Resolution - Паркер Роберт Б.. Страница 25

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.