After Angel was dressed, Abby gave her some lunch. Neither woman spoke to the other while Angel ate, and Fargo stayed out of the way.
When Angel had eaten, Fargo went with her to the barn to help saddle her horse. Her arm still wasn’t strong enough for a job like that, no matter how nicely it was healing.
When the horse was saddled, Angel managed to swing herself up on its back without any help from Fargo, who didn’t even offer. She didn’t look as if she would have appreciated it.
She settled herself in the saddle and said, “You’re not going to try to follow me, are you?”
“Never even gave it a thought,” Fargo lied.
It had been his plan from the beginning to follow her back to her father’s hiding place. He had promised to take care of her, but he hadn’t promised anything else.
“You couldn’t do it anyway,” she said. “So I’m not worried about it. Too much open country around here. I could see you a long way off.”
Fargo knew that well enough. But Angel didn’t know about his tracking abilities. He could trail her from so far back that she’d never know he was there. And if he could discover Murray’s whereabouts, it was possible he could talk the farmers into getting together and mounting a sneak attack. It would be one way to pay Murray back for Jed.
Maybe that thought didn’t make Fargo any better than Murray, but at least Fargo didn’t spend his time preying on other people.
“I’ll be on my way, then,” Angel said. “It’s too bad we didn’t meet a different way, Fargo. It might have been interesting.”
“It could still be interesting,” Fargo said. “You don’t have to live the way you do.”
“That’s what Jed thought. But he was wrong, and you see what happened to him.”
“I’ve been wondering about that,” Fargo said, but Angel wouldn’t let him continue.
“It doesn’t pay to wonder,” she said. “A man can get in a lot of trouble that way, and I don’t want to make any more trouble for you. You’re in enough trouble already.”
Fargo didn’t have to ask what she meant by that. He had a feeling that Murray might be after him again as soon as Angel was safe. Angel went on to confirm that he was right.
“Pa blames you for what happened to Paul,” she said. “It’s not just that you killed him. You put him in that shallow hole and called it a burying.”
“He wouldn’t have been killed or buried, either, if he’d stayed away from here.”
“That’s not the way we Murrays look at things.”
Angel turned the horse’s head and started to ride away. After the horse had gone a few paces, she pulled up on the reins and looked back over her shoulder.
“If you were smart,” she said, “you’d get back to wherever it is you came from and leave these farmers to us.”
“I never was too smart,” Fargo said. “Not smart enough to run out on my friends, anyhow.”
“Too bad. But at least I tried to warn you. I guess you just like trouble too much.”
“I don’t like trouble. It just seems to come my way now and then.”
“It wouldn’t if you’d mind your own business.”
“Maybe I’m just too curious.”
“You know what they say about curiosity and the cat?”
“I’ve heard about it,” Fargo said. “Can’t say as I ever believed it, though. Cats have nine lives, after all.”
“And I don’t believe that,” Angel said. “So long, Fargo.”
She turned and snapped the reins. The horse started off at a walk, but before she’d gone too far, she urged it to go faster. She was such a good rider that she didn’t bounce enough to bother her shoulder.
Fargo watched her until she was almost out of sight. Then he saddled the Ovaro and went after her.
Fargo had no trouble at all following the tracks of Angel’s horse. It was almost as if she wanted to be followed, he thought, so he was wary of a trap. Not that there was any place to trap him.
He rode across fields, past cornfields and farmhouses, always staying so far back that there was no chance of Angel catching a glimpse of him. She didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry, so Fargo dawdled along as slowly as he could.
It wasn’t long before he knew where Angel was headed. She was riding right toward the creek, and she would enter the trees that grew along it not far from the spot where her brother had first been buried. If she got into the trees, she might have a better chance of losing him, but Fargo didn’t think she would. He could track her there as easily as he could out in the open.
But Angel was taking no chances, as Fargo learned when he reached the creek bank. The sun came through the tree limbs and sketched shadows on the ground. The water in the creek was shallow and slow-moving, and Angel had ridden right into it.
It didn’t take Fargo long to discover that she hadn’t ridden out on the other side.
He sat on the Ovaro for a minute and thought about it. He had only two choices, left or right. He could take one direction for a while and then the other. It shouldn’t take him too long to find out where she’d left the stream, unless she hadn’t left it at all. If she hadn’t, she might lose him if he didn’t make the right choice.
