I took hold of Critter’s reins, but he laid his ears back and butted me. That was his notion of friendly. I rode out of there with all them miners staring at me, but not so bitter now. What those six miners would do about the Hermit was their business. I’d warned them, and they knew what they faced now. It was up to them, not me. I headed up the valley under a lonely sky, keeping a sharp eye out for Scruples’ men. They had no quarrel with me; I’d quit is all, so I wasn’t too worried about meeting them. But maybe I should be.

  Scruples didn’t have enough men to defend every claim he jumped, so he was just blowing up the shafts to keep people away. His powder man wasn’t very good at it, if them six miners at the Hermit could wade through the rubble and get out of that hole. But probably good enough to shut down every glory hole they jumped.

  I rode slow up that valley, keeping an eye out, because everything in Swamp Creek was lookin’ mean now. It sure was a fine day, with puffball clouds hanging on the peaks. Critter, he liked the weather so much he lifted into a bone-jarring trot, a real ass-pounding trot, just to let me know the sun was shining. I was heading back to the Bob Brass place, but didn’t want no one to see it, because we’d made a sort of hideout of it.

  I was a couple hours up the valley when sure enough, there came the Scruples bunch, coming toward town. I didn’t like it much, but there wasn’t nothing I could do. Half of them fancy horses could run faster than Critter. But I wasn’t in a running mood. I was just gonna sit there in the middle of that trail and let ’em come, which they did. At least Lugar did, with the three presidents, big Arnold, and The Apocalypse.

  “You fellers look mighty busy,” I said, opening the ball.

  “I still think you should shoot that horse of yours,” Lugar replied. “Want me to do it for you?”

  “It’d be hard on you,” I replied.

  “Nice day,” said The Apocalypse.

  “Blowed off a few,” Garfield said.

  “Finishing up,” I said. “Them six miners got themselves out of the Hermit, so I guess you didn’t do the job.”

  “Well, it’s sure done now,” Garfield said. “It’s blowed so tight it’d take a week to clean out. And them shacks, they’re all firewood now.”

  “Shut her down good,” I said.

  “We’re painting signs on those places now,” Lugar said. “Skull and crossbones. That says it.”

  “I guess it sure does,” I said. “Pretty smart, going up there when that bunch is burying the woman and the boy.”

  “Scruples, his idea,” Lugar said. “We shut down Cork’s mine, too. He wasn’t near there. Guess he bailed out after all. I’da liked to kill him after what he did to us.”

  “Where’s Glan?” I asked.

  “Scouting. We shut down three more glory holes. Pretty near every miner in the district’s in town now.”

  “Blow the mouths shut?” I asked.

  “No one’s gonna work them until Scruples gets them sold. We painted warnings on all of them.” Lugar eyed me. “You should have stuck with us. Scruples is some put out, and when he gives the word, you’d better be somewhere else.”

  “I guess I will be,” I said. “And what’s Amanda up to?”

  No one responded. Funny thing. Mention her name in that crowd, and no one wanted to say nothing.

  “Glan, he’s out prowling?” I asked.

  “I think before the day’s out, he’ll put a few more trespassers off of Transaction claims,” Lugar said. “He don’t seem to care for us, so he just drifts away, like he’s his own boss.”

  That didn’t sound good to me. It sounded like a bullet out of nowhere to me, a bullet that could end my days or Aggie Cork’s days without us ever having an inkling it was coming.

  “You think that’s right?” I asked.

  “I don’t think.”

  “Scorched earth,” said The Apocalypse.

  I took me a close look at that little guy with his deadly little guns. The revolver was supposed to be the equalizer, making any little guy the equal of a big guy, but this one made a small target, too. I wouldn’t want to tangle with him.

  “That’s what Carter Scruples is saying?”

  “Thirty days. He wants this whole district in his pocket in one month,” The Apocalypse said. “He came over to the bunkhouse and gave us a plan, and some incentives.”

  There was another of them words I never heard of. “I don’t know what them are,” I said. “Like gold?”

  “The faster we clean out the trespassers, the more we get. Too bad you quit, Cotton.”

  “Well, I thought to grow potatoes,” I said.

  Lugar smiled. “Someone should shoot that horse,” he said.

  They put spurs to the flanks of their horses, and I watched the death squad ride by, and then meandered up the valley. I knew Lugar would post someone to see where I was goin’, so I rode past the trail up to Bob Brass’s place and kept on until I was out of sight, and then doubled back real quiet. I sure didn’t like it that Glan was roaming around there, and thought I’d better check up on old Aggie. Maybe moving in to that place wasn’t a good idea. Aggie Cork knew how to fight, but he didn’t know nothing about snipers turning a blue sky black.

  I drifted overland, staying off ridges, and finally come down on the Brass mine, which was awful quiet. Old Aggie hadn’t moved any rock out of the mouth of that shaft. I didn’t like it none.

  It sure was a nice day. It’d warmed up good. I could see them heat shimmies rising from the stone house. Something told me things weren’t right, but I couldn’t see what was wrong. I just get that itchy feeling sometimes, and I’ve learned to respect it. So I took my time. I was up on the far side of a hogback lookin’ over the ridge and keepin’ myself small. With Glan on the loose, and Scruples tryin’ to sweep the upper valley while them miners were at their buryin’, I knew anything could happen.

  But if Glan was waitin’ for me, I sure didn’t see it.

  I touched heel to Critter, and he got us over the hogback and down the long grade to the mine. I was keeping an eye out, but there wasn’t nothing to see. Aggie Cork was nowhere around there. But his mules was out on the pasture, so I knowed he didn’t go nowhere. I got off Critter and put him in the deepest shade I could find, and headed on in to that house, that Baby Dragoon in my hand because I didn’t want no surprises.

  “You come just in time,” Aggie said.

  He was on his bunk, bleeding to death.

  I slid that Dragoon back, and knelt beside him. He was pale and breathing ragged, and there was a hole through his right lung, and he plainly had only a minute or two on this earth.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He nodded. “That sniper you told me about. Him.”

  “Glan is his name.”

  “Never heard the shot. Just hit and fell, and after a while I crawled in here.”

  “Anything I can do, Aggie?”

  He shook his head. He was fadin’ fast.

  “Anyone to tell?”

  He shook it again. “I’m alone.”

  He was breathing hard, and blood was gurgling from his lips and his chest, too.

  “Take me down to the Mint Saloon,” he said.

  “I will, Aggie.”

  “And go after that bastard.”

  “It’s a promise, Aggie.”

  He nodded, and then sagged and fell from life. One moment his spirit was there; the next it was gone. It sure was quiet there. I stood, and stared out the window upon that sunny mountain valley, shimmering in the golden light.

  I didn’t think much of gold and what it done to folks just then. Killin’ a woman and a boy and a harmless old man. I knew right then and there that it was going to come down to me against Rudolph Costello Glan, and me against that whole crowd, and the crooked man and woman runnin’ that deal.

  I found a piece of canvas and some rope, and I carried Aggie to the canvas and wrapped him tight in it, takin’ my time to knot things up. He was warm and limp, and his eyes just stared off at nothing. But I finally got him wrapped, and then I fetched his mules and his packsaddles, and I rigged things up and put Aggie up there on the packsaddle.

  “I hope it don’t hurt none to ride like that,” I said.

  There wasn’t much else to bring. But then I did see something I wanted. Aggie had fixed himself half a dozen more DuPont firecrackers, and I wanted a couple of them. I slipped two into the panniers on Aggie’s other mule, one on either side because I didn’t want them rubbin’ on each other. Then I took the rest of those tenpenny bombs and hid them away from the rock house and the mine head, actually in a canvas-lined pit behind the outhouse, and threw a little dirt over the top. I’d know where to come if I needed some powder fast. They sure made me itchy.

  I loaded my truck behind the cantle of my saddle, and took the mules by the lead ropes and went slow down the trail to the valley road, wondering if a shot by Glan would darken my lights, too. I sure was in a grim mood, no matter that this was just about the prettiest valley on earth.

  The Mint was where old Aggie went when he wanted to spend a dime on a mug of beer. It was where the smalltime miners gathered, to drink, tell tales, show off some chunks of ore, or do deals. There was also the Miners Exchange, where the hard-rock miners from the big mines collected after each shift. But they were paid men, while the Mint was the place for men who were going it alone.

  We walked to town real slow, Aggie and me, and I kept checkin’ to see whether Aggie was riding well. And checking everything in sight, my gaze studying this and that as if my life depended on it. Which it did.

  It had been a long day, and wasn’t over yet. I reached Swamp Creek about the time the sun dropped below the western ridges and the purple shadows were crawlin’ across the muddy street. People stopped and stared. There was no hidin’ what was wrapped up tight and tied down to the packsaddle. And sure enough, even as Critter and I slowed down at the Mint, a crowd followed. I didn’t much care for them getting too close to them panniers on the pack mule, but there wasn’t nothing I could do for the moment.

  By the time I got down, there was quite a crowd, includin’ Johnny Brashear, the mining district secretary, who was eyin’ me and that bundle and makin’ noises. But I ignored him, and carried Aggie inside, through the double doors. There was a lamp throwing light and shadow over the tables and the bar. I carried Aggie to a table and eased him down real careful, and then waited for all these miners to collect.

  “It’s Agnes Cork,” I said. “He was shot in the chest by someone with a rifle.”

  “That’s a good story,” said Brashear.

  I knew straight off, I’d be wrestling with the district secretary, too. He was Scruples’ man, for sure. And also what passed for law in Swamp Creek.

  Chapter Thirteen

  These independent miners clustered around the table, but none of them was much feelin’ like opening that canvas and havin’ a look. It sure was quiet in there. Some of them from the Hermit Mine was there, but I didn’t see Lovelace, who’d lost his family.

  They weren’t trusting me neither. I didn’t blame them any. In their minds, I was still one of Scruples’ men.

  “He was just about gone when I found him,” I said. “His last wish was to be brought here. Take me to the Mint, he said, so I did.”

  “Did he say who done it?” someone asked.

  “No. It just hit him from somewhere.” I wanted to say that Glan done it, but I didn’t have any proof.

  “Where was this?” Billy Blew, the saloon man, asked.

  “A closed-up mine he was holing up in.”

  “What mine? Not his own?”

  “No, he quit his own. This one belonged to someone named Bob Brass. It was shut down, and made a hideaway.”

  “That’s a Transactions mine,” said Brashear. “Trespassing, were you?”

  “Holin’ up,” I said. “We were partnered up. I told him they was after him, and we got out of his place.”

  “Likely story,” said Brashear. He was law in Swamp Creek, a deputy of the sheriff up at Butte. And in Scruples’ pocket, too.

  It made me mad, but I kept myself in check a little.

  “I’m hoping you boys will help me bury him,” I said.

  “Something we got to do,” the barkeep said.

  “I want to see in there,” Brashear said. “Just to know what’s what.”

  It was a fair enough request. It was up to me to untie that canvas, so I did. There was a dozen men watching as I untied the cords and finally pulled the canvas free from Aggie Cork’s face.

  “Him all right,” Brashear said. “Pull it down some.”

  I did until the bloody shirt and the hole in Aggie’s chest came into view. No one said nothing.

  Brashear took a long look and started playing lawman. “How’d you know where to find him?”

  I was in for a grilling, but this was murder and Brashear was on good ground, askin’ questions. I told him how I’d gone out to Cork’s place to warn him, and how he quit the place then and there, and said he knew a place we could hole up.

  “You went and tole Cork that the outfit was coming at him again?”

  “I told Aggie they’ve got a sniper called Glan, and Cork didn’t have no chance against a man with a special-made Sharps.”

  “You betraying your former boss, eh?” Brashear said.

  “I guess quitting a bad outfit’s not something you’d do, right, Brashear?”

  He sure didn’t like that, and didn’t bother to give me what-for.

  “I’ll help you,” said Wally Deaver, one of the Hermit Mine owners. “Aggie was a friend—and looks like you’re a friend, too.”

  I nodded, and tied up the canvas around Aggie once again. Some of them men stepped outside, and pretty soon some had spades and a pick and I knew we’d get Aggie buried proper.

  There was ten of us, including Billy Blew, who shut down the Mint for a while, and we carried Aggie Cork real gentle to the same plot where they’d all just buried Mrs. Lovelace and the boy.

  We took turns, three of us working at a time, and pretty soon we got the grave hollowed out of that clay.

  “I guess you’ll say the words,” the barkeep said.

  I’d rather slide down an avalanche, but no one else was gonna say nothing. I don’t have enough words to fill a shot glass, but there I was. I felt like a cornered rat, but they was all waiting and staring, even Brashear, who was noting everyone that had pitched in to help dig that grave, so he could report it all to Carter Scruples. One thing about this: From now on, Scruples would know what side I was on. And what side everyone standin’ there was on. It was sort of air-clearing—like opening up them windows in his bunkhouse to let the stink out. But from now on, I’d have me a bull’s-eye sort of pinned to my chest by Scruples.

  “He didn’t have nobody,” I began. “So we’re it. We’re the friends to see him off. I guess I just want to wish him well, better times than he had in this life, where he run out of luck most everything he did. So, I guess that does her.”

  They was standing there waiting for more, but I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  “You were a good man and a true friend, Aggie Cork,” I said.

  That was the thing they needed.

  “Amen, amen to that,” they was muttering.

  We lowered Aggie in, and shoveled the clay over him, and went our way to the Mint again. But Brashear, he hightailed out, and it was plain where he was goin’. Carter and Amanda would hear the whole story in about three minutes.

  Back there at the Mint, Critter was standing at the hitch rail snapping at horseflies, and the mules was there, too, kicking at flies, which made me plumb nervous when I thought what was in them canvas bags hung from one mule.

  We went into there, and they treated me to a mug of beer, and now that Brashear was gone, they opened up some.

  “They gonna knock us off, one by one, and jump every claim in the district,” said a young guy, Mike Pulaski. “I don’t know how to fight it, not with snipers waiting to kill me.”

  “Their goal is to jump every small mine in thirty days,” I said.

  “You know that for sure?” Pulaski asked.

  “Scruples told me so. After he cleans you out, he’s going after the Fat Tuesday and Big Mother.”

  “I can fight some pistoleros, but not snipers,” said Deaver. “Some guy waiting to shoot me, he’s gonna do it sooner or later.”

  “His name is Glan. Rudolph Costello Glan. He works alone, and floats around like a ghost, and leaves bodies behind and no evidence he done it,” I said. “But the company’s got more men, including some new little killer I never heard of, calls himself The Apocalypse. Get in close to him, and you’re likely breathing your last and seeing the last sunlight you’re gonna see.”

  “You know that for a fact?”

  “No, but I know the type. And they got another new one, a brawler named Arnold. I don’t know him neither, but he’d gouge out an eye and knee you where it hurts, and bust every bone in your body.”

  “We’re miners. He ain’t gonna do that,” another one said.

  “Want to give him a try?” I asked.

  “Any time, any place.”

  “There ain’t no hospital here for you.”

  The man laughed. “You mean for him,” he said. “Mucker Mack,” he said. “Call me Mucker.”

  I liked Mucker, if I did think he had no brains in his head.

  “I don’t fight,” he said. “I don’t know how to swing a fist or land a haymaker. I got my own way, and it’s the old bear hug. You want to know how Mucker Mack works? I give ’em a hug.”