BIGGER ZELL’S BODY was gone by the time he got back to the store. It was the first time he had walked down any main street with blood all over him. That drew plenty of attention, but the only one who bothered him was a young newspaper reporter brandishing a notebook and pencil. Gatling told him to come to the store in a couple of hours and he’d get the whole story. The reporter wanted to know why not now, and it took a hard look to make him back off.
He washed and changed clothes and was unbolting the door when two men pushed their way in. A buckboard was hitched out front. Both men were about forty, not tall but powerfully built. One was flush-faced and yellow haired; the other had the thick black hair that often goes with swarthy skin. Both wore derby hats and dark suits, and there was no way to miss the slight bulge of their shoulder-holstered guns. They had the look of city thugs. Two of Kane’s boys, Gatling decided.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“He wants to know who we are,” the red-faced man said. “Why not? I’m Frankie. This is Nick. You didn’t hear our knock? Oh, sure. I twig. You was washing off the blood. I hear it was a reg’lar bloodbath. I hear you chopped off his gun hand before you did for him. Smart bit of business, I’d say.”
Gatling said, “I asked you what you wanted.”
“Mr. Kane wants to talk to you,” Frankie said. “I guess you heard of Mr. Kane.”
“The big union boss,” Nick said. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Maybe I don’t want to talk to him,” Gatling said. “Anyway, what does he want with me? I just got here yesterday.”
Frankie picked up Gatling’s coat from the counter and shoved it at him. “What Mr. Kane wants we can’t rightly say. Maybe he wants to buy some guns. All we know is Mr. Kane says go fetch this murdering gunsmith Taggart. It’s like a command, you get it?”
The dark thug looked impatient. “Let’s us be going,” he said. He had some slight foreign accent.
Outside, Gatling started to climb into the back of the buckboard, but Frankie ordered him to ride in front with him. “My friend Nick will ride in back and keep an eye on you.”
Nick got in the back. “Don’t be saying my name all the time,” he complained.
This was a bit of good fortune Gatling hadn’t expected. It would give a chance to see Kane’s fortress house up close. Unless they planned to kill him, which wasn’t likely, this short trip would save him a lot of sneaking around.
Frankie flicked the reins and they moved off. “How long will this take?” Gatling asked. “I got a business to run.”
“It’ll take as long as Mr. Kane wants it to take,” Frankie said. “What’s your hurry, gunsmith. Lot of people’d be tickled Mr. Kane wanted to talk to them. Course there’s others wouldn’t be so tickled, if you know what I mean. Now sit back and pretend you’s on a sightseeing tour.”
Frankie drove the buckboard into the hills east of town. Mountain peaks rose up a long way off. There was mist on the peaks and a light, drizzling rain. The buckboard climbed up onto a long wide plateau with a low elevation at its center. That was where Kane’s house was, and Gatling saw it from a long way off. It was a stroke of luck—maybe it was—to be going there by invitation; the plateau was miles wide, and probably patrolled, and it would be hard to get a good look at the house because of all the mist and rain. Even the most powerful binoculars wouldn’t help much.
When they got closer he saw the high barbed-wire fence; a watchtower stood beside the swing gate, which had a sign arching across the top. He couldn’t make out what was lettered on the sign. Probably something about the Western Labor League. Other watchtowers were spaced along the fence. Those in the distance were half hidden by rain. The fence and the guard towers made the place look like a prison. Gatling figured Kane owned the entire plateau, an enormous stretch of land with the fenced-in house and union headquarters at the highest point. Whoever picked the location for the house knew what he was doing. It would be hard to get at without being spotted, even at night, when the dogs were loose. There was nothing about guard towers in the Pinkerton report; the towers must have been built since the report was made. Gatling wondered if the towers had been added because Kane had some information about a new attempt on his life. Maybe he already knows all about me, Gatling thought. No matter what the colonel said, sometimes the most secure information had a way of leaking out. He didn’t even have a gun, but what good would a gun do him here, with Nick ready to put a bullet in his head if he tried anything.
They reached the gate and Frankie reined in. Two men were up in the tower; one climbed down to unbar the gate while the other guard watched, a Winchester in the crook of his arm. Gatling didn’t think the watchtowers were equipped with rapid-fire guns. A light rifled cannon could destroy a wooden watchtower from a long way off. If Kane had rapid-fire guns they would be for the defense of the main house.
The man who opened the gate gave Gatling a hard look. “You searched him good, did ye?”
Frankie did a bad imitation of the guard’s slow country voice. “Sure thang, cousin. Searched him real gude.”
“Dumb damn yokels,” Frankie said after he drove on through. “Hayseed like that wouldn’t last five minutes in Chicago.”
A tar macadam road wound up the hill to the house, which was as the Pinkerton report described it. Two stories of solid stone, a rounded slate roof rising from behind a stone parapet. A sodden flag dropped from a flagpole set at the highest point of the roof. The “official” flag of Kane’s Western Labor League. The colonel said its colors were copper, silver, and gold; at its center a shovel crossed by a pickax. Gatling had to take the colonel’s word for all that. In the rain, it just looked like a rag.
An old man came around the side of the house and Frankie turned the buckboard over to him. Gatling didn’t see any stables; maybe they were out in back or down the other side of the hill. That was where the other building was.
The front door of the house was solid oak studded with silvery nails. It was opened by a huge red-haired man dressed in some sort of livery: white shirt, green vest, black trousers. He looked as if he had been a prizefighter before he became a butler. Behind the outer door an iron door stood ajar. The butler was so big he seemed to fill the entire doorway, which was high and wide. Gatling noticed that Frankie, who tried his bad jokes on everyone, didn’t try to joke with this man.
“This way,” the butler said to Gatling in an English accent. Frankie and Nick opened a door on one side of the entrance hallway and went down stone steps. Gatling followed the huge Englishman to another, bigger door. He knocked and opened the door and Gatling went in. The door closed behind him.
Michael Patrick Kane, a wide, squat man dressed in a gray suit, stood with his back to a big, blazing log fire. The fire and the stone fireplace were big enough to roast an ox. Outside, it was a cold, wet April day; in here, all was warmth and comfort. The red-tile floor was strewn with thick rugs of many colors; the low-ceilinged room was big enough to hold two soft leather couches, four soft leather armchairs. Books covered the walls from floor to ceiling, and there were maps and flags and paintings where there were no books. A huge teak desk stood in the center of the room.
Kane, who had been warming his backside, let his coattails drop and sat behind his desk. “Sit down, Taggart,” he said. His hoarse, rasping voice still had a little brogue left in it. But mostly it was a threatening growl. He jerked his thumb toward a sideboard with bottles and glasses on it. “You want a drink?”
Gatling said no thanks.
Kane said, “You don’t want a drink or you don’t want to drink with me?”
“I drink nothing but beer,” Gatling said.
“Then say so.” Kane raised his voice and yelled, “Get in here!”
The big Englishman came in and Kane told him to get a bottle of beer. “I always wanted to have an English butler,” Kane said after the man left the room. “Of course, Jem is more than a butler. He was a wrestler after he lost his title. He hates me, but he’s too well paid to do anything about it. He’d tear your head off if I said so.”
“Why would you want to do that, Mr. Kane?” It went against the grain to call this son of a bitch mister.
Kane smiled with gapped yellow teeth; his face was wide and scarred; his small eyes were slaty blue. “I didn’t say I wanted to do it. I just wanted you to know I could have it done. Forget I said it. No, I take that back. Don’t forget I said it.”
Jem came in with the beer in an ordinary saloon mug.
“Good and cold, am I right?” Kane said.
Gatling sipped the beer and nodded.
“Damn right it is.” Kane ordered Jem to fix him a brandy and soda. “I got ice here year round. Cut it in the winter, store it in straw down below.” He took the glass from Jem, but didn’t say thanks.
Kane sipped his drink, then set it down. “So you killed Bigger Zell. Killed him with a hatchet, they tell me. News travels fast. The big bastard was still bleeding when there was a man on his way here to tell me. You don’t think I know everything that goes on around here? Sometimes I know it before it happens.”
Gatling nodded, realizing right off that he didn’t have to give an answer to everything Kane threw at him. The man was a braggart all right. In just a few minutes, he had bragged about his ferocious butler, his supply of ice, how much he knew about everything.
Kane drank some of his drink. “So you killed the big Dutch bastard. That must have took some doing. First the hand, then the head, like a coconut. Bang!” Kane slammed his wide ugly hand on the desk. “Congratulations, Taggart! I hated that loudmouth pig. I’m glad you killed him. Let me shake your hand. Put ’er there, Taggart.”
Gatling wondered if Kane might not be a little crazy. Men born and brought up in poverty often got crazy when they got too much power. Maybe Kane was big crazy. Gatling held out his hand and Kane’s hand clamped down on it in an iron grip. But Gatling had been expecting that, and was ready for it. If he hadn’t been set, Kane would have crushed the bones in his hand. Kane tried to slam Gatling’s hand against the top of the desk and his gap-toothed grin faded when he failed to do it. Kane had miner’s hands, but he hadn’t been in the mines for years, and maybe there had been too much brandy and soda. They stood there, bent across the desk, sweat on both their faces. Kane’s breath hissed in and out; his dead eyes were murderous. Then slowly, his arm cramping with pain, Gatling turned Kane’s hand and forced it down an inch at a time. Kane’s hand touched the desk and he let go.
Kane sat down heavily and picked up his drink with his left hand. He went back to grinning. If there was pain, he didn’t show it, but he downed the brandy and soda in two gulps. “That was a sneaky trick,” he rasped, trying to keep his grin in place. “I wasn’t prepared for something like that. Why did you do it?”
“I thought you were going to do it to me.”
“Like hell! Had I been prepared you’d have a broken hand now.”
“You want to try again, Mr. Kane?”
Kane said, “You want to try shaking hands with Jem?”
“Not if I don’t have to,” Gatling said. “And I wouldn’t want a second go-round with you.”
Kane settled back in his chair. “Good answer, Taggart. Get in here!” he yelled.
Jem fixed him another drink and left.
Gatling picked up his beer mug. “What do you want, Mr. Kane? You didn’t bring me out here to talk about Bigger Zell. What else is there?”
Kane got up and walked around with his drink. “I don’t have to give reasons for what I do, boyo. When I snap my fingers, men jump. I could make you jump.”
“Not if there were just the two us.” Gatling knew he was pushing it, but there were limits to what he would take from any man. He softened it a little by adding, “Even if I couldn’t beat you, it would be one hell of a fight.”
Kane pointed to a framed map of Ireland. “See that county up there in the northwest? That’s County Mayo. Hard country, hard people. That’s where I learned to fight. Back in those days no man came close to beating me. You sure as hell wouldn’t.”
Kane had stopped grinning, which Gatling took as a sign that he no longer wanted to stomp him underfoot. “You know John L. Sullivan isn’t much taller’n I am? But he’s fierce, see, like me. He don’t believe he can be beat, so he can’t. I believe the same. I come to this country with nothing, a few pennies in my pocket, and now look at me.”
Gatling felt that required an answer. “You look like you’re doing all right, Mr. Kane.”
Kane turned away from the man and paused to swallow his drink. Gatling had seen the amount of brandy Jem put into it. He hoped Kane wouldn’t get drunk.
“You bet your balls I’m doing all right,” Kane said. “But I had to fight every step of the way. I been a lot of mean places in my time. Montana is the meanest. We just became a state, Taggart. You know what they picked as the state flower? The bitterroot. A good name, if you ask me, for it’s a mean, bitter place. Anyhow, the city of Butte is. There’s wealth enough here for everybody, but you think the fucking mine operators would give the workingman a fair shake? Not on your tintype.”
Kane yelled for Jem to fix another drink, though the brandy and the soda were right in front of him.
Back behind his desk, he stared at Gatling. “I sent for you because I think there must be something unusual about you. I was thinking about having that Dutch bastard killed, then you come along and do it for me.” Kane grinned his murderous grin. “You saved me money, Taggart. I like to save money. You want to know the reason I wanted Zell dead?”
Gatling waited and Kane said, “Because he refused to sell me guns. This long time I’ve had to send away for them. Now on the face of it that’s not such a bother; it was the attitude of the man, don’t you see. You won’t put me to such bother?”
Gatling said, “I’ll sell guns to any man that can pay for them in cash. Why wouldn’t Zell sell you guns?”
Kane spat into a spittoon beside his desk. His face was so dark with rage that Gatling couldn’t decide if he was spitting on the dead gun dealer or just spitting.
“Because he sucked the mine operators’ assholes, that’s why.” Kane swigged from his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his work-battered hand. “Rotten Dutch bastard thought that’d get him in good with a better class of people. Aside from the bother he caused me, I hate men that try to get above what they are. Not that there’s anything wrong with trying to better yourself, but only a jumped-on son of a boot-licking bastard will try to forget where he came from.” Gatling muttered something; Kane ignored it.
Kane waved his hand. “You see all this, this big house, the rest of it? You think I give a shit for any of it? A rat’s ass I do! It’s for my people, my union members. Not a one of them is ever going to dwell in a house like this, but they want their leader to look like he’s living as good as the bosses. It’s their house, Taggart. I just live here for the time being.”
Gatling said, “You’ll pass it on to them when ...”
This time Kane’s smile was sly rather than dangerous, though there was menace in everything he said and did. It was built into his nature, and maybe it had been there since he took his first breath.
“Don’t rush me,” he said, grinning even wider. “I’m only forty.”
Gatling knew he was forty-five; the overbearing thug was vain about his age. There were many reasons why men lied about their age. Often it was to keep their jobs or to hold onto a younger woman. With some men it was the fear of death. Men who were fearless in youth started to hear the 23rd Psalm when they got on in years.
“I’m not ready for the rocking chair just yet,” Kane went on. “Anybody asks you how I look when you get back to town, you tell ’em I’m pawing the ground and raring to go. You tell ’em, Taggart.”
Gatling nodded.
Kane said angrily, “The bloat-gut mine operators never thought I’d make a success of the Labor League. Every time they think about me they’re like to shit their pants. You know why I built this house? Because an old frame building with a sign out front and a few hundred in the bank don’t make much of a show. I’d like to see them try to bomb or burn me out of here.”
It was too warm in the room and Gatling wished to hell he could get outside and breathe the clean damp air. He was sure now that, in spite of all his threatening talk, Kane was a man who lived in fear. He had built himself a fortress and now he was locked up in it. But Gatling knew he might have it all wrong. Kane might be one of those men who lived in fear of death, but was always ready to face it one more time. The thing to do was to hear him out. It wasn’t always true that the more a man talked the more you got to know about him. Some men revealed nothing.
Kane picked a newspaper off the desk, shook it at Gatling, then turned and tossed it in the fire. “The papers don’t treat me fair,” he rasped. “Not a goddamned one treats me fair except the American Worker in Chicago, but that don’t count. I’m talking about the big papers. Every time they write about me they dredge up the jail time I done, the fact I hire ex-convicts. What’s wrong with that? If I don’t hire these fellas, who will? Even jailbirds need three squares. One paper asked why I don’t hire ex-coppers for, well my staff. That’ll be the day. I don’t like cops, I don’t trust cops, ex or private, any kind of cops. Many’s the beating I took from coppers. You see this face? Pretty, ain’t it? I didn’t get this face by walking into a wall. I wasn’t born with this droopy eye.”
Kane raised his hand and touched his scarred eyelid. “A strikebreaking private copper did that with a bayonet. Coppers are just natural-born strikebreakers and thieves. They come from just as poor as the rest of us, but they suck up to the rich. Don’t tell me about coppers. One time I seen three of them beating on the bald skull of a man well past seventy. I seen them firing into a crowd of strikers had women and children in it. I seen them burning strikers’ shacks in the dead of winter when it was below zero.”
Gatling did some more nodding.
Kane said abruptly, “Which side are you on, Taggart? Are you for the workers or the bosses?”
Gatling pretended to be surprised. “Which side? I never thought of it that way. I’m just a small businessman trying to make a living.”
“Maybe you think you’re better than the working stiff because you got a trade and business. Maybe you’re of a mind to join the Butte Businessman’s Club, not that they’d let you in—you work with your hands.”
“I don’t give a damn about any businessman’s club. And I’m on nobody’s side but my own.”
“Is that a fact now?” Kane came out from behind his desk. “Let’s see your hands.”
Gatling didn’t move his hands from the arms of the chair. “What’ve my hands got to do with you?”
“Let’s see the hands, big man.”
Gatling held out his hands, palms up. His hands were battered and marked by years of hard use. The palms were soft because working with weapons had soaked gun oil into the skin. Kane examined Gatling’s hands, but didn’t try any tricks.
Kane said, “Don’t look like the hands of a company spy.”
“Is that what you thought I was? A company spy?”
“The palms are soft. Why is that?”
Gatling said, “That’s the gun grease and oil. Men that shear sheep get the same kind of hands.”
“That would figure.” Kane let Gatling’s hands drop. “Men that mine coal get their own kind of hands. Coal dust gets into the nicks and cuts. It’s permanent, like a tattoo. Hands like these.” Kane held up his hands and they had the markings he described. “You can have the tattoos removed, I’m told, but my coalfield tattoos are my badge of honor.”
“Mr. Kane,” Gatling said as reasonably as he could, “if you’re all through with me I’d like to get back and open my store. Take my word for it, I’m no kind of spy, no kind of detective. I’m no more or less than what I say I am. Besides, what harm could I do you?”
“No harm. Nobody can harm me.” Kane’s cold eyes bored into Gatling’s face. “There’s something about you, Taggart. You have a hard look that don’t say storekeeper. I’m going to find out all about you.”
Gatling said, “That’s what Chief Boyd told me. I got everybody checking back on me. You mind if I ask you a question, Mr. Kane? Why would I give out information about myself that could be checked?”
“Maybe you figured nobody would take the time,” Kane said. “A small gunsmithing business, nothing fishy about that.”
Gatling stood up. “Butte is a mighty peculiar place, is all I can say.”
Kane stayed in his chair. “Not peculiar,” he said. “Butte is a rotten, dirty, stinking, miserable place, take it or leave it. I decided to take it, and I will. Sooner or later I’ll make those rich bastards crawl. Will come a day when nothing moves in the mines. Not a single ton of ore gets proceeded unless I say so. And when I sew up Butte good and tight I’m going to branch out. Then you’ll see the sparks fly. That’ll take money, but I’ve got it; the Labor League does. The League, with me as titleholder, owns a gold mine back in the hills.” Kane waved his hand. “It’d be a barefaced lie to say I discovered it myself, but in a way I did. An old broken-down prospector was there first, but didn’t have the money, couldn’t get a bank loan, to make a go of it. A big operator was trying to force him to sell for next to nothing, poor bastard. They threatened him and his family. You know how they are. That made me mad, so I made the poor mucker a fair offer, better than fair, and he was glad to take it. Now it belongs to the League and is making money for the members. We’re mighty proud of that mine.”
You mean you’re proud of it, Gatling thought. Looking at Kane, he could see the pride of ownership in the labor boss’s eyes. That, and an overpowering greed.
Kane said, “If you’re a spy for the bosses you’ll run and tell them everything I just told you. I’d like to remind them how it is between them and me. How it is and always will be. You can leave anytime you like. Jem will fetch the buckboard.”
Gatling turned toward the door. Jem was holding it open and the two thugs were waiting in the hall. Kane called after him as he was leaving. “Keep this in mind, Taggart. If I find you’ve lied to me, I’ll nail you to the cross. A real cross, just like the one they made for Jesus.”
Gatling didn’t doubt that Kane meant every word he said.