70.

Frank Rose had liberated several bottles of whiskey from the Excelsior Saloon when he left. He and Cato and Virgil and I took one of them to our spot behind the rocks and passed it around.

“Redmond’s down there telling anybody he can get to hold still,” Rose said, “’bout the big battle out on his land.”

“His first time,” Virgil said.

“Think he actually fired that Winchester?” I said.

Nobody knew.

Above us the moon had waned into something a little more than half. There were a lot of stars, and we could see one another easily. I took some whiskey.

“So they’re down there hunkered behind their fucking barricades,” I said. “And we’re up here hunkerin’ behind ours.”

“And running low on food,” Rose said.

“Guess we got to go down and get them,” Virgil said.

Cato nodded and reached for the bottle.

“Think we should,” he said.

He drank, handed the bottle to Virgil, who drank.

“There’s still twelve of ’em by my count,” I said.

“Thirteen,” Rose said, “if Wolfson will fight.”

“Maybe we should keep sniping them off for a while longer, ” I said.

“Nope,” Virgil said. “They ain’t comin’ out. And I wanna go to Texas.”

“So we gotta go in,” I said.

“Yep.”

Nobody said anything. The bottle passed around some more. From the lumber camp we could hear an occasional domestic sound. Cook pot clattering. Children yelling.

“Think Redmond learned anything today?” I said.

“Nope,” Virgil said.

“Think he can ever learn anything?” I said.

“Nope,” Virgil said.

“Think he’ll beat his wife again?”

“Maybe not,” Virgil said.

The bottle came my way again. I took a drink.

“We can speak to him ’bout that ’fore we leave,” I said.

“Yep,” Virgil said.

He drank some whiskey and gave the bottle to Rose.

“There’ll be sentries posted in town,” I said.

“Sure there will,” Virgil said.

“So we can’t creep up on them so easy,” Rose said.

“Nope.”

We were quiet. The moon had moved west a little. The sounds from the lumber camp had died down. We heard an occasional night bird back in the woods, and somewhere below us and west a coyote was howling.

“They’ll come to us,” Virgil said.

Cato nodded.

“Why?” I said. “They sit tight and wait and after a while people will start drifting away. Not enough food, no way to earn a living, boredom, fear, they wait long enough we’ll have nobody to protect, and in time Wolfson will get what he wants without shooting anybody.”

“Two things,” Virgil said. “Wolfson’s stupid. He got no patience. Can’t stand not getting what he wants. And this looks bad for Lujack. He can’t drive off a bunch of sodbusters? ”

“And us,” I said.

“Four men,” Virgil said. “Who’s gonna hire him next time?”

“I wouldn’t,” I said.

“No,” Virgil said. “You wouldn’t. Also, he’s an arrogant sonovabitch.”

“He can’t believe he can beat us,” Rose said.

“Okay,” I said. “I see that. So what do you think they’ll do?”

“Don’t know,” Virgil said. “But they’ll do something. All we got to do is be ready.”

Rose leaned back against the rock. He looked up at the stars and took a pull at the whiskey bottle.

“Ain’t got all that much else to do,” he said.

Загрузка...