“But I?—”
The station agent stopped the protest with a stern look and pointed toward the door. Finn hung his head and heaved a sigh. Mr. Collins was unmoved. He kept his arm extended and his fingerpost firmly in place until Finn shuffled out. When the door closed, he sat back on his stool, adjusted his spectacles, and sighed almost as heavily as his grandson.
“He’s a trial, Mr. Longstreet. Growing like a weed, but still a trial.”
Morgan thought he heard more affection than complaint. He shrugged. “It’s been remarked the same about me.” It was his recollection that there had been more complaint and less affection.
Mr. Collins nodded. “I reckon it’s a universal truth about boys. We are all of us trials.” He set his folded hands on top of the counter. “What can I do for you, Mr. Longstreet? Don’t often have the chance to inquire how I can help. You’re still a stranger to town.”
Morgan ignored this last observation and spoke only to the question. “Is the train running on time?”
“Since you’re standing here now, I suppose you’re asking about the two-forty train and not the one that passes through at eight.”
“Yes. The two-forty.”
The station agent checked his pocket watch. “You’ve got twenty minutes, Mr. Longstreet. Last communication was about an hour ago. No reason to expect No. 486 is going to be anything but on time.” He pointed to the long bench in front of the window. “You’re welcome to wait there. I offered the same to George and Abby, but they’re too excited to sit. They’ve been waiting since one thirty just in case the train arrived early. Son’s coming home from college. That’s something, I can tell you. Buster coming home and being a college graduate. Only one other person in Bitter Springs with that kind of education.”
Morgan watched Mr. Collins’s prominent Adam’s apple bob as the agent took a deliberate pause and swallowed. Morgan supposed he was expected to ask after the identity of the only other person in Bitter Springs who could claim an alma mater, but he decided against posing the question. It would make him seem interested, and he wasn’t. He also figured that Collins would tell him anyway, and he was right.
Bitter Springs was the kind of town where you learned things whether or not you wanted to know them, and guarding secrets required the kind of vigilance that wore at a man’s soul. Morgan was better than content to live outside the town proper.
“That’d be the schoolteacher,” Mr. Collins said, filling the silence. “Mrs. Bridger. The marshal’s wife. But then, you probably guessed that.”
Morgan thought he might actually prefer Finn’s fussing to the station agent’s familiarity. He made a quarter turn so he could see the platform. The Johnsons had not moved. Morgan did not like his choices. There was the rock, and then there was the hard place. Stepping outside almost guaranteed Buster’s proud parents would lasso him, while staying at the counter meant he would remain Mr. Collins’s captive. He did not want to sit, but the bare bench was looking more inviting.
“I think I’ll wait over there,” he said, lifting his chin toward the window.
“Suit yourself.”
Morgan sat and struck a casual, even negligent pose. He leaned back against the window, stretched his legs, and tugged on the narrow brim of his pearl gray Stetson so that it shaded his eyes. If Mr. Collins read the signs meant to deter further conversation, he ignored them. Morgan sighed inaudibly when he heard the station agent draw a breath.
“You know my grandsons would have been happy to take your delivery out to the Burdick place. You could have saved yourself a trip to town.”
“It’s that kind of thinking that keeps me a stranger,” Morgan said.
“How’s that again?”
“It’s not the Burdick place any longer.”
Mr. Collins frowned. “Did I say that? Didn’t mean to. Takes a while to get used to, the Burdicks bein’ gone and all. Only been three years. And you’re the second owner since the property was sold at auction. Reckon it’ll be the Burdick place until folks know you’re the sticking kind.”
“I’m sticking.”
“Saying so doesn’t make it so.”
Morgan recognized the hard truth in that. The Burdicks were early settlers to Bitter Springs, arriving as the railroad was being built. The rails moved on, so did most of the men, but those who stayed behind saw opportunities. Uriah Burdick had been a cattle rancher who benefited from the proximity of his spread to the new depot. The way Morgan understood it, Burdick had acquired land and power in equal measure until his ranch was the largest in the southeastern quarter of the Wyoming Territory. His influence extended beyond the bank, the land office, and the marshal’s jurisdiction and marked a clear trail to Washington. For all intents and purposes, Uriah Burdick and his three sons had been the law in Bitter Springs for more than twenty years.
When the Burdicks were finally driven off like so much cattle, the spread was taken over by a consortium of eastern speculators. They lost interest when they were unable to acquire an important government contract for water rights and hydraulic construction. Morgan did not care about that. He was able to purchase the spread for well below the original asking price, below even what the speculators had paid for it.
Under the management of the speculators’ foreman, the ranch acquired the legal name Long Bar B. It was a name of convenience since it meant adding only a single bar to the B brand that the Burdicks used. As far as Morgan could tell, no one ever called the ranch the Long Bar B. It wasn’t clear that many people knew the Burdick place had a new name. What was clear was that it didn’t matter. Morgan figured that at twenty-nine, he had maybe another twenty-five or thirty years to prove that he was the sticking kind. He would need every one of them. In all likelihood, his ranch would not be known as Morning Star until he was buried under it.
Mr. Collins tapped his thumbs together. “Must be a special mail order to bring you around.”
“Must it?”
“I have a suspicion that you don’t like coming to town.”
Morgan shrugged. He didn’t dislike it. Mostly he would rather be doing something else.
