Chapter 10
“Cartwright!” Dodge yelled.
The man turned, a wild look in his eyes.
“Lower the gun,” Dodge commanded. “Now.”
“But, sir, you got no idea what he done to—”
“Doesn’t matter right now what he did, Cartwright.
You’re standing smack in the middle of a distillery!
” Dodge glanced at the handful of workers backing off to one side.
“You get off another shot, and this whole place could go up in a fireball. Us along with it! So lower the gun and stand down. Then we’ll talk through things. Get to the bottom of it together.”
His face ruddy with rage, Cartwright begrudgingly complied, still glaring at Micah Hackett. “You’re a lying, cheating snake of a coward for doing what you did.”
“I ain’t done nothing she didn’t want me to do. Just ask her!”
Cursing, Cartwright raised the gun again.
“Hackett!” Dodge stepped forward. “Shut your stupid trap, you fool! ’Less you want your chest blown open. Now Cartwright, give me the gun. And we’ll talk it through like I said.”
“But I—”
“Now!”
With a desperate look that said he hoped Dodge would make good on his promise, Cartwright finally did as asked. Dodge released the hammer on the single-action revolver and checked the cylinder. Five bullets left. Cartwright had come to do business.
Dodge tucked the gun in his back waistband and gestured toward the door. “Outside, gentlemen.”
Hackett shot Cartwright a smirk as he passed, and Dodge was tempted to clock the idiot upside the head himself.
The Hacketts were a surly bunch with egos to match.
Micah worked on the line in the distillery and had a way of getting under a person’s skin, and enjoyed doing it, too.
Two of his five brothers were farmhands, herding cattle and helping with the pigs.
Hard workers, for the most part, but all three had mouths that wouldn’t quit and a loyalty to family that cut across all else.
Wrong one of them, and you’d wronged them all.
Still, whatever Micah had done, Cartwright wasn’t one to pick a fight without cause.
A bear of a man, Cartwright, once justifiably riled, didn’t forget. Some called him simpleminded, and he did have a peculiar innocence about him for a man full grown. But Dodge would take that over hotheaded pride any day.
He slammed the door behind them, tossing Jessie a firm look that said to stay where she was, while curious employees gathered to check out the ruckus.
He held up a hand. “Everything’s under control, folks.
Get on about your business.” The crowd slowly dispersed, though some hung on the fringe to see what would happen next.
Dodge turned back. “Neither of you men are to speak until I ask you a direct question. Do, and you’ll regret it. You hear me?”
Gideon Cartwright nodded. Micah just stared.
“Now Cartwright . . .” Dodge faced him. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” Micah started in. “This big ol’ goon’s all fired up ’cause he heard that me and Mollie Jean been—”
Dodge planted his fist square in Micah’s gut. The younger man—almost a foot shorter but a good twenty pounds heavier, all of it lean muscle—doubled over and staggered back. But did not go down. Dodge knew if the man chose to fight, he’d have his hands full.
“Hackett, I said not to speak until I asked you a question. Do it again, and that’ll be one week off the job.”
Eyes hot, Micah glared but said nothing.
“Let’s try this a second time.” Dodge resisted the urge to shake off the sting in his right hand. “Cartwright, why’d you take a shot at him?”
“Hackett’s been dogging my Mollie Jean, sir. Won’t leave her be. She and me, we been promised since we was kids. Both our families say so.”
“Yeah, well, what does Mollie Jean say?” Micah laughed beneath his breath, and Cartwright plowed into him.
Despite Cartwright’s enormous bulk, Micah fought hard and dirty. Dodge finally drew the revolver and fired a warning shot into the cloudless blue overhead. Both men stilled, then gradually came to their feet.
“One week off the job for you, Hackett.” The man opened his mouth, but Dodge beat him to it. “One more word, and I’ll make it a month. And you know Uncle Jack will back me. Now get off the premises. I don’t want to see your face on these grounds for a week.”
Micah trudged off, fight still oozing from him.
“And that’ll be two weeks off the job for you, Cartwright.”
“But sir, he’s the one who—”
“I know he’s chasing after Mollie Jean. But that’s between you and her.
You cannot bring a gun into the distillery.
You know that. Much less fire on another employee.
And right by one of the stills?” Dodge shook his head.
“Frankly, I’ll have to run this by Uncle Jack. He may say to do more than two weeks.”
Cartwright’s brow wrinkled. “Meaning I could lose my job?”
Dodge nodded.
“Don’t it matter a’tall that I ain’t done wrong first? That Hackett did?”
Dodge held his stare. “The order of things doesn’t matter. Hackett doing wrong doesn’t make the wrong you did right. You see that, don’t you?”
Cartwright finally nodded. He glanced in the direction Hackett had gone, his jaw muscles working with emotion. “Why is it some women take to men such as Hackett like bees on a honey hive? His sort is rotten to the core, sir. How come they don’t see that?”
Thinking again of Kathleen, Dodge experienced the same searing pain he’d felt that morning.
Yet he knew even though Cartwright had grown up with his sister—and was aware of what had happened to her—he wasn’t insinuating anything.
While a plumb line of justice ran deep through Gideon Cartwright, not a hint of cruelty or meanness weeded his character.
If only Mollie Jean could see and value that.
“I don’t know, Gideon,” Dodge said softly.
“You best ask someone else on that count. I’m a farmer, a cattleman, and a crack shot.
I know how to raise livestock, I can live off the land, and I know a fair amount about making good whiskey.
But females . . . They’re a foreign study to me, and will likely remain as such. ”
Gideon smiled. “Oh I don’t know, sir. I seen the way Rowena Gibbs been looking at you. Everybody in town sees it. They’re talking on it, too. ’Bout how she might be the one to keep you from heading west to Wyo-ming,” Gideon said, giving the last syllable more than its due.
Dodge shook his head. “Don’t give heed to that kind of talk. Rowena’s a child yet.”
“She don’t look like no child, sir. Not no more.
And she done turned seventeen of late. Talk is, her mama’s all up on you and her daughter being paired up and hitched by summer.
And you know Mrs. Gibbs.” Gideon’s eyes went wide.
“She don’t take no from folks very kindly.
Truth is . . .” He leaned in. “That woman scares me a little.”
Dodge couldn’t help but laugh, yet was eager to change the subject. “I think I can handle Mrs. Gibbs. What I can’t handle, Cartwright, is you, with a gun, on these grounds. Understood?”
The man nodded.
“But far more . . . I can’t abide the thought of this distillery without you being part of it. You’ve been working here almost as long as me.”
“Slopped hogs for you way back in the day, sir. Then you moved me up to overseeing hog killing time. Now look at me.” Gideon’s broad chest grew more so. “Seeing after vats of whiskey belonging to Uncle Jack himself. Who’d’ve thought it?”
Reaching up, Dodge laid a hand on his shoulder. “Take the next two weeks and settle things between you and Mollie Jean, whatever that comes to. Then unless you hear otherwise from me, report back.”
He returned Cartwright’s revolver, holding on to it until the man nodded in silent understanding. Cartwright shoved the pistol into his waistband and strode toward town.
Jessie gave a little whine from where she sat, and Dodge signaled. She trotted over to him, and he knelt down and gave her a good rub. “You’re the one female I do understand, girl.”
She licked his chin, and he kissed her on the head, eyeing the graying around her muzzle. Six years wasn’t old for an Australian cattle dog. They could live up to fifteen years or more. But as he rubbed her, he found himself hoping she would live much longer.
He spent the next half hour discussing both men’s absences with their supervisors, then addressed employee concerns. Opinions were divided. Some sided with Cartwright, never having liked the Hackett brothers. Others thought the man to be a fool who deserved to be fired outright.
With Jessie at his side, Dodge headed to the little white house that served as the distillery’s office to get a final reading on his decision from Uncle Jack, but heard the man yelling even before he opened the door.
“Confounded, stupid safe!” Jack took a step back as though he might haul off and actually kick the floor safe a good one.
“You do that, sir, and I’m pretty sure the safe’s going to win.”
Jack stopped mid-stride. “I hate this dad-blamed thing. Can’t ever get it to open.”
“Did you try the combination?”
Jack looked first at Jessie then at him. “Morning, sweet girl. And Dodge, don’t make me cuss you this early in the morning. I’ll do it.”
Smiling, Dodge crossed to the safe and carefully turned the dial, feeling the almost imperceptible click of tumblers give way within the steel door. The handle complied without resistance. “There you go.”
Jack muttered something beneath his breath. “I’m gonna haul off and shoot this thing one day.”
“Best stand back a fair piece, if you do. She’s likely to give it right back.”
That drew a laugh. “Safes are a lot like women, aren’t they? All-fired hard to get them to open up to you, but when they do . . . Mmmph, what treasures await. Unless of course, they won’t shut up!”