“You might not want to say that too loud,” Fargo said, with a glance back over his shoulder.
“I don’t care if she hears,” Lem said. “Those Murrays find out everything sooner or later, anyhow. They’ve had things their own way around here for long enough. It’s time somebody did something about them.”
“That’s the kind of talk that got Jed killed,” Abby said. “I don’t want to lose you, too.”
“They won’t kill me. I’m too old and ornery.”
“They’ll kill anybody. They killed Sarah Johnson.”
“I blame Rip for that,” Lem said. “He’s pretending to be all torn up about it. But I know how he was around women. He might be just as glad she’s gone.”
As he said that last part, Fargo waited for Abby’s reaction. She didn’t mince words.
“He doesn’t care one bit about Sarah. He’ll be making a play for some other woman before she’s cold in the ground.”
“I know who that woman will be,” Lem said, “and so do you. I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it any better than you do,” Abby told him. “But if he thinks he’s got a chance with me, he’s got another thing coming. He’d better not even come around here.”
“You know he likes you. He always has. He won’t stay away.”
“He doesn’t like me any more than he likes any other woman. Which I admit is probably quite a lot. What he’d really like to do is get this farm for himself. But you don’t have to worry about that. He doesn’t have a chance with me.”
“I thought you felt that way,” Lem said, “But I’m glad to hear you say it. He’d make a mighty sorry son-in-law.”
Fargo looked out the window and judged from the sunlight that it must be sometime past noon. He’d slept longer than he thought. And he realized that he was hungry. When he said something about it, Lem told Abby to fry up some bacon and eggs.
“I guess none of us have had any breakfast today. What about Angel?”
“She can wait,” Abby said.
The bacon smelled good while it was frying in the pan, and it tasted even better than it smelled. The fresh eggs were just as tasty, and Fargo, for just a second or two, could almost understand why someone might want to settle down to the farming life. But only for a second or two. Being stuck in one place, living day after day under the same roof, seeing the same people all the time: those things didn’t have any appeal for Fargo, and he was already getting anxious to get away from Kansas and back to some country where there were mountains with the snow still on top and streams that rushed down their sides instead of sliding along the flatlands.
While they were eating, Fargo asked Lem about the Murray gang, trying to find out a little more about them.
“Murray just showed up here one day a couple of years ago,” Lem said. “Nobody knows much about him, but I doubt that he got his start here. I think he came because things are so unsettled hereabouts. He could run that gang of his without too much interference, and that’s the way he wants it.”
“And nobody tries to stop them?” Fargo asked.
“They take whatever they want, whenever they feel like it,” Lem said around a mouthful of eggs. “They steal our chickens to eat, but they kill the rest of them for fun. They live off us, is what they do. We work, and they take what they please because we can’t stop them.”
“We could stop them if we did what Jed suggested,” Abby said.
“It’s hard to get farmers to turn to the gun,” Lem said. “That’s why they’re farmers. They might talk about doing something, but they never do. Hell, I should know. I’m one of ’em.”
“What about the town?” Fargo asked. “Does Murray ever go there?”
“Atchison? Sure, he goes there. He’s robbed the bank there at least twice, but the sheriff’s afraid of him. He might get together a posse, but they never seem to be able to find Murray. Pretty sorry posse, if you ask me.”
That fit with what Molly had already told Fargo, and the thought of Molly made him wonder where she was.
“She’s decided to stay at Talley’s,” Lem said when Fargo asked. “There’s nobody else to do it, and she doesn’t have a place anymore. The bank probably owns it now, but Molly might be able to take it over and pay off Talley’s loan. ’Course, it wouldn’t be easy, paying hers and his, too, but if anybody can do it, Molly can. She’s a worker.”
“Maybe she and Rip could partner up,” Fargo said, just to see what Lem thought.
But it was Abby who answered as soon as she could quit laughing.
“Molly and Rip? You must be crazy, Fargo. Molly likes that man even less than I do, which is saying a lot.”
Fargo knew that was true, and he decided it was time to bring the talk back to Murray.
“Why is it that nobody seems to know where the gang stays when they’re not out raiding the countryside?” he asked. “Hasn’t anybody tried to find them?”
“Not very hard,” Lem said. “Fella named Melton tried once. We found him a day or so later, hanging in a tree at the end of a rope with his neck all stretched out. That pretty much discouraged people from looking.”
