“What do we do with the bodies?”“Leave them. We’re not handing them a handle to grab.”Lane left the Border Ruffian corpses where they lay.The other side were men rabid to make Kansas a slave state.He chose not to feed men who wanted a spark to blow into a blaze from any small incident.The bodies with bullets planted in shoulder and brow would fill a vulture’s belly. A fitting end for Border Ruffians abandoned by their own.Lawrence sat south of the Kansas River.Crossing was primitive— a flat ferry hauled along a rope stretched across the current, letting the flow do part of the work.By the time they came up on Lawrence,Lane and his men drew up and reined in.“Follow this road and you’ll hit town soon enough. We’ve got business nearby.”“Understood.”“See you in a few days, then.”Lane led his men off and vanished.What business does a representative from Indiana have skulking around Kansas with armed followers?To make Kansas a free state, he’d chosen armed struggle. A man who put the gun before the talk.Thinking on this and that, Max found himself in Lawrence.“Whoa.”He took up the reins and bled speed.His jaw went slack at the sight of the town.Didn’t think it was this bad.Rows of tents instead of houses.War or a natural disaster—had to be one or the other.Anyway—Find my people first.Holliday’s words came back.— When you get to Lawrence, shout my name loud.— …And I’ll find your house?— Of course. You’ll spot me quick.Max stared blankly at the white tents lined along the road.The few people about eyed the unfamiliar Oriental with caution.Rather than ask them, he did as Holliday said and raised his voice.“Hol—li—day!”The shout rolled out big.Sure enough, a familiar man burst from a tent, a potato in his hand.“Oh-ho! You made it!”Well I’ll be… it was real.Max let out a helpless laugh.No guards around Holliday.“Right on the month we set. Come along.”“Where?”“My house, where else.”“Where’s your house.”“Right there. Pitch your tent behind it—that’s your place.”“…”From the way other immigrant families peeked out between the tents, it wasn’t just talk.“War? Or a disaster?”“What are you on about. Come inside. Just in time—had potatoes boiling for lunch.”I worked to fatten him up and he says… potatoes?Max turned his horse.“I’ll grab lunch and be right back.”“From where?”“Leavenworth.”“Six hours there and back. You’ll go again for supper?”“Then I’ll have to come for breakfast. Hoo…”Feels like I’m getting played.He’d called Lee Maksan a global pushover; he wasn’t much different.Max shook his head and swung down from the saddle.The inside of Holliday’s tent looked like a war refugee’s hideout.Buffalo hide spread over straw on the floor; a jumble of tinware and clothes lay to one side.“Cozy enough, isn’t it?”“…So why aren’t you building houses?”“A few snags.”Holliday handed him two potatoes and got to his feet to step outside.As they went, he introduced Max around and picked up the explanation where he’d left off.“The moment the Kansas–Nebraska Act passed, a company was set up to make Kansas a free state.”Under the banner We must not add slave states, the New England Emigrant Aid Company formed in Massachusetts back East, and they began gathering settlers to plant in Kansas.“But we pitched tents and put up shacks, and then a problem landed.”The NEEAC paid five hundred dollars to one Stearns, the owner of record, and took title.Then other men suddenly surged in, claimed it was their land, and demanded money.Bought off by the slave-state crowd, surely.That was the sensible read.“Can you settle it?”“Still negotiating. What they’re asking is absurd.”“Besides land—what else is the problem?”“Houses. Wood.”Max gave him a look.“People build in desert backcountry, but you can’t because you ‘don’t have trees’?”“No timber for building anywhere close. Worse, the local sawmill announced they won’t supply us.”“Plenty of spoilers.”“Even so, we’ll have good news soon. We found a mill in Leavenworth.”“Leavenworth?”“Run by Isaac Cody—a hot-blooded man against slavery.”Thunk.“Hey now—don’t you know how dear a potato is.”Holliday puffed the dust off with his hands and offered the potato back.“You still malnourished? Dropping potatoes?”“No—more to the point. Isaac Cody ran a sawmill?”Holliday looked at him like that wasn’t much to be surprised at, puffed the potato again, and handed it over.“Drop it again and you don’t get it.”“You know what?”Max chewed and spoke around the potato.“Isaac Cody got stabbed the other day.”Thunk.This time Holliday dropped his potato.Max picked it up, puffed it, and passed it back.“That’s what you get for living on potatoes. Anyway—he took a knife giving an anti-slavery speech in front of the pro crowd.”“So… he’s dead?”Max shook his head.“Stabbed in the shoulder—wasn’t fatal.”“Ha—thank the Lord. Don’t tell me you stepped in?”When Max nodded, Holliday grabbed his shoulders and shook him.“Truly—you did a great thing! Properly saved him.”The book just said ‘merchant.’ A sawmill, then.He’d helped Lawrence without meaning to.“Then let’s talk business proper. Where’d the guards I saw go?”“Home. They weren’t mine—men the company hired.”The NEEAC had hired former soldiers to protect settlers on the frontier. The men Max saw with Holliday in Missouri had just been assigned to him for a spell.The hitch was the short terms.Most left a few days before year’s end. Some remained, but as settlers themselves, they meant to put down roots.“Then who’s my employer?”“Me, of course.”“What do you want me doing?”Holliday suddenly leaned his face in close.“Protect me and the folks here.”“No sheriff here? Can’t you just seat someone in the chair?”“Sadly, no takers.”A raw settlement. Worse, a place where trouble sparked at all hours—no one wanted the job.Bringing one in from outside? The capable took one look at the tent town and turned their horses without a word.“Simple. Stay with me; when trouble flares, you fix it.”“You make it sound easy.”“It’s not complicated. Most of them farmed back East or worked on farms. Most haven’t even held a gun.”To block Kansas from becoming a slave state—out of conviction—or to climb from the bottom back East, they’d come. The rough West was fear and opportunity both.Either way, it seemed Holliday had hired Max with this in mind from the start.When disputes broke out and Holliday waded in, Max’s job was to cover him.I can see it. My future.Trusting Max’s skill, Holliday would wade into every dispute in sight.“At that rate, I’d be better off becoming sheriff.”“Well. I floated that, you know. The pushback’s heavy.”“Who’s going to give that chair to an Oriental who’s eighteen—no, now nineteen.”“Still had plenty in favor. The chair of this place, for one, was positive.”“Who’s the chair?”“Dr. Charles Robinson.”“Ah.”“You nod like you know.”I know. He’ll be governor of Kansas.The year the territory becomes a state—more exactly, the year the Civil War breaks out—he takes the governorship.Max had wanted to work with Holliday not just for the pay, but for the network clustered around him.“If the town chair’s for it, what’s the problem?”“The man against you isn’t small.”“Who?”“James Henry Lane. He went to see Isaac Cody in Leavenworth—maybe he’ll be back tomorrow.”“Oho…”Whether Max reacted or not, Holliday went on.“When his Indiana House term ends, he’ll settle here. Got name and fire both.”“I saw him on the way in.”“You did? He didn’t give you any? Try to shoot you or something?”“Not particularly.”Holliday stroked his jaw and said,“Anyway—Oriental, your age, and not even a resident. He knocked you for all of it.”I don’t have residency.“He’s got a lot of men. Can’t he put one of them up as sheriff?”“They’ve got other roles. Anyway—Lane, if you rub him wrong, might just shoot you. He’s a hard case.”With a man like that blocking, Holliday figured Max had little chance at the badge.That’s your view.Max slid his mental abacus out.What he’d gain as sheriff. What was coming in this place. He weighed it.And came to a conclusion.“I suddenly want the badge.”“Wanting doesn’t make it so.”“What’ll you do if I get it?”“That won’t—”“Wager me. If I do, you grant me one favor.”“What favor?”Holliday told him to spit it out.“Make me papers.”“Papers?”“I want residency.”Holliday thought a moment and snorted.“That thousand you left me—because I ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ can’t put it in a bank without papers, right?”“That’s not the only reason.”“Then?”“There are reasons. So—do we have a bet?”After a beat, Holliday nodded.“It’ll take time, but I can do it. If you become sheriff.”Max kept a calm face and made him promise again; Holliday shook his head and said,“Leavenworth put airs on you.”“Seems so.”“Strut in front of Representative Lane and he might really kill you. He shoots well.”“Sure, sure.”From that day, Max pitched his tent behind Holliday’s and lived there.He learned the town, met people, put names to faces.They need a meeting before they can pick a sheriff or not.He didn’t meet the man he most wanted—Chairman Charles Robinson. Nor James Henry Lane. The key players moved on tight schedules of their own.Breakfast and lunch were on your own, but come evening a party formed.Like a scene off the Oregon Trail, people gathered one by one around the fires after sundown.Women served food; children helped.Against the dead of winter, supper was the one happy hour in a hard immigrant day.There were several camps beyond this one, most much the same.When the meal ended, folks sang “The Kansas Emigrants’ Song” to a fiddler’s lead.It would be this way until houses rose.On the third day after Max reached Lawrence,a group kicked up a ruckus.When Holliday stepped up, a man jabbed a finger and shouted. A fellow named Mulduin—he’d popped up out of nowhere and insisted he was the landowner.“Holliday! How long are you pitching tents on another man’s ground? One more minute of this and I’ll smash the lot!”“We’re reviewing the land papers. You keep rushing us like this, how are we supposed to proceed? We need the facts.”“What facts! I’ve lived here years. Maybe I should just set fire to your tents.”Mulduin fronted three armed men and strutted. He even thrust a small oil can like he meant to make good on the threat.“How about I step in?”Max asked Holliday.He was about to answer after a beat—when another troop came in, dust billowing.“Oh! Representative Lane!”People cheered; Mulduin and his crew panicked. Maybe they’d heard the stories— they scrambled into their saddles.“Holliday—remember my warning!”“Lunatic.”Holliday snorted and set a hand on Max’s shoulder.Then, looking toward Lane’s troop, he said,“See? That’s Lane. That’s why I told you the badge would be hard.”As Lane drew almost up to them,Max said it plain.“I think I can swing it.”

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