In the last part, Ben worked training horses to the harness in Lake City. A reacquainting with the Tolsens allowed him to meet Livvy’s William Ferlonson.

The next spring found Ben in Telluride, helping Livvy’s William lay out the town. Livvy accompanied her new husband, the contract expected to last throughout summer. A rooming house for Ben afforded the couple their privacy in a rented house. Ben immediately convinced the town council to set aside two parcels to be sold for churches at either end of town: one for the starch-collared souls, and the other for the more casual, the stiffness more in their backs than collars, the common laborer types.

+++

Rarely out of his second-floor office above his saloon, a room he often thought could make him more money with an added girl using it more profitably, Mason Salinger enjoyed the view of Telluride, watching the goings on. Every man passing by was a potential customer. Mason Salinger, the same man as Ben and Sheriff Watson had run out of Creede, laid claim to a large portion of every dollar in their pockets and totes in the town of Telluride. His enjoyment came to an end the day Ben rode into town. Seeing him on the streets nearly every day made it worse, knowing that he’d soon have a church built; and be busy poisoning the town against him. Costing him money. Disrupting his life. Souring his every meal. Salinger unconsciously gripped his pistol handle every time he saw Ben, not realizing that with every glance out the window he was no longer enjoying the view, but searching out blue-eyed Ben Persons. Instead of thinking about opening a bank, he was wondering where he would go next if Telluride threw him out. He saw no other end. Other than an end to Persons.

The summer drew on interminably. Studying his account books, Salinger noted that while whiskey sales were up each month, as of the date he first saw Persons, gambling table profits were down, as was the trade of his girls. It seemed that they were doing more drinking than anything else most nights. And since Persons arrived, he’d lost two girls. Up and disappeared. Those were the first he lost.

That fall, not seeing Persons’ surveyor friend for a few days, Salinger learned that the couple had returned to Creede, leaving the do-gooder behind.

+++

The mining camp of Keystone was down river on the San Miguel, a couple miles west of Telluride. Some of the folks most inclined to have a church built in the region worked mines in Keystone, which differed from most camps because the miners brought their families with them. One of the families, Gerrard and Clara Fugler, came west on the same wagon train as had Ben, recognizing him by chance the day they’d registered their claim that past spring.

Ben felt the calling take him and Red down the San Miguel. While his mind advised winter accommodations, his sense urged him into the mining camp. Ben had never assumed, or presumed that because he was used of God, that his meals would float from the sky as manna. He, like every other, concerned himself about sustenance and protection from the elements. The biting wind ignored, Ben gave no thought to the looming nightfall, but followed the haphazard trail into Keystone.

“Ben! Ben Persons!” Gerrard was ecstatic. “God sent you. I know he did. Come in. Come down from your horse. I see you have the same one. A good horse. Come in and see Clara and our little Mary. Clara and Mary, sounds good, yes? I saw you in town weeks ago but then lost you.”

The month-old infant let out a healthy squeal as the two entered the rough-hewn aspen log cabin. Her timbre, even as the squeal turned to a shriek, foretold a rich soprano.

Gerrard, twelve years Ben’s senior, found Clara working at a canvas supply company in St Louis. Selling his homesteaded forty acres to a neighbor for barely enough to outfit a wagon and pay a wagonmaster. Gerrard then sought a wife, a woman willing to travel west. As he sought materials to finish his wagon, Gerrard saw Clara gazing at a departing wagon train. He proposed on the spot, promising that they’d be members of the next train. Miraculously, Clara didn’t conceive until their Keystone cabin was built.

“Ahh, Mary, baby,” Gerrard took the infant from her mother, who tried to rise from their bed, a humble pallet that took up a third of the small abode.

“No, my lamb, don’t get up. Look, Ben Persons!”

Clara managed a smile in her silent greeting.

“Clara … struggles to recover. She … something isn't healing. She ...”

Ben raised his hand for Gerrard to stop. “Gerrard would you mind taking Mary outside, give me a minute with Clara?”

Without hesitation Gerrard snatched Clara’s wool overcoat from a peg near the door and bundled the whimpering infant, mumbling more to himself than Ben as to how he knew that God would send someone to help. He knew Ben to be a college-trained preacher, good with animals, and easy to like, the limit of his knowledge of the young man. But his spirit bade obedience.

Once out and the door closed, Clara attempted to speak, “My milk …”

“Shhh. I know. Lie still.” Ben began to pray aloud, thanking God for the young family, thanking him for giving them a daughter, thanking Him for keeping their souls in His care. Reaching to Clara, his right hand hovering over her, he gently touched her forehead with his left. “In the name of Jesus, your son, I’m asking complete and immediate healing for Clara. Lord, you know her need. Your daughter needs your Holy Spirit. Touch her parts, fill her with milk, but most of all give her an overwhelming sense of your presence. Let her see what I see, Father, a healthy, happy mother and husband, raising little Mary, and an abundance more in her long and faithful life.”

Had Gerrard been in the room to see Clara’s response, he most certainly would have disturbed her healing, as dead as she appeared, her lower jaw slightly gaped, her eyes only half shut. Her pallor, though, had there been better light, could have been seen to be gaining color by the moment.

Ben quietly left the cabin.

“She’ll be fine,” he told Gerrard. “But is there someone you can take …”

“Yes, the Simmermans across the river there.” He pointed at a cabin half dug into the canyon wall. “Their baby is running into the river to play every day. Martha keeps her on a tether – has to. Little Mary has kept her in milk. I think they have saved her life.”

“If she could keep Mary for the night?”

“Yes, I know she will. And in the morning?” Gerrard looked to his cabin.

“Clara will be wanting to nurse Mary’s breakfast. Be sure Martha knows that.”

Tears filled Gerrard’s eyes, streaming down his face as he hugged Ben, little Mary’s screech of discomfort breaking him loose.

+++

“Halves of everything we break loose of the mountain’s grip. This summer hasn’t been so good,” Gerrard pledged.

“We’ve been fine,” Clara said as she moved Mary to her other breast. “It was good that we already had gold enough to see us through until Ben arrived.”

Gerrard’s nodding again shook his flimsy table. “Yes! And now we can start fresh. Halves.”

“God has blessed me, Gerrard. I have much more than I left Missouri with. We’ll put whatever share I earn aside and see what happens.”

Gerrard’s nodding again shook the flimsy table.

“Gerrard, show Ben the claim. Introduce him around. You’ll need to add on to our cabin before you two can do any mining. Come back some time after noon and I’ll have this place cleaned up and a proper meal.”

Without a word, choked for a voice, Gerrard kissed his girls. Clara mouthed a “thank you” to Ben as he offered his smile, his beaming face encouraging her own.

+++

“What happened to the river?” Gerrard’s question matched that of other miners of the community as they came down from their mine some weeks after Ben’s arrival.

“It just dried up,” another miner said. “Like God turned off the spigot.”

It hadn’t completely dried up, pools here and there, but the normally vigorous flow was completely stopped.

“Don’t think this was God’s doing,” Ben said, putting away his whittling. “I’ll saddle Red and see what I can see.”

It was mid-December. The temperature had dropped, but the snowfall was manageable. Those that remained to work through the winter were faring well. Most of Ben’s time, rather than working the mine, he spent putting up firewood and hunting, bringing in enough venison to feed the settlement. He did take time, though, to get one of Salinger’s girls to marry one of the miners, with blessings of acceptance from all the wives.

Returning to Keystone after his investigation, Ben called for a general meeting.

“They built a dam.”

The clamor stopped Ben’s report. Waiting for quiet, he continued. “Looks like they’ve been working on it quite a while. Just dropped some blocks in place to begin holding the water back a few days ago. I rode in asking for a job, to get a closer look around. Salinger from the saloon financed it. They said I’d have to go see him. Pretty sure they knew who I was why they said to see him.

“Anyway, it was obvious they’re going to hydraulic mine.”

+++

Again, the boisterous murmuring and shouted questions interrupted his delivery.

“No, it’s not for water for Telluride. With pressure from the dammed up river, they’ll shoot jets of water to the hillsides blasting away in a minute what it would take a week for a man to move.”

“And make the San Miguel undrinkable,” a man shouted.

Another added,” And come spring that dam will burst.”

“Wiping out Keystone,” injected another.

“What are we to do?” read the panicked faces of the gathered.

“We can move on,” Ben said to the gathered people of Keystone, full well anticipating the responses. He was not surprised by the calls for battle against Mason Salinger.

Being Ben’s partner afforded Gerrard the respect of silence as he held up his hand to speak, as if a school child. “If we blow their dam now, before it fills, what will happen?”

Everyone stayed their thoughts.

Ben, accepting his position of authority and counselor, replied, “First, cabins close to the river, including ours, will likely wash away. You all probably know how that would play better than me. Then Salinger will send men, probably not his miners, but some he’ll send for and move us out. With guns, most likely.”

Those whose jaws weren’t fixed in a gape murmured among the group.

Anticipating the question, Ben raised his voice to be heard over the clatter. “The law might be on our side, but don’t count on help. Help wouldn’t get here in time. And there’s no reason to think that Salinger couldn’t buy them off.

“‘Fraid we’re on our own.”

“Would the law abide us blowin’ their dam today?” Gerrard asked.

The last of the grumblers quieted.

“Doubt the law could put it back up. Might arrest anybody caught damaging others’ property.”

“Earth ain’t his property!” someone shouted to a chorus of “amens”.

“Might be seen the same as blowing up his house,” Ben replied.

“By a jury?” the shouter asked.

Ben shrugged. “First is to pray what God would have you do.” The crowd quieted more than if Ben had killed them all. “Then the next thing is to get off the river, everything you don’t want to end up fifty miles away and ruined. I’ll go see Salinger.” Ben walked away, leaving the community to discuss and decide.

Finding Ben in their cabin, Clara asked, “Would Salinger buy us out?”

Ben thought a moment before asking how much she thought it would take to satisfy each family as Clara began to assemble their few valuables and furnishings, preparing to store them up the river bank.

Making the largest mistake of his life, Ben saddled Red and rode to town, confident in his judgement, not taking his own advice to consult God.

+++

“A thousand dollars a claim,” Ben said, standing in front of Salinger’s desk, not offered a seat.

After time enough to make a variety of uncharitable facial expressions, Salinger replied. “I wouldn’t pay a hundred. Why should I pay for what I can get for free? For a hundred dollars a claim, I could send those rock-cullers sliding down the mountain on their …”

“Mister Salinger …” Ben began, interrupted by Salinger’s attendant strong man, Max,  bear-hugging him from behind.

“Take him out and teach him to go back to wherever he came from. Or at least not to come back without a gun.” Turning his glare to Ben, “You’ve messed with me for the last time.” He attempted a punch with a half-clenched fist, yelping at the pain to his hand. “And make him pay for that, too!” he yelled, squinching his face in pain as he tucked his hand into his armpit.

“Pleasure, Boss.”

Ben did not resist being physically maneuvered down the stairs. Once outside, he spun out of the tough’s grasp and strode to the center of the street. Salinger’s man, Max, grinned, flexing his muscles, slowly making his way to Ben. As Ben raised his arms defensively, he heard a warning shout to look out. Another Salinger man, Jones, was advancing from behind him. Ben ducked in time to cause the butt of a pistol to glance off the side of his head, rather than crush his skull where his soft spot had been twenty-two years past. Ben fell to his knees, his head reeling.

“Pick him up,” Max told Jones.

As the man holstered his pistol, Ben spun, his aching head causing his eyes to clamp shut. Instinctively, as he raised his fists, he kicked straight outward, catching Jones full in the groin. Jones instantly dropped into a fetal position, rolling in the street, more like a groaning pill bug than a man.

With a ferocious roundhouse, Max slammed Ben to the side of his head, knocking him to the ground, nearly unconscious. His kick followed to the same concussed spot, fracturing his skull.

“Now, you pick him up,” Salinger told Max, having followed them outside, pistol in hand.

This time, Ben was unable to spin from the bear hug that cracked a rib.

Salinger made a full fist, catching Ben square on his nose, breaking it with a loud crack, flooding Ben’s face with blood, his shirt already bloody from his head injury. Salinger drew his pistol from the holster at his stomach as Ben struggled to his feet. Max, Salinger’s burly tough man, edged forward, waiting for a signal to completely destroy what remained of Ben. Turning to the thug, Ben attempted to focus, one eye already swelling closed. As Max physically flinched, Salinger cocked his double action pistol, raising it to point at Ben’s chest, his arm out-stretched.

Clumsily, Ben closed the ten-foot distance, walking directly into the handgun, tottering Salinger to his heels. He stared as Christ might have at Satan while hanging on the cross.

“Hold it right there!” Wheezing from his run after having been sent for by on-lookers, the Telluride Marshall shouted as he rounded a building corner. He had run the three blocks from his home. “Stop. Right now, Salinger. Lower the gun.”

He did, awkwardly shuffling his feet for balance as he tottered backward. The Marshall yanked the gun from his hand. “Somebody get this man to the doctor,” the Marshall ordered. In his scan of the witnesses he saw Jones edging to the back of the gathering crowd. Turning to Salinger, the Marshall pushed him away from Ben, speaking as he backed Salinger, the joke of a human specimen, toward the saloon. “Been waiting for something like this. Knew it was coming. You have forty-eight hours to sell your interests in this town, pack your gear, and get out.”

“You can’t do that! Marshall, there’s no way I can get any kind of price under those terms.”

“I can, and I am, and you will.” The Marshall turned his attention to Ben, who’d gently resisted assistance from others. “Son, you need to see a doctor.”

Closing his eyes from the pain that had just then worked its way through the adrenaline, Ben managed to ask for his horse and help getting mounted. His mouthed words of being alright were unheard, but understood.

“Somebody loan me a horse," the Marshall yelled out. “I’ll see you home then,” knowing that Keystone was a short ride, but long enough for Ben to fall off and break his neck.

“Forty-eight hours,” he yelled back over his shoulder. “From this very minute.”

+++

Two miners were new to Keystone, arriving in the middle of that summer. They were at the end of their grubstake, financed by none other than Salinger himself. Middle-aged men who’d laid claim to failed mining attempts all about the San Juans, they’d yet to see either gold or silver.

True to form, as is the case in many circumstances, debtors find reasons to hate their benefactors. They manufacture reasons that loans need not be repaid, finding causes in support of either inflicting injury, or at least to delight in their hurt. A better opportunity would never arise. Taxing two sticks of dynamite from each Keystone resident, they argued merely to be ready, preparing in the event that Ben directed the dam’s destruction, something everyone knew would have to happen eventually, and the sooner the better.

The sticks bundled and blasting cap set, the two crept afoot up the drying riverbed, reaching the base of the dam unseen even before Ben was struck by the first blow. As quietly as they could, they burrowed into the rock-filled, earthen dam. They hadn’t considered the length of their fuse until the moment before placing the charge. “Gotta give us ‘nough time to get outta here,” one said. The other man, estimating that it would take less than a minute to climb the river bank, cut the fuse at two minutes.

The fuse lit, the first charged down river, back the way they’d come. The man who lit the fuse, figuring that his partner had settled on the best way out of the water’s path, followed, wishing that they would begin climbing the bank with every stumbling stride.

The explosion was fierce, rocketing stones and debris upward and down the streambed. Water vapor created a cloudlike fog that confused the workers all around the dam site. The chute of the canyon served as a rifle barrel, pummeling the two before they could escape.

Keystone folk watched the corpses float past, the wash only a few feet higher than normal after a big rain. They’d heard the explosion, paying it no heed as it sounded like an ordinary day of hard rock mining. It was the noise of rushing water that drew their attention.

+++

The remainder of the winter saw Ben nursed to health in Keystone, a semblance of his old self, but now suffering from blackouts and occasional seizures with any excitement or stress. He walked with a mysterious staggering hobble, no obvious injury to his hips or legs. He sometimes stammered for words, preferring silence to the difficulty of speech. Ben’s prayer life included repentance for his taking matters into his own hands rather than waiting for God’s resolution.