LITMIR.BIZ

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and pants.

      “You failed,” he said.

      That wasn’t an encouragin’ word. My teeth was too loose to talk back, so I just stared back.

      “We thought you’d have what it takes,” he said. “But obviously, you don’t. We’ll have to resort to other means.”

      I wondered what that was all about, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to close my eyes and hope all that pain, comin’ at me from every unknown part of my body, would go away. The worst was in the ribs. I know one or two was stove in because of that kick from that miner. That hobnailed boot busted my chest.

      “I’m taking you off top-dog wages,” he said.

      I thought we had a deal, but I couldn’t put that in words, so I just stared back up at him. If he had the right to change a deal whenever he felt like it, so did I. But it would be a while before I could do something.

      “What happened to your gunbelt?” he asked.

      I mumbled something through busted teeth and swollen lips.

      He smiled suddenly. “They have it.” He chuckled. “They took it from you. Not only did you get pounded by some skinny miner, but he took your guns.”

      I gargled down some bile and lay there, staring at the bastard. Then I remembered what they said, and made my mouth work some. “They said you’re next if you come after them,” I muttered. “Told me to tell you.”

      Oddly, this had its effect. Scruples didn’t laugh. He probably was thinkin’ what would happen to that smooth face of his if they came after him, and maybe all the rest of him, too.

      “That tells me all I need to know,” he said. “Since you’re of no use to us for a few weeks, you’ll be on suspended wages.”

      Only then did I glance around the bunkhouse, but none of them others were in with us, so they weren’t hearing this.

      “We’ll charge you for your room and board and horse feed when you’re back on salary,” he said. “You have our permission to stay here.”

      That was some transaction, all right.

      “Broken rib,” I muttered.

      “There’s no doctor in Swamp Creek. So live with it.”

      Then he was gone, out the door, into the sunlight, and there was nothing but the stink of the bunkhouse there for me. I wanted to get my rib bound up, some tight wrap around me just to keep things from movin’ around in there. I supposed I was lucky it didn’t poke into my lung.

      That pain, it just kept comin’ at me, and I just had to take it. I settled back on the bunk, wondering which stink was the worst, mine or the bunkhouse’s. It was a toss-up. I lay there wondering how I’d get some guns and a gunbelt. I’d probably have to borrow money for that, too, from Scruples, and he’d have me in slavery for a year.

      But then the door creaked open, and there was Amanda, wrinklin’ her nose.

      It was cool out, but she left the door open some to air the place.

      “Carter says you need some help,” she said.

      “Broken rib. Can’t hardly breathe sometimes.”

      “You want it bound?”

      I nodded.

      There wasn’t no sheets in there, so she went off to the Palace Car to get one, and I thought maybe Transactions, Incorporated, wasn’t so bad.

      She had a sheet and scissors when she returned, and soon was cutting away my shirt and undershirt, because I sure couldn’t manage it.

      “There?” she said, pointing to a bad area, bulging red and turning purple.

      She tore the sheet into wide strips and set to work, wrapping it around me, and finally making little tails she could tie things with. It did feel some better once she got me wrapped like a mummy. It put me in mind of our deal, and I managed a smile, but she wasn’t lookin’ at me with those purple eyes, and maybe she had forgotten.

      “Dogs got me,” I mumbled.

      “We need you. Get well,” she said, and vamoosed.

      I watched her walk out of there, thinkin’ it would be a while before I had my night with her. She sure was all business. In fact, I thought she’d charge the sheet to my account, too. Everything in her life was a transaction. I finally did get to know the meaning of that word.

      I had the feeling she wrapped my chest to protect their investment. It didn’t have nothing to do with Cotton.

      They were some pair, her and Scruples. I didn’t know beans about them, and sort of wished I did. They were Eastern, and they had some money, and they sure had an attitude. I wondered if his ma and pa ever put a dime in the church collection box when it came around. And what her ma and pa did that they’d raise a daughter like her.

      That was a puzzle. They were makin’ all this look legal, too. They got papers saying they had bought flawed claims at auction, though I durned well didn’t remember no auctions of mining claims around there. But they had all this legal paper, so they could claim it was all up and up, and if they got into trouble the courts would back them up. But it was all a fraud, leastwise that’s what old Agnes Cork said, and them two miners at the Hermit seconded that. So why bother with a lot of legal paper? I sure didn’t know.

      I settled back in that bunk, and wished for some fresh air to drive away that stink in there, and I watched the clouds go by, but the window was so grimy I could hardly see out of it. I thought I might get up a little in a few days, and maybe start walkin’ again, and begin with the gunsmith or the hardware to see about a new gun. A new one takes some gettin’ used to. You don’t just buy one and stuff it in your holster. You got to get to know it like a lover, know every inch of it and how she shoots and slides in and out of the sheath. You got to know all that, and whether the trigger’s stiff and slow, and whether you need to do a little filing on the mechanism to get her to speed up. But hell, I didn’t even have a revolver now, and not enough to get a new one neither.

      I sure didn’t see much of them others, Lugar and all them so-called presidents. I wondered where they went and why they couldn’t give me a real name. They’d come and go, hardly ever speakin’ to me, but sure busy with something. Cleveland, the porky one, he just grinned at me as if I was fly-bait. Arthur, the skinny one, never even glanced my way. And Old Bloody Arm, Garfield, plain ignored me.

      Those days went pretty slow. I lay there, wanting to get healed up. The rest were gone, and no one said where to. The only one that looked after me was Lugar, and that was because he was ordered to by Scruples. Lugar made sure I got fed and watered, and got helped out to the twoholer. But I wasn’t eating much; it hurt to down anything and feel that busted bone moving around in me.

      After a few days, I couldn’t bear it, and forced myself to get out into some fresh air and hobble around. The clean air done me good, and the next day I hobbled down the slope and into Swamp Creek, just to see the sights. The town was full of miners. They mostly wore dust caps and dungarees and hobnailed boots, and I was plumb respectful. They had persuaded me that they ain’t to be messed with.

      Swamp Creek was a rowdy little town, even in broad daylight, when the saloons were all roarin’ and the gamblers were all at their green tables, and they was a drunk leaning into a wall every few yards. There wasn’t no law in Swamp Creek, except for a town constable the miners put in there to keep the lid on. But the constable was an old drunk hisself, and he didn’t have a jail neither. But he had a lockup even so. They’d planted a piece of mining rail in the ground, and given the old boy some leg irons, and that was the jail. That didn’t sound like much, but it was no fun bein’ leg-ironed to that post in broiling sun, or through a winter’s night, so even if it wasn’t much, it kept the lid on Swamp Creek. But real law, sheriff law, that was some distance away, in Butte. And that’s how everyone wanted it. That was the thing about any mining town. It wanted the law just as far away as it could get.

      I

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