Six Ways from Sunday, page 17
“All alone? Who’s driving the wagon? Who’s gonna help me drag a five-hundred-pound chunk of steel? Who’s gonna get under the car with a wrench and find out how to pull the nuts off them bolts?”
Carboy sighed. “How would you do it?”
Danged if I knew what he was jabbering about. Never work for someone that reads books, that’s my motto. They’re all nuts. Carboy sure was one of a kind. Instead of bossing me around, he was always real polite. Instead of insisting he knew how to do things, he was always backing off, saying he was mistaken. I don’t know how he bossed the Big Mother mine; that’s a tough bunch of miners, but there he was, halfway apologizin’ and backin’ off all the time.
“Do you have a better plan?” he asked.
Well, that’s the first time in my life someone asked me that. I stared at him like he was just plain loco. I ain’t known for having a better plan.
“I got to think on her,” I said.
“Do that,” he said.
He sure was something else. I thought I’d at least give it some thought before saddling Critter and vamoosing from there.
“Now what’s gonna happen at the mine?” I asked.
“My day shift is done at four. They change out of their duds and head for the saloons. The night shift starts at five. Scruples’ men are going to mix in with them, get past the guards. Then they’re going to rush the office and take over. They’ll shoot any guard who resists.”
“How do you know this?”
“I have ears where I need them, Mr. Cotton.”
“And what’ll you do to stop this?”
“Nothing. There won’t even be guards in the guardhouses.”
“I ain’t following you too good.”
“My guards will be here, protecting me. You see, grabbing the Big Mother’s not enough for Scruples. They need to extinguish any resistance, which means rushing this home. Never underestimate Carter Scruples, my friend. Taking over the Big Mother’s a diversion intended to draw me out of here. I think that by four this afternoon Rudolph Glan will be set up outside this house somewhere, and there’ll be a few thugs ready to rush us.”
“So you want me to help you here?”
“Oh, no, I want you to head for the railroad car and do whatever it takes.”
“But how’ll you keep yourself alive here? They could burn you out.”
“I suppose they could, but I have a few resources.”
He sure was calm, just settin’ there in his parlor, playing this mental chess with Carter Scruples. I wasn’t very sure I’d be seeing him ever again, at last not alive. For Carboy, war was outwitting the enemy.
“I tell you what, Cotton. This is a conflict of opportunity. Why don’t you just go looking for some?”
I thought Carboy was plumb crazy.
“You sure you don’t want me here?”
“Go,” he said.
I did like he told me. But first I put Critter into his barn and fed him good, because I didn’t want no stray lead hitting him, and for that matter I didn’t want them Transactions thugs to know he was there. Then I sort of ghosted my way to town through woods, keeping a sharp eye for Glan. I sure didn’t know what to do, and whether I was trying to help a crazy man.
I come into Swamp Creek from the woods, crossed the creek, keepin’ an eye out, and climbed them stairs to Celia’s rooms. I thought that was as good a place as any to watch the show, since I wasn’t gonna be part of it. And maybe Celia would need some protectin’, too. I knocked, but she heard me on them wooden stairs and opened right up.
“Oh, Cotton,” she said, and drew me in, and then durned if she didn’t hug me tight. I liked it well enough, but she wasn’t bein’ very widderly if you ask me, hugging me like that just a few days after she’d planted Armand Argo. But some widders were merry, and maybe she was a merry one. So I hugged right back for a while and things was getting pretty good when she sort of wiggled out. Her eyes, they was very bright. I could see what Armand Argo liked about her, all right. But there wasn’t nothing I could do about it except suffer.
“I just come from a crazy man,” I said. “He might own a gold mine but he’s got no iron in his spine.” I told her the whole thing about Cletus Carboy and how he was full of book notions and didn’t know what end was up.
She listened with a little smile on her puss. “Don’t you underestimate Cletus,” she said. “He’s tougher than you think. Cletus and Armand used to get together a lot, the two owning the biggest mines and all, and I sure got an earful. Cletus, he wants to make a name for himself. He’s been reading up on new books about how to run things, and he’s trying them all out. He’s real tough and he could flatten you in about two seconds, I bet, and he can do it to his miners, but he kept telling Armand that doesn’t make them miners work better or harder or brighter. So he sort of tries to inspire them, make them find their own ways to do better. His secret is, he wants everyone to be his own boss, so he doesn’t have to boss.”
That sure was a new way of looking at Cletus Carboy, seemed to me. How could he not be the boss? There’s workers that need flattening regular or they just mess everything up and loaf. I didn’t think much of Carboy, for sure. My idea of running a mine is to pound hell out of anyone messes up, or fire them quick. Miners ain’t much good unless someone’s pounding on ’em.
“He wants me to figure out my own way of getting that Transactions crowd out of Swamp Creek,” I said.
“And did you find a way yet?”
“Nope. I ain’t known for smarts, Celia.”
“You’re known for a few other things, Cotton,” she said, and I got all flustered up again. I swear, it was so bad, I was gonna get down them stairs before I got into real bad trouble. So I changed the subject real fast.
“There’s gonna be a lot of trouble this afternoon, Celia,” I said. “Them thugs are going to take over the Big Mother Mine between shifts. But that’s not all. They’s gonna hit on Cletus, too. They’re gonna try to get him out where they can kill him. But he’s wise to it, and got his guards at his place. And he’s got some plan or other to catch all the thugs inside his mine.”
She absorbed all that. “What does he want you to do?”
“Go hit the railroad car,” I said.
She stared blankly.
“Bust open that safe and get all them papers, deeds, claims, forms out of it, so Scruples don’t have a leg to stand on.”
“How?” she asked.
“That’s where Cletus Carboy’s full of book learnin’ and don’t know nothing.”
“It’ll be guarded,” she said.
“They’re leaving Lugar there to keep watch. The rest of them thugs will be raiding the Big Mother.”
She smiled suddenly. “Let’s do it.”
“Sure, we’ll just get past Lugar, get past Scruples, and maybe Amanda. They ain’t going to be holding licorice sticks in their paws, Celia. Then we bust open a safe and grab the stuff Cletus wants.”
“Can you take out Lugar? That’s all we need.”
“I can give her a try.”
She smiled at me, like maybe there’d be a reward if we got this here heist done right, and I smiled right back. I was ready for rewards, and thought I’d reward the widder lady, too, if I could.
Well, the afternoon took a long time spending itself. We couldn’t move until all them thugs was gone from Transactions and over to the Big Mother Mine. I looked out the window overlooking the main drag of Swamp Creek. I don’t know if it ever got a name. And the whole street was chock full of teams. There was a twenty-mule-team beer wagon stocking up the local saloons. There was a couple of long ox teams, maybe ten or twelve span, dragging in some mining equipment. Those teams went slow, but they could sure drag in some heavy stuff. These were all parked along the street while the teamsters wet their whistles. There’d be a lot of grunting and hauling later. One of them ox teams looked to be hauling a new stamp for the stamp mill, where the ore got the hell beat out of it so chemicals could get the gold out of the rock.
Me, I didn’t fret none. I didn’t have no plan. I thought I had to get the job done before them thugs all come back from the Big Mother. I didn’t know how to open that safe neither, but maybe a gun aimed at Scruples’ left ear might persuade him to spin that dial.
Long about four, we saw them thugs all dressed up as miners, in brogans and bib overalls and all, stomping through town just like all the other three-dollar-a-day men working in the stopes and drifts. They didn’t look like miners, though. I don’t know why. They looked like thugs dressed as miners, just the way a cop looks like a cop even when he’s not wearing his blue uniform. People sure have a look about them, all right. I saw Arnold all dressed up in denim, and I saw his sidekick The Apocalypse trotting along with a shovel. Mines don’t hire runts like that, but it didn’t bother him none. I didn’t see Glan, and I figured he was with the other bunch, aiming to polish off Carboy.
So the party was on. Carboy’s information was correct. Scruples was making his move this afternoon.
After all them thugs drifted by, going to jump the Big Mother, Celia and I slipped out the rear door and headed toward the Pullman Palace Car. I sure didn’t know what to expect. But if I could get Lugar out of the way, I thought we might come up with something pretty good. In fact, I got to thinking a little, and maybe we could get Scruples and Amanda out of that Pullman car like rats quitting a sinking ship.
Chapter Twenty-five
Me and Celia sort of ghosted through Swamp Creek. I was remembering that Scruples had warned me to git out or face a lead pill. So when I thought I saw one of them thugs in the shadows, I steered her into the Mint real fast.
Billy Blew raised his eyebrows at her bein’ in there, but he didn’t say nothing.
“Need a little corner to lay low for a bit, Billy.”
“You got it.”
“You gettin’ much trade?”
“Look for yourself.”
“I sure don’t see no one in here.”
“Most of my customers is gone. This was the watering hole for the small-time mine owners, and Scruples chased ’em off.”
“Even that bunch from the Hermit Mine?”
“Haven’t seen them in days. Truth is, Cotton, Scruples has got himself most every little mine in the area. There’s only the Big Mother left. And the Big Mother owns the stamp mill, so Scruples got to get both to own the whole kit and caboodle. Ain’t much good jumping all the mines and not owning the mill.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Scruples still had two big operations to pull off. Maybe three, if he intended to bust old Carboy out of his house.
“I’d like a drink,” said Celia.
Billy looked her over pretty close. “Sarsaparilla?” he asked.
“Sarsaparilla? Hell, a double red-eye.”
Billy was lookin’ right nervous. “I ain’t supposed to serve women, especially ones about your size and age.”
She dug into her coin purse and slapped a silver dollar down.
“Well, there ain’t anyone around anyway,” Billy said.
“I’ll have sarsaparilla,” I said.
He stared at me like I was loco, but I didn’t want no booze in my veins if it come to shooting it out.
He served us and got the change back to Celia.
“How come Scruples is going after the stamp mill last?” I asked.
“He can’t monkey with the deed. That mill’s not sitting on a mining claim. It’s not even listed in the books kept by Brashear. It’s not part of the Swamp Creek District, waiting for government deeds. The mill’s on township land, and the land under that mill is deeded to Carboy, and that deed’s on file in Butte. So Scruples can’t just barge in there and say it’s his. It’s gonna take some doing.”
I hadn’t known any of that. It was just sitting on the edge of town, hammering away day and night, ten stamps driven by a steam boiler, crushing ore from all the local mines on a consignment basis, pounding that ore so fine that the chemicals in the vats could leach the gold out of it. I didn’t know the whole deal, but I knew that ore had to be pounded to powder or them nasty chemicals couldn’t get a handle on the gold.
“Maybe Scruples don’t need the mill,” I said.
Billy, he just snorted, as if I was dumber than an ox.
Celia sort of snickered, and had another sip. For a sixteen-year-old girl, she wasn’t having no trouble skimming that red-eye down her gullet.
“Cotton, you got a lot to learn, if you don’t mind my saying so,” Billy said. “This here mill controls the whole district. They charge whatever they feel like charging. They can make or break any mine. You want to know what a mine owner does if he can’t do business with that mill? He loads his ore in freight wagons and hauls the stuff to Anaconda, forty miles distant. And you know what that means? All his black ink turns red. This is good ore here, but not so good it can be milled forty miles away by ox team and come out profitable. You follow me?”
“Sure do, Billy.”
“All right, here’s the skinny of it. Every mine, big and little, in the Swamp Creek District needs that mill. Without that mill, none of these mines is worth much. Whoever holds that mill, he’s got the aces in his hand. If Scruples owns every mine in the Swamp Creek District, and Cletus Carboy says he’s not gonna mill that ore, then Scruples is plumb outta luck, ain’t he?”
This sure was stuff I knew nothing about. “So what’s Scruples gonna do? He’s gotta have that mill, don’t he? Especially if he’s plannin’ on making a killing selling the whole district to some deep-pockets man?”
“Yep, he does, Cotton. I figure Scruples didn’t know enough about mining to figure that out before he got into this racket, and now he’s trying to get that mill.”
“What’s he gonna do, Billy?”
The barkeep shrugged. “Kill Carboy maybe. No heirs. Then, in the confusion, take over the mill and hang on to it legal or illegal.”
It bothered me that Carboy hadn’t said a word to me about the mill. Or why it was so important to the whole district. Without it, none of them mines would be profitable. But Carboy was a man who kept most of his plans to himself, and let you find out only what he wanted you to know.
Celia had downed the double and was grinning crookedly at me. I don’t care if a woman’s sixteen or sixty, a double red-eye’s gonna give her a crooked grin.
“Maybe I’ll marry you, Cotton. I’m feeling the need,” she said.
I was sippin’ sarsparilla and feeling itchy.
“I’m thinkin’ you ought to go to your rooms and rest up a little, Celia.”
“Hell, no,” she said. “You’re stuck with me.”
I didn’t mind that, but she was a little on the young side to get stuck with.
“I’m heading for the stamp mill,” I said. “It’ll give you a headache.”
“The red-eye already did that, Cotton.”
“It’s a dangerous place, Celia.”
“I’ve sat at card tables beside Armand holding a derringer and ready to use it on some lout,” she said.
She sure had lived a lot for a little girl. I gave up, and studied the street some, not wanting to run into them toughs filtering in. It was a good hour before four, when all the stuff was supposed to begin, and I knew they was getting ready. But I slipped out the rear door, with Celia tailing behind me, and started for the mill uptown a piece, along the alley.
“This town needs outhouses,” she said. “Why can’t men stay buttoned?”
“That there’s a question you shouldn’t be asking,” I said.
It was bright afternoon, and I worried about getting caught by a bunch of them thugs sitting in the saloons, and maybe Celia getting bad hurt, but we sort of ghosted along until we got to the edge of the main street, and the stamp mill was maybe a quarter mile away, through a lot of slag and waste. It wasn’t bad cover, all that dead rock piled up around there. Mining towns sure ain’t pretty, and mining can take a sweet little valley like Swamp Creek and turn her into a hellhole that poisons everything in sight. I could see all them forests dying, just because the mill was pumping a lot of bad stuff into the ground and the air. It was a wonder we didn’t all croak in that stunkup valley.
The closer we got to that thing, the more the earth trembled under our feet. That sure was something, those ten stamps hammering down on the ore running through. Them stamps, someone told me once, was three quarters of a ton of iron each, and they was all coming down on rock, smashing it to bits. They operated in some sort of succession, so the stamps was lifted up by steam power and then cut loose to hammer that rock. It got so I could hardly talk to Celia, and it made me wonder how them mill men could work in a place like that without going stone deaf. But they were around, often pushing rock and ore around, ignoring that hammering. I never saw the like, the way them stamps powdered rock so the metal could be got out. There was a bunch of vats where that powdered rock was mixed with some sort of stinkin’ chemicals to get the gold out. And another bunch was lookin’ after all that. Over to the side was the steam plant, with a big firebox below it, and there was a bunch of men doin’ nothing but shoving wood in there to make that steam. I never knew it took so much work and machinery and chemicals just to get a little gold outta some rock.
And that wasn’t the end of it neither, because there was half a dozen wagons of wood waiting to be unloaded. Woodcutters were whacking down the forests to keep that old boiler going, and it looked like every day that boiler crew went through several cords of wood that was supplied by all them woodcutters. Them boys was independent, and went off into the forests and chopped down trees and let them dry some and then whacked off the limbs and cut them into lengths. They were a bunch, all right, with arms as thick as fence posts and shoulders wide as an ox.
“It sure is scary,” Celia said. “I never saw it before. In town, it’s just a lot of steady noise a long ways away.”
“It’s a monster, all right. But every ounce of gold coming out of this here valley is milled right there. See all them wagons? Some are woodcutters, but others are from the Big Mother Mine, the only one still running, and all that ore in them wagons is shoveled out and run through here. You wonder how anyone makes a dime mining gold.”
