LITMIR.BIZ

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built our company on agreements we’ve entered into by our own free will. If you agree to this, it’s by your own free will,” Scruples said.

      He was sure talkin’ like some lawyer, but there was Amanda, her eyes bright, and that wasn’t no pout on her lips.

      “All right,” I said. “It’s a deal.”

      We shook on it. It made me feel funny, shaking on that.

      “Well, then. This is the time to plan,” Scruples said. “We’ve got eleven primary targets, and thirty-one secondary ones. We’d like to move fast on the primary ones. There’s a lot of good ore escaping us because we can’t get these miners out.”

      “I’m your man,” I said, swelling up. I liked being handed a big job.

      “The Hermit Mine. There are six partners plus two women up there. They’re well dug in on an ore seam and cleaning it out just as fast as they can. They’ve got themselves fortified, and working two shifts, and are probably pulling a thousand dollars a day out of it. Their claim’s flawed, and we bought it at auction.”

      “How much help will I get?” I asked.

      “We have only three effectives. One of our men’s wounded.”

      “They got any surprises for us, like Cork?”

      “We don’t know. They’re armed, mostly with shotguns.”

      “You tried to evict them before?”

      Scruples sighed. “We haven’t been fortunate in our selection of men,” he said.

      “I’ll get ’em out,” I said.

      Amanda, she grinned, and up and kissed me right in front of Scruples himself, and I got all rattled.

      “Dawn?” said Scruples.

      “I’ll go out there and scout,” I said. “You draw me a map.”

      He didn’t need to. He handed me a printed map of the Swamp Creek District, and drew an X on the Hermit Mine.

      “All right. I get ’em outa there and then what happens? You got a crew and a foreman that’s gonna mine?”

      “Oh, no, we’ll shut it down. Seal it up.”

      “Shut her down? How come?”

      “We know little about mining, my friend. We’re speculators. We’ll shut them all down. When we control the whole Swamp Creek District, we’ll sell it.”

      For a fortune, I thought. For more money than old Cotton ever thunk about.

      “All right. The Hermit Mine’s first. And then you’ll tackle Agnes Cork.”

      Chapter Five

      When I drifted out into the twilight, it was stepping into the real world. Inside that there Pullman Palace Car, things sure didn’t seem natural. Critter, he trotted up and bit me on the shoulder, just to let me know I’d ignored him too long and he wanted some hay.

      “I bite back,” I told him, but he just bared his teeth and sawed his head around.

      I peered around some, now that I was a hireling of the Transactions company. I sure didn’t know how I stepped into that, but I guess I did, and I’d have to clean my boot soles. This here railroad car was perched on a little hill on the edge of the big swamp, and there were two or three structures around it. I took one to be a bunkhouse. Another was a two-holer, and the third was a barn and stock pen. They were all hammered up from rough-sawn wood, with battens over the cracks, and looked like they’d blow away in a weak wind. But that was a mining camp for you.

      Carter Scruples and Amanda Trouville were not here to stay. Anyone could see that. But there weren’t no mining towns I ever heard of that intended to stick around, except maybe Butte, north of there a piece, which had so much copper under it that they’d never get it all out. There was even brick buildings going in up there, so some folks were planning on sticking around.

      I led Critter to the pen and loosed the cinch and pulled my saddle off. I found a hay fork and loaded up a manger. Then I pulled his bridle off and cut him loose. He farted and headed for the water trough, kicked away some jackass in there, and settled down to some serious drinking and munching.

      “That one should be shot,” said Lugar from off in the darkness somewhere.

      I ignored him for the moment, untied my war bag from behind the cantle of my saddle, and then hung the saddle on a wall peg.

      “That’s the bunkhouse?” I asked.

      Lugar grunted, so I headed that way, and stepped into a gamy hellhole. These here employees of the Transactions Corporation hadn’t soaked their flesh in a tub for a long time, and their duds was worse-smellin’ than my own. Home Sweet Home, I thought.

      “That bunk taken?”

      “They’re all taken,” Lugar said.

      I took it anyway, setting my war bag on it. Lugar and three more men stared at me. One had a left arm wrapped in a bloody rag.

      “I joined up,” I said.

      No one said nothing. It was the damndest welcome I ever got.

      One porker had just cleaned his Smith & Wesson, and was dry-firing it, letting the barrel edge my way as he clicked off a few. If that there seven-inch barrel wandered an inch more in my direction, there was gonna be a bunkhouse brawl about thirty seconds after I arrived, and Porky was going to get the worst of it.

      But he eased his piece away, smiled at me, and holstered it.

      “I guess I’ll answer to Cotton,” I said, hating it. I couldn’t think of no good name for myself.

      I waited some, but no one volunteered a name.

      “Some feller called me Cottonmouth once,” I said. “Them two in the parlor car, they hired me to get some jobs done.”

      “You the new straw boss?” asked a skinny gent, scarce beyond his boyhood pimples.

      “I don’t know. I’m just hired to get her done, and done quick.”

      “What’s your pay?” asked the one with the bloody arm.

      “Top wages,” I replied. No sense in bein’ modest.

      I hadn’t got a name out of the lot, except for Lugar. So I started on him. “You got a handle?”

      “You’ve already heard it.”

      “You allergic to talkin’ with a new man?”

      “They come and go,” he said.

      I didn’t recognize any of these. I’m handy with a sixgun, which is why I got myself hired, and I sorta keep track. But none of these looked familiar. If they were any good with their pieces, I’d probably know them. The only one that looked like he might be pretty good was Old Bloody Arm.

      “You got a name?” I asked him.

      “Garfield,” he said.

      That was a mighty peculiar choice, seein’ as how Garfield expired three months after taking office.

      “And you?” I asked Skinny.

      “Arthur,” he said.

      “And you?” I asked Porky.

      “Cleveland,” he said.

      “Well, all right. Call me Washington,” I said. “I’m the Father of the Country.”

      They smiled some, but their teeth was so gray, I had a time makin’ it out in the middle of that gloom. There was a little fire going in the potbelly, and it threw a little light from the cracks around the door.

      The whole lot was amateurs. These weren’t gunslicks with reputations. They were

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