“Damn!” Tilden said. “I thought Jensen would go in shooting.”
“So did I. You want us to maybe do a little night-ridin’?”
“No. I want this to be all the nesters’ doing. Wait a minute. Yeah, I do want some night-riding. Send some of the boys out to Peyton’s place. Rustle a couple head and leave thc butchered carcasses close to some miners’ camps. Peyton is hot-headed; he’ll go busting up in there and shoot or hang some of them. While we stand clear.”
Clint smiled. “Tonight?”
“Tonight.”
Sheriff Monte Carson and his so-called deputies kept only a loose hand on the rowdy doings in Fontana. They broke up fistfights whenever they could get to them in time, but rarely interfered in a stand-up, face-to-face shoot-out. Mostly they saw to it that all the businesses—with the exception of Louis Longmont, Ed Jackson, and Lawyer Hunt Brook—paid into the Tilden kitty…ten percent of the gross. And don’t hold none back. The deputies didn’t bother Doctor Colton Spalding either. They’d wisely decided that some of them just might need the Doc’s services sooner or later…probably sooner.
And, to make matters just a little worse, the town was attracting a small group of would-be gunslicks; young men who fancied themselves gunfighters and looked to make a reputation in Fontana. They strutted about with their pearl-handled Colts tied down low and their huge California spurs jangling. The young men usually dressed all in black, or in loudly colored silk shirts with pin-striped trousers tucked inside their polished boots. They bragged a lot about who they had faced down or shot, and did a lot of practicing outside the town limits. They were solid looking for trouble, and that trouble was waiting just around the corner for a lot of them.
The town of Fontana was still growing, both in businesses and population. It now could boast four hotels and half a dozen rooming houses. Cafes had sprung up almost as fast as the saloons and the hurdy-gurdy girls who made their dubious living in those saloons…and in the dirty cribs in the back rooms.
The mother lode of the vein had been located, and stages were rolling into town twice a day, to carry the gold from the assay offices and to drop off their load of passengers. Tilden Franklin had built a bank, The Bank of Fontana, and was doing a swift business. Supply wagons rolled and rattled and rumbled twenty-four hours a day, bringing in much-needed items to the various businesses.
To give the man a small amount of credit, Tilden Franklin had taken a hard look at his town and quietly but firmly begun rearranging the business district. There were now boundaries beyond which certain types could not venture during specific hours. The red-light district lay at one end of Fontana, and just behind a long row of saloons and greasy-spoon cafes. Those ladies who worked in the red-light houses—in God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash—were not allowed past the invisible line separating the good people from the less desirable people during the time between seven in the morning and four in the afternoon. Heaven forbid that a “decent woman” should have to rub shoulders with…that other kind of lady.
Peyton had found the butchered carcass of two of his beeves close to a miner’s camp.
“Take it easy,” Smoke said trying to calm the older man. “Those miners have hit a solid strike over there. No reason for them to have rustled any of your cows. Think about it, Peyton. Look here,” Smoke said, pointing. “These are horse tracks around these carcasses.”
“So?” Peyton angrily demanded. “What the hell has that got to do with it?”
“Those miners are riding mules, Peyton.”
That news brought the farmer-rancher up short and silent. He walked over and sat down on a fallen log. He thought about that news for a moment.
“We’re not actin’ like Tilden would like,” Peyton said softly. “So he’s tryin’ to prod us into doin’ something to blow the lid off. I was about to play right into his game, and he would have sent those so-called deputies up to arrest me, wouldn’t he, Smoke?”
“Probably.” Smoke had told none of the others about the old gunfighters on their way in. Charlie had returned from his travels, all smiles and good news.
The aging gunfighters would begin arriving at any time, trickling in alone or in pairs as they linked up on the trails and roads.
“Go on home,” Smoke told the older man, “I’ll go see the miners.”
Smoke watched the moan mount up and leave. He swung into the saddle and rode up toward the miners’ camp. He hailed the camp and was told to come on in.
Briefly Smoke explained, but he made no mention of Tilden Franklin.
“Who would try to cause trouble, Smoke?” a burly miner asked.
“I don’t know. But I just put the lid back on what might have been real trouble. You boys be careful from here on in. Tempers are frayed enough around here. The slightest thing could light the fuse.”
“We will. Smoke, you reckon Peyton and some of the others would mind if me and the boys pitched in and kind of helped around their places? You know…we’re all pretty handy with tools…maybe some repair work, such as that?”
“I think it would be a hell of a nice move on your part.” Smoke grinned and the miners grinned back. “And it’s gonna irritate whoever it is trying to stir up trouble. I’ll tell the others to look for you. I bet y’all would like some home-cooked grub too, wouldn’t you?”
That brought a round of cheers from the miners, many of whom had families far away.
Smoke wheeled his horse and rode back down the mountain. Smoke the gunfighter had suddenly become Smoke the peacemaker.
“Nothing,” Clint told Tilden. “Smoke made peace with the miners. He figured it all out somehow.”
“What’s it going to take to prod those goddamned nesters into action?” Tilden asked. “I’m about out of ideas.”
Clint didn’t like what he was about to suggest, but Clint rode for the brand. Right or wrong. “The Colby girl.”
Although it had originally been Tilden’s idea, the more he thought about it, the less he liked it. Bother a good woman out West and a man was in serious trouble…and it didn’t make a damn who you were or how much or how little you had.
“Risky, Clint.” He met the man’s eyes. “You have a plan?”
“Yes,” the foreman said, and stepped across that narrow chasm that separated good from evil, man from rabid beast.
“How long will it take you to set it up?”
“A few days. Them nesters got to be going into town for supplies pretty soon.”
Tilden nodded his head. “Do it.”
“You better get some sort of platform, Boss,” Pearlie told Smoke.
“Platform? What are you talking about?”
“Some of them old gunhands is pullin’ in. I swear to God there oughta be a hearse followin’ along behind ’em.”
Smoke stepped out of the barn just as Charlie was riding up from the Sugarloaf range.
Smoke had never seen a more disreputable, down-at-the-heels-looking bunch in all his life. Some of them looked like they’d be lucky to see another morning break clear.
“See what I mean about that platform, Boss? I swear that them ol’ boys is gonna hurt themselves gettin’ off their horse.”
Smoke had to smile. He was fondly recalling a bunch of Mountain Men who, at eighty, were as spry as many men half their age. “Don’t sell them short, Pearlie. I got a hunch they’re gonna fool us all.”
“Hi, thar, Buttermilk!” Charlie called.
“Aaa-yeeee!” the old man hollered. “You get uglier ever’ time I see you, Charlie.”
“Talks funny too,” Pearlie said.
“I seen now why he’s called Buttermilk.”
“Why?”
“That’s probably all he can eat. He don’t have any teeth!”