Page 38 of The Prospector's Only Prospect
“Quiet,” Virgil said in a terse order for silence. “You got a gold watch, son?”
“I won it at cards.” He drew it from his pocket while eyeballing Sureshot. “From him.”
“Hell you did,” Sureshot said through chew-stained teeth.
“Let’s see it.” Virgil took the worn timepiece and opened it to see a B.E. engraved on the inside of the face cover. “This is valuable. You could have sold it and gone home to… Where you from, Rufus?”
“North of Chicago, sir. I thought about it, but then I thought, um…” He gulped down his entire Adam’s apple. “I thought Mrs. Davis might like it?”
“Why thehell—”Oh, fuck. Okay, that was a problem for another day.
“Who’s Mrs. Davis?” Wildfire Will asked, looking around. “You got women here?”
“None of your business. Stoney here will hold onto this watch until the rightful owner is determined.” Virgil thumbed at his friend, who was more inclined to scoop up a spider and take it outside than squash it, but Stoney knew how to stand tall and look mean. “Do you both agree to let our jury decide? Or do we take this watch to town, sell it, and split it even?”
“I want to do it here,” Rufus said, scowling at Sureshot.
“I don’t want to go to town,” Sureshot grumbled but sent a suspicious eye across the workmen, all colors and sizes, all filthy, most wearing beards. Several had taken off their hats to fan themselves in the afternoon sun. “They’re all your men, though.”
“They all have their own opinion. You’ll each count off six and Yeller will break a tie if there is one.”
Sureshot and Wildfire stuck their heads together as they looked over the motley offering.
“You got some kind o’ mange here?” Wildfire asked with a worried look on his face.
“Just get counting.”
Virgil waited while the jury was chosen. Once the twelve men were standing to one side, he asked, “You got any witnesses besides Bonfire Bill?”
“Wildfire Will,” he corrected. “And, yeah, there were other men—”
“No, there weren’t,” Sureshot corrected him.
“I mean, no.” Wildfire squeezed his hands into fists. “But I saw him steal it.” He nodded at Rufus.
“You saw Rufus take the watch, but you didn’t stop him?” Virgil clarified.
“Well, no. I…” He looked at Sureshot.
“You saw him—” Sureshot started to prompt again.
“No.” Virgil held up a warning hand. “You two had all kinds of time to get your story straight before you got here. Tell me, Whippoorwill, how’d he steal it? Pickpocket? Got into Sureshot’s tent? Broke into his room at the saloon? What?”
Wildfire frowned at Virgil’s adultery of his name. “He took it off a table at a saloon.”
“Because he’d won it?”
“Sureshot was three sheets to the wind.” Wildfire took off his hat to scratch into his sweaty hair. “He was supposed to save the watch and give the owner a chance to win it back, not—”
“Shut the fuck up.” Sureshot stepped forward to point at Virgil, then at Rufus. “Your boy took advantage. I was drunk and he tricked me into gambling it.”
“That true, Rufus?” Virgil asked, keeping his eye on Sureshot but motioning Rufus to come up where he could see him.
“Everyone was drunk in Horsefly,” Rufus said, shrugging his shoulders up to his ears. “My claim wasn’t paying, so I went looking for work. I sold some tools and played a hand of cards. I won the watch straight away along with a big pot. I stayed an hour and lost most of my other winnings, but I didn’t have a hand worth gambling the watch, so I left. I thought I’d sell it to get home, but I met Frenchie. He was coming here, so I came, too.”
“That’s true.” A barrel-chested man with a thick French accent pushed out of the gathered miners. “Rufus showed me the watch and told me that story. He wanted to go sell it in Denver. I said we should come here, that I heard we’d have wages and meals. We do, so we stayed.”
“I’m telling you, he stole it,” Sureshot insisted.
