And Charlie Starr hated Tilden Franklin.
As if reading his thoughts, Clint said, “You don’t think…”
“I don’t know, Clint.” He dismissed the cowboy and told him to get a drink. When the batwings had swallowed the cowboy, Tilden said, “That was more than fifteen years ago, Clint. Seventeen years to be exact. I was twenty-three years old and full of piss and vinegar. I didn’t know that woman belonged to Charlie. Damnit, she didn’t tell me she did. Rubbing all over me, tickling my ear. I had just ramrodded a herd up from Texas and was hard-drinkin’ back then.” He sighed. “I got drunk, Clint. I’ve told you that much before. What I haven’t told you was that I got a little rough with the woman later on. She died. I thought she liked it rough. Lots of women do, you know. Anyway, I got the word that Charlie Starr was gunning for me. I ordered my boys to rope him and drag the meanness out of him. They got a little carried away with the fun and hurt him bad. He was, so I’m told, a long time recovering from it. Better part of a year. Word got back to me over the years that Charlie had made his brag he was going to brace me and kill me.”
“I seen him up on the Roaring Fork nine, ten years ago,” Clint said. “Luis Chamba and that Medicine Bow gunslick braced him. Chamba took a lot of lead, but he lived. The other one didn’t.”
“Where is Chamba?”
“Utah, last I heard.”
“Send a rider. Get him.”
“Yes, sir.”
It was full dark when Smoke saw the lights shining from the windows of the cabin. He had pushed Horse hard, and the big stallion was tired, but game. Smoke rubbed him down, gave him an extra ration of corn, and turned him loose to roll.
When he opened the door to the cabin and saw Pearlie’s battered and torn face, his own face tightened.
“He’ll tell you over dinner,” Sally said. “Wash up and I’ll fix you a plate.”
Over a heaping plate of beef and potatoes and gravy and beans flavored with honey, with bearsign for dessert, Pearlie told his story while Smoke ate.
“If there was any law worth a damn in this country I could have Tilden arrested,” Smoke said, chewing thoughtfully.
“I don’t even know where the county lines are,” Pearlie said. He would have liked another doughnut, but he’d already eaten twenty that day and was ashamed to ask for another.
With a smile, Sally pushed the plate of bearsign toward him.
“Well,” Pearlie said. “Maybe just one more.”
“What county does our land lie in, Smoke?” Sally asked.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. It might be split in half. And that’s something to think about. But…I don’t know. You can bet that when it comes to little farmers and little ranchers up against kingpins like Tilden, the law is going to side with the big boys. Might be wiser just to keep the law out of this altogether.”
“I thought you folks had bought most of your land and filed on the rest?” Pearlie said.
“We have,” Smoke told him. “And it’s been checked and it’s all legal. But they surveyed again a couple of years ago and drew up new lines. I never heard anymore about it.”
“Mister Smoke?” Bob asked, from a chair away from the adults.
“Yes, Bob?”
“Who is Charlie Starr?”
Smoke sopped up the last of his gravy with a thick hunk of bread and chewed for a moment. “He’s a gunfighter, Bob. He’s been a lot of things, but mostly he’s a good man. But a strange one. I met him while I was riding with an old Mountain Man called Preacher. Why do you ask?”
“I heard them Jones boys talkin’ last week. When we was all gathered over to the Matlocks’ for Sunday services. That feller who sometimes works for Mister Matlock said Charlie Starr’s been camped out around this country for a month or so.”
“I can’t believe Charlie is here to hire his gun out to Tilden. He never has hired his guns out against a little man. He’s done a lot of things, but he kinda backed into his rep as a gunslick. Maybe that fellow was mistaken?”
“Maybe, Mister Smoke.”
Charlie Starr shifted his blankets away from his fire and settled in for the night. He smiled in the darkness, the sounds of his horse cropping grass a somehow comforting sound in the night. Since that puncher had come up on him, he’d moved his location—out of, he thought, the TF range. High up in the mountains, where snow was still capping the crests, above some place called the Sugarloaf. Nice-sounding name, Charlie thought.
Louis Longmont sat at a table playing stud, winning, as usual. Winning even though his thoughts were not entirely on the game. He’d just that evening heard the rumors that Charlie Starr was in the area, and heard too that Tilden Franklin had sent a rider to Utah to get Luis Chamba, the Sonora gunslick. And he’d heard that Tilden was building up his own forces by half a hundred riders.
Louis pulled in his winnings and excused himself from the game. His mind wasn’t on it and he needed a breath of air. He walked outside, into the rambunctious, boom-town night air. The town was growing by hundreds each day. Most of the men were miners or would-be miners, but there was a lot of trash mixed in as well.
With this many people working the area, the town might last, Louis thought, six months—maybe less. There was a strong urge within the man to just fold his tent and pull out. Louis felt there would be a bloodbath before everything was said and done.
But Louis couldn’t do that. He’d given his word to Preacher he’d look in on Smoke from time to time. Not that Smoke needed any looking after, Louis thought with a grin. But a man’s word was his bond. So Louis would see it through. He tossed his cigar into the street and walked back into his gaming tent.
Tilden Franklin sat alone in his huge house, his thoughts as savage as much of the land that lay around him. His thoughts would have made a grizzly flinch. Tilden had never seen a woman that he desired more than Sally Jensen. Educated, aloof, beautiful. Tilden wondered how she’d look with her dress on the floor.
He shook that thought from him.
Then, with a faint smile curving his lips, he thought about the nester Colby. More specifically, Colby’s daughter. Velvet.
Tilden laughed. He thought he knew how to get rid of that nester, and let his boys have some fun in the process.
Yeah. He’d give it some extra thought in the morning. But it seemed like a pretty good idea.
Billy lay on the hay in the loft, in his longjohns, his new clothing carefully folded and stored on a little ledge. His thoughts were of Smoke. Billy wondered how it would be to have a pa like Smoke. Probably real nice. There was a streak of gentleness in the gunfighter that few adults could see. But a kid could see it right off. Smoke for a pa. Well, it was something to dream about. One thing for sure, nobody would mess with you, leastways.
Ed Jackson lay by his wife’s side and mentally counted all the money he was going to make. He’d hired some rough-looking men that day, promising them a grubstake if they’d build his store for him. They had accepted. Ed Jackson dreamed of great wealth. Ed Jackson dreamed of becoming a very important person. Maybe even someone like Tilden Franklin.
Now there was a really important man.
Paul Jackson lay in his blankets under a wagon. He was restless, sleep was elusive. He kept thinking about the way Bountiful had looked at him. Something was building between them, he just knew it. And Paul also knew that he wasn’t going to hang around here with his stupid, greedy brother any longer than necessary. If he could find gold, that would really make Bountiful sit up and take notice of him.
He grinned.
Or lay down and take notice of him.