LITMIR.BIZ

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were lots of stoved-up men in Swamp Creek. Those Hermit Mine boys, they was probably all about seven feet tall and shoulders wide as an ax handle. Me, I’m cowboy sized, which is about medium.

      Now, all this time I’m wondering what my bosses are up to. Scruples, he vanished somewhere, and I hardly saw Amanda, except when she was taking some air. But something was goin’ on, even if I didn’t have a clue. There wasn’t no more raids on what they called trespassers in the mines they claimed to own, and things was pretty peaceful. But I didn’t believe for a minute that things was going to stay quiet. Whatever Scruples was up to, I’d find out soon enough.

      Then one afternoon, a new man showed up in the bunkhouse while I was takin’ my siesta, and we looked each other over. I thought maybe I knew who he was, though we’d never met. I knew because of his habits. First thing he did was open the one window and the door. He chose a bunk in the corner, got a scrub bucket and some Fels Naptha, and scrubbed the hell out of the whole area. Then he washed the old blanket lyin’ there and hung it out to dry. This one, he was thin and neat and clean. He had fingernails so clean they actually looked white. He was shaven close, too, and I imagined he scraped his jaw every morning. He wore a shirt so clean I couldn’t see one food stain on it, and even his britches was clean and washed. But that interested me less than his rig, which was a well-oiled gunbelt that he tied low on his left leg. Left-hander then, which fit with what I knew.

      “I’m called Cotton,” I said.

      He smiled. “Your reputation precedes you,” he said, and I wallowed that around in my head for a while, not knowing what to make of it.

      “I always use my entire name, which is a rarity in my trade. I am Rudolph Costello Glan.”

      That’s who I thought. Scruples had hired himself an assassin. Glan was the cleanest man in Montana, and the dirtiest backshooter alive. He didn’t get into no fights; he simply stalked and killed, usually with a high-powered rifle. It sent a small chill flowing through my busted bones.

      “I think I heard of you once,” I said.

      “I’m afraid I haven’t heard of you,” he replied.

      I didn’t think I wanted to be heard of by someone like Glan.

      “I’m just a wandering cowboy,” is what I said. “Some miners learned me to respect them, which is why I’m laying around here.”

      “I don’t teach anyone to respect me,” Glan said. “Except at the last.”

      I watched him get settled. In his war bag were changes of clothing, and several bars of soap, and some witch hazel so he’d smell good.

      “You mind if I leave the window open?” he asked.

      “Suits me,” I said. “But the rest, they’ll close it. They can’t stand fresh air with no stink in it.”

      “We seem to share the same tastes,” Glan said.

      I wasn’t so sure I shared anything with Glan. “Scruples, he got some work for you?” I asked.

      “I have a contract with Transactions, Incorporated, which requires my confidentiality,” he said. “I’m afraid I can’t discuss it.”

      “Pay and anything else?” I asked, riled up some.

      He simply smiled.

      He didn’t say nothing, but I sure as hell knew he had his own little contract with Amanda, and he was looking forward to collectin’ real soon.

      I shouldn’t of got heated up. It wasn’t none of my business. But I did. Even if she made her own deals, I didn’t much like it. Banged up as I was, I still thought of Amanda as belongin’ to no one but Scruples and me.

      “You going to be well enough to help out soon?” he asked politely.

      I got the feeling he was hoping I wouldn’t be. “Pretty quick now, but I don’t even have a rig, and there’s no gunsmith in town.”

      “Pity, isn’t it?” Glan asked.

      There was a miners’ cemetery outside of town, and I thought there’d be some new graves in it pretty quick.

      Chapter Seven

      A few days later, Carter Scruples sent for me, and I hiked upslope to the Pullman Palace Car. He let me in from the rear platform, and there was Amanda, too, perched in a fancy chair with fabric that looked like spun gold. They were both in good cheer. She was wearing purple, to match the enamel of the palace car.

      “How are you?” he asked.

      “Gettin’ around now.”

      “We’re going back to work,” he said.

      I didn’t know whether that was good or bad, the way I was feeling about this whole outfit.

      “We’re going to drive off trespassers from our property. Two more gents are coming in tonight, and with Glan, we’ll have what we need.”

      I wondered who the gunslicks might be, and whether they were Glan’s caliber, or just another bunch of thugs. At any rate, things was pickin’ up some, and they was fixing to put me back into the middle of it. I guess they got over being mad at me.

      “We’ve waited too long. Every day we’re not in control of our property, we lose money. We’re going after the Hermit Mine again, and this time there won’t be any errors.”

      He didn’t quite say they were my errors, so I smiled some.

      “You’re going to ride in this afternoon and deliver this envelope, and wait for an answer,” he said.

      “Ride in?”

      “Certainly. No one’s going to shoot you in broad daylight. You’ll be unarmed, and one glance at you will tell them what they need to know.”

      One glance at my face would show them a lot of black and blue, not to mention some purple and sickly yeller and some puffed up red.

      “I guess that’s gonna tell ’em who they kicked and pounded,” I said.

      “Exactly. It’s just what we want.”

      “I don’t know if I want to go in there without no guns.”

      “Safest thing that could happen to you. Wear a gun and you might get shot.”

      “I’d rather walk naked into a whorehouse,” I said.

      Amanda, she smiled some. I was gettin’ all full of thoughts about Amanda again, just seein’ her sitting there, looking so pretty she could melt an iceberg.

      “Wait for them to read the message and then tell us their response,” he said.

      “What’s in it?”

      “Anyone not out of there by dawn tomorrow’s likely to be shot. Of course, we don’t quite say it that way. The wording is, trespassers must leave before sundown and anyone who stays does so at his peril. But they’ll understand perfectly well that firearms will be employed.”

      “Shot?”

      “On sight.”

      “Isn’t that pushing things some?”

      “Part of your contract with us is to obey our direction unquestioningly.” He stared at me, waiting for me to get riled up, but I didn’t give him no satisfaction.

      “I’ll do her,” I said. “But I’d like a gunbelt in my saddlebag.”

      “No, nothing. No saddlebags. When you get back, I’ll give you a gun. Take your pick. Those men who foolishly got themselves killed the other day at Cork’s mine left a few spare weapons around in the bunkhouse. I’ll sell one to you and take if off your wage. But not until you’re back.”

      I guess I was lucky not to foolishly get myself killed that day.

      “Come

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