Of course, Conn wanted nothing to do with those things now. Besides, he was not here for pleasure of any type. He was here to honor a promise sealed by the death of a good man.
He tethered the gelding and walked the muddy streets of Stump Run, which were filled with lumberjacks.
They were a rough and rugged lot, these woodcutters and river pigs, and no one knew that better than Conn, who’d lived and worked among them for a tumultuous time years earlier.
He recognized none of the men roving these streets in packs but recognized their thick builds and bearded faces, their confident swaggers and loud voices. These were the high climbers, the tree fellers, the log riders, men who faced death every day and tried to drink themselves to death every night.
The fights among them were legendary.
But that was all behind him now, that hard, rollicking life among the timbermen, and he ignored the lumberjacks and went straight to a crew of young men talking outside a saloon and asked if they knew where he could find Junior Sheffield.
“You the law?” one of the young men asked dubiously.
“He ain’t the law,” one of the other guys said. “Look at him.”
“I’m a friend of his father’s,” Conn said.
This seemed to satisfy them, and they directed him to a saloon called The Stump House.
He walked down the street and entered The Stump House, which smelled of sawdust and sweat and stale whiskey. The place was quiet at this hour, at least as quiet a saloon serving river pigs ever got.
The lumbermen sat in packs here and there across the open room, talking and drinking and laughing and telling loud stories, but most of the tables were empty.
Conn took one look around and immediately spotted Junior, who leaned against the bar, talking with the bartender.
He looked like his father, only younger with a full head of black hair. He was tall and lean with big hands and the same bony face only instead of a big, drooping mustache like Bill Sheffield had worn, Junior’s was neatly trimmed like a gambler’s.
His clothes, however, sure didn’t look like a gambler’s. They were shabby and needed laundering. He stood there with one boot jacked up on a stool, displaying the big hole in his sole.
Conn walked over and said his name. He made it a question even though he had no doubt.
Junior stood a little straighter and narrowed one eye. “Who’s asking?”
“My name’s Sullivan,” Conn said and held out his hand. “Conn Sullivan.”
Junior hesitated but shook his hand. “All right, Sullivan. What do you want? You don’t look like a lumberjack.”
“I’m not. I was once. But that was a long time ago.”
“If you’re looking for a job, head out to the camp. They’re always hiring.”
Conn shook his head. “I’m not here for a job. I’m here to talk to you.”
Junior leaned back a little, looking leery but also looking like he didn’t want to show it. He lowered a hand casually to his belt close to his gun. “All right. What do you want to talk about?”
“Might be better to talk in private.”
Taking his cue, the bartender drifted away.
“This is private enough,” Junior said.
Conn sensed fear in Junior. It was a thing he noticed in men, a thing you had to notice if you wanted to survive in places like this. Contrary to popular belief, fear made men dangerous, especially when they loathed their own dread and tried to hide it, as Junior clearly did.
“All right. Have it your way.”
“I always do,” Junior said, and Conn glimpsed something else in the boy, something hard and unpleasant, a bit of surly grit that might be part of why he and his father had quarreled. “Now, why don’t you quit beating around the mesquite and tell me what you got to tell me.”
“Your father is dead,” Conn said.
