Ben was set to leave Keystone, intent on following God’s leading. Keystone and his friends were safe from Salinger, who Ben had had a hand in being kicked out of yet another town. Sadly, though, Ben had taken a beating, suffering a head injury when he acted on his own, ahead of God.

“It’ll be fine,” Ben assured Clara and Gerrard. He hadn’t felt more competent in weeks.

“But your seizures, your fainting spells …” Clara insisted.

“I have work to do. You know it’s right. The pass is clear. Red will not fail me. I need to go to Ophir. There’s work to be done.” With that, he drew Clara into a farewell hug, gently patting her back. “Can’t thank you enough, Friend,” Ben said to Gerrard, shaking his hand. Ben guardedly mounted Red, careful not to make any sudden moves. “It wouldn’t do at all to fall off in a wad in front of his anxious friends at this point,” he thought.

+++

Mason Salinger had made his forty-eight-hour deadline of vacating Telluride, the Marshall and two others, deputized for the chore, standing vigil as the appointed hour approached. The Marshall was a visible presence in and around Salinger’s properties the entire time, Salinger’s operations being the sources of more complaints than the other saloons and bordellos combined.

Knowing the condition behind the forced sales of the two saloons, the claptrap hotel, and the mining claims owned by Salinger, the offers were worse than lowball. Salinger found no buyer at all for the claims, everyone knowing that they were for the taking after abandonment and no one wanted the tainted properties badly enough to risk money.

Salinger managed to move two of his older working girls, who felt they might not be treated as well by a new manager, two barrels of whiskey, and a lock box of Treasury Notes, Gold Eagles, and Half-Eagles. Salinger and the two maidens rode a wagon pulled by a team that had seen their best years, and may not see another mountain pass, at least not without off-loading the whiskey. Max and Jones rode horses in not much better condition.

Their destination of Montrose proved too ambitious for the stock, barely making Placerville, a community already burgeoning with saloons. In a building barely able to resist the winter’s fury, hardly a customer, cash dwindling, Salinger managed to put together stock and supplies to strike out for Ophir the next spring. Ophir, a new community, was to be his restoration, returning to him the wealth that he figured was stolen from him by Ben Persons.

+++

Ophir was mostly canvas, buildings more on the order of square yurts, tents struck on wooden platforms. Only a few permanent structures had been built, a few more being put up at the time of Ben’s arrival, the arrival that was observed and reported immediately to Salinger by Max.

“A bullet this time, Boss. A 44-40 right between the eyes.”

Salinger glared at his employee.

“We can hold him ‘til you get there, somewhere way out of town. You can be the one to do it,” Max continued.

“No. Not that way. The man is golden. These mountains love him. His body would be found and you know who they would all come for. They’d shoot you, but hang me. That pup is going to die, but we have to be smart about it. He has to come after me … in the wide open. Plenty of witnesses. Self-defense, plain to everybody.”

“Boss, he won’t do that. He’ll stand there like …”

“He will. Oh, he will.” Salinger raised his hand from resting on his pistol to his chin. “You remember that little missy he was so tied to?”

“Isn’t she married to that surveyor?” Jones asked.

“No matter. He’ll come. And ready to fight this time. You two go to Creede. Get her. And I mean quiet. You wait as long as it takes to get her when she’s away from her husband. He’ll be away at work somewhere. You get her out of there at night. No one sees, understand? You knock her out, booze her up, whatever, just get her. And wait until dark to bring her here.

“Persons sees her dazzled up in here, he’ll come.”

+++

“Ben Persons!” Arville, the stage coach shotgun rider shouted. “You’re perfect! The stage job, a wrangler, a lawman, and even a miner! Yeah, I’ve kept up with you. A lot of folks have. You could run for governor! Am I glad to see you!” Arville Johnston clapped Ben on his shoulder as soon as Ben lighted from Red. “Am I glad to see you!” he repeated. “You saved my life. And don’t think I don’t know it.”

“Wasn’t me. I just prayed.”

“Well … it was you who prayed! See those burros? In the pen yonder? I know they’re short. Anyway, I have forty of ‘em. We’re gonna team ‘em up and train ore over to Silverton. These can carry a hunnerd an’ twenty pounds each, live on a hat full of straw, and smile at you. A day over the pass and then back. Water at Mineral Creek. Every trip a different team. Over and back.”

“There’s a smelter in Silverton?” Ben asked.

Arville, nodded, grinning. “And there’s profit to be made in foodstuffs or general mercantile goods that we can haul back. Miners bring me the ore. I pack it into burro packs, load ‘em, and you lead ‘em over the pass. We could take turns. Every other trip.”

“How about I do the pass every trip. Red and your horse take the turns?” Ben replied, smiling, the left side of his face not quite the same as the right. Ben knew that the enterprise would be short lived, but would profit until a smelter was finally built in Ophir.

“Did you manage to send for your gal?” Ben asked.

“I did. And didn’t,” Arville replied. “Sent for her all right. Her reply asked if she could bring her new husband, him being fired from John Deere.” Arville laughed at his own telling.

Ben shook his head in commiseration.

The men shook hands, Arville still laughing. “Let me show you where you can stay. We’ll get you some town food, such as it is.”           

Ben was learning the names and quirks of twenty burros as he led the tethered animals east, figuring out how best to pace Red. The views majestic with mountain ranges, peaks and overlooks, Ben ignored the discomforts and relished in God’s handiwork. He barely arrived in Ophir, and was already preparing to head back out, a job that he felt blessed to have. Ben noticed the Avalanche saloon, instinctively knowing who owned it.

Salinger learned of Ben’s burro operation the same day, delighted in the arrangement.

+++

It was a full three weeks before Max and Jones returned with Livvy.

“Boss, like you said,” the burly Max reported. “Her husband, the surveyor, was around all day and all night for near a week before he lit out, packed like he’d be a while. The girl, she’s gonna have a baby, Boss.”

Salinger’s eyes furrowed. “How …”

“Oh, you can barely tell. But I heard ‘em talkin’,” the quieter one named Jones said. “Reason she ain’t gone with ‘im.”

“Where is she now?” Salinger asked impatiently.

“Tied up in an abandoned mine just south a’ here. We’ll bring ‘er in come full dark,” Jones answered.

“One of you should’ve stayed with her,” Salinger admonished.

Max continued his tale as if uninterrupted. “Then she spends a lot a’ time with her mother, over to her mother’s place,” Max added. “But we did it. Jones came up with the plan. Got a buggy from the livery. Told ‘em a girl wanted it to follow after her man. The owner gave us a real squirrelly look, asked what girl, but we didn’t say. He rented it to us anyway.”

“Hah! We didn’t even know where he was goin’, her husband,” Jones injected.

Max continued the narrative. “That night we were outta there with her hog-tied and a sock in her pie hole. Shed the buggy ‘fore we got to Hogback Mountain. We put ‘er in britches an’ a hat an’ …”

“You didn’t …” Salinger looked Max up and down.

Max understood. “No Sir, Boss. Stupid, we ain’t. That boy comin’ ta get her be after you, not us.”