster on sight.”

“I made it plain I don’t kill for money. If that’s what he wants done, he should have hired someone else.”

“Please don’t be offended,” Clyde said. “Trackers of your caliber are as rare as hen’s teeth.”

“What about that Hiram Trask your son told me about?” Fargo asked.

It was Draypool who answered. “Trask never leaves the South, where he grew up. He is active mainly in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida.”

“A true son of the South,” Jace Mayfair remarked.

Both Draypool and Jace’s father looked at him sharply, and Clyde Mayfair said, “In these trying times, one should not make such distinctions. They might be misunderstood.”

“What does he care?” Jace said testily, and bobbed his chin at Fargo. “How do you feel, exactly, about the coming conflict?”

“I haven’t thought about it much,” Fargo admitted. He tended to fight shy of politics. “But I don’t like the notion of one man owning another.”

“Slavery has been around for thousands of years,” Jace said. “It’s not as if the South invented it. Hell, there are Yankees who own slaves.”

Clyde Mayfair smacked the table hard. “I will thank you not to use such language in the presence of your mother and sister. As for slavery, it is hardly a fit topic for our morning meal.”

“I just wanted to know where he stood.” Jace was in a contrary mood. “Before long, Father, everyone will have to decide where they stand, whether they want to or not.”

Clyde smiled at Fargo. “You must excuse him. He’s young, and the young are always too headstrong for their own good.”

Priscilla set down her orange juice. “Why pick on Jace?” she said, coming to her brother’s defense.

“You’ve said the same things he just did many a time.”

“I repeat,” Clyde Mayfair sternly declared. “Slavery is not a fit topic for polite conversation.”

Fargo thought Mayfair was making a fuss over nothing, but he did not say anything, and the family finished the meal in strained silence. Draypool sent Avril and Zeck to bring the horses around, and refilled his teacup one last time.

“It will be a while before we eat this grand again,” Draypool said. “Please indulge me, Mr. Fargo, for a few minutes more.”

Fargo shrugged.

Clyde leaned his elbows on the table, then took them off at a disapproving stare from his wife. “Tell me about the Indians out your way. I am most curious. From all we hear, they are veritable savages, are they not?”

“Indians are people like us,” Fargo said, and added, without consciously meaning to, “The same as blacks or any others.”

Clyde reddened. “I beg to differ, sir. Indians are not just like us. They wear animal hides and live in squalor.”

“I wear animal hides,” Fargo said, touching his buckskin shirt, “and most nights I sleep on the ground wrapped in a blanket.”

“You didn’t sleep on the ground last night. Look around you, sir. You are seated in a sterling example of why we are superior in every way to every other race.”

Fargo decided he disliked Clyde Mayfair. He disliked him a lot. “Indians couldn’t pack up and move a house like this, and they move often, to be near buffalo and for other reasons.”

“You equivocate, sir. I am not an imbecile. Not all Indians follow the herds. Some live in villages year-round. Villages, need I remind you, ridden with filth and lice and barely fit for human habitation.”

“That’s enough,” Draypool said.

“I am only trying to make a point,” Clyde said to justify himself. “We are
not
like the Indians and never will be.”

Fargo had listened to enough. He pushed his chair back and stood. “I’ll wait with the horses.” As he crossed the room to where he had deposited his saddlebags and rifle, Draypool gave an angry hiss.

“That was a mistake, Clyde. You should know better. Need I remind you of the trouble we have gone to, or what’s at stake?”

“Don’t lecture me.”

Fargo was spared the rest of their petty bickering. He strode down the front hall and out into the morning sun and blinked in the bright glare. Another muggy day was in store.

The Ovaro was saddled and waiting. Fargo slid the Henry into the scabbard and secured the saddlebags. The saddle creaked as he forked leather. An urge came over him to say to hell with the whole thing and head for the Rockies, but he stayed where he was, and shortly Draypool and the Mayfairs trickled out, the two men still squabbling.

“. . . is that we have to stand up for our own kind,” Clyde was saying. “It is our obligation, if you will.”

“There is a time and a place for everything,” Arthur said, “and this was neither.”

A servant held out the reins to his mount and Arthur took them and climbed stiffly on without so much as a thank-you.

Margaret came down the steps and smiled up at Fargo. “Men and their silly spats. Yet they constantly poke fun at us women.”

Priscilla sashayed to her mother’s side. “If you are ever back this way, be sure to stop by. You are always welcome to our hospitality.”

Her hidden meaning brought a grin to Fargo’s face. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.

Arthur raised an arm as if it were a lance and exclaimed, “Onward with our quest, gentlemen!”

All that day they traveled hard. Draypool had a new urgency about him, which was puzzling to Fargo in light of their leisurely stay at the Mayfair farm. They left the main road and traveled to the northeast along byways and back ways that only someone completely familiar with the region would know. Zeck was that someone; he assumed the lead about noon. Toward evening, when Fargo asked how it was that Zeck knew every rutted track and path, the small man in black mentioned that he had grown up in the area.

And what an area it was! Fargo had seldom seen such lush woodland, verdant forest abundant with vegetation and wildlife, not at all like the arid timberland of the Rockies. For one thing, there were more leafy trees than pines, more maples and elms and willows and oaks than firs or spruces. For another, the undergrowth was a jungle compared to the sparse brush of the mountains. Green, green, everywhere, a profusion born of rich soil and that most precious of all nature’s gifts, water. The annual rainfall was many times that received by the land west of the Mississippi, creating countless waterways.

One of the largest in central Illinois was the Sangamon River. Draypool remarked to Fargo that the river flowed over two hundred and fifty miles. Rising in Champaign County, it eventually merged with the Illinois River, which, in turn, fed into the mighty Mississippi.

Draypool had been right about the extent of Illinois wilderness. Somehow Fargo had gotten it into his head that the state was all farmland and towns and cities, but such was not the case. The southern third was largely settled, and more and more people flocked to the north end of the state, and Chicago, every year. But the rest was pristine woodland, as wild and untamed as anything on the frontier.

Wildlife was everywhere. All kinds of birds, from tiny wrens and chickadees to catbirds and red-breasted robins to hungry hawks and turkey vultures. All kinds of small animals, from squirrels and raccoons and opossums to muskrats and even beavers. Predators, too, in the form of foxes and cougars and black bears.

That night they camped in the woods by a small stream. Avril shot a rabbit for supper and roasted it on a spit.

Draypool had been edgy all day, and now, as they were eating, he glanced at Fargo and said, “From here on out we must exercise extreme care. No one must learn what we are up to.”

Biting into a rabbit leg, Fargo chewed the juicy meat with relish.

“Did you hear me?”

“I’m sitting three feet from you,” Fargo said with his mouth full.

“Secrecy is of the utmost importance. We don’t want word to get back to the devil we are after.”

“Who in their right mind would warn him?” Fargo asked. “After all he’s done?”