Northwoods Nightmare by Jon Sharpe Page B

Cosmo.”
    â€œI hate him. I rue the day he came into our lives. Him and his constant fawning over Theodore. He doesn’t fool me. He doesn’t fool me one bit.”
    â€œHe doesn’t?” Fargo prompted when she didn’t go on.
    â€œCosmo is after Theo’s money. He hopes to be in Theo’s will and receive a large inheritance. So he babies my Theo. And Theo, the idiot, treats Cosmo as if Cosmo walks on air!”
    â€œYou don’t say.”
    â€œI saw right through Cosmo from the start. His oily smiles and little gestures. He disgusts me. Why, there are times when he acts more like a woman than I do. Can you imagine?”
    â€œIt’s a strange world,” Fargo said.
    â€œMine was an orderly world before he came along. My world was proper. Theodore and I weren’t always the most compatible of couples but we had a good marriage. Then this man came along and drove a wedge between us. I wish Cosmo were dead.”
    â€œI had no idea,” Fargo said with a straight face.
    â€œThat’s because you’re not female. Women have a sense about these things. We’re not as easily duped.”
    â€œI’ll be sure to remember that.” Fargo touched his hat brim and moved down the line to the next pair.
    Angeline and Allen were talking but stopped when he brought the Ovaro around.
    â€œWhat do you want?” Allen immediately snapped.
    â€œTo warn you there is a war party hereabouts.”
    Angeline held her chin higher. “Maybe you can ask your Indian friend if she will talk to them about leaving us be.”
    Allen snickered. “That’s a good one, sis.”
    â€œI have it figured out,” Fargo said.
    They looked at each other, and Angeline asked, “Have what figured out, pray tell?”
    â€œWhy Kenneth left home.” With that parting shot, Fargo went on past the rest until he came to Teit and Chelahit. She smiled up at him.
    â€œI am glad you made it back.”
    â€œI almost didn’t.” Again Fargo told about the war party, only in more detail.
    Both became troubled. Chelahit bowed his head as if in great shame.
    â€œI am sorry for what they have done,” Teit said sincerely. “Unless they are stopped there will be another war.”
    â€œThey’re your people. Why don’t the Nlaka’pamux stop them?”
    â€œA Knife never harms another Knife, and that is what it would take. Their hate is too strong. They will not stop killing until they are under the ground.”
    â€œThat won’t be long if they keep it up.”
    Teit sighed. “It is too bad people cannot get along. Think of how wonderful life would be.”
    â€œI’m not one for fairy tales.”
    The last rider was, as usual, Rohan, leading the pack animals. He grinned as Fargo came up.
    â€œYou and your hair are still together.”
    â€œI had to work at it.” For the last time Fargo explained about the war party. He left out the part about letting the one warrior live.
    â€œThey don’t worry me none.” Rohan patted his shotgun. “So long as they let me be, I’ll let them be.” He ran a sleeve across his mouth. “I’m more interested in reaching Yale so I can wet my throat.”
    â€œI like my liquor, too,” Fargo admitted.
    â€œThere are days when I like it too much. I wake up under a table, wondering how in hell I got there. Or the time I came around in a stable loft, as naked as the day I was born.” Rohan laughed. “You should have seen the looks I got when I walked out of that stable with a handful of straw over my private parts.”
    â€œHow are the packhorses holding up?”
    â€œFine. Just fine. I take good care of them. Horses don’t lie and cheat and leave you for another man who isn’t half the man you are.”
    â€œYou had a wife once?”
    â€œIf you can call her that. She drank worse than I do and had a roving eye. The only reason