Six Ways from Sunday, page 8
It was the place all right, and some moonlight was helping me. I parked Critter in the woods again, and then I yelled up that slope to the mine.
“Agnes, it’s your old friend Cotton,” I said.
There wasn’t no reply.
“It’s Cotton,” I yelled.
That damned shotgun of his went off, but I was too far away.
“It’s Cotton and I want to talk.”
This time, I saw something fly through the air with sparks spitting from it, and I dove to the ground just in time. One of his DuPont Specials, it blew off firing tenpenny nails all to hell and back.
After my ears quit ringing, I yelled at him again.
“Dammit, Agnes, I want to talk. Let me in.”
“Boll Weevil is what you are. Working for Scruples.”
“I quit them.”
A long silence followed. I was feeling pretty mournful.
But then he worked up to what he was gonna do. “You walk up here by your lonesome. With your hands high up in the sky. If there’s trouble, you’re gonna be full of nails.”
I went and did her, all right. I sure didn’t know what I’d do if one of them bombs spitting fire from the fuse sailed my way, but it didn’t. I got up there to the shacks and the mouth of the mine, and didn’t see him.
But he says from somewheres, “Turn around slow so I can see your backside.”
I did it, twice for good measure.
Then he appeared from somewhere. “How’s old Cotton?” he asked.
“Hungry. I want some flapjacks.”
“Now you’re talking my language,” he said.
“Yeah, and I got a few more things to tell you, too.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted his flapjacks. They were made from some blue sourdough goo that he let percolate for years at a time so it’d get real ripe, but I didn’t have no choice. I had a reg’lar hole in my belly by then.
“You fry and I’ll talk,” I said.
He was agreeable to it, so that’s what he did and what I did. By the time he had a stack for me to eat, he knew all about what was happening down the valley, and about Rudolph Costello Glan, and what was in store for Joseph St. Agnes Cork.
Those were the most gawdawful flapjacks I ever put a fork to.
“And what’re you gonna do?” he asked.
“Keep you alive,” I said, not so certain I could manage it.
“I can keep myself alive, so go to hell, Cotton,” he said.
“You’re stuck with me,” I said.
“No I ain’t. You’re fired.”
“I’m sticking. And them were the worst flapjacks I ever ate.”
“Oh, all right,” he said. “At least you’re honest.”
Chapter Eleven
Aggie Cork was scouring out the tin plates with sand while I was skunkifying the neighborhood after all them flapjacks.
“I ’magine we oughter go,” he said. “Nothing here no more.”
That was my thinking, too. It was twilight, but there was still light enough so that a bullet from Glan could knock out our lights.
“You got any place to go?” I asked.
“Hell, yes, dandy little shut-down mine three miles toward town. Scruples and them, they scared off the owner, Bob Brass, and no one’s seen him since. It’s a good little pocket mine with plenty of ore left. He called it the Lola Montez Tunnel, honor of the lady he loved. They shut it down, but maybe we could sneak in and start her up.”
I cut loose with another fart, and yet another. Cork eyed me. “That’s how I kept people out of here,” he said. “But it don’t matter now.”
“How come it don’t matter?” I asked.
“I ain’t got anything to live for,” he said. “Pinched-out mine here I was hoping to unload on some sucker, and nothing much up the road.”
“How’d you take up prospecting, Aggie?”
“I lost my sweetheart in the fight at Chickamauga, and it ain’t been the same since.”
I was trying to figure that out, and thinkin’ maybe I didn’t want to partner with this here lonesome miner after all, when he got me squared away.
“My sweetheart, my honeybunch, Emmy Lou, she was in the outhouse there, doing her business while that battle was raging half a mile away, and a Reb minié ball came straight through the quarter moon of that one-holer and in one ear and out the other. Wasn’t for three more hours till they found her, and it took three weeks to get word to me, and my life hasn’t been worth spit since then. There just wasn’t nothing to do after that, ’cept get a mule and a pick and go off on my own somewheres.”
He carefully put out the fire now that dark was closing in, and pretty quick we was in darkness. Then he was collecting his few possessions.
“Why don’t you leave that there blue stuff behind for the next fellers?” I asked.
“Leave my sourdough starter behind? I’ve been using that since I was first on my own, age thirteen, and it’s just gettin’ good!” he said.
“Well, it didn’t poison me,” I said. “But it tried.”
I helped him load up his two mules, one of which he’d named Emmy Lou in honor of his lost love. But he put his DuPont and his caps and fuses on the other mule, the one named Richard. That was the worst name for a mule I ever heard. One bit of wisdom I got from my ma was, never trust any Richard.
After we got Emmy Lou and Richard loaded up, I drifted down to the woods and got Critter, who bit my shoulder in gratitude, and we joined up on the two-rut road along there, walkin’ in starlight and laying farts behind us, which was sort of a policy in case someone was following. But no one was.
“Old Bob Brass’s mine’s a dandy,” he said. “I figure Scruples probably just killed him and dumped him somewhere, because Bob Brass was a catamount who wouldn’t quit. Maybe we can work the mine real quiet, and Scruples won’t notice, and we can keep ourselves in beer,” he said. “If we ever find old Bob, we’d owe him a share.”
There wasn’t no road up to that mine, just a trail I couldn’t see, but Aggie knew where to go, and he steered us off the valley road and through some foothills and up a canyon to the lonesomest hanging valley I ever did see. And there was the mine, driven horizontal into a red cliff, like the rest around there, and a well-built mortared rock house. The mine mouth had been piled with rubble to keep fellers like us from taking Scruples’ gold from him. But I figured old Scruples, he owed me a little wage, and I’d help myself here if I could.
Aggie knew right where to put stuff. He eased the powder into a vault off a way, and put the caps and fuse in another place, and then we carried his truck into the rock house there. The moon threw solemn light into it, and I reckoned I saw a ghost gliding through there. I just hoped it was a friendly ghost, maybe old Brass himself, helpin’ us get settled. But I drew my Baby Dragoon and walked through there, ready to deal with anything, but all I saw was cold white moonlight and a thick layer of dust.
“I think maybe your friend Brass’s behind that rubble in the mine,” I said.
“How so?”
The things that had happened only that dawn flooded back to mind. “That’s where they put the woman and the boy,” I said.
“We’ll know pretty quick,” he said.
Maybe even the next day, when we would begin the hard work of pullin’ all that red rock out of the mine mouth. If there was murder to be seen, we’d see it.
I put Critter out on good grass, and he began knockin’ it down, and then I pulled out my bedroll and found me a good corner in that stone house.
“Is there neighbors around here?” I asked.
“Mines? Three or four nearby. Mostly one-or twoman deals.”
“I’d better go around and let them know we’re here,” I said.
“I knew you’d find some way to get out of mucking rock,” he replied.
He shore knew me better than I’d thought.
We had a good rest that night, feelin’ safe up there for the time being, and next morning Aggie Cork made some more of them flapjacks with that blue stuff, and I knew I’d put Critter to shame all day. But I got it down, and it fueled me, so I saddled up and rode along the foothills toward the mines down the line, steerin’ clear of the valley road below. This was plumb pretty country, long grassy slopes, gray ridges rising up toward snowy peaks, lots of dark timber up a way. Plenty of water, too, sparkling little streams tumbling out of the high country. And the day was mild, too, so Critter and I, we were having a good time and I didn’t have to muck rock with old Aggie.
From some places, I could see clear down to the valley road, and what I saw that morning put a chill through me. There was a bunch of horsemen headin’ up the valley, and even though I couldn’t make out the details, I still knew it was Scruples’ bunch, and there was only one place they could be headin’ and that was Aggie’s old place. So they were going to push him off, just like they said they would.
I thought to warn Aggie, but we were far from the old mine and he could take care of himself, and he had a stone house to get into if trouble started, and he had them DuPont and tenpenny bombs if he needed to defend himself. So I kept on riding toward the neighboring mines I seen ahead a way, and pretty soon I helloed one place and got no answer. It was pretty much like all them little mines there, but this morning it stood real quiet. So I steered Critter toward the next, which I could see ahead, and it was a bit bigger, maybe five or six men running that one, but it was quiet except for a yapping dog that Critter finally kicked. After that, it stayed about six feet away from Critter’s hooves.
The same was true of the next mine. That was small, a one-man glory hole, but no one was around there either. They didn’t show no signs of being took over by Scruples. He always sealed up the mines he’d stolen, but these were all operating mines. It just was that no one was mucking ore there. I got off Critter and looked around there, and shouted into that shaft in the red cliff, but all I got was echoes. I got back to Critter and cut loose with a big one as I was getting on board, and Critter, he turned his head around and gave me a pained look.
“Critter, even since I got on to them blue flapjacks, you ain’t King of the Hill no more,” I told him. He cut loose himself, but he was no match for me, and he knew it.
I pushed on toward town, riding past the two big mines and the stamp mill they shared. The mill pounded the ore to dust, so the gold could be leached out. The big mines owned it, and the smaller operators took ore in for custom milling, and pretty soon they’d get a check, or the gold itself if they wanted it. It worked pretty well, and no one was complaining.
I got near to Swamp Creek, and then I saw where most ever’body was. They was out on Boot Hill buryin’ that woman and her boy. There were maybe two hundred crowded around a single grave there, and I knew where them miners had come, and I knew also where that Scruples bunch going up the valley were going, and I thought there’d be hell to pay this day.
There sure was a big bunch at that buryin’. It looked to me like most every miner in the country had come to it. Most of them was wearing black, but a few of them old prospectors was so poor they didn’t have nothing. But they all managed a black armband, saying on their sleeve what they thought in their hearts. There wasn’t many women in Swamp Creek, but most ever’one there was standing at that grave. The women wore big floppy hats, but the men stood bareheaded, the wind riffling their hair some.
I didn’t see no preacher, at least no one with one of them collars. Swamp Creek didn’t have any that I’d ever heard of. But someone was leading the prayers and all that. It looked like the hardware man, Joshua Belknap. I guessed he was good as any.
They’d carpentered one wide box for both the mother and the boy. It was made from mine plank, there being no casket makers in that little town. The bad thing was, I didn’t even know the names of that ma or that boy. But that surely was the husband standin’ there right beside the box, and the rest of the men from the Hermit Mine was right there, too. I thought I’d better go there, not because I wanted, but because none of ’em knew what they’d find when they got out to the Hermit Mine.
I rode closer some, and then bailed off Critter and left him to munch on grass, and edged up to the crowd. I guess they was pretty focused on the buryin’ because they didn’t see me, at least not at once.
“And so we commit the mortal remains of Matilda Lovelace and Willis Lovelace to the love of God and the joy of eternity in heaven,” the man was sayin’. So that was Lovelace standin’ there seeing his wife and boy planted that morning.
I thought when it was over, I’d slip up to one of them six miners and tell him the bad news. That mine of theirs was taken over while they were here burying their own. But my plan didn’t ever get that far. Someone there spotted me standin’ at the back of the crowd, and began nudging the others, and pretty soon there was a big bunch turning around to have a look at me, and it was only then that it sunk into my head that they thought I was one of Scruples’ crowd, and they didn’t like it a bit. And worse, I was wearing that Baby Dragoon, and was the only armed man at that funeral. It sure didn’t look good, and I cussed myself for being so dumb, but I took off my old hat as a mark of respect, and hoped to get through this here buryin’.
But it just didn’t go that way.
Eventually, that feller who was doing services just stopped. And then he walked over to me, the whole black-clad crowd watching.
“Why are you here?” he asked, and didn’t wait for no answer. “You are not welcome here.”
“Killer,” said one of them miners. “Killer of a woman and a boy.”
I hardly knew what to say, because this whole thing was blowin’ up and those people in black were fixin’ to maybe string me up with some hardware store hemp, and plant me there, too.
I took one look, and pretty quick saw that them miners was beginning to come around close to me. They didn’t know what they’d do, only they was fixing to do something. And it didn’t matter none that I had that Baby Dragoon; it didn’t matter one little bit, because it would have been worthless.
I hardly knew what to do. Critter, he was most of a city block away, but I thought to head that way and git on him.
Those six miners, the widower, and a hundred more behind, they knotted up around me, and I knowed I’d never been in a jam like this one. Them bruises on my face, they was most healed up, but it was like wearin’ a brand. And if they roughed me some, they’d find my ribs still bound up tight where they was broke by these same men.
But now it was oddly quiet. The buryin’ had stopped, and this bunch was around me like a thundercloud.
They were measuring me for some hemp; I could see it plain.
“I quit them. I didn’t do no killing. I come here to tell you something.”
There wasn’t a sound among them.
“This morning I saw them Scruples men ride out to the Hermit Mine. They’re takin’ it over right now, while this buryin’s getting done.”
I heard nothing but a barking dog over in the field, yapping at Critter.
“I quit and rode out to Aggie Cork to warn him he was next. He and me, we’re partnered up and out of there. We got us another place. Go on and ask him. I’ll take you there.”
Lovelace walked up real close to me. “You was with the bunch killed my woman and boy?”
I took a breath. “I was with the bunch that watched it done by a sharpshooter named Glan.”
“Then you’re as guilty as him.”
“I told the straw boss, Lugar, don’t do it. But they went ahead, so I quit.”
That man that was doing the reading from the Good Book and all, he stepped into the quiet.
“Mr. Lovelace, let’s finish with our services now. We want a proper burial now. We’ve come to honor Matilda and Willis. We’ll decide what to do with this one later.” He stared at me. “You, sir, stand right there. We’re not done with you.”
I eyed old Critter, drifting farther away, and wondered who’d own my horse next.
Chapter Twelve
What happened next was, I got mad. I stood there with the steam buildin’ up in my boiler, ready to pick a fight as soon as they done with the buryin’. My pa, he always told me, don’t get mad, get even. But I was too far gone to care.
By God, I had six shots and I’d use them all before they strung me up.
The talker, he wound it down, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and all that. I felt sorry for that Lovelace, losing a wife and a boy to that killer. But there wasn’t nothing I could do about it now.
Finally, they got it over, and then turned to stare at me, like they was thinkin’ who else they could bury that day. They’re all just staring, men, women, and children, most of the town of Swamp Creek.
So I just waded in.
“I come to warn you that they took over your mine. I come to tell you you’d get shot, more killed, if you go out there and face men like that. I come all the way over here to tell you that, and it don’t make no difference to you. Well, go ahead and get yourself kilt then. I done what I could. I’m getting out of here.”
They could see the heat in me, and that probably counted for more than what I was saying. But the silence seemed to melt some. No one said nothing, but I could tell it was over.
“I’m holed up with Aggie Cork. You want us, we’re at Bob Brass’s place,” I said. “They was fixing to kill Aggie, so we quit his place.”
Lovelace himself, he come over to me. He didn’t shake hands or nothing. Instead, he put that big miner hand on my shoulder and squeezed a little. We wasn’t at the handshaking point yet, but he let me know maybe I wasn’t all skunk.
There was a bunch of miners there, watching all this. I imagine most of them small operators had come in for this, and now they’d maybe share a beer in the saloon, or ride back out to their mines. That’s how this district worked: a lot of little outfits, and two big ones. They were tough men, all right, used to being alone, but no match for someone like Glan, who’d simply shoot them one by one and then Scruples’ bunch would take over another mine. I’d heard there was already half a dozen missing men in the Swamp Creek District, and there’d soon be more. Some probably took off, once Transactions, Inc., came around, but there were others who got themselves buried somewhere. It was big country, and there’d be places where bodies would never be found.
