“First thing we got to do is to block off both ends of Main Street,” Wolfson said. “Keep the buggers from getting in here and doing damage.”
Cato and Rose both looked at Virgil. Virgil looked at me. I shook my head.
“’Scuse me, Amos,” Virgil said.
Wolfson didn’t like that, either, but he forced a smile.
"Y’all know Virgil Cole,” Wolfson said, “one of the fellas works for me.”
“Thing is, Amos,” Virgil said, “if they was stupid enough to come charging up the main street, I wouldn’t want to discourage them. We could catch ’em in a crossfire and cut ’em in pieces.”
“I don’t want them in this town shooting up my property, ” Wolfson said.
“They ain’t coming in the main street,” Virgil said.
“They been fighting the Crows and the Arapaho for generations, ” I said. “They know how to fight. They ain’t going to ride into a shooting gallery.”
“So you’re saying don’t block the street.”
Virgil nodded.
“Everett’s right,” he said. “They ain’t going to ride in and let us catch them in a crossfire, but there’s no reason to make it difficult, case they want to.”
Redmond was standing in front of Wolfson.
“So what are we supposed to do?” Redmond said.
“Everett here is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York,” Virgil said. “He’s done some Indian fighting in his time.”
He made a gesture with his head that said, You tell them.
“Lookouts on the roof are good,” I said, to make Wolfson feel good. “And we need to organize our manpower, break down into squads, for instance, so that we can mobilize quickly if we have to.”
I looked at Fritz Stark.
“You take care of that with your people?”
“We’re already in crews,” Stark said.
“Good,” I said. “Redmond, you want to organize yours?”
“How many people in a squad?” Redmond said.
“Depends how many people you got,” I said. “I’ll help you.”
Redmond nodded.
“We’re ready to do what has to be done,” he said.
Virgil smiled slightly.
Frank Rose murmured, “Hooray!”
“Wolfson can manage the miners and the town folks,” I said. “And we’ll need some pickets.”
“Outside the town?” Redmond said.
“Wouldn’t be much use inside the town, now would they,” Wolfson said.
“That’ll be us,” Virgil said.
“Us?” Redmond said.
“Me and Everett,” Virgil said. “Cato and Rose.”
Everybody in the room, that I could see, looked relieved.
49.
It was a bright night. Lot of stars. Moon nearly full. Virgil and I were riding as soft as we could along the tree line uphill from the town.
“Think they’ll do what we told ’em?” I said. “If the Shoshones actually make a run at them?”
“Probably not,” Virgil said.
“On the other hand, the Shoshones probably won’t make a run at them. There’s what, twenty of them, Mulcahey said?”
“Yep.”
A night bird whistled in the woods. Both of us reined in and sat silently. The bird whistled again.
“Bird,” I said.
“Yep,” Virgil said.
We started the horses again.
“And maybe a hundred men with guns in the town?”
“At least,” Virgil said.
“So the Shoshones aren’t going to make a run at them.”
“Probably not,” Virgil said.
“They might come by the homesteads,” I said, “thinking they might pick off a homesteader or two, burn a couple ranches, run off some stock.”
“That’s right,” Virgil said. “Same for the lumber company. ”
“So we come across them doing this,” I said, “we do anything?
“We got four fighters,” Virgil said.
“We got a hundred men,” I said.
“And four fighters,” Virgil said.
I nodded.
“So we head back to town and keep the people safe,” I said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Hard for a lot of them to come back,” I said, “they get burned out.”
“Harder to come back from getting killed,” Virgil said.
“And it’s worth remembering that unless the Shoshones split up, there’s twenty of them and two of us, at any given time.”
“Shoshones won’t split up,” Virgil said.
“No,” I said.
“And if they get past us and into the town and we’re not there, and Cato and Rose aren’t there, it’ll be a bloodbath.”
“You don’t think Wolfson can rally the troops?”
“Redmond, either,” Virgil said. “Stark maybe, but… he’s not a gunman.”
“And Wolfson and Redmond would be fighting so hard to be in charge that they’d get in his way even if he was,” I said.
Virgil held his horse suddenly. I stopped with him. Virgil listened hard. I hadn’t heard anything, and I still didn’t. After a little bit, Virgil nodded to himself and moved his horse forward again. I went with him.
“Hear something?” I said.
“Nothing that matters,” Virgil said.
We rode on.
“How are things going with you and Mrs. Redmond?” I said.
“Her children are with her,” Virgil said.
“And her husband’s downstairs,” I said.
“That’s right.”
“So things ain’t going at all,” I said.
“That’s right.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I said.
“Things change,” Virgil said.
“Ever think about Allie?” I said.
“Yes.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say about that, so I moved to a different subject.
“Funny thing about Wolfson and Redmond,” I said. “First I thought they just wanted to get ahead in their own way.”
“Probably do,” Virgil said.
“Redmond’s stuck,” I said. “But Wolfson ain’t. He got ahead. He runs the damn town, and he still ain’t happy.”
“He don’t run the town,” Virgil said.
“Who does?”
“We do,” Virgil said.
50.
The Shoshones came in, south of town, about twelve hours ahead of the Army and set fire to the settlements. The smoke hovered over the town, and one of the lookouts fired off a warning shot, claiming Indians were upon us. Everyone with a weapon grabbed it and rushed to find a place to shoot from.
“They ain’t much of a threat to the Shoshones,” Frank Rose said. “But they’re likely to inflict considerable casualties on each other.”
“Guess we better take a look,” Virgil said.
“If the farmers don’t shoot at us,” Rose said.
“If they do, they’ll probably miss,” I said.
There was no sign of anyone in the area where the lookout had seen the hostiles. On horseback we slowly began to circle the town. The smoke from the burning settlements was plain enough, and the smell of it was strong. At the top of a small rise between the town and the settlements we saw two bucks. One had what looked like an old Army-issue Sharps. The other wore a Cavalry campaign hat and carried a button-flap holster that had probably been taken from a soldier someplace. We stopped. The Indians stopped. We looked at one another.
“There’s more of us than them,” Rose said.
“That we can see,” Virgil said.
“True,” Rose said.
“Don’t want to go charging after them and run right into eighteen more of them behind the rise,” I said.
We continued to sit with the smoke billowing up behind the Indians, and the pleasant breeze blowing it toward us. The Indians rode back and forth in front of us. The one with the Sharps brandished it at us. The guy with the campaign hat waved it at us.
“They think they’re out of our range,” Virgil said.
“They ain’t,” Cato said.
“You want to do it?” Virgil said.
“Sure.”
Cato handed the reins to Rose and slid off his horse. He took his rifle from the saddle and stepped away from his horse. He cocked the hammer, raised the rifle, let his breath out softly, and squeezed the trigger. The Indian with the Sharps slumped and then fell from his saddle. The other Indian gazed at him for a minute and then spun his horse. The gaze cost him. Cato hit him in the back between the shoulder blades as the Indian kicked his horse into a run. The Indian tossed forward over the horse’s neck and onto the ground. The two horses trotted a few feet and stopped and looked at the dead Indians, and began to crop the grass. Cato put two fresh rounds in his rifle, slid it back in the scabbard, and remounted.