“You work long for Argo?” I asked Penrose.

  “Come over from Cornwall ’twas two years past and this was just starting up, and I thought it’s a good place in the New World for a old tin miner, so I hired on. That was before Argo won the place in a game of cards. Now that gravels me Methodist heart, it does, betting cards on a mine.”

  “Were his miners happy with him?”

  Penrose didn’t reply at first. “About average, I’d say. He wasn’t doin’ his miners any favors, and that mine needs more air. But so do the rest.”

  “Someone plain kilt him.”

  “And there’s no heirs neither,” he said. “I had a few talks with old Armand. His whole family died of yellow fever down there in New Orleans.”

  “Who’s gonna get this mine?”

  “I’d guess it’s already gotten,” Penrose said.

  We trailed up a sharp grade. The mine head was located well above the town. But it was already dark up there, lamps out and all.

  “I can’t see nothing,” I said.

  “I know my way around,” he said.

  He put a hand on my shoulder and guided me off to the side, where some dark buildings loomed. I’d never been to the Fat Tuesday, and was sort of wonderin’ how I got mixed up in all this stuff. But there I was.

  Penrose, he steered me toward a dark building off to the side, and gently tried the door. It wasn’t locked, so he pushed her open and we stepped in.

  “The office,” Penrose said. “Probably some records here.”

  A wooden floor creaked under us, and then a match flared. It blinded me a moment, and when I got past the surprise, there was The Apocalypse standin’ there, one of his stubby little pot-shooters aimed square at me, and next to him was Arnold.

  “Well, well,” said The Apocalypse, waving his stubby revolver in my direction. “Fancy finding you here.”

  Arnold lit a lamp, and sure enough, there was four of us in that office. It wasn’t no grubby office neither, but one with red wallpaper and real nice furniture.

  This was getting tiresome, me without a gun since everything got took by them nice folks in the railroad car. I always say, if you don’t have a gun, go git one, so I sprang straight at The Apocalypse. Only he was ready for me this time, and cracked a shot that burned across my upper arm, but then I landed on the little fart and knocked him over ’bout the time the next shot cracked right next to my ear. I was scuffling with him hard; for a little guy he was mean, but I figured I’d just better win or he’d put my lights out, so I got one of them popguns loose from him, and was goin’ for the other when the whole world went black, and I knew Arnold had landed a good one on me and I might wake up in a week or two.

  Well, that was something all right. I wasn’t out long, and when I woke up I didn’t even had no headache. Arnold was an expert. He just thunked me in some way as to douse my lights. I lay there on the floor with them two Scruples men a-watching me, and old Penrose standing there. He had a lump on his head, so I knew that Arnold had knocked him loose of a few teeth, too. And The Apocalypse was smirky.

  “Thought you could get away with it, did you, Cotton?” he asked.

  He was armed with both of his popguns again, but didn’t even have one in hand. All he needed was Arnold to keep me on the floor. I didn’t argue with that none. That Arnold, he was a man with talents, and it took nothing more than a boot to keep me real quiet there on that polished wood.

  There was one other thing I was just discoverin’, and that is that my hands were tied behind my back, real tight. That was a little unsettling, given the local history during the last hour or two, but there wasn’t nothing to do about it. The Apocalypse was watching and smirking, and seeing me wiggle my fingers a little just to try them out. He laughed softly.

  “Out like a light,” he said.

  “Well, I suppose you got some reason for being here in this office,” I said.

  “Trespassers,” the little gunman replied. “Mr. Scruples frowns on trespassers.”

  “Let me guess. The Fat Tuesday now belongs to Transactions, Incorporated, right?”

  “Your wisdom is remarkable,” the twerp said.

  “And let me guess. You’re here because you heard Armand Argo’s no longer the owner, right?”

  “Poor devil had an accident, it seems,” The Apocalypse said.

  “I reckon he did,” I said. “And I suppose you’re of a mind to cause a few more accidents.”

  He sighed. “I wish I could, Cotton, but Amanda, she wants you all for herself. She says you and she have unfinished business she’s going to finish, even if you got your hands tied behind your back.”

  “She said that, did she?” I asked stupidly. “How’d she know where to find me?”

  “I sent word that you were expected here, Cotton. You’re lucky. You’ll spend the night with Amanda.”

  This was getting plumb entertaining.

  “To hell with Amanda. I ain’t going,” I said. “Tell her no, I ain’t a-going up there. And here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna get a bandage on my arm. You’re gonna tell her she owes me a shirt, and I want a good shirt right now. You’re gonna cut me loose and I’m going back to Swamp Creek. Me and Penrose here, we’re going down to town.”

  The Apocalypse sighed softly.

  “Amanda wouldn’t like it,” he said.

  “That’s just too bad. You fix up my arm and cut me loose now.”

  The little gunman smiled sadly and nodded to Arnold.

  Next I knew, my lights went out again. That Arnold, he had skills I never seen before. When I did wake up, I knew exactly where I was. There was that oil painting of Amanda hanging above the bed, and there was Amanda, dressed just like in the painting. My arm was bound up real nice, but that’s all I was wearing.

  “Hello, Cotton,” she said. “You sure are hard to get.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  There she was, just eyeing me and smiling, and I didn’t mind lookin’ back neither.

  “Amanda,” I said, “I’ve got me a headache.”

  She pouted some, and I thought maybe she was gonna ignore me.

  “That Arnold, he whonked me twice tonight, and now I got me a king-size headache, and there’s nothing you or me can do.”

  She sighed, mighty unhappy, but it was all her fault. She had Arnold whonk me and then she had Arnold carry me up to the Pullman Palace Car, so she could only blame herself.

  “Some other time then,” she said. “You won’t escape for long.”

  That was a puzzler, too. “How come you’re always after me?” I asked.

  “It’s just a personal whim,” she said. “You don’t count in the larger scheme of things. Carter and I have the whole Swamp Creek District almost wrapped up, and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do about it.”

  “Then why am I here?” I asked.

  “Cotton, you could fit your brains in a thimble, but your south half makes up for it.”

  Now that was the damndest thing any woman ever said to me in all my life, and it riled me some.

  “Well, if that’s how you feel about me, I’ll be gettin’ out of here.”

  “Your headache’ll go away, Cotton. Just spend the night.”

  “You just added to my headache,” I said.

  I got out of that feather bed, and hunted around for my britches, and had a hard time finding them. She just lay there smiling sweetly. I hunted high and low, and here and there, and I couldn’t find nothing of mine. This Transactions outfit had transacted my clothing from me, along with everything else. The only thing I wore was that bandage on my arm.

  Well, that done it. “I’m gittin’ out,” I said.

  It was plumb dark out, and two or three in the morning, and I knew where to get some spare duds. So I just quit her lamp-lit bedroom, while she lay there pouting, and made my way along that dark corridor in the car, and finally out the rear door, plumb nakkid, but I didn’t care. If this Transactions outfit wanted my old stuff, they could have it.

  It was a chilly night, and so dark I couldn’t see where I was going, which was hard on my feet because I kept stepping on sticks and stubbing my toes, but then I stepped in some nice warm horse apples, and that made my feet feel just fine. Pretty soon I was down the slope, and walkin’ the valley road, and thinkin’ what to say to any preacher’s wife comin’ along, but there wasn’t none.

  Swamp Creek sure was dark. Them second-shifters had all gone to their cabins, and the saloons was shut down. But Critter and the mule was tied to the hitching post. I scared Critter half to death; he never done see me butt-ass bare before, but he got used to the horrible sight. I untied my kit from behind the cantle and dug in there until I got my spares, and slid into my union suit, and my old worn Levi Strauss jeans, and an old flannel shirt with the elbows busted out, and finally the pair of moccasins I kept in there, and then I was fixed up good. I worked around behind the Mint and let myself in, and there were my blankets still lyin’ on the pool table, so I knew I’d get a couple hours of sleep anyhow, before I got wakened up by some joker or other.

  But no sooner was I sawin’ wood than there’s a banging on the rear door. I got to wonderin’ whether the Mint was doing some sort of business I didn’t know about, and what old Billy Blew was peddling out the rear door. But I yawned and lowered my feet over the billiard table and got myself to the rear door, and opened her a crack.

  “Cotton, it’s me, Muggsy,” said a voice.

  That would be Muggsy Pitt, the barman from the Miners Exchange, and he had someone with him.

  “Yeah, come in, and I’ve got a headache, so make it quick,” I said.

  Truth was, my head still throbbed. That Arnold sure knew how to dent a skull, but someday I’d dent his soon as I figured out how.

  I got a lamp lit, and there was Muggsy with a girl. She was raven-haired, curvy in the right places, poutylipped, and maybe was half growed up. She also was carrying a little lady’s revolver, and not bein’ careful where the business end of it was pointing.

  “This here is Celia Argo,” Muggsy said. “She’s Argo’s widow lady.”

  “You mean daughter,” I said.

  “Married tight to Armand,” she said. “And I don’t do incest.”

  “Just a minute. Argo had him a little wifey?” I asked.

  “He was man enough for two wives, but I’m woman enough for three Armands,” she said.

  “That’s what comes from owning a gold mine,” Muggsy said.

  “I’m going to shoot the sonofabitch killed Armand,” she said.

  “How old are you?” I asked. “They got a reform school going over in Twin Bridges, I think, just in case you shoot someone dead.”

  “Sixteen and one half,” she said.

  “And how old was Armand Argo?” I asked, just curious.

  “Old enough to keep me happy,” she retorted.

  “She was up there in Argo’s rooms,” Muggsy said. “She yelled a little when she heard about Armand.”

  “I imagine you was plumb sad,” I said.

  “I hardly knew him, so why should I be sad?”

  “You hardly knew him?”

  “We was so busy messing around, we hardly met.”

  “You hardly met Armand Argo?”

  “Oh, we were getting around to it. He got introduced to all of me except my mind. He never got that far. And I never got to know what was in his head.”

  “And you’re the proper widow?”

  “Far as I know.”

  “The Fat Tuesday’s your mine now. Leastwise, until the claim-jumpers get it, and they already have. It’d help if you had some paper saying you and him got hitched before a preacher.”

  “It was a justice of the peace in Louisiana.”

  “Then the Fat Tuesday’s yours if you can keep it.”

  “Well, that’s what I’m going to do. Do you know who killed Armand?”

  “I got a good idea, but I can’t prove it.”

  “Well, I’ll hire you to go kill them.”

  “Whoa up, Celia. I didn’t say I know for sure. I just got me an idea, is all.”

  “Who? I’ll kill them myself if you’re too chicken.”

  “It ain’t a matter of chicken. It’s getting it right. You can’t go makin’ mistakes in the killing business.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t mind a mistake or two if I get to keep my gold mine. Armand bet me against the Fat Tuesday, and won the Fat Tuesday and I got to stay with Armand.”

  “He bet you?”

  She smiled. “And I’m worth it, too. But that other player, Godfrey Gore, he was just an old fart and it would take ten of him to keep me happy, so it all worked out. But if Godfrey won me and kept his mine, he’d a died of a heart seizure after a few nights.”

  “Well, you ain’t got the mine,” I said. “Them claim-jumpers have got two men in the office, and they’re not letting anyone near the mine.”

  “And they’re the ones that tied up Armand and shot him,” she said. She squinted at me, but I was squinting at her. She sure was cute and curvy. “I’ll hire you,” she said.

  “You can have me for free,” I replied, “but I’ve got a headache now.”

  Muggsy, he thought that was pretty good.

  “I mean, I need someone who’s good with his gun,” she said.

  “Sounds like me,” I said, “but they took my guns and ever’ time I lay hands on one, they get it, too.”

  “Come with me,” she said.

  So I followed her and Muggsy into the night, and she took me over to Armand’s rooms down the street, and when we got up there, she smiled at me like she meant it, and disappeared for a moment. When she returned, she had a black gunbelt in hand, with a shining black Peacemaker in its holster.

  That sure was a nice outfit. She sort of smiled and wrapped that leather around my waist and buckled on the belt, and I felt the weight at my hip, and I would have felt a lot more, but she backed off.

  “You’re hired,” she said.

  “Just a minute, Celia, I ain’t seen an offer yet.”

  “You get the Fat Tuesday back, and you get half of it.”

  “I gotta eat meanwhile.”

  “You can munch on me.”

  I liked the way she was talking, but munching on her wasn’t going to keep me in groceries.

  “A hundred a month,” I said, naming wages so high I knew she’d turn me down.

  But she didn’t bat an eye.

  “All right. Now go take over my mine and find out who shot Armand.”

  “You sure don’t waste no time. What I’m gonna do is try to get some sleep. Then we’ll see.”

  “No, you’ll get that mine back. You can sleep next week,” she said.

  I knowed then that I was workin’ for a she-cat.

  “What happened? What did Argo tell you?”

  “Armand sure got talky in bed,” she said. “He couldn’t keep a secret from me if he tried, long as we were horizontal.”

  “I need to know everything you know,” I said.

  “That district secretary, Johnny Brashear, a week ago he came to Armand and said his claim was faulty. The Fat Tuesday wasn’t even inside the lines. And he was gonna auction it off, according to the district rules. Armand, he told Brashear to go to hell.”

  That sounded familiar.

  “Then Carter Scruples, he said he’d bought the Fat Tuesday at a public auction, so Armand had to vacate in twenty-four hours. Armand laughed at him. That went on three or four days, back and forth, and then Scruples told him there’d be trouble unless he got out. He told me he was staying armed. He’s been around. He thought he could handle those thugs, and he was staying alert for trouble.” She took a breath. “And now this.”

  “Getting the Fat Tuesday back won’t be easy, Celia.”

  “I thought you’d be man enough.”

  That sure started me percolating, I’ll tell you. “I ain’t any more man than anyone else around here,” I said.

  She looked kinda pouty, but I’d made my point. Them slicks Scruples hired was tougher and meaner than me, and I respected them.

  “You tellin’ me you’re gonna fail?”

  “Failin’s not what I have in mind. Getting himself kilt was not what Armand Argo had in mind neither. I’m saying you’ll get the best from me I got, and not just you neither. This Transactions outfit up in the railroad car, it’s overrun pretty near everyone here, and if no one stops it now, no one ever will. They scattered the smalltimers, drove off others, and now they have just one more to go, the Big Mother. Cletus Carboy runs that. It earns ten times what all the rest around here earn. That’s the prize. Get that, and they’ll be millionaires. They’re gonna sell the whole district and get out. I got that straight from them up in the Pullman car. So, it’s me against the whole lot, and the odds are good, but I’m crazy that way,” I said.

  She wasn’t smiling when she absorbed all that.

  “And there’s somethin’ else, Celia. If I’m getting into this, it ain’t just for you. It’s for all them people that got kilt or driven off. It’s for that mother and boy got kilt at the Hermit Mine. It’s for my friend Aggie Cork. It’s for all of you.”

  “Maybe I’ll join you,” she said. “Where are you going next?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I thought maybe to start with the mining district secretary, Johnny Brashear, seeing as how it was about three in the morning and a good time to have a friendly conversation.

  Me and Celia, we hiked down them dark streets of Swamp Creek to the two-story board-and-batten building that housed the offices of the mining district on the first floor and Brashear’s rooms upstairs. You had to go up an outside stairway to get to them digs.

  “This oughta be interestin’,” I told her.

  She sort of giggled. I didn’t know what to make of her yet, but she kept Argo happy, and that was in her favor.

  I steered her up them wooden stairs behind the building. It stank back there, but it stank behind most every building in Swamp Creek. There was only a few real outhouses in town, and them was all square over the creek.