Page 24 of In These Hills

Gideon Cartwright nodded. Micah just stared.

“Now Cartwright . . .” Dodge faced him. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” Micah started in. “This big ol’ goon’s all fired up ’cause he heard that me and Mollie Jean been—”

Dodge planted his fist square in Micah’s gut. The younger man—almost a foot shorter but a good twenty pounds heavier, all of it lean muscle—doubled over and staggered back. But did not go down. Dodge knew if the man chose to fight, he’d have his hands full.

“Hackett, I said not to speak until I asked you a question. Do it again, and that’ll be one week off the job.”

Eyes hot, Micah glared but said nothing.

“Let’s try this a second time.” Dodge resisted the urge to shake off the sting in his right hand. “Cartwright, why’d you take a shot at him?”

“Hackett’s been dogging my Mollie Jean, sir. Won’t leave her be. She and me, we been promised since we was kids. Both our families say so.”

“Yeah, well, what does Mollie Jean say?” Micah laughed beneath his breath, and Cartwright plowed into him.

Despite Cartwright’s enormous bulk, Micah fought hard and dirty. Dodge finally drew the revolver and fired a warning shot into the cloudless blue overhead. Both men stilled, then gradually came to their feet.

“One week off the job for you, Hackett.” The man opened his mouth, but Dodge beat him to it. “One more word, and I’ll make it a month. And you know Uncle Jack will back me. Now get off the premises. I don’t want to see your face on these grounds for a week.”

Micah trudged off, fight still oozing from him.

“And that’ll be two weeks off the job for you, Cartwright.”

“But sir, he’s the one who—”

“I know he’s chasing after Mollie Jean. But that’s between you and her. You cannot bring a gun into the distillery. You know that. Much less fire on another employee. And right by one of the stills?” Dodge shook his head. “Frankly, I’ll have to run this by Uncle Jack. He may say to do more than two weeks.”

Cartwright’s brow wrinkled. “Meaning I could lose my job?”

Dodge nodded.

“Don’t it matter a’tall that I ain’t done wrong first? That Hackett did?”

Dodge held his stare. “The order of things doesn’t matter. Hackett doing wrong doesn’t make the wrong you did right. You see that, don’t you?”

Cartwright finally nodded. He glanced in the direction Hackett had gone, his jaw muscles working with emotion. “Why is it some women take to men such as Hackett like bees on a honey hive? His sort is rotten to the core, sir. How come they don’t see that?”

Thinking again of Kathleen, Dodge experienced the same searing pain he’d felt that morning. Yet he knew even though Cartwright had grown up with his sister—and was aware of what had happened to her—he wasn’t insinuating anything. While a plumb line of justice ran deep through Gideon Cartwright, not a hint of cruelty or meanness weeded his character. If only Mollie Jean could see and value that.

“I don’t know, Gideon,” Dodge said softly. “You best ask someone else on that count. I’m a farmer, a cattleman, and a crack shot. I know how to raise livestock, I can live off the land, and I know a fair amount about making good whiskey. But females . . . They’re a foreign study to me, and will likely remain as such.”

Gideon smiled. “Oh I don’t know, sir. I seen the way Rowena Gibbs been looking at you. Everybody in town sees it. They’re talking on it, too. ’Bout how she might be the one to keep you from heading west to Wyo-ming,” Gideon said, giving the last syllable more than its due.

Dodge shook his head. “Don’t give heed to that kind of talk. Rowena’s a child yet.”

“She don’t look like no child, sir. Not no more. And she done turned seventeen of late. Talk is, her mama’s all up on you and her daughter being paired up and hitched by summer. And you know Mrs. Gibbs.” Gideon’s eyes went wide. “She don’t take no from folks very kindly. Truth is . . .” He leaned in. “That woman scares me a little.”

Dodge couldn’t help but laugh, yet was eager to change the subject. “I think I can handle Mrs. Gibbs. What I can’t handle, Cartwright, is you, with a gun, on these grounds. Understood?”

The man nodded.

“But far more . . . I can’t abide the thought of this distillery without you being part of it. You’ve been working here almost as long as me.”

“Slopped hogs for you way back in the day, sir. Then you moved me up to overseeing hog killing time. Now look at me.” Gideon’s broad chest grew more so. “Seeing after vats of whiskey belonging to Uncle Jack himself. Who’d’ve thought it?”

Reaching up, Dodge laid a hand on his shoulder. “Take the next two weeks and settle things between you and Mollie Jean, whatever that comes to. Then unless you hear otherwise from me, report back.”