52.

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.

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