“Fuck ’em,” Wolfson said. “Women, kids, everybody. All you got to give me is your land, and that ain’t worth much.”
“Land?”
“I’m taking the land,” Wolfson said. “You people owe me ten times what it’s worth, but it’s all there is.”
“You can’t just take our land,” Redmond said.
“Can,” Wolfson said. “Will. So you and your women and children and sodbusters and shitkickers and chicken wranglers get the fuck out of my town.”
“We’re not going,” Redmond said. “We got no place to go.”
“You’ll go or I’ll run you out,” Wolfson said.
Redmond looked at us.
“You’d do that?” he said to us. “If he told you to, you’d run off a bunch of hard-working homesteaders, kids and everything?”
None of us said anything.
“Money talks,” Wolfson said. “You’re the only one doesn’t get that, Redmond.”
“You folks can come up to the lumber camp,” Stark said.
Everyone looked at him.
“It’s rough, but we’ll make do till you get back on your feet.”
“They ain’t gonna get back on their feet, Fritzie,” Wolfson said. “Don’t you get it? They got nothing.”
Stark stared at Wolfson for a time.
Then he said, “Wolfson, you are a fucking scavenger. You got no more heart than a fucking buzzard.”
“Fritzie,” Wolfson said.
“Don’t call me Fritzie, you walleyed cocksucker,” Stark said. “I don’t care how many gunmen you hire. Redmond, you bring your people up to my place today. We’ll work something out.”
“Mind if I sit in on that?” Faison said.
“You’re welcome to,” Stark said.
Then Stark got to his feet and turned his back to Wolfson and walked out of the saloon. Redmond and Faison got up and followed.
I looked at Virgil. He looked back at me and grinned.
“What’d I tell you about Stark?” he said.
53.
The settlers moved up to the lumber camp, and the miners joined them. Wolfson was away. Resolution was nearly empty. There was no money being spent, because nobody had any. The saloons were deathly silent, and with nothing better to do, Virgil and I rode out and looked at the burned-out homesteads.
The Shoshones had been effective. There wasn’t much to see: the barely recognizable remnant of a dead farm animal, a chimney that hadn’t burned, some scraps of harness, the metal prongs of a rake. A solitary buzzard circled in the sky, without much enthusiasm. Everything edible had been scavenged already. But with regularity along the trail through the settlements there were signs that said the same thing: NO TRESPASSING, per order Amos Wolfson, Owner.
“Think it’s legal,” Virgil said, “Wolfson taking their land?”
“Might be,” I said. “Don’t really know. I think it’s homestead land.”
“That make a difference?” Virgil said.
“I’d think so, but I don’t know.”
“Didn’t teach you ’bout real-estate law at West Point?” Virgil said.
“Nope. Know a lot about the Macedonian phalanx, though.”
“What the fuck is that?” Virgil said.
I explained.
“They taught you that at West Point?” Virgil said.
“Yep.”
“We ain’t been fighting with pikes for a while,” Virgil said.
“War department hadn’t caught on to that when I was there,” I said.
We moved on through the homesteads. Near the buildings, fresh new shoots of green were already beginning to push up through the burnt-over grass. At the top of the rise where we’d left them were the remains of the two Shoshone warriors we’d killed. There wasn’t much left of them. Their horses had long since drifted off, probably homing back to the reservation, the way horses do. Buzzards, coyotes, maybe a wolf, maybe a bear, maybe a cougar, certainly insects and other birds, had fed on them until there was nothing much to feed on. Their weapons were still with them. Something had even eaten at the holster that one of them had worn. The pistol was starting to rust. So was the old rifle. We sat our horses for a time, looking at the remains.
“Don’t seem right,” Virgil said. “He can just take everything they got.”
“No,” I said. “It don’t.”
“Don’t seem like it would be legal,” Virgil said.
“Don’t matter none,” I said. “Legal, illegal. There’s not any law around here anyway.”
“’Cept us,” Virgil said.
“What do we do when Wolfson tells us to move them off the land?” I said.
“Been thinking on that,” Virgil said.
He kept looking at the skeletal remnants of the two Indians.
“Can’t keep taking a man’s money,” Virgil said finally, “and keep saying no to what he wants you to do.”
“I know,” I said.
“Can’t run them people off their land,” Virgil said.
“I know,” I said.
54.
Virgil and I were on the front porch of the Blackfoot, admiring the early evening, when Beth Redmond came down the street with her skirts tucked up, astride one of those nondescript, big-boned horses that a lot of sodbusters had, because they could afford only one. When she reached us she held her skirts down and swung her left leg over the horse and slid modestly off him on the side away from us. Then she came around, hitched the horse, and came up on the porch and sat on the railing opposite us with her feet dangling.
“Evenin’, Beth,” Virgil said.
“Hello,” she said. “Hello, Mr. Hitch.”
I nodded toward her.
“Mrs. Redmond.”
“Virgil, we have to talk,” she said.
“Talk in front of Everett,” Virgil said. “I’d just tell him later anyway.”
“He knows about us?” she said.
“Yep.”
“That’s a little embarrassing,” she said.
“Everett don’t care,” Virgil said.
“But I might,” she said.
“Suppose you might,” Virgil said. “Hadn’t thought of that.”
I stood.
“I can go,” I said.
She shook her head rapidly.
“No,” she said. “Stay. What I’m talking about will include you, too.”
I sat.
“We ain’t going to leave,” she said.
“You and Redmond?” Virgil said.
“None of us,” she said. “Mr. Stark’s going to help us rebuild. He’ll give us the lumber on credit. He’ll give some of the men jobs in the lumber camp.”
“Wolfson already put up signs on the land,” I said. “He says it’s his now.”
“We won’t let him take it,” Mrs. Redmond said.
Neither Virgil nor I said anything.
“Since the Indians,” she said, “when we were all together, and armed, and ready. The men feel like they won, and can win again.”
“Mrs. Redmond,” I said. “They didn’t see an Indian.”
“Please call me Beth,” she said. “I know. But they were ready, and it makes them feel better. And Mr. Stark is making them feel better. They ain’t felt good for an awful long time. They need to do this.”
I nodded. Virgil nodded.
“Stark gonna help you when the guns come?” Virgil said.
“He said he would.”
“Bunch of lumberjacks,” Virgil said.
“They’re tough men,” she said.
“With a peavey,” Virgil said. “Guns are a little different.”
“I know,” Beth said. “But we ain’t gonna go.”
“How ’bout you and your husband,” Virgil said.
“It’s the same thing as the rest,” Beth said. “When we was all here, and the Indians was coming, and everybody had a gun, he felt like he was protecting me and the kids. He felt like he was the leader of his friends. He felt good.”
“He know ’bout us?” Virgil said.
“Yes.”
“How’s he feel ’bout that?” Virgil said.
“He thinks he deserved it,” Beth said. “For beating me up and everything. Swears that he’s a changed man now. Swears that he’ll never hit me again.”
I knew Virgil would not ask, so I did.