Dunvil spit to the off side of the mule. “They get a lot of nerve when they work for someone like that.”
“I think they find each other. He looks for men like them.”
“He’s a high and mighty son of a bitch, isn’t he? You got to see him in person, hey?”
“We had that pleasure.”
Dunvil’s eyes were lighting up. “I guess Lodge gave him what-for.”
“He said a couple of words.”
“I’m not that diplomatic.”
Fielding shrugged. “I don’t think Lodge is in danger of being called too polite. Not on that occasion.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I stay away from people, especially the likes of the Duke of Argyle. I wouldn’t be nearly so nice.”
“They’re the type to stay away from, him and his men. I don’t know if they’re the type to put a hole in a man because of something he says, but I wouldn’t want to push ’em far enough to find out.”
“Oh, I don’t go near ’em, and they’d best do the same with me. They come around and push me, and there’ll be more than words.”
Again Fielding did not say anything.
“I know their type,” Dunvil went on. “They don’t like nesters, grangers, or squatters. They want to have it all. Run cattle through your camp, ride in three or four strong, and tell a man to pull his stakes. All I’ve got to say is, they’d better not try it with me.”
Fielding kept his silence. Some of Dunvil’s talk sounded like a strange rehearsal of things the man had heard and said before.
“You think I’m crazy, but let me tell you this. The little men try to get together when the lords ride over the top of ’em, but it doesn’t go very far. They either try to do it themselves, and some of ’em don’t have the backbone, or everyone lays back and huddles like sheep and lets the Molly Maguire sons of bitches come in and run everything. Organizers. All they do is look out for themselves. You don’t believe me.”
“I don’t know much about unions. They don’t make it far in cow country.”
“Not enough Swedes and Norwegians and other sheep, men that’ll sign the oath and go back to muckin’.” Dunvil’s eyes were intense as he peered out from the shade of his hat. “If you want to get anywhere at all, I’ll tell you how.” The eyes narrowed. “You go for the top. Get the kingpin. Whether you blow ’im sky-high or cut ’im in half with a shotgun, you take care of the big auger. That gets results.”
Fielding took a measured breath. “It’s a way of lookin’ at it,” he said. “But I’m not likely to follow up on it.”
The other man’s eyes opened wide. “Oh, I didn’t say you were. I was just sayin’ what works, and why they’d better not come near me.”
“I’d be surprised if they did,” said Fielding.
“So would they.”
Fielding could not gauge how much of Dunvil’s rant was pure bluster and how much of it was vitriol of substance. Thinking that a change in topic wouldn’t hurt, he said, “Well, I don’t stay in this place very long anyway. Before too long I’ll be off and gone on trips. Once these outfits take their cattle to summer range, I pack supplies up into the mountains to the line camps.”
“You use horses.”
“It works all right for me.” Fielding observed the mule with its ears up and its eyes half closed. “This looks like a good animal you’ve got.”
“Better than some. Slow at times.”
Just to make conversation, Fielding asked, “Do you ever hire out?”
“What, to pack with him?”
“Oh, no. I meant yourself. Work.”
“I work when I have to. Why?”
“No special reason. Just somethin’ to talk about. But there is work comin’ up around here. A little bit of grain to harvest, hay to cut and stack.”
“That’s all fine.” Dunvil’s eyes wandered around the camp.
At that moment, a gunshot sounded from downstream.
Dunvil gave a suspicious look in the direction of the shot. “What was that?”
“Just my helper. He got himself a sidearm, and he went off to do some practicin’ with it.”
The gun went off again.
“I hope he knows which way to shoot,” said the visitor.
“Oh, yeah. He knows where camp is. He just left here.”
Dunvil nodded as he looked in that direction. “I didn’t know you had anyone else around.”
“It’s a kid I hired to help me out. Gonna make a wrangler out of him, I guess.”
Bracken’s gun boomed again.
“Uh-huh.” Dunvil raised his voice as he lifted his rein hand. “Well, I’ll be goin’ back.” He squeezed the mule with his legs.
Fielding stood back as the man made a wide turn on the mule. “Good of you to drop by. We’ll see you again.”
“If neither of us breaks a neck,” said Dunvil. “Hup, hup.” The mule took off at a jiggling walk, showing the bottoms of its large, unshod hooves.
As the gun crashed again, Dunvil did not look around. He left Fielding to wonder if this had been a version of a Sunday visit.
Fielding stood in the main street of town, where he had the two saddle horses and five packhorses tied to the hitching rails. Bracken came out of the store with two twenty-five-pound bags of flour.
“Right here,” said Fielding, moving to the left side of the first packhorse. “We’ll put one sack in each side. Keep the loads balanced. I always load the left side first, so these horses know what to expect.” He took a bag of flour and slipped it into the pannier, then took the second bag and put in the right side while Bracken went in for more merchandise. After another trip, the gray horse had a hundred pounds of flour on him, which was enough for the time being. Fielding assumed he could fill in with smaller items in a little while.
He moved to the dun horse as Bracken came out with the next two bags of flour. After those and two more, the kid brought out rice in three twenty-pound bags.
A voice came from behind while Fielding had his back to the sidewalk and was putting the rice into the panniers on the dark horse. “Looks like we’re in the same business today.”
Fielding turned and saw Richard Lodge in the company of the woman Leonora. “How’s that?” he asked.
“I came to help Leonora get a sack of four for the kitchen. So I’m her packhorse for the moment.”
Fielding gave the lady a questioning look. “Is that right?”
Leonora, looking fresh in an off-white muslin dress and a wide-brimmed straw bonnet, gave a summery laugh. “That’s what he says, but I can see that you’re going about it in a much more serious way.”
Bracken interrupted the conversation as he delivered three more bags of rice. Fielding put one on the dark horse and two on the sorrel.
Lodge spoke again. “Are you gettin’ ready to pull out?”
“Almost,” answered Fielding. “We’ll take these goods back to camp and repack them. In the morning we’ll pack our beds and camp outfit. I already left the big tent at Selby’s.”
“Then you’ll get out on the trail tomorrow.”
“That’s the idea. We could have packed up the camp first, come down here, packed all this stuff once, and headed back west, but we wouldn’t have gotten much farther than our own camp. Comes out about the same, and we don’t have to haul the camp outfit down here and back.”
Bracken came out with a full burlap sack on his shoulder.
“What’s that?”
“Fifty pounds of beans.”
“We’ll put that in the next one.” Fielding ducked under the lead rope and came up by the hitching rail, where Bracken handed him the sack of beans. Fielding cradled the weight and moved to the white horse.
“Good enough,” said Lodge. “We’ll leave you boys to your work, and we’ll go on about ours.”
“Have a good trip,” sang out Leonora.
