“Know where it came from?” I said.
“Nope. You?”
“Nope,” I said.
We both stood and looked musingly back along the street toward where I had been standing.
“There’s a fella, name of Wickman,” I said. “Kind of sharp face, little eyes. Wears one of them round bowler hats. Carries a gun in a fast-draw rig.”
“Koy Wickman,” the smith said. “You think he shot at you?”
“Just speculatin’,” I said. “Seen him around this morning?”
“Nope. It was Koy shot at you, though, he wouldn’ta missed.”
“’Less he was bein’ playful,” I said.
“You need to walk sorta careful around Koy Wickman,” the blacksmith said. “He’s pretty quick.”
“I’ll be sorta careful,” I said.
And I was. I walked sort of careful the rest of the way back to the Blackfoot.
4.
I was sitting lookout, with the shotgun in my lap. Wolfson was sipping whiskey and leaning on the wall next to my chair.
“Northwest of town,” he said, “there’s a big lumbering operation. Fella named Fritz Stark. Other side of the hill, on the east slope, is the O’Malley mine. Eamon O’Malley. Open-pit copper mining. There’s a rail spur shuttles through the valley, back of the hill. Picks up lumber from Fritzie Stark, copper from Eamon, and heads on east to the main line at Mandan junction.”
“Wickman works for the copper mine,” I said.
“Yep.”
"Why does a copper mine need a gunny?” I said. “Or is it just a hobby?”
Wolfson sampled his whiskey, rolled it over his tongue a little, nodded approval to himself.
“Pretty good,” he said. “Got it from a new drummer.”
He sampled it again.
“Koy Wickman’s a real gun hand,” he said. “Good at it, likes it. Most folks in Resolution walk around him pretty light.”
“What’s he do for the mine?” I said.
“I think mostly he walks around with Eamon, intimidates folks.”