Free Backwoods Bloodbath by Jon Sharpe Page A

and instead gestured at the trio coming down the steps behind him. “This is my wife, Margaret, my son, Jace, and my daughter, Priscilla.”
    “How do you do, sir?” the wife said. Her hair was graying and she had a plump body that jiggled when she moved.
    “A pleasure, sir.” Jace gave a courtly bow. He was in his twenties, and the spitting image of his sire.
    Fargo was more interested in the daughter. Tall and willowy, Priscilla Mayfair filled out her dress in the shape of an hourglass—a rather tight dress for a farm girl, cut low in front to accent her cleavage and snug at the thighs to accent something else. She offered her hand with a graceful flourish.
    “I do declare. Aren’t you a handsome devil!”
    Grinning, Fargo imitated the son’s bow and kissed the back of her hand. Only she was aware that he pressed the tip of his tongue to her skin. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”
    “Not half as pleased as I am,” Priscilla said, her lovely green eyes twinkling. She did not resent the liberty he had taken. Quite the contrary.
    “Why don’t we all go inside?” Clyde Mayfair proposed. “I will have refreshments brought.”
    Fargo shucked his Henry from the saddle scabbard, untied his saddlebags, and followed Draypool and their hosts indoors.
    A butler and two maids, all of them black, snapped to attention as if they were soldiers on a parade ground. Clyde Mayfair had one of the maids take Fargo’s personal effects upstairs. Then he said, “Follow me, gentlemen,” and led the way to a sitting room.
    The house was a model of elegance. Mayfair was no simple farmer. He had money, lots of it, and he was lavish in spending it. Fargo found himself in a plush chair across from a giant window that afforded a sweeping vista of the thousands of acres Mayfair owned. The butler brought him a cup of coffee on a sterling silver tray. The cup itself was of the best china.
    Draypool sank into another chair with a contented sigh. The maid gave him a glass of brandy, which he sniffed, then sipped, savoring it as if it was liquid gold.
    “You have no idea, Clyde, how wonderful it is to be back among civilized society.”
    “Had a rough time, did you, Arthur?” Margaret Mayfair asked.
    “You have no idea. I cannot describe it in mixed company,” Draypool assured her. “Suffice it to say that everything you have heard about the frontier is true. It is overrun with barbarians who have no appreciation for the niceties of life.”
    Fargo almost laughed. If Draypool thought Kansas City was wild and woolly, he should visit a few prairie towns or some of the mining camps up in the Rockies. Compared to them, Kansas City was as tame as Paris or London.
    “How sad.” Margaret Mayfair sniffed. “People these days have lost all sense of decorum. It comes from bad breeding.”
    Clyde glanced sharply at Fargo, then cleared his throat and said, “Yes, my dear. I wholeheartedly agree. But we don’t want to bore our guest with a discussion about the decline and fall of American culture.”
    “It would bore me,” Priscilla remarked, drawing a barbed look from her mother. “We hear it nearly every day.”
    “That will be quite enough, young lady,” Margaret chided. “When I was your age I would never have presumed to be so impertinent.”
    “When you were my age,” Priscilla said sweetly, “you were as straitlaced as your corset, Mother, and nothing has changed.”
    Clyde flushed and started to rise, but caught himself. “That will be enough, young lady. Must you constantly bait your mother and I over trifles?”
    “My apologies, Father,” Priscilla said with mock sincerity. “I meant no disrespect. But we have talked about it endlessly, and it does so bore me.”
    Bestowing an embarrassed smile on Fargo, Clyde said, “Please excuse my daughter’s antics. We spoiled her growing up, I’m afraid, and her maturity has suffered as a result.”
    Now it was Priscilla who colored and clenched her small hands into