“Greathouse is the force behind those night raids—”
“Provable, I said. If I had proof he’s responsible, I’d notify the county sheriff quick as you can spit. But I don’t and neither do you or anybody else. All you’re doing with those fire-and-brimstone editorials of yours is making a bad situation worse. Stirring the pot until it’s liable to boil over and scald somebody. You, probably.”
“I’m not afraid of Elijah Greathouse,” Will said. “He wouldn’t dare harm me.”
There wasn’t any use in my jawing with him any more. The man was so blasted stubborn Jesus Christ himself couldn’t talk sense to him. I shut my mouth and kept it shut.
But like always, he had to have the last word. “My business is to inform the people of the truth,” he said in that righteous way of his, “and I intend to go on doing so. The truth shall set ye free.”
And with that, he went stomping out and slammed the door behind him so hard it rattled in the frame.
HUGO RHEINMILLER
I come into town to fetch and pay for the plowshare Elrod Patch makes to replace the broken one on my plow. My youngest boy Berne comes with me and waits in the wagon while I go into the blacksmith shop.
This man Patch I would rather not have business with. He does not like men who farm the land because we are poor. Most of his trade is shoeing horses and making branding irons for the cattlemen, who are not poor or not as poor as we. He is unfriendly, a ruffian, and mean to animals. Once, I have heard, he crushed the skull of a horse with a sledgehammer when it kicked him while he was shoeing it. But he is the best blacksmith in Box Elder, and for a job such as forging a new plowshare that will not break as easily as the old one, I make the decision I must go to him.
He is at one of his forges when I walk in. A bull of a man, this Patch, his weight is as much fat as muscle. Arms thick as saplings, a tangle of brown hair, a thick mustache like a slice of sagebrush. His cowhide apron is black with soot. The shop is hot, smoky, and smells of scorched hoof and burned leather. The forges and anvils, they show how much use they have had, and the half-tubs of water used for cooling hot metal are charred around the edges. Rows of horseshoes hang from nails on the walls and the crossbeam, brands from the irons he has made are burned into the wallboards. He is proud of his workplace, I will say that in his favor.
He lifts a glowing iron shoe, a mule shoe, from the forge, lowers it into a water tub with a pair of tongs. The hiss it makes is like that of a nest of snakes. Only then does he look at me through the steam, in the way he always does—mit Verachtung, what Berne, who has better English than I do, translates as “disdain.” Patch’s thick lips bend at one corner as he says, “Come for your plowshare, Rheinmiller?”
“Yah. Yes. It is ready?”
“Over there next to that pile of old shoes.”
I go over to look. The edge is honed very sharp. He has done a good job and I tell him so. Then I take the coins from the pocket of my overalls, one five-dollar gold piece and three one-dollar pieces. He puts down the tongs, wipes his hands on his apron, takes the coins from my hand.
“Where’s the rest?” he says.
“The rest? There is eight dollars, as agreed.”
“You got a bad memory, Rheinmiller. The price we agreed on is twelve dollars.”
“Twelve! No, no, it was eight—”
“You get that figure in writing?”
“In writing? No, you told me eight, I take you at your word—”
“And my word was twelve. You want that shiny new plowshare, pony up another four bucks.”
Anger turns my face hot. “I do not have four more dollars. I have only what I have just given you, eight dollars.”
“Then go back to your soddy and get the rest.”
“No. You are trying to cheat me by raising the price!”
“Bullshit.” He rears up like the animal he is, steps toward me. “I ain’t gonna stand for a Heinie dirt farmer calling me a cheat and a liar. Get the hell out of my shop or I’ll throw you out.”
“I will go to the marshal, tell him about this … this outrage.”
“Go ahead, see where it gets you. Here, here’s your money,” and he throws the coins into the straw at my feet.
I stare down at them, my hands shaking. But what can I do except pick them up? Eight dollars is not a small sum to me, to my family. Patch watches me, laughs when I must take the five-dollar coin from a clump of manure. But there are only three coins, not four. I make sure before I face him again.
“You kept one dollar, Mr. Patch.”
“That’s right, I did. You come back with eleven more, you get the plowshare and our business is finished. You don’t, this here dollar is for my time and trouble.”
“You cannot do that, it is against the law!”
“Not when it’s part of our agreement, it ain’t. My word against yours, Rheinmiller.”
It will do no good to argue, to call him the thief he is. I put a tight rein on my temper, return the seven dollars to my pocket, then turn from him and walk away slow with my back straight and my head high.
Behind me he says, “I don’t see you again pretty soon, I got the right to sell that fine new plowshare to somebody else. Remember that.”
Berne has stepped down from the wagon seat. When he sees my hands are empty and how angry I am, he knows something is wrong. And he is even more angry when I tell him what Patch has done. He wants to go into the blacksmith shop and confront the man, but I will not let him. He is only twenty, big for his age, but he is no match for a verdammt bull.
We drive to Marshal Jennison’s office and I report to him. He has sympathy but he tells Berne and me there is nothing he can do. “Patch has pulled that kind of trick before,” he says, “raising his price at the last minute when he’s made something he knows he can unload to somebody else. But he’s right that without a written agreement, it’s your word against his, Mr. Rheinmiller.”
“We can’t afford to pay another four dollars right now,” Berne says, “so what are we supposed to do about a new plowshare? Our old one’s broken, worthless.”
“About the only thing is to ask Frank Austin to make you one. He’s not half the blacksmith Patch is, but he’ll bargain and he won’t try to cheat you.”
“An inferior plowshare and another week’s work gone while we wait. It’s not fair, it’s not right!”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Somebody ought to do something about him. Fix him good.”
“Might be somebody will someday. Just don’t let it be you.”
Berne and I go to see the other blacksmith, Frank Austin. The price we settle on for a new plowshare is seven dollars. I should have gone to him in the first place. Even if his work is not so good as Patch’s, I will not be cheated or shamed by him. The throwing of my five-dollar piece into the manure, and Patch’s laughter, is a Beleidigung I will not soon forget.
WILL SATTERLEE
As a rule I am barely tolerant of itinerant typographers. The few who have stopped in Box Elder during my time here were by and large the dregs of the breed—a scruffy, unreliable, and occasionally surly lot who vanished as suddenly as they appeared, on occasion in the midst of a job. Still, they are a necessary cog in the business of publishing a small-town newspaper, for typesetting is a dirty, time-consuming task. I have done a great deal of it over the years, and R.W. is old enough now to assist in lifting and positioning the heavy, sloping frames and pulling and setting type in the forms, but neither of us is very adept at it. The business of writing copy, page layout, and presswork is difficult enough without adding another chore.
But I must say this fellow Artemas Jones appeared to be a cut or two above the average tramp printer. Unlike any other, he had rather surprisingly arrived in town on horseback instead of by rail. He was reasonably polite, intelligent, sober, and judging by the questions he asked, interested in more than just his work, wages, and creature comforts. My only objection to him was his mildly profane nickname, but sinc
e he preferred to be addressed only by his given name, it was not an issue.
R.W. had taken to him immediately. The only other compositor I had hired whose company he enjoyed was the toothless old man Charlie Weems, and Weems had a foul mouth and a coterie of salacious stories not fit for the ears of a boy not yet seventeen at that time. Of course R.W. is at an impressionable age and thus inclined to the influence of men who have led adventurous lives, though for the most part his head sits squarely on his young shoulders. He inherited my inquisitiveness and sense of fair play—and fortunately for him, his mother’s stature. Mae, God rest her soul, stood three inches taller than I and was fifteen well-placed pounds heavier; R.W. is already five inches taller and outweighs me by thirty pounds, not an ounce of it fat. A son to make a man proud … most of the time.
Another thing I liked about Jones was his account of the encounter with Jada Kinch. He had told R.W. about it, and in turn R.W. told me. The boy had also informed Jones of the bones of contention between Colonel Greathouse and me, and Greathouse and the settlers—matters that should not have been discussed with a stranger not yet hired. I would remonstrate with R.W. about it later. That tendency to speak out of turn to strangers is a weakness I am determined to see him outgrow.
“And you say Kinch warned you to not seek work here at the Banner?” I asked Jones.
“Not exactly a warning. He called it advice.”
“Which you ignored. Why?”
Jones shrugged. “I don’t much care to be told where I can work and for whom.”
“Don’t the tensions in Box Elder bother you?”
“I’ve been places where they ran a lot higher and hotter.”
“And left in a hurry when they threatened to explode?”
“Not necessarily. I’ve never yet left an editor high and dry.”
“How long would you be willing to remain in my employ?”
He lifted his shoulders again. “I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Satterlee. Until the itch to move on strikes me. Likely not more than a couple of weeks, but not less than a full week, either. You have my word on that.”
The look on my face must have told him what I thought of the word of a tramp printer, for he added, “You can withhold my wages until the end of this week to make sure I keep it. I have my poker winnings to tide me over.”
This sold me completely on the man’s mettle, but it being my custom to test a compositor’s skill before officially hiring him, I had him set a news story I had written for the next issue, which concerned the Volunteer Fire Brigade’s need for a new pump engine. Jones stood at the case frames and pulled oily ten-point type and quadrats off the case with a rattling click, justified each line the instant his brass composing stick was full, and placed it in the galley—all with unerring accuracy and at a speed that impressed me almost as much as it did R.W. When he finished, he blocked the story into a proof form and rolled out a galley for my inspection. There was not a single error or widow line.
It was mid-afternoon by then, but Jones agreed to work until five o’clock. He had eaten before coming to the Banner office, he said; he asked only the location of the town hostler and where he might seek lodging. R.W. directed him to Benson’s Livery and to Ma Stinson’s Traveler’s Rest, a combination hotel and boardinghouse near the Great Northern depot that catered to railroad men, drummers, and transients. Then, with the boy’s aid, he began preparing and setting the other ready copy and advertisements for Thursday’s issue.
While they were at their tasks, I sat at my desk to write a new editorial. Taking care not to cross the line into libel, I skewered Colonel Elijah Greathouse even more eloquently and profoundly than ever before. I made mention again of his dubious war record, relating it to his high-handed tactics where the immigrant farmers were concerned. I called for all honest, law-abiding ranchers to oust Greathouse as president of the Cattlemen’s Association before he did irreparable damage to the peace and prosperity of Box Elder.
Perhaps I went a bit too far this time, but I felt entirely justified. The man had become a destructive force in the basin, and the sooner the citizens realized it and ceased tolerating his divisive behavior, the more sane and secure our future would be.
RUFUS CABLE
I sat with my back to the wall, waiting.
Shadows shrouded the big room, thinned by early daylight filtering in through the plate-glass front window. Beyond the window I could see Main Street, mostly empty at this hour, the usual churn of dust that aggravated my lung disease and set me to coughing when I was outside. It was going to be another hot day. A thin, dry breeze rattled the chain-hung sign on the outer wall: RUFUS CABLE, SADDLE MAKER.
Familiar shapes surrounded me in the gloom. Workbenches littered with scraps of leather, mallets, cutters, stamping tools. A few saddles, finished and unfinished—not half as many as there had once been. Wall racks hung with bridles and hackamores, saddlebags and other accessories. Once the tools and accomplishments of my trade had given me pleasure, comfort, satisfaction. Not any longer, not since the doctor in Billings had given me the bad news. Even the good odors of new leather and beeswax and harness oil had soured in my nostrils.
It was stuffy in the shop, but I hadn’t opened a window when I came in at dawn after another sleepless night. No matter how warm it was now, how hot it would get later, I felt cold. Gut cold, the kind that had nothing to do with my illness and that no amount of heat can relieve. Yet my hands, twisted together in my lap, were sweating.
I glanced at the shotgun leaning against the wall alongside the stool. A seed-company calendar was tacked above it, next to the storeroom door, not that I needed a calendar to tell me what day this was. The date or the day of the week didn’t matter—it was the fifth day since Jim Tarbeaux’s release from Deer Lodge. Four long days of waiting and the fifth just starting. Would this be the one when Tarbeaux came back to Box Elder? He should have been here by now. Taking his time, savoring the moment when he would carry out his vow to end my life? Thinking to make me sweat even more?
My gaze lingered on the shotgun a few seconds longer. It had been my father’s, an old double-barreled Remington that I’d brought from home when I learned of Tarbeaux’s release. When he came, it would be through the front door, not the back door. Killing on the sneak wasn’t his way. No, he’d want to do it face-to-face, looking me straight in the eyes.
I scrubbed my damp palms on my Levi’s, then slid my turnip watch from my vest pocket, flipped the dust cover, held the dial up close to my eyes. Just eight o’clock. If I could work, it would make the time go by more quickly. The past four days I’d forced myself to cut and lay out the patterns for the saddle I was making for Paul Miller, who owned the Diamond M. The skirts, jockeys, swells, and the rest were all rigged out, ready to be assembled. I should have cased the leather yesterday, then started covering the gullet and cantle today. But I hadn’t, and I wasn’t sure, sitting here now, with what might be another long day stretching out ahead, that I could force myself to do any work at all. Even if I could, the saddle wouldn’t come out right. My hands were too unsteady today for leather craft.
Somebody knocked loud on the door.
I jerked upright so quick I almost upset the stool, made a fumbling grab for the shotgun. The latch rattled and the door opened. I saw him through a thin haze of sweat when he came in, the Remington’s twin barrels wobbling in my hands.
He wasn’t Tarbeaux.
A man in a blanket coat I had never seen before, long light-colored hair curling out from under a leather cap, a beat-up Mother Hubbard saddle slung over one shoulder. He stiffened at sight of the shotgun, lifted his free hand palm forward and said, “Whoa!” I let out a ragged breath, slanted the shotgun toward the floor, then took a step backward and sagged onto the stool.
“I hope you don’t greet all your customers this way, Mr. Cable.”
“I’m not open for business yet.” It came out as weak and shaky as my hands and knees felt.
“The owner of Benson’s Livery
said you open at eight.”
“Not today. Who are you, mister?”
“My name’s Jones. New printer at the Banner, on my way to work.”
“What do you want?”
“I just sold my horse to Mr. Benson, but he wouldn’t buy this saddle. He said you might.”
“No. I’ve got no use for an old kak like that.”
“I’ll take five dollars for it. Must be worth that.”
“Not to me. No.”
“Four dollars?”
“I don’t want it at any price.”
“Know anybody who might?”
“No. Go away, leave me be.”
“You feeling all right? You look a little pale—”
I had the shotgun angled across my lap and I pulled it around so the barrels were aimed his way again. “Hard of hearing? I said leave me be!”
He went, not hurrying as some might, with a glance over his shoulder that I couldn’t read. He shut the door quiet behind him.
I leaned the Remington against the wall again. My face and hands felt as though I had ducked them in a pail of water. It was two or three minutes before my heart quit racing and I could breathe without tightness in my chest. Then I got up and went to do what I should have done in the first place—lock the door. I didn’t want anybody other than Tarbeaux coming in the way the stranger had, not today. I thought I was ready to face Tarbeaux, but now I knew I wasn’t. Let him knock if he came, when he came. Better that way because I’d have time to steady myself first.
How much longer? Christ, how much longer?
I kept on sitting with my back to the wall, waiting.
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