a railroad age, Marlin thought. If you just moved fast enough, you wouldn't have to answer for anything. Rockefeller and Gould and Vanderbilt were proof of that. They were building a world that had no place for him.
He shook off the thought and said, "Then Britton got wise. He called Wallace in just to throw a scare into the old man, nothing worse than that. Of course your father didn't know that, and so he sent for me.
"Then you got involved. You figured your daddy was about to wind up dead. I don't think that bothered you too much, only what happens to the money if Wallace kills him? So you had a meeting with Wallace, and by the time it was over, you two had your own deal. Wallace brings the mortgage paper to you instead of Britton, and you cut him in."
Eva seemed to get calmer and calmer as Marlin talked. It told him he had the truth of it. "My only question is," he said, "what were you planning to do with Wallace when you finished with him? You didn't think your boyfriend Nash could handle him, did you? Or did you think he'd just go away once he'd run all your errands for you?"
Finally Eva smiled. "Nash is a sweet boy, but he don't know much about the real world. And neither do you, mister. I might sell my daddy's share, but not mine. I loved that land. Daddy was about to lose it all. Everything I did was just to keep the land that belonged to me.
"And I will keep it, too. You can't prove a thing against me."
Marlin realized he still had hold of her arm. He let it go and said, "Land. You people are crazy. You're all crazy."
He stopped at the bar to put on his greatcoat and take one last shot of whiskey. "You moving on?" the bartender asked.
"That's right," Marlin said. "Back to Dodge."
The man seemed satisfied. "That's a long ride," he said.
Marlin looked at the body on the floor. "Not as long as some," he said. He tossed a coin on the bar and walked out into the falling snow.
(c) 1976, 1993 by Lewis Shiner. First published in Fiction Liberation Front, July, 2007. Some rights reserved.
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