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“Direct and to the point. I like that. I’ll answer your question shortly but first there’s this business of the attempt on your life.”
    “Second attempt.”
    “What?” Samantha said.
    “What?” Pickleman echoed.
    Briefly, Fargo recited the knife attack by the man and the woman on the steamboat. “I thought they were after my poke but maybe I was wrong and they were after me.”
    “This is most disturbing,” Samantha said. “No one knew I sent for you except for my siblings and Theodore.”
    “And some of the servants,” Pickleman said.
    Roland and those with him came up on either side of Samantha. Three of the four were men. All had the same auburn hair and a similar shape to their faces, save one. He was bone thin and had raven black hair and a complexion so pale it gave the impression he hardly ever set foot outdoors.
    “Surely you’re not suggesting one of us is to blame?” Roland said to Samantha.
    “Perhaps one of you thought he would give me an advantage.”
    The black-haired man stirred. “ You must think he will, dear sister, or you wouldn’t have sent for him.”
    Samantha regarded him as someone might regard a spider they wanted to step on. “Each of us is allowed a helper, Thomas. Anyone of our choosing, that’s how the will reads.”
    “Yes,” Tom said, bobbing his bony chin. “But to send for the likes of him”—he jabbed a finger in Fargo’s direction—“Honestly. What can he possibly do that any of our local backwoodsmen couldn’t?”
    Another of the siblings, whose suit was immaculate and whose every hair was slicked in place and neatly combed, uttered a snort of annoyance. “If anyone has an advantage, it’s Roland. He’s hunted in the forest since he was a boy. He knows every creek, every nook.”
    “Stay out of this, Charles,” Tom said.
    “I will not. I have as much at stake as the rest of you and I think it unfair of Father to choose the method he has. It’s absurd.”
    The last of the brothers, the youngest, cleared his throat. “I never did understand him. Father had his own ideas and they were never ideas anyone else would have.”
    “He was a tyrant, Emmett,” Tom said. “A petty, mean, miserable, money-pinching goat who—”
    Samantha was on him in a long stride. Her hand flashed and the crack of the slap was like the crack of a shot. She hit him so hard that Tom rocked on his heels and would have fallen if Charles hadn’t caught him. “I’ll not have that kind of talk. Do you hear me?”
    Tom raised a hand to his red cheek, and glared. “If you ever hit me again, I swear.”
    “You swear what?”
    “Do I really need to spell it out?”
    The last of them, the youngest daughter, who by Fargo’s reckoning had to be in her early twenties, stepped between Samantha and Tom and cried out, “Enough! Please! Why must you always be at each other’s throats? For my sake if for no other reason, try to be nice.”
    “Nice?” Tom said in contempt.
    “Yes, nice,” the youngest girl said. “There are people who are, you know. They say nice things and do nice things for other people. I would like, just once, for us to be like them.”
    “You’re a silly dreamer,” Tom said. “It’s all that reading you do. Readers are always dreamers.”
    Roland put a hand on the youngest girl’s shoulder. “Try not to let them get to you, Charlotte. They’ve always been this way and they always will.”
    Tom Junior laughed. “Will you listen to him? You would think he was Sir Galahad but he’s no better than the rest of us.”
    Roland balled his fists. “Have a care, brother.”
    “Please,” Charlotte said.
    All of them started to talk at once except for Samantha.
    Fargo had listened to enough. He drew his Colt and thumbed back the hammer.

5
    The floor was made of maple. Like everything else in the Clyborn mansion, it was a floor only the rich could afford. Fargo didn’t give a damn. He pointed his Colt down and banged off a shot that sent slivers