17The American Fork House was buzzing with angry, expectant energy. For the first time since he’d conceived of this idea of calling a public meeting to lay it all out in the open, Caleb was pierced by an arrow of doubt.
A couple of hundred farmers, miners, teamsters and nosy observers seeking scandal were crowded into the spacious bar room. A speaker’s platform had been set up along one wall so Caleb and the others could be seen and heard above the masses, but the bar was doing a roaring trade. Surely they’d stop serving beer as soon as the meeting got going? He’d imagined something sober and sedate, not this excited, half-drunk crowd already spoiling for a fight.
He surveyed the room and the tingle in his fingers was calmed at the sight of a good number of local sheriffs dotted around t
