Robert Parker - Resolution

“Could reparcel it,” I said. “Sell it off to a new crop of homesteaders.”

“That’s what he’ll do,” Virgil said. “Sell the land in house lots. The bank will hold the mortgages, so he’ll still control it. They’ll be new customers for the store and the saloons.”

“So why not keep the sodbusters he’s got now,” Rose said.

“He’s wrung ’em dry,” Cato said.

All three of us looked at him. But he didn’t add anything.

After a time Virgil said, “Cato’s right. They got nothing. They can’t repay a mortgage. They haven’t got any money to spend at the emporium. They probably can’t even rebuild enough to make a profit. But they can keep him from owning the land, and they can keep him from reselling to people who have some money.”

“For him to squeeze out of the new folks,” I said.

“So unless he can run them off, or starve them out, or kill them,” Rose said, “these shitkickers are just in Wolfson’s way.”

“Yep.”

“And they got nothing to bargain with,” Rose said.

“Just us,” I said.

Virgil appeared to be paying no attention to the conversation. He stood up suddenly.

“Think I’ll go talk to Wolfson,” he said, and walked out the front door of the saloon.

“What the fuck is he doing?” Rose said.

“Let’s go see,” I said.

We got up and went after Virgil.

Wolfson was at his table in the Blackfoot, and with him were Lujack and Swann.

“Virgil,” Wolfson said, “I thought you’d be on your way to Texas by now.”

Swann shifted a little in his chair. Virgil walked across the saloon and stopped in front of Wolfson.

“Used to work for you,” Virgil said.

Wolfson nodded his head once.

“We ain’t gonna let you run them settlers off their land,” Virgil said.

No one at the table said anything for a long time. Virgil stood patiently. He was doing what he always did, just going about his business, plowing straight ahead. Nothing bothered him. He never seemed in a hurry, except things always seemed to happen faster for him than other people.

Finally, Wolfson said, “You’re not?”

“Nope,” Virgil said.

“You and them three boys?” Lujack said, nodding at Cato and Rose and me.

“That’s right,” Virgil said. “Wanted to let you know. Give you a chance to negotiate, if you was of a mind to.”

“Negotiate?” Lujack said.

Lujack was slowly discovering what so many people had discovered before him, that Virgil Cole was not like other folks.

“We ain’t negotiating shit,” Wolfson said. “You boys got a brain in your heads, you’ll skedaddle the fuck out of Resolution while we’re still willin’ to let you.”

Virgil nodded and looked at Swann.

“You got anything to say?” he said to him.

Swann looked lazily at Wolfson and Lujack seated with him, and then at me and Cato and Rose, behind Virgil.

“Not right now,” he said.

They looked at each other. Swann didn’t like the odds, and he was right. But he wasn’t afraid of Virgil, which could be a mistake. Though as Virgil always insisted, you didn’t know for certain until it happened.

Virgil nodded slowly.

Then, without speaking again, he turned and walked out of the saloon. Cato and Rose and I followed him.

It’ll be like it was with the Shoshones,” I said. "They may not come, but you can’t plan on it.”

"We’re losing manpower,” Stark said, “every day. Mostly miners are moving on.”

“Mine’s dried up,” Faison said. “Nothin’ to hold ’em.”

“Wolfson know that?” I said.

“They send somebody up every day to look at us,” Stark said. “Coupla riders.”

“Where?” I said.

“Top the ridge over there,” Stark said.

He pointed west.

“Where we’ve cleared the trees,” he said.

“When do they come?”

“Late afternoon.”

“So the sun’s behind them,” Rose said.

“And anybody wanted to pick them off from down here,” I said, “be shooting into it.”

It was the middle of the afternoon. We were at the lumber camp, outside the lumber office, with Stark and Faison and Redmond and several men I didn’t know. Virgil and Cato both looked up at the sun.

“Awful long shot, sun or no sun,” I said.

“Better to be closer,” Virgil said. “And not facing the sun.”

Cato nodded and tapped himself on the chest. Virgil nodded back. Cato stood and walked away from the group and around the corner of the lumber office. Everyone watched him go. No one said anything.

So I said, after a time, “You need to stay careful. Keep your pickets posted on the road, and above the camp, too. Lujack and his posse may not come prancing up the road for you.”

Stark and Faison nodded.

“So that’s it?” Redmond said. “That’s your plan? They’re stealing our land and killing our people, and we sit here and wait for them to starve us out?”

Virgil looked at Redmond.

Since he never showed anything, only somebody who knew Virgil as well as I did would know how close Redmond was coming to the edge of Virgil’s patience.

“That’s what you should do,” I said. “We got other plans.”

“I want to know what they are,” Redmond said. “I got a right. I got a right to know. I got a right to know where Tillson went. What’s he doing? I…”

“Redmond,” Virgil said.

His voice was so soft it was barely more than a whisper. But it was clear and hard, and all of us turned toward it. And Redmond stopped talking.

“You need to understand coupla things,” Virgil said. “We got no quarrel with Wolfson. He hired us. He paid us, and when he didn’t need us no more, he paid us off. Nothing wrong with any of that.”

Redmond nodded.

“And we all need to make a living,” Virgil said. “And there ain’t one to be made here.”

Virgil paused and looked around. No one said anything.

“And Everett and I need to get on down to Texas,” Virgil said.

Redmond nodded.

“So we stayin’ here is a big pain in the ass for us, and a big favor for you,” Virgil said. “You got that part of it, Bob?”

Redmond nodded.

“Now, here’s the other thing,” Virgil said. “What we do, me, Everett, Cato, and Rose, what we do is a thing where you kind of feel your way along, extinctual, you might say.”

“Instinctual,” I said.

Virgil nodded approvingly.

“That’s right. So people always askin’ us what we gonna do and how and when, we find that very annoying, especially when we doin’ those people a big, large fucking favor for nothing.”

Nobody said anything.

“You understand that?” Virgil said to Redmond.

“Yeah.”

“Good. Then shut the fuck up and do what we tell you.”

Redmond opened his mouth and couldn’t seem to think of anything to say and shut it and nodded yes.

Virgil looked at him silently for another moment, then looked at me and nodded.

“So you got women and children here,” I said. “And you got a lot of men with Winchesters, and nothing else to do. Put the men around the perimeter.”

“Any advice on exactly where?” Stark said.

“You know the place better than I do,” I said. “Just keep them close enough together so nobody can slide in between ’em. Change the guards often so they don’t get skittish and shoot each other.”

“Even though you don’t think they’ll come,” Stark said.

“Ain’t no reason for them to come,” I said. “But people ain’t always reasonable. And Wolfson’s probably less reasonable than most.”

“There’s the riders,” Rose said.

Squinting into the sun, I could see two horsemen on the top of the treeless hill. One might have had a telescope. As I watched, both of them whirled suddenly and reached for their guns. Before they cleared leather they toppled slowly from their horses, and the sound of two shots rolled down the hill toward us, slowed and softened by the distance.