over the last few days.
Finally, she said softly, “Tell me what happened.”
He went back over the details of the last three days, from the ambush to the killing of Daniel.
“What’s going to happen to Cain’s mine and all his gold and buildings?” she asked after a moment.
“I don’t know the answer to that,” Fargo said. “But I can tell you this: Brant and his men will not get it. Not while I’m alive.”
She reached forward and squeezed his hand, smiling. “I know that. But we need to put some sort of legal basis under this and get the mine to someone. Did Cain have a will?”
Fargo shrugged. “I doubt it. Not the type.”
“So, who deserves to get that mine and those buildings and all the money in the banks in Sacramento?”
Fargo looked over at her, then smiled as he saw where she was heading. “His men. Some of them have died for him and that mine.”
“Exactly,” Anne said. “I’ve heard of a few owners giving parts or all of their mines to their workers. It’s possible to do.”
Fargo stood and then picked up Anne and held her close to him, kissing her hard. “Get a lawyer and a judge ready. I’ll be back with Cain’s will.”
Anne laughed. “I thought you said he wasn’t the type to write up a will.”
“I could be wrong,” Fargo said.
He kissed her soft lips one more time, enjoying the promise of a night in the feather bed with her, then turned and headed out the door. They first had to secure Cain’s mine legally for the men who would defend it; then it would be time for some real frontier justice.
The last miner came up from the mine, wiped off his face, and joined the meeting forming in the large bunkhouse. Men sat, sprawled, and stood everywhere, crowded around the wooden bunks. A number of women from the kitchens had joined the meeting as well.
Fargo couldn’t believe how many men and women had depended on Cain and his Sharon’s Dream mine.
Two hours before, Fargo had met Hank, Walt, and Jim at the ranch house. They had put Daniel’s body in the root cellar until they could bury it with his father in the small mine cemetery.
All three of them thought that they were now out of a job. They had no doubt that Brant would jump Cain’s claim and take over by sheer force. They were pretty much ready to bury Cain and Daniel and head down the trail. None of them would ever work for Brant.
Fargo took less than a minute to describe his idea. It got them excited again, and ready to fight.
“One small problem,” Fargo had said. “Can any of you write?”
Jim could. With Hank’s help, since he was the chief foreman and had been Cain’s right-hand man for the past six months, they got Cain’s safe opened and some samples of Cain’s writing laid out on the table.
After an hour of practice, Jim started writing the simple will that gave the mine over to Daniel. And then, if Daniel died within a year of Cain, the mine and all its assets were to go in equal shares to every man and woman working for the mine at the time of Daniel’s death.
As Jim practiced writing in Cain’s handwriting, Hank put together a list of the people who were working for Cain this last week. Fargo wouldn’t let him put his name on the list. He had no desire to own part of a mine.
Two hours after they started, the will was finished and the men were gathered.
Fargo stood back as Hank told all the men the bad news of both Cain’s and Daniel’s deaths.
“The funeral for both of them will be at sunrise tomorrow morning,” Hank said. “I expect you all to be there.”
There was a long moment of silence as the news sank in. Then Hank cleared his throat and went on. “I hold in my hand Cain’s will.”
Hank held up the paper and the envelope that had contained it. “Basically, it gives the mine and all the assets to Daniel.”
There was a murmuring among the men, but no one asked the next obvious question out loud.
“However,” Hank said, his voice carrying clearly in the crowded bunkhouse. “The will also says that if Daniel dies within a year of Cain, the mine is to go in equal parts to everyone working at Sharon’s Dream at the time of Daniel’s death. Officially, we now all own this mine and all the gold and assets that come out of it.”
The noise suddenly became deafening as the men shouted and cheered and slapped one another on the back.
Hank smiled and let them go on for a moment, then held up his hands for silence. “In one hour, twenty of us, with the help of Fargo here, are going to make sure this will is filed officially in the courthouse. However, we’re not out of the woods just yet.”
Hank nodded to Fargo and he stepped forward. “There is clear proof that the Brants and their men are behind the deaths of Cain and his son.”
Shouts of anger filled the room and Fargo let the anger wash over him. He was going to need all of them angry if they were going to win the coming fight.
Hank held up his hands for the men to calm down and let Fargo go on.
After there was silence again, Fargo continued. “They’re going to make a move on this mine, both above- and belowground.”
“Over my dead body,” one miner shouted, and the others agreed loudly.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Fargo said. “But it looks like we’re going to have a war and it’s going to start real soon.”
“We’re ready,” one man hollered, and the others shouted their agreement.
“We’re all going to have to fight together. You should all wear guns at all times until this is settled and if you don’t have a gun, talk to Hank after the meeting and he’ll get you set up. And we’re going to need the best shots among you posted as sentries along the ridgeline between here and the Brant mine. And others guarding the road and the other sides of this area.”
“We’re with you, Fargo,” a man shouted.
“Good,” Fargo said. “Now let’s get to work.”
6
The Eastern papers often mocked the way justice worked in the West. In the East, black-robed men deliberated over laws and precedent before handing down their decisions. When they spoke to the lawyers before them they tended to sound self-important and pompous. At least that was the way the Western papers liked to depict those Eastern magistrates.
Here, the papers enjoyed judges who occasionally winked at the laws and statutes that supposedly guided them and made decisions quickly and without undue fuss.
This was generally the way it worked, anyway. But Fargo wondered if he wasn’t dealing with a transplanted Easterner when he met Judge Rupert T. D. Hodges, who was to rule on the filing of Cain’s will.
Peering over the gold-rimmed glasses that had slid down his pointed nose, Hodges constantly rubbed his fingers against a bald pate and sniffed as if he was coming down with a cold. He sat in a room that rivaled a small library in number of books. In addition to a massive globe, an equally massive lantern, and a relatively modest pipe rack, the hardwood floor shone and the mullioned windows gleamed with daylight.
Fargo was used to hanging judges who swilled whiskey and befouled the room with the smoke of cheap cigars as they made their rash and often mistaken rulings.
Fargo had told the judge why the people named on the list he handed over should become the official owners in equal parts of the mine. The judge offered neither word nor even expression. He lowered his head and began his seemingly endless consideration of the appeal.
Fargo and Walt and Jim exchanged many useless glances as they stood before his desk. Once, Jim sighed deeply. The judge peered up over his glasses and frowned. “Are you in a hurry, young man?”
It was like being back in a schoolhouse when the teacher decided to pick on you and make your life hell. “No, sir,” Jim said, his face red.
“Good. Because I’m not either.”
