Robert Parker - Resolution

The sergeant swung down and went into the saloon. The lieutenant was quiet, looking around the town. Then he looked back at us.

“You work for this fella, Wolfson?” he said.

I nodded.

“You ain’t bartenders,” he said.

“No,” I said.

“My name’s Mulcahey,” he said. “What’s yours.”

“Everett Hitch,” I said. “This here’s Virgil Cole.”

Mulcahey looked at Virgil for a silent moment.

Then he said, “Heard of you.”

Virgil nodded modestly.

“Any other gun hands in town?” Mulcahey said.

“Why do you ask?” Virgil said.

“Might need ’em,” Mulcahey said.

“Couple of boys across the street,” Virgil said, and nodded at the Excelsior. “Cato and Rose.”

“They any good?” Mulcahey said.

He was talking to Virgil now instead of to me.

“Yes,” Virgil said.

Sergeant Canavan came out of the Blackfoot with Wolfson.

“What can I do for you, Lieutenant,” Wolfson said.

“You get things done in this town?” Mulcahey said.

“I like to think so,” Wolfson said.

“A group of Shoshones jumped the reservation last night,” Mulcahey said. “The rest of my platoon is rounding up the settlers south of town and herded them in here.”

“Here? In town?”

“Yep, we need to make some arrangements to put them up until we get the Shoshones back where they belong,” Mulcahey said. “How many can you put up here?”

“Here? In the hotel?”

“Hotel, livery stable, saloon, wherever we have to,” Mulcahey said. “We leave them out there alone and the Shoshones can have them, one at a time.”

“Who pays for this?” Wolfson said.

“Sergeant Canavan will give you a voucher,” Mulcahey said. “We’ll have them all in here by nightfall.”

“You boys going to stick around?” Wolfson said.

“Nope, can’t guard these people and chase the Shoshones, ” Mulcahey said.

“How many bucks,” Virgil said.

“Maybe twenty,” Mulcahey said.

“I didn’t sign no contract,” Wolfson said, “that I gotta protect every shitkicker that homesteads near me.”

“I’m not asking you to do it,” Mulcahey said. “I’m telling you you’re going to.”

Wolfson assembled most of the men in the Blackfoot Saloon. Almost everybody had a weapon, mostly Winchesters, a few shotguns, and an occasional breech-loading Sharps.

“You all know why we’re here,” he said, “and why I volunteered to house and feed you all.”

The women and children were housed in the hotel. The men were mostly sleeping on the floor in the Blackfoot and the Excelsior. In the hotel, the wives and the whores were a little uneasy with one another. And in the saloons the homesteader men were quite uneasy with those of us who worked for Wolfson. Beth and Bob Redmond moved around each other stiffly. And Stark and his lumberjacks were unhappy with everything. So was Wolfson. He’d had to hire another Chinaman to help in the kitchen cooking enough biscuits, beans, and salt meat for everybody. The Army vouchers would probably cover the cost, but there was unlikely to be any profit.

“The Army has asked me to take charge of the town defense until them red niggers is back where they belong,” Wolfson said.

Virgil looked at me. I grinned and shrugged.

“Army says the bastards aren’t in this area yet, but just to be sure,” Wolfson said, “I got a couple lookouts up on the roof of the hotel right now ready to fire off a warning shot the minute they see anything.”

Cato and Rose were drinking coffee at the bar near us. There were no liquor sales yet because of the meeting, but Frank Rose went behind the bar and got a bottle and poured a shot into his coffee, and left the bottle handy. Wolfson saw it and didn’t like it but said nothing of it.

“First thing we got to do is to block off both ends of Main Street,” Wolfson said. “Keep the buggers from getting in here and doing damage.”

Cato and Rose both looked at Virgil. Virgil looked at me. I shook my head.

“’Scuse me, Amos,” Virgil said.

Wolfson didn’t like that, either, but he forced a smile.

"Y’all know Virgil Cole,” Wolfson said, “one of the fellas works for me.”

“Thing is, Amos,” Virgil said, “if they was stupid enough to come charging up the main street, I wouldn’t want to discourage them. We could catch ’em in a crossfire and cut ’em in pieces.”

“I don’t want them in this town shooting up my property, ” Wolfson said.

“They ain’t coming in the main street,” Virgil said.

“They been fighting the Crows and the Arapaho for generations, ” I said. “They know how to fight. They ain’t going to ride into a shooting gallery.”

“So you’re saying don’t block the street.”

Virgil nodded.

“Everett’s right,” he said. “They ain’t going to ride in and let us catch them in a crossfire, but there’s no reason to make it difficult, case they want to.”

Redmond was standing in front of Wolfson.

“So what are we supposed to do?” Redmond said.

“Everett here is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York,” Virgil said. “He’s done some Indian fighting in his time.”

He made a gesture with his head that said, You tell them .

“Lookouts on the roof are good,” I said, to make Wolfson feel good. “And we need to organize our manpower, break down into squads, for instance, so that we can mobilize quickly if we have to.”

I looked at Fritz Stark.

“You take care of that with your people?”

“We’re already in crews,” Stark said.

“Good,” I said. “Redmond, you want to organize yours?”

“How many people in a squad?” Redmond said.

“Depends how many people you got,” I said. “I’ll help you.”

Redmond nodded.

“We’re ready to do what has to be done,” he said.

Virgil smiled slightly.

Frank Rose murmured, “Hooray!”

“Wolfson can manage the miners and the town folks,” I said. “And we’ll need some pickets.”

“Outside the town?” Redmond said.

“Wouldn’t be much use inside the town, now would they,” Wolfson said.

“That’ll be us,” Virgil said.

“Us?” Redmond said.

“Me and Everett,” Virgil said. “Cato and Rose.”

Everybody in the room, that I could see, looked relieved.

It was a bright night. Lot of stars. Moon nearly full. Virgil and I were riding as soft as we could along the tree line uphill from the town.

“Think they’ll do what we told ’em?” I said. “If the Shoshones actually make a run at them?”

“Probably not,” Virgil said.

“On the other hand, the Shoshones probably won’t make a run at them. There’s what, twenty of them, Mulcahey said?”

“Yep.”

A night bird whistled in the woods. Both of us reined in and sat silently. The bird whistled again.

“Bird,” I said.

“Yep,” Virgil said.

We started the horses again.

“And maybe a hundred men with guns in the town?”

“At least,” Virgil said.

“So the Shoshones aren’t going to make a run at them.”

“Probably not,” Virgil said.

“They might come by the homesteads,” I said, “thinking they might pick off a homesteader or two, burn a couple ranches, run off some stock.”

“That’s right,” Virgil said. “Same for the lumber company. ”

“So we come across them doing this,” I said, “we do anything?

“We got four fighters,” Virgil said.

“We got a hundred men,” I said.

“And four fighters,” Virgil said.

I nodded.

“So we head back to town and keep the people safe,” I said.