Vanburgh broke the silence first. “You saw him?”
Lyle nodded once. “Yeah.”
“How close?”
“Close enough to smell the horse he was riding,” Lyle replied. “Rode right up while we were moving the freight.”
Vanburgh tilted his head, watching the smoke rise from his cigar. “That takes nerve,” he said.
“Or foolishness,” Bill rumbled from the wall.
“What did he want?” Vanburgh asked.
“Asked questions,” Lyle said.
“What kind?”
“Where we were headed,” Lyle said. “What was under the tarp. We played it cool, like it was idle talk...but he was watching, like he wanted to see if we’d slip.”
Bill’s voice came again, low and steady. “Didn’t seem like a man just passing through.”
Vanburgh took a slow draw, holding the smoke in his mouth before exhaling toward the ceiling. “He’s not.”
Lyle shifted his stance. “You know him?”
“I know of him.”
Vanburgh’s eyes flicked toward the gold pin on the map. “Anthony Hawk,” he said. “His old man owned the Eagle Rock parcel before the fire.”
“Just make sure it’s handled before the week’s out.”
“Consider it handled,” Lyle said, his tone calm but edged with pride.
“No,” Vanburgh said, the word sharp enough to still the air in the room. “I don’t want it considered. I want it done. Eagle Rock is the key to the rail spur, and the spur is the key to the new vein. Without it, the eastern investors start asking questions. Questions I don’t have time to answer.”
Bill spoke again, his voice a shade more cautious than before. “What about the Shoshone?”
“They’ll move,” Vanburgh said without hesitation. “Once the water’s bad enough, they won’t have a choice.”
“You’re making it bad enough,” Bill said. It wasn’t quite a question.
Vanburgh didn’t blink. “Progress requires sacrifice.”
“That Monroe woman’s still sniffing around, though,” Lyle said. “Hawk too. One of them might put two and two together.”
“Let them,” Vanburgh said, his smile thin. “By the time they figure it out, it won’t matter. You just make sure Hawk doesn’t live long enough to raise a fuss.”
Bill shifted his weight. “You want it clean or messy?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said, waving a hand. “So long as it’s final. And make it look like the territory got him. Bandits, accident, I don’t care. I don’t want the army sniffing at my door.”
Lyle set his hat on his head. “We’ll need the boys: Joel, Max, Dilan, Troy. Maybe Wesley and Silas.”
“Then bring them,” Vanburgh said.
The room went quiet except for the ticking of the wall clock, each second marking the distance between decision and action.
Vanburgh leaned back in his chair and let his gaze return to the gold pin on the map. He reached up and rested one finger on it, the nail clicking softly against the metal.
