“All right, thank you, Mr. Tipton. I will be prepared for them.”
“I’d better get back to town.”
“Yes, you do that. No, wait a minute. It might be best if you don’t go back to town at all.”
“Why not?”
“They are going to gather at eight in the morning, you say?”
“That’s their plan.”
“Forewarned is forearmed,” Denbigh said. “I am not going to wait out here for them. I am going to take the battle to them. I will be coming into town tomorrow with twenty men. We will strike as they are organizing. They won’t know what hit them, and the battle will be over before it even started. You need to be out of town when that happens, just so there is no question as to where your loyalties lie.”
“Yeah,” Tipton said. “Yeah, I guess maybe you are right. I think I’ll ride on down to Ellendale tonight to have a talk with the sheriff about the situation here in the valley.”
“I’ll have Mr. Tolliver show you out,” Denbigh said. Picking up a small bell from the table beside him, he shook it, and the resultant tinkling summoned Tolliver.
“Yes, m’lord?”
“Show the marshal out, please. Then summon Mr. Meacham for me.”
“Yes, m’lord.”
After Tolliver summoned Meacham, he stood just outside in the parlor listening to them talk as they discussed the next day. Then, half an hour after Meacham left, Tolliver opened the door slightly to Denbigh’s room. He could tell by the heavy and rhythmic breathing that Denbigh was asleep.
Not until then did Tolliver go out to the barn, where, in the dark because he didn’t want to take a chance of anyone seeing a light, he saddled a horse and rode away into the night.
There was no one manning the tollgate, so Tolliver was able to pass through without arousing any interest or concern as to what he was doing out on the road this late. It was after eleven when he reached town.
As he rode down Monroe, the hollow clopping of the hoofbeats sounded exceptionally loud in the still of the night and he began having second thoughts. What exactly did he have planned?
He answered his own question. He had nothing planned.
Then, seeing that the only lit up building in the entire town was the saloon, he rode to it, dismounted, tied off his horse, and stepped inside. The saloon wasn’t entirely filled at this hour of the night, though there were more people than he would have imagined. Looking around, he saw several faces he could recognize, though no one he could call by name.
It was Dennis Donovan who saw him first.
“I’ll be damned,” Donovan said.
“What is it?” Jennings asked. Jennings was sitting at the table with Donovan as the two men shared a bottle of whiskey that sat between them.
Donovan pointed to Tolliver, who was standing nervously just inside the door. “Ain’t that the guy who works for Denbigh? His servant or something?”
“Yeah, I think it is,” Jennings said.
Donovan got up and walked over to him. “What are you doing here, mister?” he asked.
“I am looking for Mr. Jensen,” Tolliver said.
“Did you expect to find him here?”
“I don’t know,” Tolliver said. “Idon’t have any idea whereto find him. I was hopinghe might be here, or that someone here might help me find him.”
“You ain’t welcome here, mister. You need to go on back to Denbigh where you belong,” Donovan said angrily.
“Please, sir, if you would direct me to Mr. Jensen, I would be most grateful.”
“The only thing I’m going to do for you is direct your ass out of here,” Donovan said. “And if you don’t leave now, I’ll mop up the floor with you.”
“Strike me if you must, sir, but after you finish, please, I must speak with Mr. Jensen,” Tolliver repeated.
Tolliver offered no resistance, and closed his eyes to accept whatever blows Donovan intended to deliver.
“Wait a minute, Dennis,” Jennings called out to him. Jennings walked over to join them. “If he’s willing to take a beating, maybe he has a good reason for wanting to see Jensen.”
Donovan paused for a moment, then called over to the bartender who, like everyone else in the saloon, had stopped to watch the interplay between the two men.
“Paul, do you know where Jensen stays?”
“Yeah, he has a room at the boardinghouse,” the bartender answered. “The same place where you boys had your meeting tonight.”
“I thought maybe he did, but I wasn’t sure,” Donovan replied. He looked back at Tolliver. “All right, come with me. I’ll take you to Jensen.”
***
When Denbigh and twenty of his men approached Fullerton at eight-thirty the next morning, they expected to arrive in town by surprise, then ride up to the boardinghouse, where they would catch the valley farmers and
