“Lawson told me you were using those.”
“I told Lawson thirty dollars.”
“You exceeded?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Jenkins turned away.
Henrietta spoke.
“You were billed four hundred thirty pounds beef before we left.”
He stopped.
Stockyard noises continued around them.
Men shouting.
Cattle.
Wagons.
But their small circle quieted.
Jenkins turned slowly.
“What?”
Henrietta held invoice.
“Jasper kept copies.”
Caleb watched Jenkins’s face.
Nothing.
Too controlled.
“Jasper is gambler and thief.”
Jenkins shrugged.
“Exactly why I dismissed him.”
“You didn’t dismiss.”
“You sent orders.”
Caleb produced letters.
Jenkins looked.
Then smiled.
“Higgins forged my hand.”
“Telegram says otherwise.”
“What telegram?”
Henrietta’s stomach tightened.
They had not shown.
Caleb answered:
“Marshal’s.”
Jenkins’s smile thinned.
“You boys believe prisoner trying save himself?”
Saul stepped forward.
“It isn’t only him.”
Jenkins looked around.
For first time he seemed to notice twelve men standing not behind him but behind Caleb and Henrietta.
Jenkins laughed.
“So cook has turned crew.”
Henrietta’s expression hardened.
“No.”
“Hunger did.”
A stockyard agent approached.
“Mr. Jenkins?”
Jenkins waved him away.
The agent did not move.
“Actually, I need speak regarding sale settlement.”
Jenkins’s face changed.
The agent held a telegram.
“Bank instructed us to hold proceeds pending inquiry into wage and expense claims.”
Caleb looked at Henrietta.
Their copies had arrived.
Jenkins’s calm cracked.
“You cannot hold my money.”
“Buyer can.”
“I own cattle.”
“Then take it up with buyer.”
The men remained silent.
Jenkins turned on Caleb.
“You’re fired.”
Caleb almost smiled.
“After sale?”
“Now.”
“You and cook.”
Henrietta folded arms.
Jenkins pointed.
“And any man siding with you does not work Double Diamond again.”
No one moved.
He raised voice.
“Do you hear?”
Saul said:
“Yes.”
Levi said:
“Food’s better elsewhere.”
Mason laughed.
One by one, the crew stepped away from Jenkins.
Twelve men.
Jenkins stared.
“You’ll throw away wages?”
Caleb answered:
“Wages you planned to steal?”
Jenkins’s face reddened.
He looked at Henrietta.
“This is your doing.”
Henrietta shook head.
“You still don’t understand.”
“What?”
She gestured toward crew.
“They stopped believing you before they started believing me.”
That ended him more than insult.
The stockyard investigation took three days.
Jenkins tried to negotiate.
Blame Jasper.
Claim accounting errors.
But paper existed.
Letters.