Robert Parker - Resolution

“By God,” Wolfson said. “By God.”

He looked around at the men and at Redmond standing on a chair in front of them.

“Drinks are on me,” he shouted.

“No,” Virgil said.

“What?”

“Not until they put the guns away,” Virgil said.

Wolfson stared for a moment. Cato and Rose and I blocked access to the bar.

“I don’t like being told what to do by one of my fucking employees,” Wolfson said.

“You want a room full of armed drunks?” Virgil said.

Wolfson looked slightly startled. Then he shook his head and walked to the back of the saloon, and opened a storeroom door.

“Stash your weapons here,” he shouted, “then drink up.”

Virgil stood by the door as people put Winchesters and shotguns and an occasional sidearm into the storeroom. When everyone had done it, Virgil nodded at me, and the three of us stepped away from the bar. Virgil put a chair in front of the storeroom door and sat in it. I walked over and joined him.

Frank Rose said to Wolfson, “This gonna happen across the street?”

“Absolutely,” Wolfson said. “I’m heading over there now to let them know.”

“Same rules apply,” Rose said. “No guns.”

“This is my town, and we got plenty to celebrate.”

“No guns,” Rose said.

Wolfson shrugged. Rose nodded and looked at Cato, and the two of them walked out of the Blackfoot. Wolfson hurried behind them.

“Let me make the announcement,” he said. “Let me make the announcement.”

“You can do anything you want, Amos,” Rose said, “long as there’s no guns. Me and Cato hate drunks with guns.”

Wolfson was having a meeting at a table in the Blackfoot. Hensdale was there, and Stark. Faison was at the table, and so was Bob Redmond. Virgil and I sat nearby and drank coffee with Cato and Rose, and listened.

“I can’t keep housing all these fucking people,” Wolfson said.

“My miners are ready to move on,” Faison said. “Mine’s pretty well run out anyway. You pay us the two weeks’ wages you owe us and we’ll find another mine.”

“Two weeks’ wages?” Wolfson said. “I been housing you for nothing.”

“You been letting us sleep on the floor of your fucking saloon,” Faison said. “Ain’t the same.”

“I gotta think ’bout them two weeks’ wages,” Wolfson said. “I don’t know what you did to earn it.”

“You think about it all you want,” Faison said. “But I go back and tell my miners you ain’t paying, you gonna have a visit from all of us.”

“Hear that, Virgil,” Wolfson said. “Sounds like a threat to me.”

“That’s what it sounds like,” Virgil said.

“Everything’s gone,” Faison said. “Bunkhouses, cook shack, mine office, and there ain’t enough copper left in that mine to pay for breakfast.”

“Ain’t my fault,” Wolfson said.

“Ain’t ours, either,” Faison said. “Mine ain’t worth saving. We know that. But you got to pay us so we can move on.”

“I ain’t made a penny,” Wolfson said, “since the fucking Indians left the reservation. I got you and these fucking homesteaders sprawled all over my property, eating my food. Who pays for that? Who pays for the fucking lumberjacks been eating everything but the fucking bar?”

“I’ll cover my people,” Stark said.

“Yeah? Who covers the shitkickers? They got no money,” Wolfson said. “They got no way to earn any. They owe me already, and all the collateral I got is their property, which is now mostly fucking cinders.”

“We’re not quitters,” Redmond said. “We can start over.”

“Start over?” Wolfson said. “Start over with what? I put myself in the fucking poorhouse giving you cocksuckers credit, and what do I get? A chance to fucking feed you and house you at my cost.”

“For Jesus’ sake, Wolfson,” Redmond said. “We got no place to go.”

“Well, find someplace, because I’m through.”

“There’s women,” Redmond said. I thought he might have glanced quickly at Virgil. “And kids.”

“Fuck ’em,” Wolfson said. “Women, kids, everybody. All you got to give me is your land, and that ain’t worth much.”

“Land?”

“I’m taking the land,” Wolfson said. “You people owe me ten times what it’s worth, but it’s all there is.”

“You can’t just take our land,” Redmond said.

“Can,” Wolfson said. “Will. So you and your women and children and sodbusters and shitkickers and chicken wranglers get the fuck out of my town.”

“We’re not going,” Redmond said. “We got no place to go.”

“You’ll go or I’ll run you out,” Wolfson said.

Redmond looked at us.

“You’d do that?” he said to us. “If he told you to, you’d run off a bunch of hard-working homesteaders, kids and everything?”

None of us said anything.

“Money talks,” Wolfson said. “You’re the only one doesn’t get that, Redmond.”

“You folks can come up to the lumber camp,” Stark said.

Everyone looked at him.

“It’s rough, but we’ll make do till you get back on your feet.”

“They ain’t gonna get back on their feet, Fritzie,” Wolfson said. “Don’t you get it? They got nothing.”

Stark stared at Wolfson for a time.

Then he said, “Wolfson, you are a fucking scavenger. You got no more heart than a fucking buzzard.”

“Fritzie,” Wolfson said.

“Don’t call me Fritzie, you walleyed cocksucker,” Stark said. “I don’t care how many gunmen you hire. Redmond, you bring your people up to my place today. We’ll work something out.”

“Mind if I sit in on that?” Faison said.

“You’re welcome to,” Stark said.

Then Stark got to his feet and turned his back to Wolfson and walked out of the saloon. Redmond and Faison got up and followed.

I looked at Virgil. He looked back at me and grinned.

“What’d I tell you about Stark?” he said.

The settlers moved up to the lumber camp, and the miners joined them. Wolfson was away. Resolution was nearly empty. There was no money being spent, because nobody had any. The saloons were deathly silent, and with nothing better to do, Virgil and I rode out and looked at the burned-out homesteads.

The Shoshones had been effective. There wasn’t much to see: the barely recognizable remnant of a dead farm animal, a chimney that hadn’t burned, some scraps of harness, the metal prongs of a rake. A solitary buzzard circled in the sky, without much enthusiasm. Everything edible had been scavenged already. But with regularity along the trail through the settlements there were signs that said the same thing: NO TRESPASSING, per order Amos Wolfson, Owner .

“Think it’s legal,” Virgil said, “Wolfson taking their land?”

“Might be,” I said. “Don’t really know. I think it’s homestead land.”

“That make a difference?” Virgil said.

“I’d think so, but I don’t know.”

“Didn’t teach you ’bout real-estate law at West Point?” Virgil said.

“Nope. Know a lot about the Macedonian phalanx, though.”

“What the fuck is that?” Virgil said.

I explained.

“They taught you that at West Point?” Virgil said.

“Yep.”

“We ain’t been fighting with pikes for a while,” Virgil said.

“War department hadn’t caught on to that when I was there,” I said.

We moved on through the homesteads. Near the buildings, fresh new shoots of green were already beginning to push up through the burnt-over grass. At the top of the rise where we’d left them were the remains of the two Shoshone warriors we’d killed. There wasn’t much left of them. Their horses had long since drifted off, probably homing back to the reservation, the way horses do. Buzzards, coyotes, maybe a wolf, maybe a bear, maybe a cougar, certainly insects and other birds, had fed on them until there was nothing much to feed on. Their weapons were still with them. Something had even eaten at the holster that one of them had worn. The pistol was starting to rust. So was the old rifle. We sat our horses for a time, looking at the remains.