Chapter Sixteen
The Copper Strike saloon had three virtues: cheap whiskey, poor lighting, and a bartender named Mack who'd already gotten used to the fact that Sam Cooper's presence at his bar meant questions were coming and the smartest course of action involved answering them without embellishment.
Sam pushed through the swinging doors about an hour after dark, having ridden the mare hard on frozen roads because sitting at the homestead after what he'd said to Evelyn would have required being a different kind of man than Sam Cooper had ever figured out how to be.
The kind who stayed and apologized and explained himself.
The kind who deserved a woman falling asleep at his sewing table making scarves for somebody else's cause.
He'd think about that later. Or he wouldn't. Right now he had business to attend to.
He took a spot at the end of the bar where the lamplight thinned out, ordered whiskey, and waited for Mack to finish pouring for a pair of miners before leaning in.
"I'm lookin' for word on a stranger what's been passin' through. Medium build, dark coat, dark hat. Keeps to hisself. Might've been drinkin' in here the past week or so. You recall anybody fittin' that account?"
Mack polished a glass, which Mack did when he chewed on things, the same glass, over and over. Sam reckoned the man would polish that glass on his deathbed while considering his final words.
"Can't say I do particularly, Sam. We get drifters through here most weeks, 'specially with the flea market and the fair comin' up. Dark coat and a dark hat—that'd cover about half the men in the territory come winter."
"This one would've stood out. Quiet. Watchful. The kind of fella what nurses one drink all evenin' and keeps his back to the wall."
"I hear what you're sayin', but I can't rightly place him. You might try old Haggerty over yonder."
Mack jerked his chin toward a table near the stove where Haggerty, a retired miner who spent most evenings in the saloon because his cabin depressed him, sat nursing a beer with the dedication of a man making it last till closing.
"He's here every blessed night, rain or shine. If your fella come through, Haggerty'd have took notice."
Sam carried his whiskey to Haggerty's table. The old miner squinted up at him through eyes gone milky at the edges from years of working underground by candlelight.
"Sam Cooper. You look like a man what's chewin' on a right sizable problem."
"I'm askin' after a stranger. Medium build, dark coat, quiet sort. Might've come through here recent."
Haggerty turned his beer glass between his hands.
"I seen a fella maybe a week back, sat right over yonder by the door.
Didn't palaver with nobody. Had one whiskey, sipped it slow, kept his eyes on the room.
I took notice on account of he never once took off his hat the whole time he sat there, which I reckon is poor manners in a drinkin' establishment, but I ain't the one to pass judgment.
" He scratched his jaw. "Can't tell you much more'n that.
He come in, he sat a spell, he left. Didn't make no fuss about it. "
A week back. The timing lined up with Sam's first sighting near the livery.
The man had been here, in this saloon, sitting by the door, watching the room.
Doing what Sam would have done if he'd been scoping a town, which amounted to planting yourself where you could see who came in, who went out, and learning the rhythms of a place before making your move.
Sam bought Haggerty a fresh beer for his trouble, then moved through the saloon putting the same question to two more regulars.
A freighter named Dawes recalled a man matching the description buying supplies at Harlow's—flour and jerky and cartridges—the kind of provisions a man laid in when he planned to camp rough for a stretch.
A ranch hand named Webber recalled seeing a stranger on the road south of town three days back, walking instead of riding, and heading north toward the homesteads.
Every fragment pointed in the same direction. Every fragment stopped short of confirmation.
Sam stood at the bar working on his second whiskey when the saloon doors swung open and Sheriff Foster walked in, sweeping the room the way lawmen swept rooms. His eyes found Sam at the bar and he crossed to him, pulling a folded paper from inside his coat.
"I figured I'd find you in here." Foster leaned against the bar beside him, dropping his voice below the noise of the room. "This here come in on the evenin' post from the territorial marshal's office. I reckon you'd best have yourself a look."
He unfolded the paper and laid it on the bar between them.
A bounty poster. Fresh ink, clean paper, the kind the marshal's office printed on good stock when they meant business.
A sketch occupied the top half, rendered in black ink with the care the better sketch artists brought to wanted circulars.
Angular jaw. Nose broken at least once, crooked at the bridge.
Dark eyes set deep under heavy brows. Thin mouth.
Below the sketch, in bold type was written:
AMOS WILKES. WANTED FOR MURDER, ROBBERY, ARSON.
REWARD: $500 DEAD OR ALIVE.
LAST KNOWN TERRITORY: MONTANA.
Sam stared at the poster for a long time.
The whiskey in his glass had stopped mattering.
The noise of the saloon had stopped mattering.
Twenty years of chasing this man through rumor and hearsay and false sightings and empty streets.
Twenty years of wondering whether the ghost existed outside his own head…
and now the ghost had a face on a fresh bounty poster with the words LAST KNOWN TERRITORY: MONTANA printed underneath it.
He hadn't been crazy. He hadn't been chasing shadows.
The man he'd spotted near the livery, the man who'd vanished at the flea market, the man who'd stood at Evelyn's fence line at dusk and told her he was passing through, that man existed and that man had a name and the territorial marshal wanted him dead or alive for five hundred dollars.
"When'd this come through?" Sam picked up the poster without taking his eyes off the sketch.
"This evenin's mail. I ran the records soon as I clapped eyes on the name, on account of you askin' after him last week.
" Foster signaled Mack for coffee instead of whiskey, which told Sam everything he needed to know about how seriously the sheriff took this.
"Marshal's office says Wilkes has been spotted in three territories over the past year.
They reckon he's been workin' on his lonesome since his old gang scattered back in the seventies.
Robbery, mostly. A killin' up near Billings last spring that matches his ways.
He's been movin' south through the territory for months. "
"Movin' toward what?"
"That there's the question, ain't it?" Foster wrapped his hands around the coffee Mack set in front of him. "Could be he's just passin' through, workin' his way south for the winter. Could be he don't even know you're here."
"He knows." Sam folded the poster and put it in his coat.
"He's been circlin' my property. I come across tracks along the fence line this mornin', boot prints, same ones I been findin' all week.
He opened my south gate last night, clean, no damage to speak of, just lifted the latch and left it standin'.
Old Haskell saw him three days back, askin' questions about the homesteads up the valley, about who lived where, about menfolk. "
Foster's cup stopped halfway to his mouth. "You're tellin' me Amos Wilkes has been scoutin' your spread?"
"I'm tellin' you a man fittin' his description has been scoutin' my spread, and now I got a poster that says Amos Wilkes is in Montana. You do the arithmetic, Sheriff."
The more Sam turned it over, the worse it looked. Wilkes could have opened that gate and come through, could have walked right up to the house in the dead of night, could have done whatever he'd come to do and vanished back into the timber.
Instead, he'd lifted the latch and left the gate standing wide open for Sam to find in the morning. He'd let Haskell see him, let the old man get a good enough look to give a description. He'd stood at the fence line at dusk where Evelyn could spot him and speak to him.
None of that added up to a man trying to stay hidden.
That added up to a man making sure Sam knew he was there.
Poking at him. Testing what he'd do. Wilkes had spent twenty years running from what he'd done in Missouri, and now instead of running he'd parked himself five miles from the son of the people he'd killed and started leaving calling cards.
Either the man had lost his mind, or he wanted Sam to lose his.
Foster set the cup down. "The fair's in two days, Sam."
"I know good and well when the fair is."
"It'll draw every family in the valley into town. If Wilkes is hereabouts and he's got designs on causin' trouble, a crowd that size gives him cover. It also puts a whole heap of innocent folks right up close to a man the marshal's office wants for murder."
"I ain't fixin' to let him ruin the fair. Evelyn's got a stall rented. Mrs. Montgomery needs that money. Folks been countin' on this for weeks."
"I ain't sayin' call off the fair. I'm sayin' mind who you drag into this here business.
You start huntin' Wilkes through a crowd of ranchers' wives and young'uns, somebody what ain't got no part in your affairs is liable to catch lead.
" Foster turned on his stool to face Sam straight.
"This here's a matter for the law, Sam. I'll put my deputies on watch.
I'll have men posted up at the fair. But I need your word you won't go playin' the lone hand on this one.
We do this proper, or we don't do it at all. "
"I'll handle it, Foster."
"That ain't your word, Sam."
"It's the best you're gonna get outta me tonight."