Hell Town

Chapter 16

Gunther Hammersmith wasn’t expecting anything like the blonde who opened the door of the suite on the second floor of the old hotel. She said, “You must be Mr. Hammersmith,” then smiled at him. The smile hit him in the gut harder than any punch he could remember ever taking.

He wanted this woman. He would have this woman.

But she had to belong to Munro, which meant she was off limits to Hammersmith, no matter how beautiful she was, no matter what that smile of hers did to his insides.

He recalled hearing something about how Munro had gotten himself a pretty wife back there in San Francisco. Hammersmith hadn’t worked for Munro recently, and he hadn’t been to San Francisco either. If he had ever seen this woman before, he would have remembered her, that was for damned sure.

He became aware that she was standing there in the doorway with an expectant look on her face. She was waiting for him to respond to what she had said, he realized. He took off the battered old derby he had crammed on his head before he rode into Buckskin and said, “Yes, ma’am. I’m Hammersmith.” His voice sounded thick and awkward to his ears.

She stepped back, still holding the door. “Come in. Hamish has been waiting for you.”

That wasn’t good. Munro didn’t like to be kept waiting. Hammersmith worried that they would get off on the wrong foot.

That concern was justified. As Hammersmith walked in to the sitting room, Munro stalked out of the bedroom and glared at him. “I expected you earlier,” the mining magnate snapped.

“We had a problem with one of the shoring timbers this morning,” Hammersmith explained. “I thought I ought to stay until it was taken care of. A cave-in would have just set us back.” With uncharacteristic humility, he added, “But I’m sorry I kept you waiting, Mr. Munro.”

Hamish Munro was one of the few men in the world Hammersmith would have taken that tone with. Mostly, he despised other men for being weaker than he was, and he didn’t bother trying to hide that disdain. Munro was different, though. Even though Hammersmith was almost twice as big as him and could have picked Munro up and broken him in two with his bare hands, he didn’t want to cross the man. Everyone who had ever tried that had lived to regret it—but sometimes they hadn’t lived much longer than that.

Munro waved a hand and said, “I suppose it was better that you stayed at the mine and made sure the problem was repaired properly.” His voice took on a harsher tone as he continued. “But you’re here now. What do you have to report? How soon will we be taking ore out of the Alhambra?”

“The shaft and the main drift have been cleaned out and the timbers that needed it have been repaired or replaced,” Hammersmith said. He was on firmer footing here. No matter what else anyone said about him, no one could dispute that he was a good mining man. “We did some work on the rails for the ore carts. The stamp mill is in good working order, and we’ve installed all the new equipment for the amalgamation process. All we need now is the ore.”

“And what about it?” Munro asked. “Have you located the vein?”

Hammersmith hesitated, then shook his head. “Not yet, but I haven’t been able to spare as many men to look for it as I’d like. I’m going to hire some more miners, and I’m sure we’ll find color any day now.”

“You’d better.” Munro scowled. “It’s bad enough the Lucky Lizard has a jump on us. I don’t want the Crown Royal getting too far ahead.”

Hammersmith smiled. “They’ve had some trouble at the Crown Royal. Somebody tore up their rails. They’ll have to fix all that damage before they can really get started bringing any ore out of the ground.”

Munro took a cigar from his vest pocket, clipped the end of it with a fancy silver cutter, and put it in his mouth. He gave Hammersmith a cold, thin smile as he struck a match and lit the cheroot.

“That’s good to know,” he said.

Hammersmith hated talking around a subject. He liked things blunt and simple. It would have been fine with him to just say, We sabotaged the Crown Royal like you told us to. Munro liked to maintain the fiction that he was an honest, upright businessman, though, and that meant never admitting that he would stoop to sabotage to damage a competitor.

The mines were close enough together that the vein in the Crown Royal might well connect to the one in the Alhambra. In that case, the miners had the right to follow a vein as far as they could, as long as it didn’t run into another mine’s tunnels. That meant it was to Munro’s advantage, at least potentially, to slow down the Crown Royal’s operation. Hammersmith understood that and didn’t mind doing something about it. Munro was paying his wages, after all, and they were good wages at that.

Hammersmith had been aware of the blonde moving around the room behind him. He could smell her perfume. He could damn near feel the warmth coming off her skin. He wanted to feel that warmth. She was enough of a distraction that he almost had trouble keeping his mind on what Munro was saying to him.

Now, she moved around where he could see her again. In the light, summery dress, she was prettier than any picture Hammersmith had ever seen. He recalled that he had once seen a picture in a magazine of a painting called “September Morn.” The painting was of a pretty woman standing stark naked at the edge of a stream, her arms and hands covering the important parts, her head tipped up and back and a little surprised expression on her face, like she was looking at somebody who had just come along and caught her skinny-dipping. Hammersmith didn’t know a damned thing about art, but he knew he liked that picture, and as he looked at the blonde now, he could imagine her just like that, all bare creamy skin glowing in the morning light…

“Can I offer you a drink, Mr. Hammersmith?” she asked, and the question forced that tantalizing image out of his mind.

“For God’s sake, Jessica,” Munro said. “It’s not even noon yet.”

“Almost,” she said.

“Hammersmith’s got to get back to work. He can’t stand around here all day lollygagging.” Munro jabbed a finger at his mine superintendent. “Hire as many men as you need, but find that ore. Let’s keep the pressure on the Crown Royal too. I don’t care how hard it is or how many hours the men have to put in. If you can’t handle the job, I’ll find someone who can.”

“I can handle the job, Mr. Munro,” Hammersmith said. “Don’t you worry about that. I’ll drive those bastards from can to can’t.” He glanced at the woman. “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am.”

“It’s all right,” she told him. The sound of the words made a shiver go through him. He imagined himself lying under a tree somewhere, in soft grass, with his head pillowed on her lap as she stroked cool fingers along his cheek and said, “It’s all right. It’s all right.” He thought that if he could ever have an experience like that, he could die a happy man.

Assuming, of course, that he could throw her skirts over her head and get some sweet lovin’ from her too.

He tried to banish that thought as he turned his derby over in his hands. Lusting after his employer’s wife wasn’t going to do him any good, especially when the boss was as rich, ruthless, and powerful as Hamish Munro. Hammersmith forced himself to say, “I’ll be goin’ now.”

As he turned toward the door, Munro said to his back, “Remember, Hammersmith…my mine is going to come out on top. Whatever it takes.”

“Yes, sir,” Hammersmith said over his shoulder.

Why was it so important to Munro that the Alhambra outproduce all the other mines? If they found the vein again, the mine would make money, maybe a lot of it. And Munro already had more money than he could ever spend in the rest of his life.

It had to be the winning, Hammersmith thought. Munro didn’t really care about anything except having more and being better than his rivals. He probably felt the same way about that wife of his.

Hammersmith understood both of those things. He liked nothing more than to crush his enemies too.

And now that he had seen Jessica Munro…well, he might just be willing to kill for her, if he ever got the chance.

Even though Frank had been halfway expecting it, the rate at which Buckskin grew in the next few weeks surprised him. Newcomers continued to pour into the settlement, and once all the buildings were occupied, men went up to the hillsides and began to fell trees. A sawmill opened inside a big tent, and the chugging of the donkey engine and the whine of the saw could be heard from early in the morning until dusk, seven days a week. Mixed with those sounds was the racket of hammering, as the rough boards from the sawmill were slapped together into new buildings. A whole new street grew up, running parallel with the main street that was already there. More saloons and stores opened, as did an assay office. A man showed up with a printing press in the back of a wagon and started a newspaper, the Buckskin Bulletin. A couple of lawyers hung out their shingles, as did a doctor. A red-and-white-striped barber pole appeared on the boardwalk in front of one of the new buildings. A Chinese laundry began taking in washing. Two new whorehouses opened up.

Back in the summer of ’76, when he was still a young man, Frank had spent a little time in Deadwood, Dakota Territory. Buckskin wasn’t quite the hell-with-the-hide-off town that Deadwood had been, but it was as wild and woolly a place as he had been in in quite some time. He and Jack and Clint had their hands full keeping the peace. Along with all the miners who descended on Buckskin came the cardsharps, the swindlers, the soiled doves, the cutthroats, thieves, and killers whose life work it was to empty the miners’ pockets of what precious few riches they were lucky enough to obtain.

Deadwood had averaged a little more than a killing a day at its worst. Buckskin wasn’t that bad. There were only a couple of murders a week.

Luckily, no more would-be gunfighters showed up to challenge Frank in an attempt to build a reputation. He supposed word might have gotten around about what had happened to the kid called Conwell and Harry Clevenger and Charlie Hampton.

But even if the men who fancied themselves fast guns were being wary right now, that wouldn’t last, Frank knew. Sooner or later, one of them would get an itch to prove himself, and then he would ride into Buckskin and force a showdown with the notorious Drifter.

On the mining front, trouble still continued to plague the Crown Royal, and an angry Tip Woodford reported that somebody had stolen some blasting powder and other supplies from the Lucky Lizard. Frank had his suspicions about who was responsible for this mischief—the culprit was big and bald and answered to the name of Gunther Hammersmith—but he didn’t have any proof that Munro’s superintendent was to blame. Tip and Garrett Claiborne had both posted guards at their respective mines, and Frank tried to ride out and keep an eye on them when he could, but his duties in town took up most of his time.

He wondered if Hamish Munro had ordered the sabotage, or if Hammersmith was carrying it out on his own. Assuming, of course, that Hammersmith was responsible. Munro seldom budged from the old hotel that he had turned into his headquarters.

That wife of his came out from time to time, though, and she always drew plenty of attention when she did. Many of the men in Buckskin hadn’t seen a woman in quite a while, and it had been even longer since they had seen one as breathtakingly lovely as Jessica Munro.

That caused some trouble of its own one day. Frank was in Leo Benjamin’s store, talking to the proprietor, when he heard angry voices in the street outside. With a frown on his face, Frank muttered, “What the hell’s going on now?” and strode toward the front door.

There was a high porch in front of the store that served as a loading dock. Wagons could be backed up to it and supplies placed inside them without much trouble. A set of steps at each end of the porch led back down to the regular boardwalk that ran along both sides of the street.

From that porch, Frank had a good vantage point on the fracas taking place in the street. A miner was sprawled on his back, obviously having just been knocked down by Gunther Hammersmith, who loomed over him with clenched fists. Hammersmith reached down, grabbed the miner’s shirt, and hauled him to his feet, only to draw back and wallop him again. Hammersmith’s big fist landed on the man’s jaw with a meaty thud, and the miner flew through the air to come crashing down on his back again.

“I’ll teach you to be disrespectful to a lady, damn you!” Hammersmith bellowed.

Frank glanced to his right. Jessica Munro stood on the boardwalk just past the porch in front of Leo’s store. She was dressed up in a fancy gown and carried a parasol to keep the sun off her face, which at the moment was set in an agitated expression.

“Please, Mr. Hammersmith!” she called. “This isn’t necessary—”

“Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but it is,” Hammersmith insisted as he grabbed the hapless miner again, jerked him to his feet, and poised a malletlike fist to strike another devastating blow.

Frank palmed his Colt from its holster, eared back the hammer so that the metallic ratcheting of the action sounded loud in the street, and said, “Hold it right there, Hammersmith.”