He claps me on my back. “Whatever it was, I respect a man who settles his debts. And I’ll be honest with you, I’d go out there with any blacksmith willing, but I’d rather it be you.” He lowers his voice. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do.” He’s got the look of a man ready to do what it takes to get his stake in the world. I bet every man who ever got rich had that look on him. “I’ll buy your forge myself,” he says.

“And the horses too?”

“I’ll buy the lot. Go settle your debt and come west with me, Henry. This is the chance of a lifetime.”

“Partners down the middle?” I ask, seeing the possibilities.

“With me coming up with all the money to start us off? And the whole idea mine in the first place? Twenty percent is all I’ll be offering you. But you wait till we get there. Folks’ll pay a pretty penny for a good wheel at the last sight of civilization. Twenty percent of a fortune is still a fortune.”

“I suppose it is.” I shake on it, and hope that Sarah will see the sense of it. “There’s a woman,” I say. “I’ll be taking her with us.”

Ennis drags a hand over his face. “Women make things complicated, Henry. They slow you down and they talk too much.”

“I won’t go without her,” I say.

He drums his fingers over the rough wood of the bar. “The thing is, you’d have to explain to her family about our plans for going west, and there’s no accounting for who they’d tell.”

“Why would that matter?”

He leans close and drops his voice. “Right now, there’s one fellow out there doing what we’ll be doing. One man. And not the sort most folks like doing business with, if you catch my meaning.”

He means he’s a cheat, I guess, or else his work can’t be trusted.

“If we get there, folks will come to us, see? But not if you go running off your mouth and giving us competition.”

“We won’t be telling her family,” I say.

Ennis looks at me, surprised. “I’m getting the lay of it now. You mean to run off with her.”

I do, but not in the way he’s thinking of it. “In a manner of speaking,” I say level and even.

He rubs his beard, considering. “I’ll not get in the way of you and your girl, but don’t think you’ll come to me when her da comes hunting you down with a shotgun.”

“Well, he won’t be doing that,” I say. “So you’ve no need to worry on that account.”

“And I won’t have her slowing us down. It’s a rough road for sure, and a rugged life. She better be use to hard work because it’s no picnic heading west.”

“She can handle the work,” I tell him. “She’s used to a no-picnic kind of life.”

“Well then,” he says, “I guess it’s settled.” He knocks the bar for the keep to bring two more whiskeys.