“Is that the real Beal Z. Burt? Seems to me he’d come in with half a dozen mining experts, not alone like that.”

  “Burt is known as a loner,” Carboy said. “And Scruples knows it.”

  I waited a while more, and then went to the pen and curried Critter, who kicked me in the knee by way of thankin’ me for feeding him every night. I got him saddled up, even if his ears was laid back flat, and then rode him toward Swamp Creek. My thinkin’ was to look like I was just going to down a couple of beers at Muggsy’s saloon, while I kept a watch on things.

  I seen Burt’s carriage and trotters at the Mountain House, so I knew the tycoon was getting himself settled before going on out to see Scruples. There was hardly anyone in Muggsy’s place, it being before the serious drinkin’ got going, and also there wasn’t so many people in town any more. But he served me up a glass of foam and I was feeling a little angry at that, but he just shrugged.

  “It’s the last in that barrel,” he said. “Hard to get any beer outa Butte. All the beer wagons are going to Suicide Gulch.”

  “I’ll want about three of these for my dime,” I said.

  It sure was lonely in there, with just one lamp lit to save kerosene, and Muggsy polishing glass and staring into space. I downed the suds and he refilled with more foam, and it looked like I was gonna have bubbles for booze that evening. But I was stationed in Swamp Creek, like Burt wanted, and ready for anything.

  The first thing that happened was Carter Scruples walking right in there, staring at me a moment, and then settling at a table at the rear. He lit the lamp back there and seemed to be waiting for someone. Then Arnold, he come in, looks me over, and stations himself about three feet down the bar rail from me. He didn’t look ornery, which was good, because he could pound the crap out of me. I guess he was just lookin’ after his boss, parked now at that green-topped poker table back there. I glanced at Scruples, and saw he was pulling papers out of his briefcase, one after another, and soon had them in a neat pile. There was sure a mess of papers, with more words on them than I could ever read in two lifetimes.

  I nodded at Muggsy, who filled my glass with foam again.

  “This is it, you got your dime’s worth,” he said.

  Arnold, he eyed my foam and ordered some red-eye. Then he lifted it, saluted me with a sort of evil smile on his battered mug, and downed her neat. It made me wonder where The Apocalypse was, but I thought I knew: outside, keepin’ watch. And Lugar was back at the railroad car, guardin’ the place.

  Scruples didn’t order nothing, but just sat there waiting for life to improve. He wasn’t used to waiting, and once he got up and paced around the saloon, lookin’ it over since he never been in there. He’d hardly gotten out of his railroad car up on the hill the whole time he’d spent in Swamp Creek.

  I shoulda known what would come next, but it surprised me even so. In walked B.Z. Burt, also carrying a briefcase. He didn’t pay no attention to me, except to glance my way and study Arnold for a moment, and then headed back there to shake a paw with Scruples, who suddenly was all smiles.

  I strained to listen, but they wasn’t exactly shouting. I could get the gist of it. Burt was telling Scruples that he’d looked over the district on his own, gotten out to every mine in the area, taken samples, killed a few rattlers, and looked over the tailings piles, which were always a sign of how the mine was doin’.

  Scruples, on his part, was tellin’ Burt how the two big mines produced three quarters of the gold in the district, and the independents had brought their ore into town for custom milling. He said he’d gradually bought out all them independents—he shoulda said shot out all them independents—and now had title to claims and federal patents, them that had come through.

  They talked some, and asked for some red-eye, and Muggsy poured a couple and took the glasses back, and left the bottle on the table back there. Muggsy knew what he was doing, all right.

  “Where are your most recent assay reports?” Burt asked.

  “Assay?” The question had plainly caught Scruples off guard.

  “You don’t expect to sell me mines without multiple assays on each property, do you?” Burt asked.

  Scruples coughed and hemmed and hawed around. He didn’t know an assay report from a pickax. He was in to make a killing, not to do any mining.

  “I couldn’t think of purchasing the properties without comprehensive assays,” Burt said. “I need to know what I’m buying. We’ll just have to wait for these. How soon can they be done? I imagine the samples will need to go to Butte.”

  “Ah, Mr. Burt, we’ve neglected to provide them. However, in the larger mines, the assays will be on file. I can send a man to the Fat Tuesday and the Big Mother, and you’ll have reports that will be no more than a few weeks old,” Scruples said.

  It sure looked to me like old Burt had Scruples on the ropes.

  Burt thought about it. “Sure, send a man. I’m not going to sit around here for a fortnight waiting for reports from all the mines, I assure you. I’ve other fish to fry. I’m surprised you haven’t included assays in your papers here.”

  “Just an oversight, sir. If you don’t mind, I’ll find one of my staff and send him over to the mines. We should be ready to talk turkey in just a little while.”

  Burt shrugged. “Hard to make a deal on old assays for only two mines. What about the smaller ones?”

  “Those were acquired for future exploration,” Scruples said.

  “Future?”

  “Those were mostly one-or two-man operations, sir, glory holes. Some were mining gold from ledges and pockets. The two big mines and the mill are the important properties, and the ones I’ve decided to sell now that Swamp Creek has been half abandoned by the rush to Suicide Gulch. There’s a future here, of course, good mines and a good mill, but I’m inclined to move on. I’m a restless man, Mr. Burt. You probably knew that the moment you saw my home, a Pullman car, fitted out nicely but ready to drag back to the rails and another life. Yes, I do believe I would welcome a reasonable offer, even knowing that the outlying small mines may or may not yield what you’d hope.”

  Sounded to me like old Scruples was backing off a little. He rose, headed out the door, and returned a moment later. “I’ve instructed my security man to pull the assay reports from the offices; he’ll be back in a few minutes,” Scruples said. “That should satisfy your wish to know whatever there is to know.”

  “Yes, yes,” Burt said. “And how did you acquire all these properties?”

  “Oh, various ways. Put an offer on the table. Acquired some from the estate of the deceased owner.” Scruples was just warming up, I could tell. “But Mr. Burt, my friend, my particular gift is to discover legal and technical flaws in the claims and patents. That’s something I’m sure you well know, with your own successes. Some of these properties were simply there for the plucking because of carelessly wrought claims, bad descriptions, sloppy work all around. You take Augustus Heintze up in Butte, a man who’s making a fortune exploiting poorly done claims, and you can see how I’ve approached the whole business.”

  “You don’t say?” Burt said, in a way that sort of gutted Scruples and hung him out to dry.

  Burt hung some spectacles on his nose and studied the papers, while Scruples simply sat and waited. Burt took his time, looking at them one by one, sometimes asking a question or two.

  “The district secretary named Brashear signed some of these, and you signed others,” Burt said.

  “The district secretary left under a cloud, and since I owned the majority of mines in the district, I elected myself the secretary of the Swamp Creek Mining District. Hence, my name’s on some of the claims.”

  Burt seemed to absorb that for a long time. “I see,” he said, and once again, I got the feeling old Scruples was twisting in the wind.

  Eventually, the double doors opened and The Apocalypse came trotting in, his two popguns bobbing. He dropped some files on the green felt.

  “Thank you, my good man,” Scruples said. “Please wait outside.”

  The Apocalypse eyed me sitting there, and I knew he itched to perforate me, but he resisted, and stepped into the night.

  I sipped more red-eye that Muggsy had conveniently provided, while Arnold sipped his own, looking more and more cheerful.

  “Good values here, but these are dated,” Burt said. “The assays for the Fat Tuesday are six months old. But eighty dollars a ton is a good ore.”

  “Well, yes, in the rush, we didn’t get new assays, I’m afraid.”

  Burt sighed. “I can’t buy a mining district blind, Mr. Scruples. Maybe some other time, eh?”

  It sure was a fish-or-cut-bait moment, and old Scruples, he decided to fish.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  There was only Arnold and me, parked at that gloomy bar of the Miners Exchange, and Muggsy Pitt, wiping glass that didn’t need wiping, and them two mining tycoons sitting back there in the yeller glow of a kerosene lamp. They had papers spread all over that green poker table, and was doing a deal so big I couldn’t count that high on all ten fingers.

  Burt, he just sort of sighed. “Can’t buy a pig in a poke,” he said.

  Scruples, he was looking tense as a telegraph wire, and rapping his fingers on the felt like he was doing a drum roll.

  “There’ll be other people coming along,” Scruples said.

  “Who?”

  Burt was saying that if the biggest mining man in the West wasn’t gonna bite, there sure wasn’t much of a line waiting to buy.

  I sipped red-eye, and Arnold, he just stared. He was like a spring-wound doll. Pinch his nose and he’d fight.

  “Maybe I can adjust for risk,” Scruples said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “I should’ve kept the assays current. Butte’s a long way away, and it escaped me. I’ve had labor trouble ever since this town emptied out for Suicide Gulch, so I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “No, you weren’t. I suppose I’ll head for Butte then. Thank you for the opportunity to look the district over.”

  Burt, he unfolded and reached for his coat.

  “I can reduce the price some. That lowers the risk,” Scruples said.

  It was something, seeing Scruples sweaty and itchy. He was always so commanding in his Pullman Palace Car. Me, I just sipped red-eye and listened.

  “Seven hundred thousand?”

  “No.”

  “Six hundred thousand?”

  “No.”

  Burt, he just picked up his briefcase and turned to go.

  “Half?”

  Burt stopped. “Five hundred thousand, the entire district free and clear, no obligations or impediments to clear title? No contested claims?”

  “Five hundred thousand cash, not credit. Cash on the barrelhead,” Scruples said. “At a million, I’d see things a little differently. Exchange stock, things like that. But cutting this deep, I’d want cold cash.”

  Burt stared into the gloom a moment, and then thrust out a hand. Scruples shook it. They returned to the green poker table.

  Burt dug into his portfolio and pulled out some onionskin papers, fancy-lookin’ stuff.

  “Before I came, I had several San Francisco and Nevada banks supply me with letters of credit or bearer notes. Each is worth a hundred thousand when signed, witnessed, and dated. These are drafts on the California Union Bank, the Merchants and Farmers Bank, the Miners Exchange Bank of Carson City, the Golden Gate Savings Society, and the Virginia City Savings and Loan. Most of these are two-hundred-thousand-dollar notes, but some are hundred-thousand-dollar notes. Have you a preference?”

  Burt handed the notes to Scruples, who read them. I swore, old Scruples’ hands, they was shaking a little.

  “Ah, I’m headed for Nevada, so let’s see about these Nevada banks.”

  Scruples read the notes, selected two of the two-hundred-thousand, and one one-hundred-thousand.

  “I guess these will do,” he said.

  Burt, he turned to Muggsy.

  “Mr. Pitt, your name is, I believe? Would you witness?”

  Muggsy, he wiped his hands on his grimy apron and headed for that table. Burt had produced a nib pen and ink, and quietly signed and dated the letters of credit.

  “Now, sir, witness here,” he said.

  Muggsy signed, wiping his hand frequently.

  Burt collected the signed notes and handed them to Scruples. “There you are. Best of success to you,” he said.

  “And to you,” Scruples said. They shook on it.

  Burt, he scooped up all them claims and titles and stuff and slid them into his portfolio, along with the notes he didn’t need to use.

  So Scruples made a clean half million out of his bunch of killing and hammering and cheating. It sure looked good to me. He left first, along with Arnold, and I raised a hand to slow down Burt, just in case there was real mean trouble lurking out there. Burt, he nodded and let me slide out the back door to the alley, and then I eased around to the street, just in time to see Scruples and The Apocalypse and Arnold walk into the darkness, heading for the railroad car.

  I studied that dead town a while more, and then slipped back in and nodded.

  In the street, Burt steered me to his parked carriage and pair of trotters.

  “We’ll go on out to Carboy’s place. Get in.”

  So I got in, and Burt steered them horses through an inky night and a gloomy town and out into the starlit countryside, where we could see better.

  “It worked,” I breathed.

  “Maybe,” Burt said. He was less sure than I.

  It wasn’t late, and there was a lamp glowing within.

  We soon were sitting around the dining table, a lamp glowing in the middle. Celia and Carboy, Burt and me. I didn’t fit, just old Cotton with all these rich people, but they let me sit there.

  Burt, he unbuckled his portfolio and slid that stack of claims and titles and stuff onto the table. Carboy, he smiled slightly.

  We’ll sort it out,” Carboy said. “Some are legitimate claims and titles, with forged letters of conveyance. Others are outright forgeries. Others are fraudulent, including everything Scruples executed as the secretary of the Swamp Creek District.”

  I sat there real quiet while them tycoons went through the stuff, item by item. There was a big heap of stuff heading for the woodstove, and a few claims and deeds and patents that was getting saved, including the papers that would prove Celia was the owner of the Fat Tuesday mine, inherited from Argo. It didn’t take long actually. Twenty-odd working mines in the district, another fifty claims on discoveries, and a few stray papers.

  Burt handed a claim and a mining patent to Celia. “There you are, my dear. You’re now the owner of the Fat Tuesday Mine.”

  She clutched the papers as if they were magical.

  “We’re too late for some of them,” Carboy said. “People like Aggie Cork, who had a good little pocket mine. Those will have to go to auction, with the money going to heirs, if we can find them.

  “There’s some that went to Suicide Gulch. Most of them were independents. We’ll need to get word to them that they’ve got their mines back.”

  “Them that are alive,” I said, thinking of all them graves.

  “We can’t turn back the clock,” Carboy said. “Speaking of which, how long will it be before Scruples discovers he’s been had?”

  “Telegraph’s in Butte. He could find it out tomorrow,” Burt said. “But I doubt that he’ll bother. He’ll probably pocket the bank letters and then attempt to cash them when he gets to Nevada, where he’s headed. He could either drag that railcar back to Butte, or he could go ahead in a buggy and have the car sent to him. I’m guessing he’ll stick with his railcar. It’s security to him, and comfort to him, and he’s not in any rush to cash those letters.”

  “He finds out soon, you’ve got hell to pay,” I said.

  They stared at me.

  “He’ll come a-shootin’.”

  I sure had their attention.

  “He’s got a temper, even if you don’t see it none. I seen it. He’s still got enough of them shooters to make sure none of us lives long. We ain’t exactly got an army here, do we?”

  “You’re it, Cotton.”

  “Then you’d better be ready. If I know old Scruples, he’ll want some cash right off, and try to get money out of at least one of them letters. If I was Scruples, I’d have a man off to Butte tonight, to start the wires going. And he might have some answers before long tomorrow.”

  They sure was listening.

  “I guess real early I’ll go up to the railroad car and sniff around,” I said. “Who’s there and who ain’t.”

  Carboy nodded. “Now there’s something we need to do.” He gathered that big heap of papers and stuffed them into the cold parlor stove. Then he poured a little kerosene over them just to start the party, and struck a lucifer and lit them papers. We all stood there, watching orange flame lick all them blood-soaked documents, them papers that caused so much ache and hurt and hatred. It sure caught our attention, the papers peeling off and turning black one by one until there wasn’t hardly anything left of the whole lot, just a few valid ones they kept out. That was the first step, and it was sure a satisfying one for us.

  “Well, then. Time for me to go back to Mountain House,” Burt said.

  “Stay here, B.Z.,” Carboy said.

  “No, it wouldn’t be good for anyone to see me here. I’ll take the rig back there and be off.”

  “You succeeded,” Carboy said. B. Z. Burt settled his black hat on his head and we escorted him to the door, being real careful to douse the lamp first. Then the mining man drove off in the night, and we heard his carriage creak down the road toward Swamp Creek. It wasn’t late actually.

  “There goes a real gentleman,” Carboy said.

  “I wouldn’t know one if I saw one,” I said.

  All I knew was that Burt had skinned Scruples so bad that Scruples would learn a lesson or two from it.

  “A good night’s work,” Carboy said.

  “I’m thinkin’ I’d better stand guard around here,” I said. “You mind if I settle in on the porch here?”