“Help us against Wolfson.”
“Wouldn’t that be sorta awkward?” I said.
“I mean we’d hire you away from him,” Redmond said. “We’d pay you more.”
“And what would I do to help?” I said.
“Be our gun hand instead of his,” Redmond said.
“Until somebody hired me away from you by paying me more,” I said.
“No, you couldn’t do that.”
“If I could do it to him, why couldn’t I do it to you?”
“I… I don’t know what to say.”
“Besides,” I said. “You hire me away from Wolfson, Wolfson’ll hire somebody else.”
“But you can stand up to him, whoever he hires. Some of us seen you with Wickman.”
“So you hire me away. He hires a replacement. I kill the replacement for you,” I said.
“Yes.”
“’Less the replacement kills me,” I said.
“Goddamn it,” Redmond said. “You turn everything I say around.”
“Ain’t hard to do,” I said. “I gather you ain’t got many shooters in your association.”
“Well, not like you,” Redmond said. “I mean, we mostly have a Winchester around, keep the vermin away from the calves, or, I guess, if we had to, to protect ourselves. But we ain’t got no professional shooters. Not like you, or them two fellas Eamon O’Malley hired.”
“Cato and Rose,” I said.
“Yeah. I heard they can take over a town,” Redmond said.
“Heard that, too,” I said. “Tell me about your problem with Wolfson.”
“Well, you heard some of it when you run us out of the store,” Redmond said.
“Fella owes him money and don’t pay,” I said. “What’s Wolfson supposed to do.”
“That ain’t how it is,” Redmond said.
“How is it,” I said.
Redmond finished his second drink and poured himself another one.
“Most of us grow a few crops for the kitchen, but if we make any money it’s from cows. None of us got enough head to matter a hell of a lot, but we sort of pool them, let ’em graze over all our ranges, and then sell them, mostly to Fort Rucker and the reservation. But we don’t deal with the Army, or the Indian agent, there’s too many of us, and none of us got enough cattle by ourselves, and the government won’t deal with us except through a cattle broker.”
“Wolfson?” I said.
Redmond nodded.
“I’m sure he’s bribing the Indian agent, maybe the quartermaster at the Fort, too, I don’t know. But by the time the deal is done we ain’t getting much for our beef. And he’s the only broker around. And we got no choice.”
“And because you don’t have much money, and you got to buy things like flour and coal oil…” I said.
“And bridle bits, and horseshoes, and cloth, and nails, and needles, and everything else we can’t grow,” Redmond said.
“You have to charge it at the Blackfoot Emporium,” I finished.
“For way too much, and when we can’t pay he takes the land, and we’re tenants.”
“And there’s no other store around,” I said.
“Nope.”
I smiled.
“The company store,” I said.
Redmond nodded. But he didn’t smile.
“So what are you trying to do?” I said.
“Just like we can pool our cows, we want to pool ourselves. We ain’t big ranchers, but we could be like a big ranch, if we all associated. Then we could broker our own cattle, and maybe establish our own store, and maybe make a living.”
“Wolfson probably don’t want that to happen,” I said.
“’Course he don’t,” Redmond said. “He’s told us that. He says we try organizing like that and we’re headed for big trouble.”
“Where’s O’Malley stand in all this,” I said.
“He might help us, he’d do pretty much anything to fuck Wolfson up.”
“Why?”
“He wants to replace Wolfson.”
“Ah,” I said. “That explains Cato and Rose.”
“It explains Wickman, too, and it explains you.”
“I guess it does,” I said. “O’Malley hired Wickman to intimidate Wolfson. So Wolfson hired me to intimidate Wickman. So Eamon doubled down and hired Cato and Rose to intimidate me. Now it’s Wolfson’s turn.”
“If you won’t help us,” Redmond said, “I guess we got to turn to O’Malley.”
“And if O’Malley wins?” I said.
“Maybe it’ll be better.”
I shook my head.
“Still the same,” Redmond said. “Except Eamon be squeezing us ’stead of Wolfson.”
I nodded.
“Probably right,” Redmond said.
He looked into his nearly empty glass for a time, then finished the drink.
“So will you think about this?” he said.
“I wish you well,” I said. “But you need to understand. Fella like me got nothing much that’s worth anything, ’cept his gun and his word. When I hired on with Wolfson it’s like I sort of gave him my word I wouldn’t hire on against him first chance I got.”
“I just want the gun,” Redmond said.
“Sort of goes with the word,” I said.
Redmond nodded.
“I’ll talk with O’Malley,” he said.
“He’ll be no better than Wolfson,” I said.
“Can’t be worse,” Redmond said. “Step at a time.”
I nodded.
“You know,” Redmond said, “the only safe place in town right now is here?”
I shrugged.
“You seem like you’re a decent man, Hitch,” Redmond said. “I hope we don’t have to go against you.”
“We’ll see,” I said.
18.
Virgil and I took the horses out for a ride south of town on a bright morning.
'Ain’t good for ’em,” Virgil said. “Standing around in the livery all the time, eatin’.”
It was low rolling land where the small ranches were, and we let the horses amble.
“Lotta grass,” Virgil said.
“Government land mostly,” I said. “Ranchers are home-steading. ”
“They free-range the cattle?” Virgil said.
“They say that they graze them on all the homesteads,” I said.
“You believe that?”
“No.”
