Free Backwoods Bloodbath by Jon Sharpe

face. “What did you say?”
    Fargo repeated it, elaborating with, “Draypool and some others want to end the bloodshed. That’s why they hired me.”
    “Oh, God.”
    “What?” Fargo asked, unsure of whether the man was agitated by the information or had gone stark pale due to his wounds.
    “Those devils! It’s so simple!” Quaking violently, Sloane raised his head and feebly clawed at Fargo’s leg. “He has to be warned! Get word to—”
    “To who?” Fargo prompted.
    Jim Sloane went rigid. Tears streamed from his eyes as his mouth worked soundlessly. Abruptly going limp, he slumped onto his back and exhaled.
    Fargo felt for a pulse but there was none. He heard Draypool huff and puff up behind him, but he did not turn.
    “Is that one dead?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good riddance. Let’s hope Avril and Zeck do the same with the other.”

7
    Fargo said very little to Arthur Draypool over the next several days. He did not tell Draypool what Sloane had told him. Better he kept the information to himself until he found out what was going on.
    Avril and Zeck had seen to Sloane’s burial after they returned from chasing Frank Colter. Colter got away, which secretly pleased Fargo. He offered to help dig Sloane’s grave but Draypool would not hear of it. “Menial chores are why I have Mr. Avril and Mr. Zeck in my employ.”
    As the pair in frock coats busied themselves with broken branches, scooping out earth, Fargo searched Sloane’s pockets. He hoped to find something that would tell him who Sloane had been and what Sloane and Colter were up to, but all he found was thirty dollars, a folding knife, and a compass.
    In an effort to justify the shooting, Arthur Draypool had gone on and on about the dangers of traveling in that part of Missouri. “Scoundrels are everywhere. It shouldn’t surprise you that two of them were following us. No doubt at the first opportunity they planned to relieve us of our valuables, if not our lives.”
    That was three nights ago. Over the subsequent days, Fargo racked his brain for an excuse to bow out. All he had to do was walk up to Draypool and flatly refuse to go another mile. But he could not bring himself to do it. Part of the reason was that he had agreed to do the job, and while his promise was not carved in granite, he never went back on his word if he could help it.
    Curiosity was also a factor. Colter and Sloane had given the impression that Draypool was up to no good. The idea seemed preposterous. Fargo could not for the life of him figure out what Draypool hoped to gain by deceiving him. Why go to so much trouble to track him down and offer him so much money if the whole arrangement was underhanded?
    For the time being Fargo was content to go along. But he was no man’s fool, and he stayed alert for gleanings of Draypool’s true intentions.
    The day came when they crossed the border into Illinois. Fargo reckoned they would push on to the next town and rest there for the night. But to his surprise, after only a few miles, Arthur Draypool turned off the main road and down a long lane that brought them to a stately farmhouse. It reminded Fargo of mansions he had seen in the deep South. Scores of workers, nearly all of them black, were busy at various tasks.
    “I hope you won’t mind if we stop early tonight,” Draypool commented. “I thought it might do to treat you to some Illinois hospitality.”
    Apparently word of their coming had preceded them, for four people were waiting on a broad porch. For farmers, the four were dressed in remarkably nice clothes. A craggy-faced man with a bushy mustache came down the steps to greet them, declaring, “Arthur! What a pleasure to see you again!”
    “Permit me to introduce Clyde Mayfair,” Draypool said while shaking their host’s hand. “He and I go back a long ways.”
    “I should say so!” Mayfair exclaimed. “We grew up in South Carolina not twenty miles from one another.” He went to say more, seemed to change his mind,