“We do,” Virgil said.
50.
The Shoshones came in, south of town, about twelve hours ahead of the Army and set fire to the settlements. The smoke hovered over the town, and one of the lookouts fired off a warning shot, claiming Indians were upon us. Everyone with a weapon grabbed it and rushed to find a place to shoot from.
“They ain’t much of a threat to the Shoshones,” Frank Rose said. “But they’re likely to inflict considerable casualties on each other.”
“Guess we better take a look,” Virgil said.
“If the farmers don’t shoot at us,” Rose said.
“If they do, they’ll probably miss,” I said.
There was no sign of anyone in the area where the lookout had seen the hostiles. On horseback we slowly began to circle the town. The smoke from the burning settlements was plain enough, and the smell of it was strong. At the top of a small rise between the town and the settlements we saw two bucks. One had what looked like an old Army-issue Sharps. The other wore a Cavalry campaign hat and carried a button-flap holster that had probably been taken from a soldier someplace. We stopped. The Indians stopped. We looked at one another.
“There’s more of us than them,” Rose said.
“That we can see,” Virgil said.
“True,” Rose said.
“Don’t want to go charging after them and run right into eighteen more of them behind the rise,” I said.
We continued to sit with the smoke billowing up behind the Indians, and the pleasant breeze blowing it toward us. The Indians rode back and forth in front of us. The one with the Sharps brandished it at us. The guy with the campaign hat waved it at us.
“They think they’re out of our range,” Virgil said.
“They ain’t,” Cato said.
“You want to do it?” Virgil said.
“Sure.”
Cato handed the reins to Rose and slid off his horse. He took his rifle from the saddle and stepped away from his horse. He cocked the hammer, raised the rifle, let his breath out softly, and squeezed the trigger. The Indian with the Sharps slumped and then fell from his saddle. The other Indian gazed at him for a minute and then spun his horse. The gaze cost him. Cato hit him in the back between the shoulder blades as the Indian kicked his horse into a run. The Indian tossed forward over the horse’s neck and onto the ground. The two horses trotted a few feet and stopped and looked at the dead Indians, and began to crop the grass. Cato put two fresh rounds in his rifle, slid it back in the scabbard, and remounted.
We sat some more. No Indians came boiling over the rise. The horses continued to graze. The smoke continued overhead darkly. Virgil nudged his horse forward, and the rest of us followed. We rode slowly up to the two Indians. Both were dead. Neither was very old.
There was no sign of anyone downslope. Virgil dismounted and walked to the two horses. They looked at him. He took the primitive rope bridles off both horses. The horses went back to eating. Virgil left the rope on the ground and got back on his horse.
“Two kids,” he said, “showin’ off.”
“Whoever,” Rose said. “We just improved the odds a little.”
“We did,” Virgil said. And we turned our horses back to town.
51.
Two days later, Sergeant Canavan came into the Blackfoot, which was still bristling with guns. He smiled faintly when he saw them.
Then he came to Virgil and me and said, “Where’s that fella in charge?”
“Wolfson?” I said.
“Yeah,” Canavan said, “him.”
“Don’t know,” I said. “You can talk to us.”
“Bet I can,” Canavan said.
He looked around at the armed settlers everywhere. Again, he smiled faintly.
“Lieutenant Mulcahey wants you to know that we got the hostiles. Killed three, herded the rest of them back onto the reservation.”
“So we can call off the siege,” I said.
Canavan grinned.
“You can call off the siege,” he said. “Found a couple of ’em dead, south of town. That your doing?”
“Wasn’t very old,” Virgil said.
“Old enough,” Canavan said. “One of ’em had a trooper’s gun and hat.”
“Anything left out there?” I said. “For these people to go back to?”
“Nope.”
“Settlements?” I said.
“Burned all the buildings, killed any stock they could find.”
“Copper mine?”
“Burned pretty much everything that would burn,” Canavan said. “Missed the lumber camp for some reason.”
“Too bad you didn’t get them sooner,” I said.
“They slaughtered five people, west of here,” Canavan said.
“Okay,” I said. “Coulda been worse.”
“You’ll tell whatsisname Wolfson?” he said.
“We will,” I said.
“Thanks,” Canavan said.
“Want a drink ’fore you go?” Virgil said.
“No, thanks, got too far to go, and got to ride too hard,” Canavan said. “Have one for me.”
He looked around at the armed settlers.
“Don’t let them open fire till I’m out of range,” he said.
“War’s over,” I yelled. “Don’t shoot the soldier.”
Most of the men in the room heard me. They stared at me, as Canavan with a big grin walked out of the saloon door and swung back up on his horse.
“What’s that about the war?” Redmond said.
“Indians are back on the reservation,” I said. “You can put the weapons away.”
“Sergeant tell you that?” Redmond said.
“He did,” I said.
Redmond turned to the crowd.
“We’ve defeated the savages,” Redmond shouted.
He stepped up onto a chair.
“It’s over,” he shouted. “We’ve won.”
Wolfson came in from the hotel.
“What’s that?” he said.
“Indians are back on the reservation,” Virgil said to him.
“By God,” Wolfson said. “By God.”
He looked around at the men and at Redmond standing on a chair in front of them.
“Drinks are on me,” he shouted.
“No,” Virgil said.
“What?”
“Not until they put the guns away,” Virgil said.
Wolfson stared for a moment. Cato and Rose and I blocked access to the bar.
“I don’t like being told what to do by one of my fucking employees,” Wolfson said.
“You want a room full of armed drunks?” Virgil said.
Wolfson looked slightly startled. Then he shook his head and walked to the back of the saloon, and opened a storeroom door.
“Stash your weapons here,” he shouted, “then drink up.”
Virgil stood by the door as people put Winchesters and shotguns and an occasional sidearm into the storeroom. When everyone had done it, Virgil nodded at me, and the three of us stepped away from the bar. Virgil put a chair in front of the storeroom door and sat in it. I walked over and joined him.
Frank Rose said to Wolfson, “This gonna happen across the street?”
“Absolutely,” Wolfson said. “I’m heading over there now to let them know.”
“Same rules apply,” Rose said. “No guns.”
“This is my town, and we got plenty to celebrate.”
“No guns,” Rose said.
Wolfson shrugged. Rose nodded and looked at Cato, and the two of them walked out of the Blackfoot. Wolfson hurried behind them.
“Let me make the announcement,” he said. “Let me make the announcement.”
“You can do anything you want, Amos,” Rose said, “long as there’s no guns. Me and Cato hate drunks with guns.”
52.
Wolfson was having a meeting at a table in the Blackfoot. Hensdale was there, and Stark. Faison was at the table, and so was Bob Redmond. Virgil and I sat nearby
and drank coffee with Cato and Rose, and listened.
“I can’t keep housing all these fucking people,” Wolfson said.
“My miners are ready to move on,” Faison said. “Mine’s pretty well run out anyway. You pay us the two weeks’ wages you owe us and we’ll find another mine.”
“Two weeks’ wages?” Wolfson said. “I been housing you for nothing.”
“You been letting us sleep on the floor of your fucking saloon,” Faison said. “Ain’t the same.”
“I gotta think ’bout them two weeks’ wages,” Wolfson said. “I don’t know what you did to earn it.”
“You think about it all you want,” Faison said. “But I go back and tell my miners you ain’t paying, you gonna have a visit from all of us.”
“Hear that, Virgil,” Wolfson said. “Sounds like a threat to me.”
“That’s what it sounds like,” Virgil said.
“Everything’s gone,” Faison said. “Bunkhouses, cook shack, mine office, and there ain’t enough copper left in that mine to pay for breakfast.”
“Ain’t my fault,” Wolfson said.
“Ain’t ours, either,” Faison said. “Mine ain’t worth saving. We know that. But you got to pay us so we can move on.”
“I ain’t made a penny,” Wolfson said, “since the fucking Indians left the reservation. I got you and these fucking homesteaders sprawled all over my property, eating my food. Who pays for that? Who pays for the fucking lumberjacks been eating everything but the fucking bar?”
“I’ll cover my people,” Stark said.
“Yeah? Who covers the shitkickers? They got no money,” Wolfson said. “They got no way to earn any. They owe me already, and all the collateral I got is their property, which is now mostly fucking cinders.”
“We’re not quitters,” Redmond said. “We can start over.”
“Start over?” Wolfson said. “Start over with what? I put myself in the fucking poorhouse giving you cocksuckers credit, and what do I get? A chance to fucking feed you and house you at my cost.”
“For Jesus’ sake, Wolfson,” Redmond said. “We got no place to go.”
“Well, find someplace, because I’m through.”
“There’s women,” Redmond said. I thought he might have glanced quickly at Virgil. “And kids.”
“Fuck ’em,” Wolfson said. “Women, kids, everybody. All you got to give me is your land, and that ain’t worth much.”
“Land?”
“I’m taking the land,” Wolfson said. “You people owe me ten times what it’s worth, but it’s all there is.”
“You can’t just take our land,” Redmond said.
“Can,” Wolfson said. “Will. So you and your women and children and sodbusters and shitkickers and chicken wranglers get the fuck out of my town.”
“We’re not going,” Redmond said. “We got no place to go.”
“You’ll go or I’ll run you out,” Wolfson said.
Redmond looked at us.
“You’d do that?” he said to us. “If he told you to, you’d run off a bunch of hard-working homesteaders, kids and everything?”
None of us said anything.
“Money talks,” Wolfson said. “You’re the only one doesn’t get that, Redmond.”
“You folks can come up to the lumber camp,” Stark said.
Everyone looked at him.
“It’s rough, but we’ll make do till you get back on your feet.”
“They ain’t gonna get back on their feet, Fritzie,” Wolfson said. “Don’t you get it? They got nothing.”
Stark stared at Wolfson for a time.
Then he said, “Wolfson, you are a fucking scavenger. You got no more heart than a fucking buzzard.”
“Fritzie,” Wolfson said.
“Don’t call me Fritzie, you walleyed cocksucker,” Stark said. “I don’t care how many gunmen you hire. Redmond, you bring your people up to my place today. We’ll work something out.”
“Mind if I sit in on that?” Faison said.
“You’re welcome to,” Stark said.
Then Stark got to his feet and turned his back to Wolfson and walked out of the saloon. Redmond and Faison got up and followed.
I looked at Virgil. He looked back at me and grinned.
“What’d I tell you about Stark?” he said.
53.
The settlers moved up to the lumber camp, and the miners joined them. Wolfson was away. Resolution was nearly empty. There was no money being spent, because nobody had any. The saloons were deathly silent, and with nothing better to do, Virgil and I rode out and looked at the burned-out homesteads.
The Shoshones had been effective. There wasn’t much to see: the barely recognizable remnant of a dead farm animal, a chimney that hadn’t burned, some scraps of harness, the metal prongs of a rake. A solitary buzzard circled in the sky, without much enthusiasm. Everything edible had been scavenged already. But with regularity along the trail through the settlements there were signs that said the same thing: NO TRESPASSING, per order Amos Wolfson, Owner.
“Think it’s legal,” Virgil said, “Wolfson taking their land?”
“Might be,” I said. “Don’t really know. I think it’s homestead land.”
“That make a difference?” Virgil said.
“I’d think so, but I don’t know.”
“Didn’t teach you ’bout real-estate law at West Point?” Virgil said.
“Nope. Know a lot about the Macedonian phalanx, though.”
“What the fuck is that?” Virgil said.
I explained.
“They taught you that at West Point?” Virgil said.
“Yep.”
“We ain’t been fighting with pikes for a while,” Virgil said.
“War department hadn’t caught on to that when I was there,” I said.
We moved on through the homesteads. Near the buildings, fresh new shoots of green were already beginning to push up through the burnt-over grass. At the top of the rise where we’d left them were the remains of the two Shoshone warriors we’d killed. There wasn’t much left of them. Their horses had long since drifted off, probably homing back to the reservation, the way horses do. Buzzards, coyotes, maybe a wolf, maybe a bear, maybe a cougar, certainly insects and other birds, had fed on them until there was nothing much to feed on. Their weapons were still with them. Something had even eaten at the holster that one of them had worn. The pistol was starting to rust. So was the old rifle. We sat our horses for a time, looking at the remains.
“Don’t seem right,” Virgil said. “He can just take everything they got.”
“No,” I said. “It don’t.”
“Don’t seem like it would be legal,” Virgil said.
“Don’t matter none,” I said. “Legal, illegal. There’s not any law around here anyway.”
“’Cept us,” Virgil said.
“What do we do when Wolfson tells us to move them off the land?” I said.
“Been thinking on that,” Virgil said.
He kept looking at the skeletal remnants of the two Indians.
“Can’t keep taking a man’s money,” Virgil said finally, “and keep saying no to what he wants you to do.”
“I know,” I said.
“Can’t run them people off their land,” Virgil said.
“I know,” I said.
54.
Virgil and I were on the front porch of the Blackfoot, admiring the early evening, when Beth Redmond came down the street with her skirts tucked up, astride one of those nondescript, big-boned horses that a lot of sodbusters had, because they could afford only one. When she reached us she held her skirts down and swung her left leg over the horse and slid modestly off him on the side away from us. Then she came around, hitched the horse, and came up on the porch and sat on the railing opposite us with her feet dangling.
“Evenin’, Beth,” Virgil said.
“Hello,” she said. “Hello, Mr. Hitch.”
I nodded toward her.
&n
bsp; “Mrs. Redmond.”
“Virgil, we have to talk,” she said.
“Talk in front of Everett,” Virgil said. “I’d just tell him later anyway.”
“He knows about us?” she said.
“Yep.”
“That’s a little embarrassing,” she said.
“Everett don’t care,” Virgil said.
“But I might,” she said.
“Suppose you might,” Virgil said. “Hadn’t thought of that.”
I stood.
“I can go,” I said.
She shook her head rapidly.
“No,” she said. “Stay. What I’m talking about will include you, too.”
I sat.
“We ain’t going to leave,” she said.
“You and Redmond?” Virgil said.
“None of us,” she said. “Mr. Stark’s going to help us rebuild. He’ll give us the lumber on credit. He’ll give some of the men jobs in the lumber camp.”
“Wolfson already put up signs on the land,” I said. “He says it’s his now.”
“We won’t let him take it,” Mrs. Redmond said.
Neither Virgil nor I said anything.
“Since the Indians,” she said, “when we were all together, and armed, and ready. The men feel like they won, and can win again.”
“Mrs. Redmond,” I said. “They didn’t see an Indian.”
“Please call me Beth,” she said. “I know. But they were ready, and it makes them feel better. And Mr. Stark is making them feel better. They ain’t felt good for an awful long time. They need to do this.”
I nodded. Virgil nodded.
“Stark gonna help you when the guns come?” Virgil said.
“He said he would.”
“Bunch of lumberjacks,” Virgil said.
“They’re tough men,” she said.
“With a peavey,” Virgil said. “Guns are a little different.”
“I know,” Beth said. “But we ain’t gonna go.”
“How ’bout you and your husband,” Virgil said.
“It’s the same thing as the rest,” Beth said. “When we was all here, and the Indians was coming, and everybody had a gun, he felt like he was protecting me and the kids. He felt like he was the leader of his friends. He felt good.”
“He know ’bout us?” Virgil said.
Appaloosa / Resolution / Brimstone / Blue-Eyed Devil Page 29