Tilden emptied his shot glass and refilled it from the bottle. Lifting the shot glass filled with the amber liquid to his lips, Tilden glanced down at the bottle. More than half empty. That too was intolerable. Tilden was not a heavy-drinking man, not a man who liked his thoughts muddled.
He set the shot glass on the table and pushed it from him. He looked up as one of his punchers—he couldn’t remember the man’s name and that irritated him further—entered the saloon and walked quickly up to Clint, whispering in the foreman’s ear.
The foreman stiffened and gave the man a dark look, then cut his eyes to Tilden.
Tilden Franklin rose from the table and walked to Clint and the cowboy. “Outside,” he said.
In the shade offered by the awning, the men stood on the boardwalk. “Say it,” Tilden ordered the cowboy- gunhand.
“Lefty and five others went over to the Sugarloaf to drag Pearlie. Only one come back and he was shot up pretty bad. He said they drug Pearlie a pretty fair distance and then shot him in the head. But he ain’t dead, boss. And they was two people at Jensen’s spread. Both of them trigger-pullers.”
“Son of a
“And that ain’t all, boss. Billy was over to our western range drivin’ the beeves back to the lower slopes. He seen a campfire, smelled beans cookin’. Billy took off over there to run whoever it was off the range. When he got there, he changed his mind. It was Charlie Starr.”
Tilden thought about that for a few seconds. He didn’t believe it. Last word he’d had of Charlie Starr was five, six years back, and that news had been that Starr had been killed in a gunfight up in Montana.
He said as much.
The puncher shook his head. “Billy seen Charlie over in Nevada, at Mormon Station, seven, eight years ago. That’s when Charlie kilt them four gunslicks. Billy bought Charlie a drink after that, and they talked for nearabouts an hour. You’ve heard Billy brag about that, boss. It ain’t likely he’d forget Charlie Starr.”
Tilden nodded his head in agreement. It was not very likely. Charlie Starr. Mean as a snake and just as notional as a grizzly bear. Wore two guns, tied down low, and was just as good with one as the other. Charlie had been a number of things: stagecoach guard, deputy, marshal, gambler, outlaw, gunfighter, bounty hunter, miner…and a lot of other things.
Charlie was…had to be close to fifty years old. But Tilden doubted that age would have slowed him down much. If any.
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
“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.
