Resolution

13.

Wolfson and I sat in wicker rockers on the front porch of the hotel next to the saloon and soaked up some early-afternoon sun. At the general store a tired-looking guy with a tired-looking wife and three small kids was loading things onto the back of a buckboard.

“Money in the till,” I said, watching the ranch family.

“Sodbusters,” Wolfson said. “Probably running a tab, won’t be able to pay it, tab gets big enough and I’ll own his ranch.”

“Why do you want his ranch?” I said.

“Why not,” Wolfson said. “Better it should belong to me than him.”

“He probably don’t feel that way,” I said.

“He don’t matter,” Wolfson said.

I nodded. The three kids were looking at us, staring at my gun. I pretended to draw and shoot at them with my forefinger. They didn’t react. Their mother said something and the three of them got up on the back of the buckboard with the groceries. The mother and father got up on the front seat. The father tapped the two mules with the reins, and they moved off south along Main Street.

“You know anything about the two new gun hands Eamon has hired?” Wolfson said.

“Cato and Rose,” I said.

“Sounds like a damn circus act,” Wolfson said.

“It ain’t,” I said.

“They good?”

“Very,” I said.

“Better than Wickman?”

“Much.”

“Better than you?”

“Maybe.”

“And there’s two of them,” Wolfson said.

“Uh-huh.”

“They always work together?”

“Far as I know,” I said.

“How about Cole?” Wolfson said.

“What about him?”

“How they stack up against him?”

“Never seen nobody stacked up against Virgil Cole,” I said.

“Including you?”

“Including me,” I said.

“Have you seen Cato and Rose?”

“Not till yesterday,” I said.

“So you don’t know for sure about them?”

“Never know for sure,” I said.

“Maybe we should get Cole up here,” Wolfson said.

“You expecting trouble?” I said.

“Why are they here?” Wolfson said.

“Somebody’s expecting trouble.”

“Or expecting to cause it,” Wolfson said.

“What would O’Malley want to cause trouble about?” I said.

“I don’t know,” Wolfson said.

I didn’t quite believe that he didn’t know, but I saw no reason to say so.

“Can you get Cole?” Wolfson said.

“Don’t know where he is,” I said.

“He’s not in Appaloosa anymore?”

“That’s what I heard.”

“How can we find him,” Wolfson said.

“Don’t think you’ll have to,” I said. “I expect he might come drifting in here, next few days.”

“Here?” Wolfson said. “Why?”

“See me,” I said. “Sometimes he likes to talk with me about things.”

Wolfson looked like he wanted to ask more, but he didn’t quite know what to ask, and I didn’t help him out. So he didn’t.

Instead, he said, “What are we going to do about Cato and Rose?”

“How about they don’t bother us, we don’t bother them?” I said.

“They’ll bother us,” Wolfson said.

“Why do you think so?”

“Eamon wants to be the studhorse around here,” Wolfson said.

“And you’re in his way?”

“I guess,” Wolfson said.

“He runs a mine,” I said. “You run this place. How does that put you in his way?”

“Don’t know,” Wolfson said.

“How about the lumber operation?” I said. “Who’s way is that in?”

“Got no idea,” Wolfson said.

I didn’t believe that, either, but I could see that Wolfson had said all he was going to say on the subject, so I didn’t pursue it.