Doc - Mary Doria Russell [62]
Let ’em sneer, that was his motto. Stupid sonsabitches.
He was only thirty-eight, but he had already exceeded his boyhood dreams of wealth and power. In the six years since he drove his first stake into the ground, while the rest of the whole damn country was going bust, he had made himself quietly, securely rich, and groceries were the least of it.
Millions of dollars changed hands in Dodge each season and every penny of it passed through the massive safe Bob Wright had in his back room. Cattlemen, shippers, meat processors, the army, freight companies, the railway. They all had payrolls. They all needed transfers, checks, credit. They all paid fees and interest. No matter what it was or who was involved, Bob got a slice of every transaction. It all added up, and every single dollar was revenge for the snickers and jests of lesser men.
Of all the men Bob hated, and that was just about every man he knew, only Big George Hoover had ever taken Bob’s true measure. In a few months’ time, George might well take the mayoralty. Worse yet, he had applied for a license to open a real bank. There was only one conclusion: George Hoover was aiming to beat Bob Wright at his own game. And Bob would sooner sell his daughter to white slavers than let that happen.
So when the time was right, Bob brought the poker conversation back around to politics, and when it was his turn to deal again, he laid the cards aside. “Seems to me, Chalk, what you’re asking is, how do we cut the legs out from under Reform and make a buck doing it?” He looked around the table and saw no bright ideas waiting to be expressed. “How about if we don’t wait for the reformers to outlaw vice altogether? How about if we regulate it some, and tax it?” he suggested, like he was offering an idea that just occurred to him.
“No taxes!” Deacon cried.
“Well … All right, then, we could fine it.”
“Same thing,” Dog said, shrugging.
“But it’s not a tax,” Bob said innocently. “And then, see, we could use the fines to pay the men we hire to enforce the regulations. Wyatt Earp, for instance.”
“Oh, hell!” Chalkie cried. “Not that prig!”
“Well, see, I’ve been thinking—”
Deacon snorted. “Don’t hurt yourself, now, Bob.”
Bob joined in the laughter at his expense, but it was right then and there that he decided to open a hotel and put the Dodge House out of business.
“Well, see, Deacon, when I heard the Times might back Wyatt for Ford County sheriff, I thought, How about if the city appoints him chief deputy? It would make reformers who read the Times happy, and it would make Wyatt beholden to us, not George Hoover. What do you fellas think?”
“If Wyatt’s enforcing the laws,” Deacon admitted, “he’ll think he’s on the side of the Lord.”
“And he’ll be makin’ money off the fines,” Dog observed. “Which means you don’t have to pay him much.”
You, Bob thought. Interesting choice of words … It was time to shorten up on Dog Kelley’s leash.
Chalkie grinned. “The bastard’s bought—and he’s bought on the cheap. I like it!”
By the end of the poker game, the new ordinances had been discussed and written up. Public drunkenness was prohibited. Why allow cowboys to wander the street when they could be corralled inside, drinking and gambling and whoring? Disorderly conduct—understood to mean prostitutes soliciting during daylight hours—was also banned. Everybody knew where to find the girls anyway. No riding on the sidewalks passed without quibble. No horses above the ground floor of any building took longer.
“Don’t need that,” Dog argued. “Can’t get a horse to the second floor without ridin’ up on the sidewalk. That’s already illegal.”
“I don’t put anything past a drunken cowboy,