So we were all working for Wolfson. Me and Virgil doing lookout duty at the Blackfoot. Cato and Rose doing the same at the Excelsior. It was a lot more firepower than either saloon needed. And we all knew it. But we also all knew that keeping order in a couple of saloons was not why Wolfson paid us. It was just something useful to do while we waited.
On a wet Tuesday morning Virgil and I, with our hats pulled down and our collars turned up, rode through the hard rain, up to the copper mine with Wolfson.
“We couldn’t do this tomorrow?” I said to Wolfson.
“Decided to do it today,” Wolfson said. “Gonna do it today. When I do business, I do business.”
Wolfson looked sort of funny on horseback, out in the daylight. He had on a black slicker and a big hat, and seemed out of place.
“Fine,” I said.
Virgil said nothing. I knew he could barely tolerate Wolfson.
At the mine we put the horses under a tarpaulin shelter beside the mine shack and went on and had some coffee with the mine foreman, a tall, stoop-shouldered guy with a lot of gray beard. His name, he said, was Faison.
“Sorry about the trouble up here last week,” Wolfson said. “I hope no miners were hurt.”
“Nope, we stayed low,” Faison said.
“Smart,” Wolfson said.
“You taking over the mine?” Faison said.
“I’d like to do that,” Wolfson said. “Keep everybody on, promote you to mine manager.”
“More money?” Faison said.
“Of course,” Wolfson said.
Faison nodded.
“Nobody misses O’Malley,” Faison said. “Or the gun hands he brought in, neither.”
He looked at Virgil and me.
“No offense,” he said.
I shook my head. Virgil said nothing.
“Only thing anybody misses is payday,” Faison said. “You keep the paydays in order, we’ll be happy to work for you.”
“Excellent,” Wolfson said. “You bring the books into town soon as you can, go over them with Hensdale, my chief clerk, at the emporium.”
“I know Hensdale,” Faison said.
“Good.” Wolfson raised his coffee cup. “Here’s to bigger and better paydays.”
Faison nodded and raised his cup. Virgil and I did nothing. Wolfson might have glanced at us. It was always hard to tell because of the random eye.
“One favor,” Wolfson said after he’d put his cup back down. “I’d like a new sign that says Wolfson Mining.”
“Sure,” Faison said.
He and Wolfson shook hands, and we left. It was still raining steady, and the horses were not happy to leave the shelter of the tarpaulin.
“We going to talk with Stark?” I said.
“Wolfson said we were.”
“I wouldn’t expect much from Stark,” I said.
“Fritzie is smart,” Wolfson said. “He’s a businessman. He sees how the landscape has changed.”
I glanced at Virgil. He shrugged. The rain slanted in on us riding east. Virgil rode the same way as he did when it was sunny or cold or windy or not. Things didn’t make much impression on Virgil Cole. He just went on being Virgil Cole… except about Allie. We rode across the face of the hill for an hour to Stark’s lumber operation. The rain didn’t encourage talking. We left the horses under cover in a lumber shed and went to the office. Stark let us in.
“What the hell do you want, Wolfson?” Stark said.
“Just stopping by, say hello, talk about how things have changed.”
“I got no interest in talking with you,” Stark said. “And I don’t care what’s changed and what hasn’t.”
“I thought maybe we should talk about partnering up.”
“Partnering up?” Stark said. “With you?”
“Fritzie, look around,” Wolfson said. “I got this whole town, hell, the whole west slope, tied up pretty tight. It’s to your fucking benefit, you know? To partner with me.”
“Wolfson,” Stark said, “you are a greedy, slimy, pig-fucking sonovabitch. I wouldn’t partner with you in Paradise. You’re a thief. You’re a back shooter. You’re a fucking coward hiding behind vermin like these two.”
“You better think about what you’re saying,” Wolfson said.
“I’ve thought all I want to about it, you walleyed cock-sucker, ” Stark said. “I ain’t afraid of you or your two gunners, neither.”
“Maybe you’ll learn to be,” Wolfson said.
“And maybe I won’t,” Stark said.
He picked up an ax handle that lay on his desk.
“So unless you’re ready to fucking shoot me now,” he said, “get out of my office and off my land.”
Wolfson stared at him. Stark took a step toward him with the ax handle raised. Wolfson took a quick back step.
“No,” he said. “We won’t shoot you today.”
“Then get your ass out of here,” Stark said.
“But there’s no guarantees about another day,” Wolfson said. “Think on it.”
“Fuck you,” Stark said.
An argument like that doesn’t leave you with much to say. Wolfson turned and strode out of the lumber office. Virgil grinned at Stark for a moment, then we went after Wolfson. When we were on our mounts and heading back toward town, nobody said anything.
Finally, Virgil looked at me with the same grin he’d given Stark.
“Vermin,” he said.