Donovan Caine cleared his throat. Tobias tore his gaze away from Warren and stared at the detective. The dwarf gave Donovan the once-over, dismissed him as unimportant, and turned his attention back to Warren.

“Have you thought any more about my latest offer?”

Tobias Dawson asked in a voice that was pure twangy country.

Warren’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll tell you the same thing I’ve been saying for two months now. I’m not interested in selling a soda pop to you, much less my store. You coming down here and asking me every other day isn’t going to change my mind. No matter how much money you offer me.”

Tobias leaned forward and spit. Tobacco juice stained the wooden plank an ugly brown at Warren’s feet. “Now that’s a damn shame, especially considering the most recent, more-than-generous offer I made you. Why don’t you do the smart thing and sell out, old man?”

“Because this store, this land, has been in my family for more than three hundred years,” Warren replied in a testy tone. “And I’m not letting someone like you come in and strip-mine it like you have the rest of the mountain.”

Tobias sighed. A long, drawn-out see-what-I-have-to-put-up-with sigh that sounded as phony as Jonah McAllister had at the Pork Pit. “Now, you know that it’s not exactly strip-mining, Warren. It’s called mountaintop removal, and there’s nothing illegal about it. We’re just getting the coal out of the ground the quickest way we know how.”

“And leaving everybody else with your mess,” Warren snapped. “Like I said, I’m not interested in letting you do that to my land. My whole backyard’s turned into a damn sinkhole already from you and your mining.”

Tobias’s face hardened, and his mustache bristled with barely restrained anger. “I’m tired of waiting you out, old man. You can either sell out now, and get a good price for your land. Or—”

“Or what?” Warren snapped, cutting off the dwarf ’s threat. “You’ll send some of your boys over here to make me see the light of day? You’ve tried that before, and it didn’t work. A couple of shotgun blasts in their asses sent your boys running for the hills.”

Tobias glared over his shoulder at his men, who all shuffled on their feet and stared at the ground.

I looked at Warren with a little more respect. Violet had told me that Warren had fought off Dawson’s goons by himself, but I hadn’t realized the old coot had put buckshot in their hides. Brave but stupid of him. Because Warren’s shotgun and sheer stubbornness must have been part of the reason why the dwarf had decided to go after Violet instead.