Savage Territory

Chapter Three

I was scrapin’ the bottom of my purse in that mining town, and I was wonderin’ where my next chow would be coming from. This wasn’t no cow town where I could hook up with most any cow outfit, move into a bunkhouse, and fill my belly. No, this here Swamp Creek high in the mountains was different.

It rose up mighty fast, first canvas buildings, then log, and now some sawn wood was showing up here and there and the place was looking like it might stick around a while. There was false-front stores doing a trade. They was a saloon ever’ few yards, a few whorehouses with them red lanterns rocking in the breeze, a few shacks where a miner could lie on a bedbug pallet for two bits a night, and a few little whitewashed cottages where folks lived pretty decent.

Now there’s plenty of work available in a mining town, and sometimes for two or three dollars a day, too, king’s wages, but the stuff you got to do is plain disgusting. If it’s hard-rock mines, like in the Swamp Creek district, you’ve got to go down in some black hole for ten hours, choke on fumes, hope the whole thing doesn’t cave in, and spend the whole time hammering and shoveling. The noise is so bad that you’re half deaf time you get out of that hole and breathe some real air and see some night sky.

Most of them miners, they’re big and tough. Even the little ones are big and tough. They come from all over the world, places I can’t even pronounce, and half of them got names I never heard of. Soon as the shift ends, they head for their favorite saloon and toss down boilermakers, or some such. Like most cowboys, I learned the hard way to treat ’em good. Now most cowboys, me included, we think we’re pretty tough. Sometimes we work hard, like brandin’ time. But truth is, mostly we’re just getting carried around on our nags and hardly use our muscles. But miners, they shovel sixteen tons of rock a shift into ore cars, year after year.

So the first time I got into a little punching match with a miner, he just about hammered me down a posthole. It was an education. Once, while sitting in a two-holer, I read about the Seven Wonders of the World, and the Colossus of Rhodes. I ain’t got much schooling, and most of it was sittin’ in one crapper or another. Most cowboys got educated that way. There was always something to read in there, right next to the corncobs.

This here miner I took a lick at one foolish night in a saloon, he was that Colossus of Rhodes in the flesh, and for certain the Seventh Wonder of the World, eight feet tall and five feet wide. I was laid up for a week and black and blue for a month. It might not have been so bad if I’d been alone, but there were a dozen cowboys watching me and hooting me on, and they got to see the whole show. We all thought we was tougher than a bunch of rock grubbers, but boy, did we learn fast.

Since then, I’ve been mighty smiley around them miners, because I don’t want to mop up buckets of my own blood. But now I was plumb out of money in a mining burg, and the options weren’t good. I could muck rock for two dollars a day, or I could leave town and hope to eat rabbits and squirrels on my way somewhere else. It was depressin’ to think about. I’ve been down in one of them little holes once, and that was enough. I looked at that rock above me, and wondered when a thousand tons of it would land on my head. You sort of get to appreciate daylight down there. Even a cloudy day seems mighty nice when you get out of one of them holes.

Maybe I could find something else for a while. I stared up and down that muddy street, wonderin’ how to feed my face and not coming up with much. Well, it was then that a job found me. Some tough gunslick with greased-down black hair, he stops me outside the Eagle Saloon and asks me if my name is Cotton.

I owned to it reluctantly. I can’t seem to keep anything quiet, includin’ that name.

“Mr. Scruples, he wants to talk with you,” this lantern-jawed gent said.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” says I.

“Unfinished business, Mr. Scruples says. You can meet him at the Palace Car. But don’t delay. If he doesn’t hear from you, he’ll make other plans.”

Unfinished business would be that job offer, and I wasn’t of a mind, not after seeing all those bodies scattered around and Agnes Cork tellin’ me what Scruples was up to. But I overcame my reluctance, mostly because I wanted another glimpse of that ice blonde. That would be worth the whole trip. Just one little look. Just a few words. Just thinkin’ about her made me itch in the britches.

I wasn’t too keen about this whole thing, and thought maybe to have a drink first, a little liquid courage, so I headed into the Mint Saloon, and laid my last dime on the plank bar and got a mug of tap beer. The stuff tasted like creosote, and I thought maybe the Saints had brewed it. They didn’t drink it, but they wasn’t opposed to making money any way they could, so they cranked up their distilleries and pumped out Valley Tan, and beer, too. Their teamsters delivered it regular to mining camps, and without drinking half their load.

I sat real quiet on a stool and listened to the gab around me, and it turned out that the Mint was the place to pick up word about all them little mines. This wasn’t a miners’ bar at all, but one where prospectors and small-time operators and loners gathered. These gents, they mostly had beards and weathered faces the color of an old saddle and battered slouch hats. Now you take a miner, he’s white as a fishbelly, and that’s because he hardly sees daylight.

Somehow or other, word had leaked out about Agnes Cork’s fight, and those bearded fellows, they were listening hard, and I listened hard, too.

“That Scruples, he sent a regular army after old Agnes, and they got whupped,” one said.

“I don’t know how long he can hold out. Next time, they’ll try something different.”

“Cork told me he filed proper on that pocket, but Scruples don’t let that slow him down. Scruples tried to buy him out for a few clams, but Cork, he didn’t budge. He said he’d sell for ten thousand.”

“Must be a pretty good pocket. Agnes Cork, he don’t lack for anything. He’s paid up at the Mining Supply. I was in there when Cork bought a case of Dupont and some fuse and caps and a new pick, and he just laid down gold coins.”

“Coins? Not ore? He must be makin’ some bucks.”

“You think ten thousand’s a bit high for that pocket?”

“Guess we’ll find out. Scruples, he’s going to try again, I’ll wager. You just gotta wonder what’s up there in that hole.”

Me, I just studied each man, trying to get some handle on him. Mostly, they were loners, I thought. I didn’t hear anything bad about Scruples, except he was lookin’ for a bargain. We all look for bargains.

“How does Cork get his ore out of there? You’d think Scruples would just jump the mine when no one’s around there.”

“He must have some secret way of getting it out. Truth is, I’ve never seen a load leave that mine.”

“Whatever it is, he ain’t going to tell us how he does it,” one of them said. “That’s a hell of a hole he’s got there. Them tailings keep on growing so he’s hauling a lot of rock out of there. He must be in there a quarter of a mile.”

It was funny, because I had the answer, straight from Agnes Cork himself. There wasn’t no ore. But I kept my mouth shut and sipped that rotten beer which tasted like horse piss. I had no idea why Cork’s mine went in so far, if the ore had pinched out and it was just a pocket.

Well, I finished up my mug and took a leak in the alley. I climbed onto Critter and headed up a steep hill toward this here Palace Car, which glowed purple and gold in the late afternoon light. It sure was out of place, with no railroad anywhere near. But there it was, on the crest of a hill, lording over Swamp Creek, as if whoever lived there owned the whole place. And maybe they did.

Well, there wasn’t no hitching post up there, but as soon as I got close, some gunslick with a pair of Colts hanging from his hips butt forward climbs out of the shadows. I watch him close, thinkin’ maybe he’ll pull one of those short-barrel .45-caliber irons on me, but he simply stared up at me. “The man wants to talk with you. I’ll take your horse.”

“That’s Critter, and he don’t like bein’ taken anywhere.”

“I’ll take him.”

“No, I’ll ground-rein him like always.”

“I’ll take him.”

“You tell Scruples I’m not interested,” I said, starting to turn Critter away.

But this dude, who’s got greased-down hair like the one in town, he grabs my bridle. “I’ll take him,” he said.

Critter kicked the hell out of him, and the dude dropped to the ground howling, and when he came up, he was waving that revolver in Critter’s chest.

“Lugar, stop.”

That was Scruples, who was standing on the observation deck at the rear of the Palace Car.

Lugar, he gave me and my nag one of those you’re-dead looks, and sulked off toward a barn and pen downslope some. I knew he was itching to spray some lead around, and not just at Critter neither.

“Mr. Cotton, come in.”

I didn’t really want him to be calling me that, but I wasn’t going to admit to being Mr. Pickens either, so I just marched up them iron steps to the platform at the end of the car, and on in.

Holy cats, I ain’t ever seen such a place, and I ain’t got the words for it. There was a mess of red velvet drapes sort of pinned up with gold tassels, and shimmery stuffed furniture I think my ma called brocade, and damned if there wasn’t a big old grandfather clock in a walnut case, and Venetian blinds on the windows, and a mess of them books, all leather and gilt, and vases full of daisies and whatnot, and a mysterious hallway along one side that went to other rooms in the railroad car.

And that blonde, she was nowhere in sight, and I figured it was all for nothing. I’d have given a month’s top-gun salary just to see her with her hair down and flowing around her shoulders. But hell, that’s Pickens’ Luck, and if I planned to live a while, I’d better just get used to it. My supply of women was pretty much limited to the red-lamp variety.

“We like comfort,” Scruples said. “And if this district runs out of ore, we’ll take our comfort with us.”

He motioned me toward a narrow corridor along one side, and we emerged into a compact dining area with a kitchen at the other end of the car. I warn’t feeling very pleasured by it. This place was full of stuff, like oil paintings on the wall and tablecloths. I’d heard of them tablecloths, but this was the first I’d ever laid eyes on one. This here one was a mess of white cloth laid over a table, just waitin’ to sop up stains. And napkins, too. I’d seen a few of those, but not these white ones sitting in rings of something that looked like silver. Maybe it was pewter. I hardly knew one from another, except it wasn’t gold. But there was gold around there. Them picture frames looked to be gold, and them spoons and forks, the handles was gold anyway. And them plates was purple and gold, like the colors outside.

Without asking, he poured me some coffee from a fancy jug, or whatever it was, and handed it to me. He poured one for himself, and motioned me to sit, which I did, sinking into a soft leather cushion. I sure had no notion why people live like that. It seemed a mess of work to me, and no time off to have a beer.

“We have an investment company that’s buying up mining properties in the district,” Scruples said. “Mostly properties that are delinquent in paying taxes, or have faulty deeds. The problem is, it’s hard to remove the previous owners from our property after we acquire it. You saw exactly what can happen. The loss of four of our men sets back our plans, and we’ll have to push to return to schedule.” He paused. “We intend to own the entire Swamp Creek Mining District.”

That coffee, I’d never tasted the like. It was like them beans got burnt. It was strong enough to stain the rear end of an antelope brown. But I sort of liked the flavor, and thought maybe if I roasted some Arbuckle’s beans hard before grinding them up, maybe I could do her.

Scruples, he looked me over amiably, his gaze focusing on me to see how I was responding to all this here stuff, so I just gazed back, wishing that blonde would show up out of one of them closed-off rooms. I didn’t half mind this man Scruples, even if he was as real as a three-dollar bill.

He smiled. “We lost about half of our work force,” he said. “And that’s where you come in. I’ve made inquiries and found you’re handy at a lot of things.”

I sort of knew what he was driving at, but long as he was using big words like inquiries, I’d have to sort it out later.

“You could quickly become a top man with the Scruples Company,” he said. “Maybe the straw boss. We’ve ten or fifteen evictions ahead of us, and then we’ll own every mining property we think has promise.”

“What’s evictions?” I asked.

“Oh, persuading people like Mr. Cork it would be wise to pack up and leave.”

“That’s all? Just talkin’ people into leaving?”

Scruples smiled in a way as if he thought I was dumber than a stump, and maybe I am.

“By whatever means,” he said.

I knew right then he was working around the truth of it with a mouthful of fancies.

“You mean push ’em out at gunpoint,” I said, “and using them guns if I have to.”

Scruples smiled. “It’s worth a hundred dollars a month to you.”

Holy cats, that’s more money than I ever seen before, and it made me itch. But I’d have to use my six-guns to kill people just for hanging onto the mines they started up. I thought about that, and I thought about the two slicks I’d met today, the one near the Mint and the one he called Lugar, and I didn’t much like the idea.

“I think not, Mr. Scruples,” I said.

“I don’t ask a second time,” he said.

I collected my sweaty old hat and stood up, and holy cats, that blonde walked in, and her hair was down around her shoulders, and I plumb stopped whatever I was doing right then and there.