35.
We could head for Texas,” I said to Virgil.
“We could,” Virgil said.
“I don’t owe Wolfson anything,” I said.
“Nope.”
“You haven’t even taken his money.”
“True,” Virgil said.
“Cato and Rose will probably stay,” I said.
“Probably,” Virgil said.
We were working the horses again. We’d already let them stroll. Then we’d breezed them pretty hard for a while. Now, with the reins looped over the saddle horn, we were letting them browse along, nibbling grass.
“We could head for Texas,” I said.
“Could,” Virgil said.
“Ain’t we just had this talk?” I said.
“Yep.”
“So why don’t we head for Texas,” I said.
“Ain’t time yet,” Virgil said.
“Because?”
Virgil leaned back in his saddle and looked up at an eagle circling slow and easy on the air currents in the sky.
“Don’t want Wolfson running the town,” Virgil said.
“Why not?”
“Same reason we didn’t want that mob lynching Cato and Rose,” Virgil said.
“’Cause it would be against the law?”
Virgil shook his head. The horses moseyed along, reins loose, head down, nosing at the grass.
“I ain’t a lawman,” he said.
“Good thing,” I said. “Ain’t nothing happened here since I got here had anything to do with law.”
“Had to do with us shooting better than them,” Virgil said.
“It did,” I said.
“Better than shootin’ worse,” Virgil said.
There was a stream to the right. In the late summer it would probably be dry. But for now, it came up near the bottom of the hills behind us and found its way down a shallow wash to the bigger stream that ran among the homestead ranches. The horses smelled it and veered over to it and drank from it. Virgil patted his horse’s neck quietly while he drank.
“Don’t feel bad about anything I done here,” I said.
Virgil patted his horse some more. He nodded.
“I know,” he said.
You got any money left?” I said.
“Not much,” Virgil said.
“Me either.”
“Don’t need much,” Virgil said.
“Got to have some,” I said.
“Maybe we should work for Wolfson,” Virgil said. “While we see how things develop.”
“And if they develop wrong?”
“Don’t know about wrong,” Virgil said. “But Wolfson shouldn’t run the whole town.”
“With Cato and Rose to back him.”
“So if it goes that way, we quit?”
“Probably,” Virgil said.
“And do what?” I said.
“Can’t say.”
“Might have to go against Cato and Rose,” I said.
“Might.”
“And you’re willing?”
“Yep.”
“Yesterday you was saving their lives,” I said.
“We was,” Virgil said.
“What’s the difference?”
“Don’t know,” Virgil said. “Maybe we’ll find out.” We picked up our reins and lifted the horses’ heads and pointed them back toward town.
“Virgil,” I said as the horses walked toward home, “I get killed while you figure out what you are, I’m gonna resent it.”
Virgil nodded.
“Don’t blame you,” he said.
36.
So we were all working for Wolfson. Me and Virgil doing lookout duty at the Blackfoot. Cato and Rose doing the same at the Excelsior. It was a lot more firepower than either saloon needed. And we all knew it. But we also all knew that keeping order in a couple of saloons was not why Wolfson paid us. It was just something useful to do while we waited.
On a wet Tuesday morning Virgil and I, with our hats pulled down and our collars turned up, rode through the hard rain, up to the copper mine with Wolfson.
“We couldn’t do this tomorrow?” I said to Wolfson.
“Decided to do it today,” Wolfson said. “Gonna do it today. When I do business, I do business.”
Wolfson looked sort of funny on horseback, out in the daylight. He had on a black slicker and a big hat, and seemed out of place.
“Fine,” I said.
Virgil said nothing. I knew he could barely tolerate Wolfson.
At the mine we put the horses under a tarpaulin shelter beside the mine shack and went on and had some coffee with the mine foreman, a tall, stoop-shouldered guy with a lot of gray beard. His name, he said, was Faison.
“Sorry about the trouble up here last week,” Wolfson said. “I hope no miners were hurt.”
“Nope, we stayed low,” Faison said.
“Smart,” Wolfson said.
“You taking over the mine?” Faison said.
“I’d like to do that,” Wolfson said. “Keep everybody on, promote you to mine manager.”
“More money?” Faison said.
“Of course,” Wolfson said.
Faison nodded.
“Nobody misses O’Malley,” Faison said. “Or the gun hands he brought in, neither.”
He looked at Virgil and me.
“No offense,” he said.
I shook my head. Virgil said nothing.
“Only thing anybody misses is payday,” Faison said. “You keep the paydays in order, we’ll be happy to work for you.”
“Excellent,” Wolfson said. “You bring the books into town soon as you can, go over them with Hensdale, my chief clerk, at the emporium.”
“I know Hensdale,” Faison said.
“Good.” Wolfson raised his coffee cup. “Here’s to bigger and better paydays.”
Faison nodded and raised his cup. Virgil and I did nothing. Wolfson might have glanced at us. It was always hard to tell because of the random eye.
“One favor,” Wolfson said after he’d put his cup back down. “I’d like a new sign that says
“We going to talk with Stark?” I said.
“Wolfson said we were.”
“I wouldn’t expect much from Stark,” I said.
“Fritzie is smart,” Wolfson said. “He’s a businessman. He sees how the landscape has changed.”
I glanced at Virgil. He shrugged. The rain slanted in on us riding east. Virgil rode the same way as he did when it was sunny or cold or windy or not. Things didn’t make much impression on Virgil Cole. He just went on being Virgil Cole… except about Allie. We rode across the face of the hill for an hour to Stark’s lumber operation. The rain didn’t encourage talking. We left the horses under cover in a lumber shed and went to the office. Stark let us in.
“What the hell do you want, Wolfson?” Stark said.
“Just stopping by, say hello, talk about how things have changed.”
“I got no interest in talking with you,” Stark said. “And I don’t care what’s changed and what hasn’t.”
“I thought maybe we should talk about partnering up.”
“Partnering up?” Stark said. “With you?”
“Fritzie, look around,” Wolfson said. “I got this whole town, hell, the whole west slope, tied up pretty tight. It’s to your fucking benefit, you know? To partner with me.”
“Wolfson,” Stark said, “you are a greedy, slimy, pig-fucking sonovabitch. I wouldn’t partner with you in Paradise. You’re a thief. You’re a back shooter. You’re a fucking coward hiding behind vermin like these two.”
“You better think about what you’re saying,” Wolfson said.
“I’ve thought all I want to about it, you walleyed cock-sucker, ” Stark said. “I ain’t afraid of you or your two gunners, neither.”
“Maybe you’ll learn to be,” Wolfson said.
“And maybe I won’t,” Stark said.
He picked up an ax handle that lay on his desk.
“So unless you’re ready to fucking shoot me now,” he said, “get out of my office and off my land.”
Wolfson stared at him. Stark took a step toward him with the ax handle raised. Wolfson took a quick back step.
“No,” he said. “We won’t shoot you today.”
“Then get your ass out of here,” Stark said.
“But there’s no guarantees about another day,” Wolfson said. “Think on it.”
“Fuck you,” Stark said.
An argument like that doesn’t leave you with much to say. Wolfson turned and strode out of the lumber office. Virgil grinned at Stark for a moment, then we went after Wolfson. When we were on our mounts and heading back toward town, nobody said anything.
Finally, Virgil looked at me with the same grin he’d given Stark.
“Vermin,” he said.
37.
We were having a drink before work with Cato and Rose in the Blackfoot. A good-looking woman came in from the hotel lobby. She was wearing a blue gingham dress and a ribbon in her hair. She saw the four of us at the bar and walked over.
“I need help,” she said.
“Ladies don’t usually come in here,” I said.
“I don’t care,” she said. “It’s worse out there.”
She had a purple bruise on her left cheekbone that had begun to turn yellow, which meant she’d had it for a while. She’d probably made the dress herself, but it fit pretty well. Her dark hair looked as if she brushed it a lot. She seemed well-scrubbed.
“What do you need,” I said.
“My husband just hit me in the stomach and knocked me down.”
“Doesn’t look like the first time,” I said.
“No.”
“What’s different about this time,” I said.
“He was kicking me.”
“Where’d this happen,” I said.
“In the emporium.”
“And you got away from him and ran in here?”
“Yes,” she said. “But he’ll be in here after me.”
“What’s holding him up?” I said.
“He’s got to get the children into the wagon,” she said.
We all looked at her, even Cato.
“The children,” I said.
“He beats me up in front of them all the time,” she said.
Her voice was steady. But I could see that her hands were shaking.
“What’s your name,” I said.
“Beth,” she said. “Beth Redmond.”
“Bob Redmond’s wife?” I said.
“Yes.”
The saloon doors on the street side swung open and Redmond pushed in.
“Speak of the devil,” I said.
“Beth,” Redmond said when he saw her standing with us. “What are you, a goddamned whore? Get out of this place.”
She didn’t move.
“You hear me, woman?” Redmond said. “Out! Now!”
Cato Tillson looked at Mrs. Redmond and said, “You want me to kill him?”
“Kill him?” Mrs. Redmond said.
“Yes.”
“I… no,” she said. “God, no.”
“Okay,” Cato said.
He picked up his drink and leaned back in his chair to watch. For the first time, I think, it registered to Redmond who we were. He didn’t like it. But he had to be forceful. His wife was watching.
“This is none of your business,” he said. “Any of you.”
None of us said anything.
“I don’t know what she told you; she’s a lying bitch anyway. But I can’t have my wife flaunting herself like a floozy in a saloon.”
None of us said anything.
“So you either come right now, bitch,” he said to his wife, “or I’ll come over and drag you out by the hair of your head.”
None of us said anything. But Virgil stepped away from the bar and moved over to stand in front of Mrs. Redmond.
Redmond paused.
“This is family business,” he said.
Virgil said nothing.
Redmond looked at the rest of us.
“It is, you know,” he said. “Nobody got the right to interfere between a man and his wife.”
None of us said anything. Redmond looked at his wife again.
“What kind of whore are you, hiding from your husband behind this… this fucking… fucking gun shooter?”
Behind Virgil, Mrs. Redmond shook her head but didn’t say anything. Nobody else said anything. Nobody moved. Redmond didn’t have a gun. His good luck. If he’d had one he might have tried to use it. Bad luck, though, for Mrs. Redmond. If he tried to shoot with Virgil, he’d be dead and she’d be free of him.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. That’s how it is, whore. Just don’t think you can come home after this.”
“I can’t come with you, Bob,” Mrs. Redmond said. “I can’t anymore.”
“Just stay away from me and my children,” he said.
She opened her mouth and took a short breath, and didn’t speak. He looked at her and turned his head and spit on the floor. He was careful, I noticed, not to spit on Virgil. Then he turned stiffly and marched out.
“Oh my God,” Mrs. Redmond said. “Oh my God!”
She began to cry.
38.
We got her to a table, and she sat down.
"Do you drink whiskey?” Virgil said.
She nodded as she cried. I gestured to Patrick and he brought us a good-sized glass of whiskey.
“Wolfson’s,” Patrick said as he put the glass down.
Mrs. Redmond picked it up with both hands and tried to hold the crying long enough to drink some. Breathing in tiny, shallow breaths, she managed to take a slug and swallow it. Then she put the glass down and cried some more.
After a while she took another slug and said, “What am I going to do?”
“What do you need?” Virgil said.
"I have no money, no clothes, no place to stay, nowhere to go,” she said.
“You can stay here,” Virgil said.
“Here?”
“In the hotel,” Virgil said.
“But I can’t pay.”
“We’ll arrange something,” I said. “Room at the hotel, meals, charge what you need at the emporium.”
“But…” She didn’t quite know how to ask the question.
She drank some whiskey.
“But do I have to… do I have to do anything?” she said.
Virgil smiled.
“No,” he said. “You don’t.”
Wolfson came into the saloon through the door that connected to the hotel lobby, and walked straight to our table.
“What the hell is she doing here,” he said.
“Having a drink,” Virgil said. “With me.”
It was a simple answer. But there was something in it that made Wolfson rein in.
“Well, I see that, Virgil,” Wolfson said. “But we don’t normally see women like her in here. She ain’t a whore, is she?”
“No,” Virgil said.
“No offense, ma’am,” Wolfson said.
Mrs. Redmond shook her head. She was beginning to enjoy the whiskey.
“I’d like her to be a guest of the Blackfoot,” Virgil said. “Room, board, charge what she needs at the emporium.”
“Sure,” Wolfson said. “Who pays.”
“She doesn’t,” Virgil said.
“So who pays?” Wolfson said.
“We was thinking it would be you, Amos,” I said. “You know, guest of the Blackfoot?”
“Including the emporium?” Wolfson said. “Why the fuck would I do that?”
Frank Rose was sitting with his elbows on the table, and his chin resting on his folded hands. He winked at Mrs. Redmond.
“Harmonious relationship,” he said to Wolfson, “with your gun hands.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Wolfson said.
“Can’t speak for Cole and Hitch,” Rose said. “But me and Cato will quit if she don’t get what she needs.”
“Quit?”
I looked at Virgil and nodded.
“That would be the occasion,” Virgil said, “among me and Everett, too.”
“And some of us might be kind of mad about it,” Rose said.
Cato stared straight at Wolfson and nodded his head slowly.
“You are threatening me,” Wolfson said.
Rose grinned at him.
“Only a little,” Rose said.
“Are you saying that if I don’t give this fucking woman room, board, and emporium charge privileges, you’ll quit?”
Rose looked at Cato, then at Virgil and me. All three of us nodded.
“Yes,” Rose said. “That’s pretty much it.”
“And you might cause trouble?” Wolfson said.
“We’re pretty good at that,” Rose said.
“For crissake,” Wolfson said. “Is she doing all of you?”
“None of us,” Virgil said. “And clean up your talk.”
Wolfson started to say something. Virgil was looking at him steadily.
“Room, board, free stuff at the store,” Wolfson said.
Virgil nodded. Wolfson looked at Mrs. Redmond.
He said, “You got anything to add, lady?”
“Her name is Mrs. Redmond,” Virgil said.
“Beth,” she said. “Beth Redmond.”
“You’re Bob Redmond’s wife?”
She nodded.
“Jesus Christ,” Wolfson said.
He turned away from the table.
“You’ll arrange it?” I said.
"Oh, fuck,” Wolfson said, and kept walking. “I’ll arrange it.”