Damn! Meacham thought. He did it! The son of a bitch did it!
Weatherspoon opened his mouth to speak, but the only sound he made was a gagging rattle, way back in his throat. The smile left his face, his eyes glazed over, and he pitched forward, his gun clattering to the floor.
Matt looked down at Weatherspoon for a moment, then holstered his pistol.
After that, bedlam broke out in the saloon as everyone hurried over to congratulate Matt, to shake his hand and to build a memory they could share with their grandchildren many years from now.
Conspicuously absent from the crowd of well-wishers was Lucas Meacham. And though Matt didn’t know Meacham’s name, he was quite familiar with him by now and he watched as Meacham hurried away from the saloon. He couldn’t help but wonder if Meacham wasn’t somehow involved in all this.
Chapter Twelve
When the Fowlers arrived at the McCann place in their buckboard, they saw several other rigs already there, from surreys to buckboards to wagons. There were a number of children outside the house playing various games, and Green jumped down even before the buckboard came to a stop to join in.
“Green, be careful!” Sue scolded. “Don’t jump down before we’ve even come to a halt. You can hurt yourself.”
“I’ll be careful, Ma!” Green shouted over his shoulder as he ran to join the others.
“Oh, the McCanns have such a beautiful place,” Sue Fowler said as E.B. parked among the other vehicles. “Why, did you know that stained-glass transom above the door came all the way from St. Louis?”
E.B. chuckled. “Yes, so Ian has told me, more than once.”
“Well if he is proud of it, I don’t blame him.”
Yesterday, Ian McCann had sent his son Leo, and his two riders, Dobbins and Toomey, to all the neighboring ranches inviting them to his house today for a meal and a discussion.
“Discuss what?” E.B. had asked Toomey.
“Mr. McCann didn’t tell us that,” Toomey replied. “All he said was to ask if you would come for a discussion and a meal.” Toomey smiled. “And I’ll tell you the truth, Mr. Fowler, when Mrs. McCann cooks up a big meal for company and all, it ain’t somethin’ you want to miss.”
Cora McCann came out onto the front porch to welcome them, inviting Sue to join her and the other women in the kitchen, while E.B. was directed to the parlor.
“So, what are we going to do about Denbigh?” Curt Jennings was asking, just as E.B. stepped in through the door.
“Nothin’, if you ask me,” Louis Killian answered. “I mean, do you have any idea how many men he’s got workin’ for him? The best thing to do, I believe, is let Sheriff Hightower or Marshal Tipton handle it.”
“Sheriff Hightower never comes up here, and you know it. You also know that neither Marshal Tipton nor any of the folks in Fullerton are goin’ to do anythin’ about it,” McCann said. “Denbigh has them all buffaloed.”
“Maybe the Petersons have the right idea,” Donovan suggested.
“Peterson sold out to Denbigh,” McCann said.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”
“So did Thompson and Pratt,” Putnam added.
“I talked to Don Peterson just before he and Marian left,” Donovan said. “He went two years without making a crop. He said he couldn’t hang on anymore, so he went back to Kentucky.”
“Don’t you see? That’s what Denbigh wants,” McCann said. “He wants us all to sell out to him.”
“That would be better than just leaving,” Donovan said. “And if we get squeezed down so much that we can’t make it, the only thing we can do is leave our property for Denbigh to grab.”
“If you ask me, this whole business about collecting a toll on the road is just a way of forcing us to leave,” Byrd said.
“Which is why we’re holding this meeting now, to figure out what is the best way to handle it,” McCann said.
McCann was the one who had called all of his neighbors together to discuss the “Denbigh” problem. And though it was a serious meeting, it had turned into a social event as well, as evidenced by the gathering of wives in the kitchen putting together a meal that everyone would enjoy later in the day.
“Ian, is it true that the son of a bitch actually killed two of your cows for no reason?” Frank Tanner asked.
“Yes,” McCann answered. “Well, it wasn’t actually Denbigh that done it. It was a fella by the name of Bleeker.”
“That don’t matter none whether it was Bleeker that killed your cows, or Butrum that killed them two strangers that come to town,” Tanner said. “Both Butrum and Bleeker work for Denbigh, which means he was behind it, so as far as I’m concerned, he is as guilty as they are.”
“Butrum isn’t guilty,” E.B. said.
“What do you mean he isn’t guilty? You said yourself you seen him kill those two men,” Jennings said.
“I didn’t say he didn’t kill them. I said he wasn’t guilty. At least that’s what it says in the paper.” E.B. began to read from the latest copy of the
