“Who’s gonna be the sheriff?” Matlock asked.
“Charlie Starr,” Smoke said with a grin. “He’s still got an old badge he wore some years back down close to Durango. I think he’d make a damned good one. Any objections?”
None.
“Now we want this to be kept secret as long as possible. Soon as the wagons start rolling in, though, the cat’s gonna be out of the bag. But by that time, there won’t be a damned thing Tilden Franklin can do about it except cuss. Now here is something else. There ain’t no post office in Fontana. Never has been. We’ve always had to ride over to either Danner or Signal Hill to the post office. We can post a letter on the stage that comes through Fontana, but that don’t always mean it’ll get where it’s goin’. Sally wrote a letter this morning to the proper people up in Denver and also to her folks who have a lot of high-up connections back East. So I think we’ll get us a post office.
“Now the name. That come pretty easy too. Last evenin’, as Ralph and Bountiful was ridin’ along, talkin’, they come to this point, right down there.” He pointed. “And she said, ‘Oh, look at that beautiful big rock’.”
Smoke grinned. “Big Rock. Big Rock, Colorado!”
7
“The son of a bitch is doing what?” Tilden Franklin screamed the question at Clint.
“Buildin’ a town,” Clint said woefully. “Big Rock, Colorado.”
Tilden sat down. “Well, he can’t do that,” he said with something very close to a pout. “I done built a town. A proper one.”
“Maybe he can’t, Boss. But somebody forgot to tell him that. Him and that goddamned preacher and their wives. And lemme tell you something about that preacher man. He’s done up and bought some land from Smoke Jensen and his cabin is damn near complete. And maybe you oughta know this too: that preacher is more than just a preacher. He fought for some years under the name of the Cincinnati Kid.”
Tilden stared at his foreman as if the man had lost his mind. Then he slowly nodded his head. “I read about him. He killed a man with his fists right before he was scheduled to fight…somebody big-named. Iron Mike or something like that. What’s the point of all this, Clint? What does Jensen hope to prove by it?”
Clint sat down, rather wearily, and plopped his hat down on the floor beside the chair. “Damned if I know, Boss. I figured with his reputation, when we burned Mason out, he’d come shootin’. He didn’t. I figured when we…they done it to Velvet and killed Adam, Smoke would come a-shootin’. He didn’t. Luis and his bunch burned out Peyton. And Smoke builds him a town. I can’t figure it.”
“I won’t even ask if the town is legal.”
“It’s legal, and that Lawyer Hunt Brook and his wife done moved his practice out of Fontana and up to Big Rock. I spied on them some this morning. Then I nosed around Big Rock myself. That’s a mighty fine store that’s goin’ up. And the smells from that cafe got my mouth waterin’. Some of the nesters’ wives and older girls is doin’ the cookin’. And them miners is swarmin’ all over the place. They got ’em a saloon too. Big Rock Saloon. No games, no girls. A nice church and school combination goin’ up too. And a jail.”
“And I guess they elected themselves a sheriff, did they?”
“Shore did. Charlie Starr is the sheriff, and Luke Nations is his deputy.”
Tilden pounded his fists on the desk and cursed. He looked and behaved like a very large, spoiled, and petulant child.
Clint waited patiently. He had seen his boss act like this before.
When Tilden had calmed down, Clint said, “Herds look good.”
Tilden fixed him with a baleful look. “That’s wonderful, Clint. I can’t tell you how impressed I am. I’m making thousands of dollars a week on gold shares. I should be making several more thousands in kickbacks, except that goddamned sheriff I put into office has turned holy-roller on me. I am paying several thousands of dollars a month for some of the finest gunhands in the West, and they can’t seem to rid the country of one Smoke Jensen. The son of a bitch rides all over the country, usually by himself, and my so-called gunslicks can’t or won’t, tackle him.”
Clint sat quietly, knowing his boss was not yet through.
“Now Johnny North has taken up with a damned nester woman. Judge Proctor hasn’t had a drink in weeks; he’s turned just as righteous as Monte Carson. My men are afraid, afraid, to go into my goddamn town!”
Tilden rose from behind his desk to pace the study. He turned to face Clint’s back.
“Turn around and look at me!” he ordered. “Tell Luis to take his men into town and rid it of Monte and Proctor. Right now, Clint. Right now!”
Clint retrieved his hat and stood up. “Boss,” he said patiently. “Are you talkin’ about treein’ a town?”
“Exactly.”
Clint sighed and shook his head. He wished Tilden would get Smoke Jensen out of his mind and just get on with the business of ranching. The big foreman wished a lot of things, but he knew that Smoke Jensen had become an obsession with Tilden. He wasn’t even talkin’ much about Sally no more. His hatred of Smoke had nearly consumed the man.
And Clint felt—no, knew—somehow that Tilden wasn’t goin’ to win this fight. Oh, he would succeed in runnin’ out the nesters who were weak to begin with. Like Peyton. But Peyton was long gone. And them that remained was the tough ones. Not cold-eyed tough like Luis Chamba and Kane and Sanderson and Valentine and Suggs and them other gunslicks Tilden had on the payroll, but tough like with stayin’ power.
And now Tilden wanted to tree a Western town. He lifted his eyes, meeting the just-slightly-mad eyes of Tilden Franklin.
“Are you not capable of giving those orders, Clint?”
“Don’t push on me, Boss,” Clint warned. “Don’t do it.”
Tilden’s face softened a bit. “Clint…we’ve been together for years. We’ve spent more than a third of our lifetimes together. We’ve had rough times before. You own ten percent of this ranch. You could have taken your profits and left years ago, started your own spread, but you stayed with me. Just stay with me a while longer, you’ll see. Things will be like they were years ago.”
“Boss, things ain’t never gonna be like they was. Not ever agin.”
Tilden picked up a vase and hurled it against a far wall, breaking the vase, showering the carpet with bits of broken ceramic. “It will!” he screamed. “You’ll see, Clint. Just get rid of Smoke Jensen and those nesters will fold up and slink away. Now get out, Clint. Carry out my orders. Get out, damn you!”
Crazy! Clint thought. He ain’t just obsessed…he’s plumb crazy. He’s the one who’s livin’ in a house of cards. Not them nesters, but Tilden Franklin.
“All right, Boss,” Clint said. There was a different note in his voice, a note that Tilden should have picked up on. But he didn’t. “Fine. I’ll get out.”
Clint left the big house and stood for a moment on the front porch. His eyes swept the immediate holdings of Tilden Franklin. Thousands and thousands of acres. Too goddamn much for one man, and that silly bastard isn’t content with it. He wants more.
But not with my help.
Clint walked to his own quarters and began packing. He would take only what he had to have to travel light. One pack horse. Clint had money. Being a very frugal man, he had banked most of his salary and the profits from selling the cows over the years.
He smiled, not a pleasant smile. Tilden didn’t know that he owned land up on the Gunnison, up near Blue Mesa. Owned it under the name of Matthew Harrison. Everybody around here knew him as Clint Harris. He’d changed his name as a snot-nosed boy, when he’d run off from his home down in Texas, after he’d shot his abusive stepfather. Clint never knew whether he’d killed the man, or not. He’d just taken off.