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
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.
Crazy! Clint thought. He ain’t just obsessed…he’s plumb crazy.
“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.
And that was what he was going to do now. Just take off.
The foreman—no! he corrected that—ex-foreman…had not had a good night’s sleep since that…awfulness with Velvet Colby. He sat down at his rough-hewn desk and slowly wrote out instructions on a piece of paper. Finished with the letter, he walked to the door and opened it, calling for a puncher to get over there.
“Billy, can you read and write?”
“Yes, sir, Mister Clint,” the cowboy said. “I finished sixth grade.”
“Fine. Come on in.” With the cowboy inside Clint’s quarters, Clint pointed to the letter. “Sign your name where it says Witness.”
“Yes, sir, Mister Clint.” The cowboy did not read the letter; that wasn’t none of his business. He signed his name. “You want me to date this, Mister Clint?”
“Yes. Good thought, Billy.”
After Billy had gone, Clint looked around his spartan living quarters. Looked around for one last time. He could see nothing left that he wished to take. Outside, he rigged the pack horse and swung onto his own horse. Looking around, he spotted several punchers just down from the high country. They walked over to him.
“Where you goin’, Mister Clint?” a puncher called Rosie asked.
“Haulin’ my ashes, Rosie. And if you got any sense about you, you will too.” He looked at the others. “All of you.”
“You got a new job, Mister Clint?” a cowboy named Austin asked.
“Yeah, I do, Austin. And I’m hirin’ punchers. I’m payin’ forty a month and found. You interested?”
They all were.
Clint figured he could run his place with four hands, including himself. At least for a time.
“Pack your warbags, boys. And do it quiet-like. Meet me just north of Big Rock, south of Slumgullion Pass.”
He swung his horse’s head and moved out.
The punchers moved quietly to the bunkhouse and packed their meager possessions. One by one, they moved out, about thirty minutes behind Clint. None of them knew why the foreman was pullin’ out. But with Clint gone, damned if they was gonna stay around with all these lazy-assed, overpaid gunhands.
As they rode over and out of TF range, they met other TF punchers—not hired guns, cowboys. The punchers looked at those leaving, put it all together, and one by one, silently at first, made their plans to pull out.
“I ain’t seen my momma in nigh on three years,” one said. “I reckon it’s time to head south.”
“I got me a pard works over on the Saguache,” another said. “Ain’t seen him in two, three years. It’s time to move on anyway.”
“I know me a widder woman who owns a right-nice little farm up near Georgetown,” yet another cowboy said. “I’m tared of lookin’ at the ass end of cows. I think I’ll just head up thataway.”
“I ain’t never seed the ocean,” another cowboy lamented. “I think I’ll head west.”
Clint rode into Big Rock and tied his horses at the post outside the Big Rock Saloon. As he was stepping up onto the still-raw-smelling boardwalk, he saw Johnny North and that Belle Colby woman coming out of the general store. They stopped to chat with Lawyer Hunt Brook.
