Everybody was grinning now. Some of the men were laughing outright.
“We’re gonna have a saloon, ’cause you all know that a saloon is just as much a meetin’ place as it is a place to drink. We’re gonna have us a cafe, with home-cookin’. The women will see to that. It’ll bring in some money— and I know you all could use that. A church too, where we can all go to services come Sunday morning. And…a school. Both Sally and Bountiful are schoolmarms. And I’m gonna tell y’all something: once the wives of Beaconfield and Jackson hear about this town, with a church and proper schoolhouse, don’t you think they won’t be putting the pressure on their husbands to lean toward us.”
“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
“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.
“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,
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,
