Hell Town

Chapter 22

Since keeping the corpses of the dead men on display in front of the undertaking parlor didn’t seem to be doing any good, Frank told Claude Langley to go ahead and bury them. Frank and Dog had gone over the scene of the gun battle with the men and hadn’t found anything to indicate who they had been working for. Riding in the stream the way they had prevented Dog from backtracking them. The man who had slit the throat of the surviving outlaw must have also ridden in the stream, because Frank couldn’t find his track either.

Frank’s frustration grew over the next few days as it seemed that his visit with Munro wasn’t paying any dividends either. That attempt on his life he had halfway expected didn’t happen. In fact, things in Buckskin were pretty peaceful again. The rush of newcomers into town finally seemed to be slowing down. The settlement was still crowded, and there were drunken brawls in the saloons, fights over poker games and women, and the occasional robbery. But nothing happened that Frank couldn’t take care of easily with help from Catamount Jack and Clint Farnum.

The new deputy seemed to be settling right in. He had made some friends, including Becky Humphries, who seemed to have given up her interest in Garrett Claiborne now that Diana was spending so much time with the mining engineer. Frank went by Dr. Garland’s place every day, and knew that Claiborne was getting more and more restless. He was anxious to get back out to the Crown Royal and go to work, even though the new equipment for the stamp mill hadn’t arrived yet. There was still rebuilding work to do, and Claiborne wanted to supervise it. The doctor’s orders were firm, though. Claiborne still had some more recuperating to do.

Frank was coming out of Leo Benjamin’s store one morning, carrying a box of .45 cartridges he had just picked up, when he saw Tip Woodford hurrying toward him. The mayor’s urgent manner, plus the worried look on his face, told Frank that Buckskin’s peaceful respite was probably over.

“What’s wrong, Tip?” Frank asked.

“Got some trouble out at the Lucky Lizard,” Tip replied. “The fellas are sayin’ that I ain’t treatin’ ’em right.”

Frank frowned in surprise. “You’re talking about the men who work in the mine?”

Tip nodded. “Yeah.”

“That’s crazy. You pay them fair wages, you do everything you can to make sure the working conditions are safe, you don’t expect more than an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wage.”

“Yeah, but that ain’t stopped a couple o’ the boys from tryin’ to get all the rest stirred up and mad at me.” Tip pushed his hat back and scratched his head. “To tell you the truth, Frank, I ain’t sure I ought to be talkin’ to you about this, seein’ as you and me are rivals, so to speak.”

Frank shook his head. “Diana told you what Claiborne said about me.”

“Yeah. You wouldn’t expect her to keep somethin’ like that a secret, would you?”

“No, I reckon not. But listen to me, Tip. My late wife and my son were the ones who built up that business empire. I had nothing to do with it. For years I was just a drifter, like that nickname somebody hung on me. It was only after my wife died that I inherited a stake in all those holdings, including the Browning Mining Syndicate. I don’t have anything to do with the running of it, and I let my lawyers in Denver and San Francisco handle all the money. As far as I’m concerned, my only real job is being the marshal of Buckskin.”

“Well, it ain’t that I doubt you…”

“Good, because I’m not in the habit of lying,” Frank said.

Tip nodded, wearing the look of a man who had just made a decision. “All right. In that case, I reckon I done the right thing by comin’ to you for help. Can you come out to the mine and have a talk with those fellas?”

“Problem is, I’m not sure how much I can do,” Frank said. “The mine’s not in my jurisdiction—”

“That didn’t stop you from goin’ after the sons o’ bitches who blew up the Crown Royal,” Tip pointed out. “And remember, there’s that old offshoot tunnel that runs all the way down here under the office. Since that’s in town, I reckon you could say that by extension, the rest o’ the mine is too.”

Frank chuckled. “That’s a little bit of a stretch,” he said, “but I can’t argue with that reasoning. Anyway, my job is to keep the peace here in town, and if there’s unrest at your mine, it could spill over down here any time.”

Tip nodded and said, “Yep, that’s what I was thinkin’ too.”

“I’ll go out there and see if I can find out what the problem is. You want to come with me?”

Tip rubbed his jaw. “Might be better if you went by yourself. Those boys might come closer to shootin’ straight with you if I ain’t around.”

“Who’s the ringleader?”

“There’s two of ’em, a couple o’ brothers I hired not long ago. Their names are Fowler. Mike and Gib Fowler.”

Frank nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’m obliged, Frank. Things have been goin’ pretty well. I don’t need some new trouble.”

“None of us do,” Frank said.

He left Tip and headed for Hillman’s livery stable. Having two horses had worked out fairly well, since one of them was always fresh and well-rested. Stormy hadn’t gotten over his resentment of the fact that sometimes Frank saddled up Goldy and rode out on the other horse, as he did today, but Frank supposed the Appaloosa would get used to it sooner or later.

The Lucky Lizard was the closest of the mines to the settlement, close enough so that the noise from the mill could be heard in Buckskin most of the time. It didn’t take long for Frank to ride out there. Tip Woodford served as his own superintendent, but he had several foremen who supervised most of the day-to-day operations. When Frank rode in, he spotted one of the men walking from the stamp mill toward one of the storage buildings and hailed him.

“I’m looking for the Fowler brothers,” Frank told the foreman. “Got any idea where I can find them?”

“Mr. Woodford talked to you about the trouble out here, right?” the foreman asked.

Frank nodded.

“Well, Gib Fowler is down in the mine right now, but Mike is over in the barracks, I think. He came off shift just a little while ago.”

“You put them on different shifts?”

“Thought it would best,” the foreman replied. “The way those two run their mouths, if they were both in the same crew no work would ever get done.”

“If they’re causing trouble, why doesn’t Tip just fire them?”

“I’ve asked him the same question, Marshal. He says that he can’t fire somebody for having an opinion, that it just wouldn’t be right. But if you ask me, he ought to boot both of ’em out of here.”

The foreman had just brought up a point that bothered Frank. As long as the Fowler brothers were just talking, he didn’t see what he could do about them. This was America, where folks had a right to express their opinions, no matter how annoying or upsetting or downright stupid they were.

Frank nodded his thanks and reined Goldy over toward the barracks. The door of the building was open, and as Frank dismounted he heard a loud, angry voice coming from inside.

“If you don’t stand up to Woodford, he’s just gonna keep takin’ advantage of you,” the man said. “He ain’t ever gonna treat you fair unless you make him do it!”

Frank stepped into the doorway. He saw a wiry man with a bristling red brush of a beard standing in the center of the aisle between the bunks, waving his hands in the air as he talked.

“Just because Woodford’s the boss don’t mean he’s got the right to treat us like animals!”

Half-a-dozen miners were either stretched out or sitting on their bunks, listening to the man. Some of them noticed Frank’s entrance and looked past the speaker at him. The man with the red beard noticed that and fell silent, turning toward the door with a suspicious glare on his face.

“Are you Mike Fowler?” Frank asked, even though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer to that question.

“I’m Red Mike,” the man replied, and his beard made it obvious how he had gotten the nickname. He squinted at the badge pinned to Frank’s shirt and went on. “I can see who you are, mister. Woodford’s called in the law to try to shut me up and keep me from tellin’ the truth!”

“The only reason I’m here is because I’ve heard reports that somebody was trying to stir up trouble out here at the Lucky Lizard,” Frank said.

“Trouble!” Fowler practically yelped. “The only one stirrin’ up trouble around here is Woodford, because he don’t pay fair wages nor treat his workers right!”

Frank looked at the other miners scattered around the barracks and asked, “How do you boys feel about that? Do you think Woodford’s not treating you right?”

None of the men responded for a moment, but then one of them said, “I always figured he was a pretty good boss, but then I found out that Mr. Munro over at the Alhambra is payin’ ten cents an hour more.”

Another man spoke up. “Yeah, and he’s got his men workin’ in ten-hour shifts, instead of twelve hours at a time.”

“Mike says the shaft is shored up better over there too,” a third man added.

“Is that a fact?” Frank asked, casting a speculative look at Red Mike. “Were you the one who told them about the pay and the hours too?”

“Somebody’s got to tell the truth,” Fowler replied with a defiant glare on his bearded face.

“How is it that you know so much about the wages and the hours and the working conditions at the Alhambra?”

Fowler shook his head. “You ain’t gonna twist things around and make these men distrust me, Marshal. I been honest with them from the first. They know that my brother and me used to work over there for Munro.”

“If it’s so much better at the Alhambra, why aren’t you still working there?”

“Because Munro fired us, me and Gib both.” Fowler shrugged. “We got a mite likkered up one night and got in a fight with one of the foremen. Hammersmith actually fired us, the bald-headed bastard, but Munro backed him up on it. So you see, we ain’t got no love for Hammersmith or Munro either one, and we damn sure got no reason to be tellin’ folks that their mine is better than this one, except for one…it’s the truth.”

Frank pondered that. He had thought in the back of his mind that Munro might have something to do with the problem developing here at the Lucky Lizard, but it appeared that wasn’t the case.

He nodded toward the other miners and asked Fowler, “Are you saying these fellas should go to work for the Alhambra?”

Fowler made a face. “Wouldn’t do ’em any good if they tried. Hammersmith’s got a full crew over there. What I think they should do is get Woodford to pay them right and treat them better.”

“Has anybody talked to him about that?”

A disgusted snort came from Fowler. “We tried. He won’t listen to reason. Just says that he can’t afford to pay us any more than he already is, and he claims the mine is safe. All he’d do is promise to think about cutting back on the number of hours in a shift, but thinkin’ about it ain’t gonna get it done.”

Tip hadn’t told Frank all those details, and hearing them just made the situation more troublesome. The wages that Tip was paying seemed fair enough to Frank, but he wasn’t the one working for them. A twelve-hour shift was pretty common, but gouging ore out of the earth was pretty hard work. As for the mine’s safety, Frank couldn’t say about that, because he hadn’t taken a good look at the inside of the Lucky Lizard. Maybe there were some improvements that should be made.

“If you don’t get what you want, what do you plan to do?”

Red Mike crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Frank. “We’ll do the only thing we can do to make Woodford listen to us. We’ll call a strike.” He looked around at the others. “Ain’t that right, boys?”

Frank noticed that some of the miners looked pretty dubious about that idea, but the rest gave enthusiastic nods and one man said, “Damn right we will!”

Strike. It was a word Frank didn’t want to hear. There had been miners’ strikes before, as well as strikes in other businesses, like the railroads. They nearly always led to violence. Back East, there had been riots and bombings connected with strikes. The business owners usually brought in armed men to break the backs of such work stoppages. The Pinkertons had come to specialize in such work. Because of that, these things were seldom if ever resolved in a peaceful manner.

Folks usually had to die first before anything got done.

Frank didn’t want to see that happen here. He liked Tip Woodford too much for that, and besides, it was his job to keep things as peaceful as possible.

“I think you ought to try to talk to Woodford again,” he began, not knowing if it would do any good or not. “If you want, I’ll say something to him—”

A sudden rumble from somewhere nearby interrupted Frank’s words. He felt a faint vibration in the floor under his feet and knew it couldn’t have come from anything good. Thunder sometimes sounded like that and shook the earth….

But this wasn’t thunder.

Fowler’s eyes widened with shock as the other miners bolted up from the bunks. The bearded man’s exclamation put into words what whey were all thinking.

“Oh, my God! Cave-in!”