Resolution

49.

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.

“Uh-huh.”

“Hard for a lot of them to come back,” I said, “they get burned out.”

“Harder to come back from getting killed,” Virgil said.

“And it’s worth remembering that unless the Shoshones split up, there’s twenty of them and two of us, at any given time.”

“Shoshones won’t split up,” Virgil said.

“No,” I said.

“And if they get past us and into the town and we’re not there, and Cato and Rose aren’t there, it’ll be a bloodbath.”

“You don’t think Wolfson can rally the troops?”

“Redmond, either,” Virgil said. “Stark maybe, but… he’s not a gunman.”

“And Wolfson and Redmond would be fighting so hard to be in charge that they’d get in his way even if he was,” I said.

Virgil held his horse suddenly. I stopped with him. Virgil listened hard. I hadn’t heard anything, and I still didn’t. After a little bit, Virgil nodded to himself and moved his horse forward again. I went with him.

“Hear something?” I said.

“Nothing that matters,” Virgil said.

We rode on.

“How are things going with you and Mrs. Redmond?” I said.

“Her children are with her,” Virgil said.

“And her husband’s downstairs,” I said.

“That’s right.”

“So things ain’t going at all,” I said.

“That’s right.”

“Sorry to hear that,” I said.

“Things change,” Virgil said.

“Ever think about Allie?” I said.

“Yes.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say about that, so I moved to a different subject.

“Funny thing about Wolfson and Redmond,” I said. “First I thought they just wanted to get ahead in their own way.”

“Probably do,” Virgil said.

“Redmond’s stuck,” I said. “But Wolfson ain’t. He got ahead. He runs the damn town, and he still ain’t happy.”

“He don’t run the town,” Virgil said.

“Who does?”

“We do,” Virgil said.