Six Ways from Sunday Read online

  “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 kept a sharp eye out for them Hermit miners, fearful of a repeat performance, but they was all busy up there blowing ore out of their mine. I knew I wouldn’t recognize them, and I’m not sure they’d recognize me, except I was so stove up. But things look different by daylight, and there 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 show me all your bruises tomorrow night,” said Amanda.

  Oh, that did it all right. I was half thinkin’ just to quit and get out while the getting was good, but now she got her claws into me again. I went a little wobbly at the knees.

  Scruples, he handed me a white envelope, and I took it. He cocked an eyebrow, like it was something he didn’t want said out loud, and I nodded.

  “Back in a couple of hours,” I said.

  When I stepped out, there was Critter all saddled.

  “Someone should kill this horse,” Lugar said.

  Critter, he nipped his hat and waved it. Lugar knocked a fist into Critter’s jaw, and snapped the hat to his head. I wasn’t in no condition to knock a fist into Lugar’s jaw, but he saw it in my eyes, and grinned.

  I get on with some trouble, because it started my ribs howlin’ at me again, but pretty soon I was steering my old nag down that hill and up the road, which ran up the valley, to get to the Hermit Mine. I wasn’t feeling very good about it, but if I wanted to draw my pay I’d just have to keep on going.

  I thought Scruples was right. Come in there by daylight with no weapon and they’d palaver. But that didn’t make me feel any better. I still wore more colors on my face than anyone else in Swamp Creek, and it made a lot of fellers in town point and smile. There is them that enjoyed my misery.

  Actually, it felt good to be on Critter, ridin’ up a sunny valley in clean air. I guess that stink in the bunkhouse was gettin’ to me. Not even Glan could get rid of it, and he tried. He was the best-washed man-killer I ever met. It was like he was scrubbin’ sin out of him day and night, but at least he smelled good.

  I passed lots of two-rut roads heading off toward mines, and a big road that went up to the Fat Tuesday Mine, which employed a bunch of men and was raking in a bonanza. Some gambler from New Orleans named Argo got ahold of it in a poker game, and quit his gamblin’ to run it. He had two shifts runnin’ and word was he was thinkin’ of adding another shift, so it would be pulling up rich ore all day every day. I wondered how them miners felt about it. They got three dollars a day, a lot of money, but they spent most ever’ day down in that pit.

  “Critter,” I says, “I ain’t ever going to be a miner.”

  He farted, which is his usual way of agreeing with me. There come a place I thought would take me to the Hermit Mine, but it was hard for me to remember. There was snow up high on the mountains, and a lot of pines up there, and gray rock, but it didn’t look the same by daylight as it did that night. It sure was pretty.

  But I turned anyway, thinkin’ this was the road, all right. I half expected to get jumped or shot at, and I sort of hunkered low in my saddle, trying to avoid the worst. But we just trotted along, up a long grade, and then a steeper slope, and then out on a hanging flat. I could see the Hermit Mine ahead, and no one stopped me, and that didn’t make no sense. But I sure felt eyes on me, or maybe a spyglass or two, watching me come along. It was just another sleepy afternoon around there.

  I was movin’ closer than I got that night, but no one was waving a rifle at me, so I just kept on. There were a few buildings there, rough board affairs, but one with windows looked like a place to bunk. They sure weren’t spending money on comfort. There was a shaft bored into the slope, and some rails goin’ in. There were a couple of storage sheds, and what looked like a powder bunker off a way, notched into the stony slope. And still no one gave me a holler.

  I finally reined up Critter at a hitch rail and got down. I was lookin’ around when a woman stepped out the door of a little shanty. She wore a blue bonnet, and looked kinda wiry.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m looking for the manager.”

  “He’s in the pit.”

  “Someone in charge up here?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  I looked her over. She looked like an in-charge woman all right. I wondered if she was in charge of her husband, too. I didn’t never see a woman in charge of anything ’cept a whorehouse before.

  “Well, I’m supposed to deliver you this here envelope and wait for an answer.”

  She eyed me closely, her steely gaze taking in my purple and blue and green face, and she smiled slightly. “You’re the one,” she said.

  “They didn’t improve my ribs none.”

  She was sort of enjoying that, but she took the letter and opened it and slowly digested the message.

  “Tell those bastards in the railroad car to go to hell,” she said.

  “I’ll do that, ma’am.”

  “And if you show up here again, we’ll bust the rest of your ribs.”

  “They tell me you’re trespassin’, ma’am. This here is theirs, according to the papers they got.”

  “Sonny boy, you’re working for crooks,” she said.

  That riled me some. Not the working for crooks part, but getting called sonny boy by this female armadillo.

  “And if any of you show up here again, watch your back,” she said.

  At that point, a boy wandered out of the shack. He looked to be nine or ten, and was lugging a revolver, which he brandished.

  “Luke, don’t shoot that thing,” she said.

  “I’m protecting you, Ma,” he said, and swung that barrel toward me. I was sure getting the sweats.

  “I’m just here to talk, kid,” I said.

  “You’re stealing the gold mine.”

  He swung that barrel around at me, and I bailed off of Critter, who began to buck.

  “Luke!”

  The kid pulled the trigger, and the revolver barked. The recoil threw the kid’s arms up and unbalanced him. I didn’t know where that bullet went, but I cowered behind Critter. This sure was a new one for me.

  “Luke, hand me that!”

  The boy docilely handed the old revolver to his ma, who slid it into her paw and kept it aimed my direction, just on general principles.

  “Now git back to your lessons,” she said.

  The stinkin’ little fart was grinning, but he meandered back into the rough-sawn wood shack.

  “Too bad he missed you,” she said.

  I came out from behind Critter. The cuss knew what I’d done, and bit me.

  “That horse should be shot,” she said. She eyed me, like she was going to start a lecture, and then that’s what she did.