I had sort of hoped I would have this brewery going before I had to tell him anything about it. Then I was going to ask him to give up that worthless mine of his and come join me. I wasn’t even goin’ to charge him anything, just take him on as a full partner.” Andy sighed. “But it is too late for all that now.”
“Lee left something for you,” Matt said. Opening his bag, he took out an envelope and handed it to Marcus.
“What is it?” Marcus said. Opening the envelope, Marcus looked inside, gasped, then looked up at Matt. “What the hell? This is money!” he said.
“Yes. Exactly two thousand dollars, in fact.”
Although Lee had told Matt to use some of the money to offset his traveling expenses, Matt had not used any of it, preferring to keep the entire two thousand dollars together.
“My God! You’re tellin’ me that there is two thousand dollars here and it came from Lee?”
“Yes,” Matt said. “That is exactly what I am telling you.”
“How in the world did Lee ever come up with that much money?”
“It turns out you were wrong about the mine, Mr. Marcus,” Matt said. “The mine paid well for him.”
“I’ll be damn. And all this time I’ve been mad at whoever sold it to him. I wish I could meet that fella now, so I could apologize.”
Matt smiled. “Well, Mr. Marcus, you just met him,” he said.
“Wait a minute. You? You are the one who sold my brother the mine?”
“I am,” Matt said. “Oh, and by the way, the silver mine belongs to you now.” Again, Matt reached into the bag and pulled out a sheet of paper. “I’ve had all the paperwork drawn up transferring ownership to you.”
“Mister, I’d like to shake your hand,” Marcus said. “You may well be the most honest man I’ve ever met. You could have kept the money, and the mine, and I would have never known anything about it. So the mine paid off, huh?”
“Yes. Lee had to work it, and I won’t tease you, it was hard work. But in the end, the mine did pay off for your brother.”
Marcus ran his hand across his chin. “Oh, my. Well, now, that does present me with something of a quandary. I need to ask myself, should I pull up stakes here and go up to Colorado to work the mine? After all, it has proven itself. Or, should I stay here and build the brewery?” He held up the envelope containing the two thousand dollars. “This is all the money I need to finish.”
“I intend to stay here for a few more days,” Matt said. “Let me know what you decide. If you decide to sell out here and go up to Denver, we can go up together.”
“You know the mine, do you think I should do that? Leave here and go up there, I mean.”
Matt shook his head. “No, sir, Mr. Marcus, it’s not my place to tell you. This is a decision you are going to have to make on your own.”
“Yeah,” Marcus said. “Yeah, I guess you are right about that. All right, I’ll give it some thought over the next couple of days.”
Chapter Nineteen
Even as Matt was visiting with Andrew Marcus, Pogue Willis and Billy Meechum were riding into town. Their attention was drawn to a group of people standing in front of a store identified by the red-painted sign on the false front as SIKES’ HARDWARE STORE. The people appeared to be looking at something that was in the front window.
“Look at all them people standin’ in front of that store over there,” Meechum said. “What is it do you reckon they are lookin’ at?”
“I don’t know,” Willis answered. “Why don’t we just ride over that way and take a look?”
Willis and Meechum steered their horses across the street, then stopped just behind the people who were gathered in front of the store.
What they saw was three coffins, the bottom halves of which were closed, the upper halves open. The coffins, thus arrayed, displayed the bodies of Burt Philbin, Deermont Cantrell, and Abe Oliver. All three men were wearing jackets and ties, though Meechum knew for a fact that none of them owned a jacket or a tie—and he was almost certain that none of them had ever even worn a jacket or tie.
Instead of the pallor of death, the three men showed color in their faces. In fact, it was far too much color, very obviously artificially applied by the undertaker.
“Damn,” Meechum said. “It’s Burt, Deermont, and Abe.”
“I can see that,” Willis said. “And if I couldn’t, that damn sign there would tell me.”
The sign Willis spoke of was painted on a square board that was standing on a tripod alongside the three coffins.
Burt Philbin
Deermont Oliver
Andy Cantrell
These three outlaws were killed by Matt Jensen when they tried to hold up the Sun Valley stage.
