Resolution

66.

From where we sat, among some rocks at the top of the hill near the lumber camp, we could see the deputies out in force, posted at points around the town. In the late morning a squad of them, plus Lujack and Swann, rode halfway up the hill and, carefully out of rifle range, studied the area, riding in a slow arc in front of us. Lujack had a telescope.

“Got ’em frustrated,” Virgil said.

I nodded. Virgil was leaning against the rocks. He straightened suddenly and turned. His Colt was in his hand. Beth Redmond came up the path behind us. The Colt was back in the holster. I doubt that she ever saw it.

“What are you looking at?” she said when she got to us.

“Our adversities,” Virgil said.

“What?” she said.

“Our adversaries,” I said.

“Oh.”

Virgil nodded

“May I look?” she said.

“Surely,” Virgil said.

Beth peeked over the top of one of the rocks.

“They’re out of range,” I said. “You can just stand up and look, you want to.”

She stood.

“Who is the one with the sort of Army hat on?” she said.

“Lujack,” Virgil said. “One in the Stetson is named Swann. He’s the shooting specialist.”

“What are they doing?” she said.

“Trying to figure out a way to get to us,” Virgil said.

“To kill you?”

“Yep.”

She nodded, watching the riders as they moved slowly east to west, studying our situation.

“Do you think they’ll attack us?” she said.

“Here?” Virgil said.

“Yes.”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Too many men, with too much cover,” Virgil said. “Lujack don’t know the landscape, ’cept from a distance. He don’t know what he’d ride into.”

“So what are they doing?” she said.

“Trying to figure out something, just like us,” Virgil said. “They’ve lost four men so far.”

“Four men?”

“Yep.”

“Cato Tillson shot a couple the other day, up on that hill,” I said. “And Frank Rose killed a couple last night in Resolution. ”

“In Resolution?”

“Yep.”

“That’s so dangerous,” she said. “What was he doing in there.”

“We all went in,” I said, “after dark, thought we might pick off one or two. Rose felt it was his turn.”

“Why?”

“Why was it his turn?” I said.

“No, why did you all go in there.”

“Trying to cut the odds,” Virgil said.

He continued to watch the riders as he spoke.

“And trying to get them to come after us.”

“Why do you want them to come after you?” she said.

“Get them out in the open,” Virgil said. “See what we can do with them.”

“They’re out in the open now,” she said, looking down at the riders.

“Not all of them,” Virgil said.

“And they’re too open,” I said. “We’d have to cross a half-mile of open country to get to them. They are professional gunmen.”

“So you wouldn’t have a chance,” Beth said.

“Not a big one,” I said.

The deputies went out of sight around the curve of the hill.

“What if they sneak in behind you?” Beth said.

“Cato and Rose are up there,” I said. “Other side of that hill. Between us, we can see the whole circle of the compass.”

Beth looked up at the hill and then back down at the now-empty slope in front of us.

“Virgil,” she said.

“’Course,” Virgil said.

He was still watching the empty slope. I started to move away.

“No, stay, Everett,” she said. “You can hear this.”

I nodded and leaned back against the rock.

“My husband thinks you don’t like him,” Beth said to Virgil.

“I don’t,” Virgil said.

“Because of me?”

“Hard to like a man beats his woman,” Virgil said.

“I know. God, don’t I know that.”

Virgil didn’t say anything.

“But… Virgil, he’s trying. He’s trying so hard.”

“Trying what?” Virgil said.

I could see Beth take in a big breath.

“He’s trying so hard to be a man,” she said. “He come from nothing, and he was still a boy when we come out here, and the land and the children were enough to break him, and… and now it’s all plomped down on him: Indians, gunmen, killing. He’s lost his land, he’s trying to hold the other homesteaders together… He’s trying to hold himself together… It’s too much for him.”

“He been hitting you again?” Virgil said.

“No, Virgil, he hasn’t. I swear to God he hasn’t touched me since I left him before the Indians.”

“What would you like?” Virgil said.

“Don’t treat him like a boy,” she said. “Talk to him like he’s a man.”

Virgil stared at her for a long time without speaking.

“We meant something to each other,” Beth said. “It wasn’t just fucking. I know it wasn’t.”

“That’s true,” Virgil said.

“So please, Virgil, for me,” she said. “Just treat him like a man.”

Virgil nodded slowly.

“All right,” he said.