Davis said something, then Abe, then Davis again, and then Abe pushed back from the table and stood up. He said a few more words to Davis, then turned his back on him and made his way back over to Jason.
“Wish I could’ve heard that,” Jason said.
“No, you don’t.” Abe pulled out a chair. “The man’s bulldog-stubborn and bear-nasty. He’s gonna stay if he has to move here, permanent.”
Jason sighed. “Not quite what I wanted to hear.”
“Didn’t thrill me none, either.” Abe waved a hand, and a pretty girl showed up, as if by magic.
“Order, sir?” she said.
“Couple shots of bourbon.”
“Got you.” She left.
Jason started to tell him again. “Look, I’m still on the—”
“No, you ain’t. Look at your pocket watch.”
Jason did. It was five past the hour. “Oh,” he said, annoyed, and put it away. “So, now what?”
Abe shrugged. “I guess we wait.” He shoved some change toward the serving girl who’d just brought the drinks. “Same thing again.”
Jason scowled. “Must’a been thirsty work, talkin’ to him.”
Abe picked up his drink and tossed it back in one gulp. Jason hadn’t touched his yet, and he’d only taken a sip when the girl showed up with the second round.
“I got me an idea,” Abe said after he polished off his second bourbon. “How’d you like to be a U.S. Marshal?”
The query caught Jason completely off guard.
“Me?” he asked, then shook his head. “No way, Abe. Not in a million years.”
“Why not?”
“Because then I’d be responsible for Matt MacDonald’s Indians, and shepherding the wagons over to the next man and, well, a whole load of stuff that I’m not prepared to take on.”
Abe cocked his brows. “You chicken?”
“No, I’m not. Jesus! I don’t even want to be the town’s marshal, never aimed for it. I belong back east taking exams, not out here in the middle of nowhere, riding shepherd over folks who don’t give a good goddamn.”
Abe snorted. “Just thought I’d ask. Don’t get your knickers in a knot over it.”
From his table at the opposite end of the room, Ezra Welk watched the whole scene play out. He sat alone, but there were enough bodies between him and the lawmen to prevent his discovery. That was, if anybody was even looking for him.
These boys seemed to have somebody else on their mind, entirely: a big hulking number he didn’t recognize, who was sitting at another table, about halfway between himself and the batwing doors. One of the marshals—a middle-aged one he hadn’t spied before—walked over and had himself some stern words with the big galoot, who looked just as nasty as he was barrel-chested. If it had been up to Ezra, he would have shot the bastard, just for being ugly.
But it wasn’t up to him, especially with the two lawman present. They were currently sitting at a table up toward the front of the bar, talking.
Ezra wasn’t worried, though. He ordered a new whiskey and sat back to watch the show.
15
Before he walked home, Jason checked into the office just to make certain that Ward was on the job. He was, but so was an angry Wash Keogh, waving the newspaper.
“Blast you, Jason!” he shouted. “What’s wrong with you, takin’ out one’a your guns afore I had me a chance at him?”
Jason held up his hands. “I didn’t take him, Wash! Abe Todd did, and it was kind’a a surprise for everybody.”
“And while we’re not on the subject, how’s come you talk different accordin’ to who you’re doin’ the talkin’ to? Droppin’ g’s and sayin’ ‘ain’t’ and stuff you don’t do otherwise? Huh?”
Wash had a point, and it took Jason back a step or two. He did do that, he realized. He shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t know, Wash.” He really didn’t. “Sorry if it bothers you.”
Wash pulled himself up. “Well, it don’t, really. But this Gunderson deal does. And just when I was gonna strike it rich!” He dug into his pocket.
“Yeah, sure,” Ward muttered from behind the desk.
Wash made a growly face at Ward, then produced his nugget.
Jason let out a long breath and said, “Jesus, Wash! You been carryin’ that thing around in your pocket this whole time?” He’d never in his life seen such a rich nugget, or such a gigantic one, and he was certain that he’d told Wash to put it in the bank for safekeeping!
Ward was still intent on the papers before him, and Jason said, “Ward. I thought you were gonna take him up to the bank.”
Ward lifted his head and his focus fell on the gargantuan nugget in Wash’s hand. He dropped his pen and his mouth hung open. Then, “Mother of God! Wash, you said you were goin’!”
“What’d I tell you?” said the old prospector. “You brung me into town without no sleep and then you turn around and shoot the feller I was here to take care of! You beat everything, you know that?” And then he stomped past Jason, pocketing the gold again, his pants listing with its weight, and walked out onto the street and toward the saloon.
“You think that thing’s real?” Ward asked.
“Looked like it was.” It hadn’t even qualified as a nugget. If it’d been much bigger, Jenny could have used it in her rock garden, out back of the house.
“I need a smoke.” Ward fumbled in his pocket.
“I’ll join you.”
The two men sat in the office smoking for a while before Ward said, “You ever seen anything like that in your whole cotton-pickin’ life?”
Jason just shook his head. As yesterday, he told himself that it could have been pyrite, but he figured himself a good enough judge to tell the difference. If he knew where Wash had been digging, he would have been out of town like a shot.
No, he wouldn’t. It was Wash’s gold. And he kept on repeating that to himself. “It’s Wash’s, it’s Wash’s.”
“Key-rist,” said Ward. “Now I know what they mean by having larceny in your heart. How much you suppose a thing like that’s worth?”
Jason shook his head. “Have to have it assayed. But I’d say somewhere in the thousands. Maybe tens of thousands.”
“Key-rist,” Ward repeated.
“First thing in the morning, you make him go over to the bank and have Megan put it in the vault. I mean it this time, all right? I don’t like him walkin’ around town with it on him. Liable to fall through a hole in his britches.”
Ward stared out the front window. “Check, boss.”
Jason stubbed out his smoke and stood up. “I’m goin’ home.”
Later that same evening, while Jason was at home having one of those good “Jenny dinners” and Wash was still at the saloon, Ward Wanamaker was making his evening rounds, checking that everything that was supposed to be locked up was locked up, and that everything was pretty much in its place. He paused, halfway through, when he got up to the gate. It was being left open at night these days, in case something should happen—Heaven forfend—and the wagon train members needed to get inside in a hurry.
He leaned against one of the posts and rolled, then lit a smoke, breathing out a hazy plume into the crisp night air. The sun had barely set, but nights on the desert were cold, and this looked like it was going to be a real toe-and-finger freezer.
He was almost finished with his smoke and about to stamp it out and get on with his rounds, when he spied movement out there, in the expanse to the south. He waited a moment, which was just enough time for the movement to turn into a horse and rider, a rider who was moving like a bat out of hell.
He was yelling something, too, but Ward couldn’t make it out. All he could hear was somebody shouting something, and all he could see was that same somebody flapping his arms and fanning his horse and riding like sixty.