I’d never heard of fightin’ like that, and thought anyone with a jackknife could deal with Mucker, but I didn’t say nothing, and besides, I liked him. Maybe he’d squeeze Arnold a little.

  These were tough miners, all right, them that was sober, which was maybe half. And that sorta gave me an idea.

  “Seems to me, you want to stop this killin’ and jumpin’ your claims, we should put some heat to them two up in the Pullman car,” I said, sort of casual.

  They stared. Some sucked the foam off their beer and sipped.

  “They ain’t expecting it. I’ve got a couple of Aggie Cork’s grenades sitting on that mule out there—”

  That’s as far as I got. Them miners bailed out of the Mint and put fifty yards betwixt that mule and themselves. I didn’t realize Aggie’s bombs were that touchy.

  But eventually them miners crept back, eyin’ that mule something nervous, and expecting hell to bust loose. I guess old Aggie knew what he was doing. One by one, they picked up their ale mugs and began sipping again.

  “I wonder which of you fellers won’t be here tomorrow, and which one of you’ll vanish the next day,” I said.

  There sure wasn’t no sound in the Mint Saloon just then. They was all thinkin’ the same thing.

  “I guess we could walk away,” said Mike Pulaski. “Just leave our hopes behind and stay alive. I’ve got a good mine going, clearing about a hundred a day. That’s more money than I’ve seen before.”

  Those independent fellers had some tough choices to make. It wasn’t gonna be safe for them to work their little mines no more, not with Glan lurking around.

  “We could fight back,” said Wally Deaver.

  I wanted to butt in there, but I kept my yap shut. These lads were miners, not gunmen. Every one of Scruples’ little army was a killer. The miners couldn’t do much alone. And the law, such as Brashear was, wouldn’t lift a finger, not with Scruples owning the deputy.

  It sure was a mess of bad choices. Every one of ’em was sipping suds and wondering how it would be to step out of a dark mine into daylight and take a bullet through the chest.

  Then the double doors of the Mint swung open and two gents walked in, big and little. The big brute was Arnold, lookin’ rougher than a corncob on the butt, and the little was The Apocalypse, maybe four and a half feet, nail thin, maybe a hundred pounds wet, all in black, with twin holsters high on his belt, each with a snubby little black revolver parked in it.

  It got real quiet in there as them miners started staring at that pair. There wasn’t a man in there that didn’t have it figured out who employed Arnold and The Apocalypse. But just so’s to make it clear, I greeted them.

  “Well, if this ain’t something,” I said. “This here’s Arnold, he’s the heavier one, and the other calls himself The Apocalypse.”

  The Apocalypse ignored me and ordered two ales from the barman.

  “How do you like to be called?” I asked him.

  He ignored me, and slowly eyed the crowd, taking its measure.

  “That handle’s too long for a country boy like me,” I said. “Guess I’ll call you Pock.”

  “No, you will call me The Apocalypse, every syllable, and leave none out.”

  I took his meaning. He wanted to prod me into a fight and get it over with. Old Arnold, he was around to keep them miners in check. Brashear had rushed up to the Palace Car, told his tale, and Carter Scruples didn’t waste a moment sending this pair after me.

  “Whatever you want, pal,” I said. “This here gent’s been hired by the Transactions company.”

  “Don’t call me pal, Pickens,” he said.

  Somehow he knew my name, which made me mad. I didn’t tell no one my name, but this one knew it. I just ignored him.

  “And Arnold here, he’s from the East, and you wouldn’t want to mess with him,” I said to the miners. “Not if you want your eyeballs and ears and teeth and knees and fingers and hair.”

  Arnold preened himself, sort of. I didn’t doubt that he could flatten two or three miners at once, and leave them disabled for life.

  The Apocalypse eyed me mildly. “Mr. Scruples said that in the contract, anyone who quits him is against him. Isn’t that true?”

  “I ’magine so,” I said.

  “I just wished to clarify matters,” The Apocalypse said. “You know the contract, do you?”

  I nodded.

  “Then you know what happens to defectors.”

  “What’s a defector? Talk English, Pock.”

  I sure didn’t like going against this one with an old Baby Dragoon hangin’ from my hip, but he got me riled up some.

  “A traitor, my friend, a traitor. Does that shoe fit?”

  I pitched ale in his puss and charged him. I wasn’t gonna get into a gunfight with this one, so I barreled in before he could lay his dainty hands on them shorties, and knocked him flat and stayed right on top. When he did finally get one of them out, I was sitting on him and pointing my Baby Dragoon right into his eyeballs.

  Arnold, he didn’t do nothing. His orders were to keep the miners off, and let the gunfight happen. Only this time, there wasn’t gonna be no gunfight. The Apocalypse didn’t make no headway under 170 pounds of me sittin’ on him.

  I pulled them snubbies out, and checked for hideouts, finding another down around his ankle, so I collected that one, too.

  “All right, this sawdust down here’s smelly, so’s you get up and tell old Scruples that your guns got took and The Apocalypse didn’t get the job done.”

  “You’re a dead man,” The Apocalypse said.

  “Sooner or later,” I agreed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I looked around at them fellers in the Mint Saloon, who was sitting mighty quiet, and wonderin’ whether they had it figured out yet. There wasn’t nothin’ between them and death from a sniper’s bullet, unless they quit their claims and got out. This wasn’t just claim-jumpin’, it was plain murder.

  I wasn’t no better off either. I’d took them popguns from The Apocalypse. I wished to hell he had a real handle, but if that’s what he called himself, that’s what I’d call him. Arnold and him, they backed out and into the dark, and I wondered whether I’d get myself shot if I stepped out, too.

  I looked at the man’s stubby revolvers, thirty-two-caliber and short-barreled. I took a closer look at them bullets in the cylinders, and saw how each had a little cone cut into the lead, so that they’d flatten big when they hit flesh and put a fifty-caliber hole in a man. The Apocalypse might have toy guns, but he’d turned them into cannons.

  Well, guns get shot both directions, I thought. If he messed with me, he’d get some of his own lead back.

  I sucked up the last of my suds and decided that the best defense is a good offense.

  “I guess I’m going to have me a visit to the Pullman Palace Car,” I said. “There ain’t no stopping this claim-jumpin’ unless we put the heat on the jumpers. Anyone comin’ along?”

  They stared and said nothing. Maybe that was best. These were miners, not gunmen, and they’d just get themselves kilt.

  “If you go back to your claims, you’ll get yourself shot. Maybe you should all hole up somewhere safe.”

  “And let them take our mines from us?” Pulaski asked.

  “Up to you,” I said. There was no sense pushin’ these hardrock men.

  I set down my empty mug and fixed to leave. I hardly knew what to do with all them popguns, so I stuffed ’em in my pockets. I didn’t go out the front neither. I went to the back door, where you go to piss in the alley, and then worked around to the front, keeping to the dark. But I saw no one lurking around, so I eased out, got Critter and the mules, and headed out of town. But as soon as I got away from the buildings, I cut over to the creek, and tied Critter and them mules in a patch of cottonwoods. Then I got them two bombs of Aggie Cork’s and began working my way toward the hill with the Pullman car on it. Them bombs sure made me itchy. I wasn’t even sure how to get the fuse lit proper, but I had some lucifers with me I could scratch on any rock. Only trouble is, matches make light and I’d likely get myself shot at getting one of them things lit and thrown.

  They were hefty little devils, two sticks of DuPont, a copper cap with a fuse crimped in the end, and a mess of nails wrapped around the sticks with wire. I studied the hilltop, and especially the pen and barn and bunkhouse. A lantern was lit in the bunkhouse, and there was a couple lit over in the Pullman car, so I thought them people were in residence. But I didn’t doubt they’d post a guard or two now, especially after a whole crowd of miners come up that hill, carrying the body of the mother and boy.

  There wasn’t much of a moon, which I took for a good omen. I edged closer, and then decided it was time to settle into the grass and just let the night progress a little. After watching clouds chase the moon a little, it all paid off. Back on the slope above the railroad car, someone lit up a cigar or a cigarillo. Flare of light, orange glow, light out. So they had a guard up there after all. Maybe more. I’d think Scruples would be itchy enough to post a couple more, and have them do night shifts. I’d also guess it would be one of them hooligans, maybe Arthur or Cleveland. Them names sure entertained me. I thought maybe I should call myself Lincoln, but pretty quick I thought twice about that one. I’d just be old Cotton.

  There wasn’t no mosquitoes or I’d a gone crazy lyin’ there. But it was a quiet night, and pretty soon them in the bunkhouse blowed out the lantern. There was still lights up in the railroad car, and I wondered what Amanda was up to. I thought maybe I’d better not wonder. She sure could set off the itchy twitchy in me. She had some sort of power over me I didn’t like. But maybe a couple of sticks of DuPont Hercules would educate her about jumping claims.

  One bomb at the bunkhouse, the other under the railroad car. I didn’t know what sort of damage that would do. Not much, I thought. It wasn’t like sticking the stuff into a hole drilled in rock, which would catch the force of the explosion. But maybe it would scare ’em enough so that they’d wonder whether their claim-jumping was worth the risk.

  Problem was, I’d need a sheltered place to light the fuse and throw the bombs. So I crawled upslope some more, until I reached the pens. Them horses were all starin’ at me, so I settled down to see if someone noticed. Someone did, all right. A dark figure come out of the barn, and began comin’ toward me. I saw the glint of a revolver in his hand. The place was well guarded, all right. I dug around until I got one of them little stubbies in hand. It was sort of handy, a barrel that short. And I just lay there in the grass on my back, that popgun aimed at the guard. He was working along inside the corral, lookin’ for someone in there, and so he passed me by. I couldn’t see which one of them lowlifes it was, but he finally gave up and headed back into the barn.

  I waited some, and then started crawlin’ toward the bunkhouse. If I had only time to get one lit and throwed, I’d toss it at the bunkhouse where them hardcases was livin’. Maybe if two sticks of DuPont were to turn that place into kindling, them that survived would look for fighting money somewhere else.

  There just wasn’t nowhere that would shield me once I struck a lucifer. I’d just have to scratch the match and throw one of Aggie’s bombs and hope to light out before anyone thought to shoot at me.

  Them lights in the Pullman snuffed out, too, and now it was quiet around there, at least until I made a little noise.

  Off in the hills, I could hear the Big Mother and the Fat Tuesday goin’ strong. Them two scarcely quit, and ran one shift after another. And the mill was stamping ore twenty-four hours a day, making a steady thump near Swamp Creek. This was some district, with two good mines and a mill like that.

  I edged closer, until I figured I was close enough to light the fuse and throw it and hightail it. The clouds gave me my chance. The moon vanished for a moment, and it was plenty dark, so I stood up, got the fuse where I wanted her, flicked my thumb over that lucifer until it flared, and then held it to the fuse. It took a moment, and I sure was flinching with the thought of a bullet coming at me, but then that fuse started hissing real serious, so I pitched the thing and saw it land thirty, forty feet from the bunkhouse. I didn’t stay around there, and started down the hill when it blew. The concussion, it knocked me right off my pins, but none of them tenpenny nails drilled me, so I guess I’d gotten far enough away. It sure was a blast. It lit up the whole hillside, cracked so loud my ears hurt, and blew the logs of that bunkhouse in.

  That sure did it. It blew shingles off the barn, and made the ground shake under my body. First thing I heard was a lot of screeching from the corral, and I knew them tenpenny nails had cut up a lot of their horses and mules. There was fires starting up, and I needed to get to cover, especially since them employees of the Transactions company was pilin’ out of that ruin, wavin’ revolvers and shooting at every shadow. I guess them logs was thick enough so that most of those thugs survived, and they sure did come out shootin’. They was wearing their longhandles, mostly stained gray, and wavin’ them revolvers. It wasn’t a good idear to hang around, not with lead whistling past my ears.

  I was disappointed. I thought maybe Aggie’s bomb would blow that bunkhouse to kindling instead of just denting a log wall, and I thought I’d put them hooligans out of business. But at least I’d served notice to that outfit. They couldn’t go jumpin’ claims and killin’ honest folk without the war returning to their own pigpen.

  The lead was sure flyin’, so I crawled fast, just about the time some of them hooligans in longhandles come down the hill carrying Greeners. I made the valley road, crossed it quick, and headed for the river bottoms and the cottonwoods in there, and then stood real quiet. Only then did I realize I still had Aggie’s other bomb right there in my hand. Meanwhile, over to the Fat Tuesday, the steam whistle starts blowin’, just on general principles, so Aggie’s bomb started some commotion and everyone in the whole district was wonderin’ what it was all about.

  Two or three of them gunfighters, they had buckets and was dousing the fires.

  I could see them up on the hill, collectin’ now and talking things over with old Scruples, who was wearing a bathrobe and slippers, and pretty soon them hooligans was haulin’ stuff out of the weakened bunkhouse and into the barn, where they was gonna camp for the night. And now there was a couple more sentries posted around, itching to shoot anything that moved. Then they got the fires put out, and darkness settled over that outfit up there, and them gunfighters was all lyin’ around in the barn.

  I was thinkin’ maybe to go back there and toss that other bomb that old Aggie Cork put together, and was sort of weighing the options when everything changed.

  What changed was the sudden appearance of cold steel stuck firmly into my back.

  “Nicely done,” said a voice I thought I knew. “Now you stand very, very quiet, and maybe you’ll live.”

  A hand reached around and emptied my holster of that old Baby Dragoon, and then the hand patted my pockets and extracted them two little popguns I took off The Apocalypse, and then that hand sort of get aholt of Aggie’s bomb, which I was carrying in my left hand, and sort of took it all from me.

  “Don’t move, my friend,” the voice said, and a hand slid down around my ankles and got that hideout popgun too.

  “Yes, excellent tactics. You may slowly turn around now.”

  I sure enough knew that voice by then. It was the one person who wouldn’t be in that bunkhouse, who hated that bunkhouse, and who floated around entirely by his lonesome. The one who dressed in clean duds and didn’t stink.

  “Hello there, Glan,” I said, only halfway friendly.

  “You and I think alike. It’s a pity we’re on opposite sides,” he said.

  “I haven’t chose up sides yet,” I said.

  “That only means they haven’t offered you money. You have your price, and they’ll pay it.”

  “Who’s they?” I said, playin’ dumb for the moment.

  He laughed softly. “Mine is five hundred a week. Now, I would have done this a little differently. If you really wanted to kill them, you would have slid the dynamite under the floor of the bunkhouse. But you contented yourself with tossing the sticks against the side. Did you really intend to spare them?”

  He was just letting me know how dumb I was, so I just agreed with it.

  “No, I’d of blown them to bits if I could. They’ve killed a mess of good miners.”

  “Ah! You need a little more training, young man. There’s no room in this business for mistakes. Such as letting me walk right up on you. While you were busy watching the hillside, I was busy watching you, checking out your horse, and noting how you were armed. That’s why I command a good price. I can quit the business any time, you know. I could go to San Francisco and run a whorehouse if I wished.”

  “I don’t think I ever had that in mind, but I wouldn’t mind visiting one,” I said.

  “Well, what do you think I should do with you?”

  “I’ve been kinda wondering the same thing, Glan.”

  “Maybe we should leave it to Mr. Scruples.”

  “Your choice,” I said.

  “Well, then. You go fetch your horse and I’ll follow along. Now, I’ve already had a look in your saddlebags. You’re mighty poor, aren’t you, boy? I imagine a good meal would suit you just fine right now.”

  “I’m not one to refuse a good steak,” I said.

  Well, I got Critter and the mule and we sort of drifted up the slope to the Pullman Palace Car, and Glan, he had some sort of signal that let him through the guards. Just about when I was getting real nervous about someone taking a potshot at me, Glan blows a little whistle, and we just walk on in there.

  And sure enough, we get to the Pullman Palace Car, and it’s tilted a little bit because the blast knocked it off its rails. That baby’s solid steel, and I was glad I didn’t try to blow it to bits. I mighta knocked in some windows, but I hardly would have dented that outfit.

  “Nicely done,” Scruples said. He was standing in his robe and slippers at the end of the car. I sure didn’t know who he was talkin’ to, Glan or me.