Virgil got off the mare and picked up her foreleg. He looked at it and squeezed it gently and put it down and remounted. The mare cropped a little grass. Virgil patted her neck.
“Good as new,” he said.
“Which ain’t all that good,” I said.
“Nope,” Virgil said, “she ain’t much. But what there is of her is working fine.”
We looked down at the town below us. It wasn’t much, either. They were building a town marshal’s office next to the Blackfoot, on the north side. While we watched, a squad of new deputy marshals rode down Main Street and south out of town.
“You remember,” Virgil said as we watched them ride out, “how we got to be the law in Appaloosa?”
“Them three fellas, owned businesses in town, they hired us,” I said.
“Town council.”
“So they said.”
“Anybody elect them?” Virgil asked.
“Not that I know of,” I said.
The squad of deputies disappeared over the crest of the first hill south of town and reappeared at the crest of the next one.
“We had a set of laws,” Virgil said, “written out clear.”
“And we wrote them,” I said.
Virgil nodded.
“So this collection of vermin,” he said, “is as much the law here as we was in Appaloosa.”
“I guess so,” I said.
The squad went over the next hill, where the road curved, following the creek.
“We done the right thing,” Virgil said, “best we could, in Appaloosa.”
“Yep.”
The deputies were out of sight now.
“These people won’t do the right thing,” Virgil said.
“Not likely,” I said.
“Already done the wrong thing, shooting that sodbuster,” Virgil said.
“I’d say so.”
“And they’re the law.”
“’Fraid so,” I said.
Virgil nodded his head slowly, gazing downhill at the ugly little town.
“Not much of a place,” he said.
“No,” I said.
“Getting worse,” Virgil said. “Mine’s dried up. Lumber company’s out of business, at least for now. Homesteaders been run off the land.”
“Yep.”
“There’s no money to be spent,” Virgil said. “Nobody to borrow from the bank. Nobody to buy feed at the emporium. No beef to broker. Whiskey sales are almost nothing in the saloons.”
“Hard to make a profit,” I said, “by eliminatin’ your customers. ”
“Whole fucking town is going under,” Virgil said.
“Seems so,” I said.
“And Wolfson wants it,” Virgil said.
“Yep.”
“Why?” Virgil said.
“He probably don’t know, either,” I said.
“Don’t seem worth killing folks over.”
“Hell, Virgil,” I said. “You know better’n I do that people kill folks for nothing at all.”
Virgil nodded again.
“They do,” he said.
Then he clucked to the mare and we rode on back down the hill.
60.
We were sitting with Cato and Rose at a table in the Excelsior, where they no longer worked. They didn’t act like they didn’t work there. When Virgil and I came in, Rose went behind the bar and got four glasses and a bottle and brought them out.
“Nice thing,” Rose said, “’bout being out of work, gives you time to sit around and drink whiskey.”
We all sipped the first sip. I could feel it seep happily through me.
“Whaddya do when you’re working, Frank?” Virgil said.
Rose looked at him. He was puzzled.
“Same as you,” he said.
“And what’s that?” Virgil said.
Rose looked at him some more.
“Shootin’,” he said, and grinned, “or threatenin’ to.”
“That bother you?”
Rose looked surprised.
“Shootin’ people?” he said. “No.”
“You, Cato?”
Cato shook his head.
“Everett?”
“Depends on who I’m shootin’,” I said.
“And why,” Cato said.
All three of us looked at him. It was always surprising when Cato spoke.
“Right,” Rose said. “I mean, I ain’t gonna back-shoot nobody, or shoot no women or kids.”
“How ’bout that sodbuster got killed the other day?” Virgil said.
“No,” Rose said. “That was wrong. Me and Cato both think that was wrong.”
Cato nodded.
“You was working for Wolfson still, would you do it?” Virgil said.
Rose thought about it for a minute. He looked at Cato. Then he said, “No, neither one of us.”
Cato nodded briefly.
“Everett?” Virgil said.
I shook my head.
“Probably not.”
Virgil nodded.
We all drank a little more.
“What’s bothering you, Virgil?” Rose said. “You know what we are, what we do. What the hell are all these questions?”
Virgil shook his head and sipped another taste of whiskey.
“So you shoot who you want and not who you don’t want,” Virgil said.
“Yeah,” Rose said.
Cato nodded.
“Because you can,” he said.
“Pretty much,” Rose said.
He looked at me.
“You, Everett?”
“Yeah,” I said.
Virgil stared into his whiskey for a moment, then drank some.
“You think Swann feels that way?” he said.
“Naw,” Rose said.
“So how’s he decide?” Virgil said.
“He don’t,” Rose said. “He’ll shoot anybody he can get away with.”
“He likes it,” Cato said.
“And we don’t?” Virgil said.
Rose shrugged.
“Me and Cato don’t. I mean, we don’t mind. But it’s not a thrill or nothing.”
“So why do it?” Virgil said.
“Because we’re good at it, and it ain’t hard work,” Rose said. “’Cept if you get killed.”
Cato nodded.
“People always gonna kill other people,” Rose said. “Always gonna be fellas like us, that are good at it. And there’ll be fellas like Swann who are good at it, too.”
“So if you’re good with a gun,” Virgil said, “you can shoot people or not.”
“Uh-huh,” Rose said.
“And who decides?”
“Me,” Rose said.
Cato and I both nodded. Virgil stared further at his whiskey.
“Don’t seem the way it oughta be,” Virgil said.
“Don’t,” I said.
“But it is,” Virgil said.
“Ain’t much else,” I said.
61.
Some men behind a stone outcropping drew down on us with Winchesters as Virgil and I rode up to the lumber camp.
“Name’s Virgil Cole,” Virgil said. “Tell Stark me ’n Hitch come to talk with him and Redmond.”
There was some scurrying around through the woods while we sat our horses, and after a time we got to go ride in. It was an odd-looking lumber camp. Tents pitched. Cook fires going. Children scrambling around. Women doing laundry. Stark and Redmond were on the steps of the lumber shack.
“’Fore you get off them horses,” Stark said, “I want to know why you’re here.”
“We was thinking we might give you a hand,” Virgil said.
“With what?”
“Wolfson.”
Stark looked at us for a moment.
“You and Hitch?” he said to Virgil.
“Me ’n Everett,” Virgil said. “Cato and Rose.”
Stark and Redmond were silent for a moment.
Then Stark said, “You four?”
“Yep.”
“Wh
y?” Redmond said.
He was looking hard at Virgil.
“Seems like a good idea,” Virgil said.
“That’s all?” Redmond said.
“Either we climb down and talk about this,” Virgil said, “or we turn around and ride back out. “
“Climb down,” Stark said. “We’ll sit outside. It’s a little close inside.”
We sat on the front steps of the lumber shack.
“Lujack and Swann and their people rode out and killed one of your people,” Virgil said.
“Ty Harrison,” Redmond said. “A fine man.”
“Sure,” Virgil said. “You folks gonna stick it out?”
“We ain’t running,” Redmond said.
“Next sodbuster starts to rebuild, same thing’s going to happen,” I said.
“Next time, we’ll go in force,” Redmond said.
Virgil ignored him. He looked at Stark.
“What do you say, Stark?”
“Lujack and his people,” Stark said. “They’re good.”
“Yes,” Virgil said.
“Good as you?”
“Probably not,” Virgil said. “But there’s a passel of them.”
“You have a plan?” Stark said.
“Not yet,” Virgil said.
“What do you think of Redmond’s plan?” Stark said.
“They’ll get slaughtered,” Virgil said.
Stark nodded his head slowly, and kept nodding as he spoke.
“Yes,” Stark said.
“You think we’re afraid?” Redmond said.
Virgil looked at him and at me. I nodded.
“How many of your people have ever killed anybody?” I said.
“I don’t know,” Redmond said. “But we ain’t backing down.”
“Do you know anybody who ain’t backing down who’s ever killed anybody?” I said.
Redmond frowned at me. Then he shrugged.
“No,” he said.
“Gunfight ain’t like other things,” Virgil said.
“Lujack’s people are professionals,” I said. “You’ll get buried.”
“He ain’t gonna run us off,” Redmond said.
Both fists were clenched in his lap. His face was red.
“Hell he ain’t,” Virgil said.
Redmond stood.
“You calling me a coward?” he said to Virgil.
Virgil looked at him as if he were an odd specimen of insect Virgil hadn’t seen before.
“At the moment,” Virgil said, “I’m calling you a fool.”
“I’ll fight you,” Redmond said. “Goddamn it, I will.”
“Bob,” Stark said, “shut the fuck up.”
“I ain’t scared of him,” Redmond said.
“Should be,” Stark said, in a voice that would have cut through shale. “Now sit fucking down and shut fucking up. These people are trying to help you.”
“We don’t need it,” Redmond said.
But he sat down.
“We could all go down, lumberjacks, us, everybody,” he said. “There’d be like fifty of us.”
“And leave who,” I said, “looking out for the women and children?”
“They wouldn’t…” Redmond said.
“’Course they would,” Virgil said.
Redmond started to speak, and stopped and started again and stopped.
“Jesus,” he said finally.
“Finally,” Stark said to him, “do you get it? You know what you’re dealing with?”
Redmond nodded silently.
“You’ll help us,” Stark said to Virgil.
“If you’re going to stay with it,” Virgil said. “If you ain’t, me ’n Everett will ride off down to Texas.”
“You’d run from Wolfson?” Redmond said.
“Got no reason not to,” Virgil said. “’Less you folks are gonna stay and fight.”
“We are,” Redmond said softly. “We got no place else to go.”
“Stark?” Virgil said.
“I’ll be here,” Stark said. “I’m not gonna ask my boys to go up against professional shooters. But there’s enough of us, I think, to keep them out of here.”
“Got enough food?” I said.
“For now,” Stark said. “Shot an elk couple days ago. That’ll help.”
“Wolfson ain’t gonna sell you none,” I said.
“Nope.”
“Any come in on the lumber train?”
Stark smiled without any amusement.
“Somebody blew the tracks of my spur about ten miles west of here,” he said.
“So you can’t sell your lumber, either,” I said.
“Not for now.”
Virgil looked at me.
“Well,” he said. “Seems like we ought to clean this up pretty quick, Everett.”
I nodded.
“What are you going to do?” Redmond said.
“We’ll talk with Cato and Rose,” Virgil said. “And you stay here and hold tight. Don’t get caught out in the open.”
“You four against twenty?” Stark said.
“At first,” Virgil said.
62.
What you suppose Wolfson’s gonna do with all that sodbuster land he’s got?” Rose said while we were eating breakfast in the Excelsior.
“Not much,” I said, “because we ain’t gonna let him keep it.”
“Sure,” Rose said. “But what’s he think he’s gonna do with it.”
“Could run cattle,” I said.
“Not the best range I ever seen,” Rose said.
“Could reparcel it,” I said. “Sell it off to a new crop of homesteaders.”
“That’s what he’ll do,” Virgil said. “Sell the land in house lots. The bank will hold the mortgages, so he’ll still control it. They’ll be new customers for the store and the saloons.”
“So why not keep the sodbusters he’s got now,” Rose said.
“He’s wrung ’em dry,” Cato said.
All three of us looked at him. But he didn’t add anything.
After a time Virgil said, “Cato’s right. They got nothing. They can’t repay a mortgage. They haven’t got any money to spend at the emporium. They probably can’t even rebuild enough to make a profit. But they can keep him from owning the land, and they can keep him from reselling to people who have some money.”
“For him to squeeze out of the new folks,” I said.
“So unless he can run them off, or starve them out, or kill them,” Rose said, “these shitkickers are just in Wolfson’s way.”
“Yep.”
“And they got nothing to bargain with,” Rose said.
“Just us,” I said.
Virgil appeared to be paying no attention to the conversation. He stood up suddenly.
“Think I’ll go talk to Wolfson,” he said, and walked out the front door of the saloon.
“What the fuck is he doing?” Rose said.
“Let’s go see,” I said.
We got up and went after Virgil.
Wolfson was at his table in the Blackfoot, and with him were Lujack and Swann.
“Virgil,” Wolfson said, “I thought you’d be on your way to Texas by now.”
Swann shifted a little in his chair. Virgil walked across the saloon and stopped in front of Wolfson.
“Used to work for you,” Virgil said.
Wolfson nodded his head once.
“We ain’t gonna let you run them settlers off their land,” Virgil said.
No one at the table said anything for a long time. Virgil stood patiently. He was doing what he always did, just going about his business, plowing straight ahead. Nothing bothered him. He never seemed in a hurry, except things always seemed to happen faster for him than other people.
Finally, Wolfson said, “You’re not?”
“Nope,” Virgil said.
“You and them three boys?” Lujack said, nodding at Cato and Rose and me.
“That’s right,” Virgil said. “Wanted to let you know. Give y
ou a chance to negotiate, if you was of a mind to.”
“Negotiate?” Lujack said.
Lujack was slowly discovering what so many people had discovered before him, that Virgil Cole was not like other folks.
“We ain’t negotiating shit,” Wolfson said. “You boys got a brain in your heads, you’ll skedaddle the fuck out of Resolution while we’re still willin’ to let you.”
Virgil nodded and looked at Swann.
“You got anything to say?” he said to him.
Swann looked lazily at Wolfson and Lujack seated with him, and then at me and Cato and Rose, behind Virgil.
“Not right now,” he said.
They looked at each other. Swann didn’t like the odds, and he was right. But he wasn’t afraid of Virgil, which could be a mistake. Though as Virgil always insisted, you didn’t know for certain until it happened.
Virgil nodded slowly.
Then, without speaking again, he turned and walked out of the saloon. Cato and Rose and I followed him.
63.
It’ll be like it was with the Shoshones,” I said. "They may not come, but you can’t plan on it.”
"We’re losing manpower,” Stark said, “every day. Mostly miners are moving on.”
“Mine’s dried up,” Faison said. “Nothin’ to hold ’em.”
“Wolfson know that?” I said.
“They send somebody up every day to look at us,” Stark said. “Coupla riders.”
“Where?” I said.
“Top the ridge over there,” Stark said.
He pointed west.
“Where we’ve cleared the trees,” he said.
“When do they come?”
“Late afternoon.”
“So the sun’s behind them,” Rose said.
“And anybody wanted to pick them off from down here,” I said, “be shooting into it.”
It was the middle of the afternoon. We were at the lumber camp, outside the lumber office, with Stark and Faison and Redmond and several men I didn’t know. Virgil and Cato both looked up at the sun.
“Awful long shot, sun or no sun,” I said.
“Better to be closer,” Virgil said. “And not facing the sun.”
Cato nodded and tapped himself on the chest. Virgil nodded back. Cato stood and walked away from the group and around the corner of the lumber office. Everyone watched him go. No one said anything.
So I said, after a time, “You need to stay careful. Keep your pickets posted on the road, and above the camp, too. Lujack and his posse may not come prancing up the road for you.”
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