“Eamon need that?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” Wolfson said.

All the time we talked, Wolfson surveyed the saloon. It was kind of hard to see what he was looking at, because of the walleye.

“This is a new town,” Wolfson said. “We’re sort of just starting to figure out what we want to do here, you know?”

“And who’ll be in charge of doing it?” I said.

“Well, it ain’t come to that yet,” Wolfson said. “But you got the mine, you got the lumber company, you got us here in town, and you got a few sodbusters out in the flats below town.”

I nodded.

“They much trouble?” I said.

“Nope, ain’t that many of them,” Wolfson said. “Yet.”

“Other lookouts,” I said. “Wickman involved in running them off?”

“Yes,” Wolfson said. “Killed one of them.”

“Which you didn’t mention when you hired me,” I said.

Wolfson shrugged.

“Figured you might not take the job,” he said.

“Guys like Wickman weren’t around, there wouldn’t be work for guys like me,” I said.

“So you gonna stick?” Wolfson said.

“Sure,” I said. “But I may have to kill him in your saloon.”

“You think he’ll keep pushing?” Wolfson said.

“I think he needs to be the only rooster in the barnyard,” I said. “Or his boss does.”

Wolfson continued to look around the room for a time.

Then he said, “It’s a nice business I’m growing here. The store, the hotel, the restaurant, the saloon. Nice business.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Can’t keep hiring lookouts,” he said.

I nodded. He looked around some more.

“You do what you gotta do,” he said.

5.

Wickman came in late in the evening, wearing his fast-draw rig and his bowler hat. The hat was tipped down over his forehead.