Stark and Faison nodded.
“So that’s it?” Redmond said. “That’s your plan? They’re stealing our land and killing our people, and we sit here and wait for them to starve us out?”
Virgil looked at Redmond.
Since he never showed anything, only somebody who knew Virgil as well as I did would know how close Redmond was coming to the edge of Virgil’s patience.
“That’s what you should do,” I said. “We got other plans.”
“I want to know what they are,” Redmond said. “I got a right. I got a right to know. I got a right to know where Tillson went. What’s he doing? I…”
“Redmond,” Virgil said.
His voice was so soft it was barely more than a whisper. But it was clear and hard, and all of us turned toward it. And Redmond stopped talking.
“You need to understand coupla things,” Virgil said. “We got no quarrel with Wolfson. He hired us. He paid us, and when he didn’t need us no more, he paid us off. Nothing wrong with any of that.”
Redmond nodded.
“And we all need to make a living,” Virgil said. “And there ain’t one to be made here.”
Virgil paused and looked around. No one said anything.
“And Everett and I need to get on down to Texas,” Virgil said.
Redmond nodded.
“So we stayin’ here is a big pain in the ass for us, and a big favor for you,” Virgil said. “You got that part of it, Bob?”
Redmond nodded.
“Now, here’s the other thing,” Virgil said. “What we do, me, Everett, Cato, and Rose, what we do is a thing where you kind of feel your way along, extinctual, you might say.”
“Instinctual,” I said.
Virgil nodded approvingly.
“That’s right. So people always askin’ us what we gonna do and how and when, we find that very annoying, especially when we doin’ those people a big, large fucking favor for nothing.”
Nobody said anything.
“You understand that?” Virgil said to Redmond.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Then shut the fuck up and do what we tell you.”
Redmond opened his mouth and couldn’t seem to think of anything to say and shut it and nodded yes.
Virgil looked at him silently for another moment, then looked at me and nodded.
“So you got women and children here,” I said. “And you got a lot of men with Winchesters, and nothing else to do. Put the men around the perimeter.”
“Any advice on exactly where?” Stark said.
“You know the place better than I do,” I said. “Just keep them close enough together so nobody can slide in between ’em. Change the guards often so they don’t get skittish and shoot each other.”
“Even though you don’t think they’ll come,” Stark said.
“Ain’t no reason for them to come,” I said. “But people ain’t always reasonable. And Wolfson’s probably less reasonable than most.”
“There’s the riders,” Rose said.
Squinting into the sun, I could see two horsemen on the top of the treeless hill. One might have had a telescope. As I watched, both of them whirled suddenly and reached for their guns. Before they cleared leather they toppled slowly from their horses, and the sound of two shots rolled down the hill toward us, slowed and softened by the distance.
“That’d be Cato,” Rose said.
64.
Cato Tillson rode down the hill and into camp, hazing two riderless horses ahead of him.
"Figure it’ll confuse ’em a little,” Cato said, “if the horses don’t come back.”
“Spoils of war,” Rose said.
Cato nodded and dismounted.
“You know how to take care of horses?” Virgil said to Redmond.
“’Course,” Redmond said.
“Then take care of these,” Virgil said.
Redmond looked sorta sullen about it, but he took the reins and led both horses off. The rest of the men drifted away. It was like Cato made them uneasy.
“Odds are improvin’,” Virgil said. “You give them a chance.”
“Yep,” Cato said. “Called ’em out.”
“What I hear,” Virgil said, “that ain’t much of a chance.”
“It ain’t,” Cato said.
“Didn’t expect it would be,” Virgil said.
“There was two of ’em,” Rose said.
“Ain’t being critical,” Virgil said, “just thinking about it.”
“What’s to think?” Rose said. “Cato’s maybe the best I ever seen at this. He’s supposed to slow down?”
“Nope.”
“We’re all good at this,” Rose said. “Most fellas go up against any one of us in a fair fight, they ain’t got much of a chance.”
“So the fight ain’t exactly fair anyway,” Virgil said.
“No,” I said. “It ain’t. Never was.”
Virgil nodded and walked a little distance away and looked silently into the woods. Redmond came back to the lumber office.
“How come you didn’t bring them bodies down with you,” Redmond said to Cato.
“Why?” Cato said.
Virgil turned when he heard Redmond.
“Them horses taken care of?” he said.
“Unsaddled ’em myself,” Redmond said. “Fed ’em. Gave ’em water.”
Virgil nodded.
“My older boy’s currying them now,” Redmond said.
Virgil nodded.
“Cato left them bodies up there,” Virgil said, “so that by the time Lujack and his people found them, they’d be a mess.”
“That ain’t Christian,” Redmond said.
“That’s true,” Virgil said. “But a body left out for the sun and the buzzards and such to work on it ain’t a pretty thing to find. Lujack’s posse might find it discouraging when they do.”
“My God,” Redmond said. “You people actually think like that.”
Cato had gone into the office and gotten himself some coffee. He came out in time to hear Redmond’s question, and he smiled faintly to himself and sat on the step and blew on the surface of the coffee, which was still too hot to drink. Virgil looked at me. I nodded and took a big breath and let it out.
“It ain’t how we think,” I said to Redmond. “It’s how we are. You unnerstand? It’s why we can do what we do. You ain’t like that. Most people aren’t. No reason to be. But we are, and what you need right now is people like us.”
Redmond nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “We do.”
65.
It was a bright night, with a nearly full moon, when Cato and Rose, and me and Virgil, rode on down into Resolution. There wasn’t much movement on the streets, but there was a lot of noise from the saloons. We rode in behind the Excelsior and turned into the passage that separated it from the laundry, and stopped. We sat our horses quietly in the shadows of the alley and waited.
“This ain’t gonna work more’n once,” I said.
“Once might be enough,” Virgil said. “Make them come after us.”
“And if it don’t?” I said.
“We need to get them out in the open,” Virgil said. “Can’t fight them in here. Too many, still.”
“So if this doesn’t work,” I said, “we find something else.”
“We do,” Virgil said.
Three men came out of the Excelsior and walked unsteadily down Main Street. They didn’t see us.
“Thing is,” I said, “if Wolfson wins this thing, he loses the town anyway.”
“To?” Rose said.
“Lujack,” I said. “Fella ain’t a shooter hires twenty shooters to work for him, and they’re together long enough, what happens?”
Rose grinned dimly.
“Fella that ain’t a shooter ends up working for the fellas that are,” he said.
“Pretty much what happened with us,” Virgil said. “Why Wolfson hired Lujack. He couldn’t trust us to do what he said, and he couldn’t m
ake us.”
“Not so much fun being Lujack,” Rose said.
“He needs gunmen for what he wants,” I said. “And he ain’t one himself.”
“Like a rabbit hiring coyotes,” Rose said.
Two deputies came out of the hotel across the street.
“Making their rounds,” Virgil murmured.
Frank Rose slid off his horse and handed the reins to Cato.
“Mine,” he said. “Cato’s two ahead of me.”
Virgil nodded.
Rose stepped out into the street and walked behind the deputies. One of the deputies heard him and looked back, and said something to his partner. They both stopped and turned. Rose stopped about forty feet away and stood looking at them. They didn’t recognize him.
“You want something?” the deputy said.
“Kinda curious,” Rose said, “’bout them Colts you’re carrying.”
“Curious?” one of the deputies said.
“If you’re any good with them,” Rose said.
The two deputies moved away from each other, facing Rose.
“Why you wantin’ to know that?” the deputy said.
“’Cause I’m plannin’ on shootin’ you both,” Rose said. “’Less you’re faster than me.”
“You’re what?” the deputy said.
“I was you I’d draw now, ’cause I’m fixin’ to shoot,” Rose said.
Rose drew. The deputies drew. Rose killed them both. One shot each. Then he sprinted back to the alley where we waited, took his reins back from Cato, and stepped up onto his horse. Across the street, several deputies were easing out of the hotel door, guns drawn.
“Sixteen to four,” Rose said as he turned his horse.
“Every little bit helps,” Virgil said.
And we wheeled and rode out of town at a full gallop.
66.
From where we sat, among some rocks at the top of the hill near the lumber camp, we could see the deputies out in force, posted at points around the town. In the late morning a squad of them, plus Lujack and Swann, rode halfway up the hill and, carefully out of rifle range, studied the area, riding in a slow arc in front of us. Lujack had a telescope.
“Got ’em frustrated,” Virgil said.
I nodded. Virgil was leaning against the rocks. He straightened suddenly and turned. His Colt was in his hand. Beth Redmond came up the path behind us. The Colt was back in the holster. I doubt that she ever saw it.
“What are you looking at?” she said when she got to us.
“Our adversities,” Virgil said.
“What?” she said.
“Our adversaries,” I said.
“Oh.”
Virgil nodded
“May I look?” she said.
“Surely,” Virgil said.
Beth peeked over the top of one of the rocks.
“They’re out of range,” I said. “You can just stand up and look, you want to.”
She stood.
“Who is the one with the sort of Army hat on?” she said.
“Lujack,” Virgil said. “One in the Stetson is named Swann. He’s the shooting specialist.”
“What are they doing?” she said.
“Trying to figure out a way to get to us,” Virgil said.
“To kill you?”
“Yep.”
She nodded, watching the riders as they moved slowly east to west, studying our situation.
“Do you think they’ll attack us?” she said.
“Here?” Virgil said.
“Yes.”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Too many men, with too much cover,” Virgil said. “Lujack don’t know the landscape, ’cept from a distance. He don’t know what he’d ride into.”
“So what are they doing?” she said.
“Trying to figure out something, just like us,” Virgil said. “They’ve lost four men so far.”
“Four men?”
“Yep.”
“Cato Tillson shot a couple the other day, up on that hill,” I said. “And Frank Rose killed a couple last night in Resolution. ”
“In Resolution?”
“Yep.”
“That’s so dangerous,” she said. “What was he doing in there.”
“We all went in,” I said, “after dark, thought we might pick off one or two. Rose felt it was his turn.”
“Why?”
“Why was it his turn?” I said.
“No, why did you all go in there.”
“Trying to cut the odds,” Virgil said.
He continued to watch the riders as he spoke.
“And trying to get them to come after us.”
“Why do you want them to come after you?” she said.
“Get them out in the open,” Virgil said. “See what we can do with them.”
“They’re out in the open now,” she said, looking down at the riders.
“Not all of them,” Virgil said.
“And they’re too open,” I said. “We’d have to cross a half-mile of open country to get to them. They are professional gunmen.”
“So you wouldn’t have a chance,” Beth said.
“Not a big one,” I said.
The deputies went out of sight around the curve of the hill.
“What if they sneak in behind you?” Beth said.
“Cato and Rose are up there,” I said. “Other side of that hill. Between us, we can see the whole circle of the compass.”
Beth looked up at the hill and then back down at the now-empty slope in front of us.
“Virgil,” she said.
“’Course,” Virgil said.
He was still watching the empty slope. I started to move away.
“No, stay, Everett,” she said. “You can hear this.”
I nodded and leaned back against the rock.
“My husband thinks you don’t like him,” Beth said to Virgil.
“I don’t,” Virgil said.
“Because of me?”
“Hard to like a man beats his woman,” Virgil said.
“I know. God, don’t I know that.”
Virgil didn’t say anything.
“But… Virgil, he’s trying. He’s trying so hard.”
“Trying what?” Virgil said.
I could see Beth take in a big breath.
“He’s trying so hard to be a man,” she said. “He come from nothing, and he was still a boy when we come out here, and the land and the children were enough to break him, and… and now it’s all plomped down on him: Indians, gunmen, killing. He’s lost his land, he’s trying to hold the other homesteaders together… He’s trying to hold himself together… It’s too much for him.”
“He been hitting you again?” Virgil said.
“No, Virgil, he hasn’t. I swear to God he hasn’t touched me since I left him before the Indians.”
“What would you like?” Virgil said.
“Don’t treat him like a boy,” she said. “Talk to him like he’s a man.”
Virgil stared at her for a long time without speaking.
“We meant something to each other,” Beth said. “It wasn’t just fucking. I know it wasn’t.”
“That’s true,” Virgil said.
“So please, Virgil, for me,” she said. “Just treat him like a man.”
Virgil nodded slowly.
“All right,” he said.
67.
Virgil and I sat on our horses on the little rise that sloped down to what used to be the Redmond ranch. The burned-out buildings had been cleared, and the property was staked out in house lots that looked a good bit smaller than the original. Beyond where the house had stood was a creek that had cut its way maybe a foot deep into the prairie. A few cottonwoods grew along it.
“Cluster of trees there,” Virgil said. “Provide some cover.”
I nodded.
“Man and a horse, I’d say.”
Virgil nodded, running his eyes over the layout.
&nbs
p; “Hill over there, other side, beyond the house that way,” he said.
“That would work, ’less they come that way.”
“No reason they should,” Virgil said.
“Might start getting cautious,” I said. “We’ve picked off four of them so far.”
Virgil shrugged.
“They do, the ball goes up a little sooner.”
“Okay,” I said.
“So,” Virgil said. “We put two over there. One behind the cottonwoods.”
He glanced around the hilltop where we were.
“One of us up here,” he said, “back’a that outcroppin’.”
“And Redmond down there, starting to rebuild,” I said.
“Yep.”
“You think he’ll stay?” I said.
“Claims he will,” Virgil said.
“But do you think so?” I said.
“Wants to be a man,” Virgil said.
I didn’t say anything.
“I ain’t rubbin’ Beth’s nose in it,” Virgil said. “If he can do it, it’ll help us bed this thing down a lot earlier.”
“And if he gets killed in the process?” I said.
“It’s a risk you and me are taking,” Virgil said. “And Cato and Rose, and we got a lot less at stake than he does.”
“I know,” I said.
We turned the horses and headed back toward the lumber camp, swinging wide around town as we went.
“Mrs. Redmond know about this plan?” I said.
“Don’t know,” Virgil said. “I didn’t tell her.”
“He will,” I said.
“Maybe not,” Virgil said. “Maybe scared he won’t be able to carry it off, and don’t want no one to know unless he does pull it off.”
“You may be right,” I said.
The horses were beginning to labor a little as we went uphill. We slowed them to a walk.
“When you want to do this?” I said.
“Tomorrow seems good,” Virgil said.
“We go down early,” I said.
“Three of us,” Virgil said.
“And one of us brings Redmond down,” I said. “Once we’re in place.”
“Be sure he comes,” Virgil said. “I’d like you to do that.”
“Sure,” I said. “And if they see me with him?”
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