The South Fork Showdown

by J. R. Roberts

  “Very impressive,” Clint said. “How do you maintain it?”

  “We have engineers on the payroll who take care of it,” Frick said.

  “I guess Johnstown would be in a lot of trouble if that dam ever broke.”

  “Which is why we keep the engineers on retainer,” Frick said. “It’s our responsibility to make sure that everyone who might be in the path of that water is safe.”

  They got back into the carriage and rode back to the main complex for lunch.

  * * *

  They had lunch in a large dining room with a long table that accommodated about twenty club members, plus the Gunsmith. Lunch consisted of pheasant and vegetables, and chocolate mousse for dessert.

  “The club is quite proud of our chef,” Henry Frick told Clint.

  Clint didn’t know where they managed to find pheasant. They were more likely to find wild turkeys on their hunting preserve.

  “It’s very good,” Clint said, even though he much preferred beef.

  Frick was seated on Clint’s left. On his right and across from him were club members he had not met before. They questioned him about his reputation, questions which he skillfully managed to avoid answering. He turned it around so that he was able to get some information from them. They were all rich, and had rich men’s egos. By the time lunch was finished, Clint knew quite a bit about them—bankers, industrialists, lawyers, businessmen.

  Afterward they took Clint to another lounge for cigars and brandy with Frick and the men Clint soon realized were Frick’s inner circle.

  “So,” Lawrence asked, “what did you think of our club today?”

  “I have to say,” Clint said, “I was impressed.”

  “With what specifically?” Old Man Foster asked.

  “Well . . . the dam, for one thing.”

  “The dam?” Bledsoe asked. “Why on earth would you be impressed with the dam?”

  “It’s quite an achievement,” Clint said, “and it keeps a lot of people safe. And . . . it’s the responsibility of the club to keep it strong.”

  “There are many other aspects of our club that we’re proud of, much more than the dam,” Upton said. “The hunting, for one thing.”

  “I’m not much of a hunter,” Clint said. “As I told Mr. Frick, I usually eat what I hunt.”

  “Have you ever killed a bear?” Foster asked.

  “I have.”

  “You didn’t eat it, I’m sure.”

  “No,” Clint said, “I killed that bear in order to stay alive.”

  “So you’ve never mounted any of your prey?” Frederick Upton asked.

  “It’s quite invigorating to see that head up on a wall, I must say,” William Bledsoe added.

  “Well,” Clint said, “I’ve hunted quite a few men and sent them to jail.”

  Cole Foster frowned, looking even more sour than he usually did.

  “In all my years, I’ve never hunted a man.”

  The rest of the members all seemed to be considering that comment.

  “When I’ve hunted men,” Clint said, “they’ve deserved to be hunted. They were killers who had to be punished.”

  “I’m sure they were,” Frick said. “Are you ready to go back to Pittsburgh?”

  “I think I’m ready,” Clint said, putting his glass down. “It was a pleasure to meet you gents.” He went around the room and shook hands with each of the men.

  “This way, Clint,” Frick said. “Jason is waiting out front with the carriage.”

  “Perhaps we can get you up here and show you how we hunt,” Cole Foster said.

  “We’ll see,” Clint said, although he doubted it very much. He had no desire to go hunting with any of these vain, wealthy men.

  SIXTEEN

  As was the case when he’d been picked up that afternoon, Frick did not accompany Clint on the return trip.

  “I’m afraid we have a board meeting tonight, at which some very important matters will be discussed,” Frick explained. “I can’t afford to miss it.”

  “Of course.”

  “Jason will take you to your hotel. I will be back in town tomorrow, and perhaps we can have a drink together then. And discuss some . . . well, some matters that are still being decided.”

  “All right, Mr. Frick.”

  “Please,” Frick said, extending his hand, “from this point on, just call me Henry.”

  “All right, Henry.”

  The two men shook hands and then Frick watched as Jason held the door of the carriage open for Clint. As the carriage pulled away, Clint did not look out the window, even though he felt sure Frick was still standing there, seeing him off.

  He was happy not to be in the company of those men anymore.

  * * *

  Jason dropped Clint off in front of the hotel and was about to leave when Clint said, “Hey, Jason.”

  “Sir?”

  “How about a drink?”

  “Sir?”

  “Have you got anything to do now?”

  “No, sir,” Jason said. “I was informed that I could go home after I left you off, and bring the carriage back to the club tomorrow.”

  “Okay, then,” Clint said, “let me buy you a drink.”

  “Well . . . all right, sir.”

  “Come on,” Clint said, “my hotel has a saloon.”

  “The carriage—”

  “I’ll talk to the doorman. He’ll watch your carriage for you.”

  “All right, sir.”

  They walked to the door together, where Clint had a talk with the doorman and handed him some money.

  “Don’t worry, sir,” the doorman assured him. “It’ll be safe.”

  “Thanks.”

  Clint led Jason into the hotel lobby and through to the saloon.

  “What’ll you have?” Clint asked.

  “A beer, sir.”

  “I’ll get you a beer,” Clint said, “but stop calling me ‘sir.’”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Grab a table over there in the corner.”

  Clint went to the bar, got two mugs of beer from the bartender, and joined Jason at the table.

  “Thank you, si—uh, thank you.”

  “So tell me,” Clint said, “where is it that you do live? Not up at the club?”

  “No,” Jason said, “some of the members sleep up there sometimes, but no one really lives there.”

  “So you live in town?”

  “Yes . . . I have a small house here in town that suits me just fine.”

  “And your job? Driving Frick? Is that all you do for a living?”

  “I drive for Mr. Frick and some of the other club members,” Jason said. “I am actually employed by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club.”

  “I see.”

  Clint sipped his beer and studied the man across from him. Jason looked to be in his thirties, stood well over six two or three. He spoke and dressed like an educated man.

  “Maybe you can answer a question for me, Jason,” Clint said.

  “If I can.”

  “Why are the members so touchy when it comes to talking about the dam?”

  “Are they?” Jason sipped at his beer while they talked, the volume of their voices getting lower and lower.

  “I think they are,” Clint said. “They want to talk about hunting and business, but when I brought up the dam, they were reluctant to say anything.”

  “It might be a sore subject for them,” Jason said.

  “Why would that be?”

  “I’m not sure,” Jason said. The man had drunk half his beer and seemed to be loosening up a bit.

  “Come on,” Clint said, “you must have some idea. Why don’t you finish that beer and I’ll get you another one.”

  Jason drank the beer down a
nd said, “Sure, why not?”

  Clint picked up the two empty mugs, walked to the bar, and came back with full ones.

  “There you go,” he said, putting them on the table and pushing one toward the driver.

  The two men sat and drank . . .

  SEVENTEEN

  “The dam needs a lot of work,” Jason said.

  This was sometime later, after a few beers had crossed the table.

  “Work?”

  “It’s been showing signs of wear.”

  “Don’t they have engineers working on that?” Clint asked. “I mean, Mr. Frick told me they had several engineers on the payroll.”

  “They do,” Jason said, “and I may be talking out of turn. After all, I am not an engineer. But I’ve seen that dam up close. It has some problems.”

  “You’re saying there are structural problems that need to be addressed?”

  “Yes,” Jason said, “there are.”

  “Well,” Clint said, “I’m sure the club is having their engineers address those problems, right?”

  “Definitely,” Jason said. He finished the beer in front of him and pushed the empty mug away.

  “Another?” Clint asked.

  “No, thank you,” Jason said. “That’s enough for me. I must go home and turn in. I have to be at the club early tomorrow.”

  They walked to the lobby together and separated there, Jason thanking Clint one more time for the drinks.

  * * *

  The next afternoon Clint once again met with Jeremy Pike at Solomon’s Saloon. Once again as he entered, none of the patrons seemed to pay any attention to him as he crossed to Pike’s table.

  “So,” Pike asked after Clint had a drink in front of him, “how did your visit to the club go?”

  “They tried very hard to impress me,” Clint said.

  “And did they succeed?”

  “No,” Clint said. “There are too many egos in that club. And they’re too concerned with making money and putting trophies on the wall.”

  “Well,” Pike said, “they’re wealthy men, after all.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Did you find out anything else?” Pike asked. “Notice anything?”

  “I heard something, but I don’t know if it would be of any interest to you, or the government.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “The dam,” Clint said.

  “What about it?”

  “Apparently it needs some repairs.”

  “Isn’t that what the club is supposed to do?” Pike asked. “Don’t they have engineers for that?”

  “They do,” Clint said. “Frick told me that himself.”

  “So who told you it needed work?”

  “Jason, the driver.”

  “The driver?” Pike said. “You mean . . . what? He drives the members where they want to go?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So what does he know about dams?”

  “Just what he sees,” Clint said, “and he sees some structural problems.”

  Pike frowned.

  “I don’t know if that’s what we’re looking for,” he said, “but I also don’t think we can take the word of a driver.”

  “Well, whose word would you take?”

  “Did you bring that gorgeous horse of yours with you?” Pike asked.

  “I did,” Clint said. “He’s in the hotel’s stable.”

  “What would you think about taking a ride out there and having a look yourself?”

  “Why would you take my word?”

  “I’d take your word over that of a driver,” Pike said.

  Clint paused a moment, then said, “Now that you mention it, I was thinking about doing that myself. Eclipse could use the exercise.”

  “So you’ll do it?”

  “Why not?” Clint asked. “I should be able to tell if a dam is crumbling or not.”

  “And meet me here again tomorrow?”

  Clint sat back in his chair and looked around.

  “What is it?” Pike asked.

  “I’m still wondering what’s supposed to be wrong with this place,” Clint said. “Why that cab driver was so reluctant to take me here.”

  Pike shrugged and said, “You got me. Look, why don’t you meet me out front tomorrow and then we’ll go someplace, have lunch, and you can tell me what you found out there.”

  “Okay,” Clint said. “I’ll go over to the stable now and saddle Eclipse. He’ll be happy to get out and stretch those big legs.”

  “I wish I could ride out there with you,” Pike said, “but I’m trying to keep a low profile until I finally know exactly what I have to do.”

  “That’s okay,” Clint said. “I understand.”

  “What about that woman who came to your room?” Pike asked. “Have you seen her again?”

  “No,” Clint said. “I spent most of my time out at the club yesterday, and there are no women there at all.”

  “No, there wouldn’t be,” Pike said. “It’s definitely men only.”

  “I find that very easy to believe.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Clint entered the hotel’s stable and found Eclipse standing quietly in his stall.

  “How you doing, big fella?” he asked, slapping the big Darley Arabian on the hip.

  Eclipse turned his head and stared at Clint balefully.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know you’re glad to see me,” Clint said. “Come on, we’re going for a little ride.”

  He backed the horse out of his stall and saddled him, then walked him out and mounted up.

  “Let’s go!” he said, and kicked him into a run.

  When they got well out of town, Clint really let the horse stretch his legs. It was invigorating, for him and the horse, to let the animal run this way.

  He followed the route that Jason had taken both times when driving Clint out to the club and back. Clint had kept a sharp eye out the window so that he’d know the way.

  * * *

  Dash Charles, the engineer, with his two colleagues, Kevin Dale and Frank Conlin, examined the face of the dam, occasionally poking at it with a steel pike.

  “This is the third place we’ve looked,” Conlin said. “I don’t notice anything.”

  “That’s because you don’t know what you’re lookin’ at,” Charles said. “Come here.”

  Conlin approached the point of the dam that Dash Charles was standing in front of.

  “What?”

  “Poke it.”

  “What?”

  “Poke it with your finger.”

  Conlin poked.

  “Harder.”

  Conlin did it.

  “Come on, harder.”

  Conlin poked again, harder this time, and his finger went into the wall.

  “Hey,” he said, “like the kid with the dike.”

  “Yeah, well,” Dash Charles said, “that’s not supposed to happen.”

  Conlin pulled his finger out.

  “It happened in the other two places we looked as well,” Charles said.

  “So what are we supposed to do?” Kevin Dale asked.

  “I have to let the club know,” Charles said. “And they have to hire somebody to come out and fix it.”

  “So? Do it,” Dale said.

  “This is going to be an expensive fix,” Charles said.

  “So?”

  “So that won’t make them happy,” the engineer said.

  “But they gotta do it, right?” Conlin asked.

  “Yes, they do,” Charles said, “if I tell them about it.”

  “Why wouldn’t you?” Dale asked.

  “Because they might fire me.”

  “So what are you gonna do?” Conlin asked.

  “I don’t k
now,” Charles said. “I’ll see if I can figure out a cheaper way to fix it before I tell them anything.”

  “Why would they fire you?” Conlin asked.

  “Because I was specifically asked to find a cheap fix,” Charles said. “If I don’t, and they have to spend more money, they’ll just stop paying me.”

  “Hey,” Conlin said, “if you stop gettin’ paid, we stop gettin’ paid.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Jesus,” Conlin said, “we don’t want that to happen.”

  Charles and Dale stared at him.

  * * *

  Clint looked down at the three men standing in front of the dam. He was high on a bluff. They’d see him if they bothered to look up, but at the moment, their entire focus was on the dam. One man even seemed to be poking it. Clint wished he had a long glass so he could take a better look.

  The three men walked along the dam, one man paying more attention than the others. It was possible that these were engineers working for the club. He decided to find himself another stretch of dam that he could examine on his own.

  He turned Eclipse and rode away, still without having been seen.

  “Did you see that?” Dale asked.

  “What?” Dash Charles asked. Conlin looked at Dale as well. Dale was looking upward.

  “I thought I saw someone up on that bluff,” Dale said.

  “Doing what?”

  “I’m not sure,” Dale said. “Maybe he was watching us.”

  “He?”

  “Well, what would a girl be doin’ up there?”

  Charles looked up.

  “Nobody there now.”

  “No,” Dale said, “I think he—whoever it was—was riding away.”

  Charles looked at Dale, then at Conlin.

  “Okay,” he said, “let’s finish up here and take a look up there.”

  NINETEEN

  Clint rode Eclipse up to the dam wall and dismounted. He dropped Eclipse’s reins to the ground and walked to the wall. It towered over him as he went along, dragging his hand over it. He didn’t know why he had agreed to do this. He wasn’t an engineer. The dam—right here anyway—looked fine. Then again, those other three men seemed to be examining it very closely.