Muggsy Pitt, the barkeep at the Miners Exchange, didn’t like that at all.
“Hold it right there, Brashear,” he said.
Since Muggsy was the one with the sawed-off scattergun, Brashear got real polite real fast.
“Cotton, tell us,” Pitt said.
“I was next door, come out to piss, and there he was, behind here. I brung him in,” I said.
“How come next door?”
“I was bedding on the billiard table.”
“Argo’s hands behind his back like that?”
“Lying facedown in the muck, hands tied like that. That’s all I know.”
“Likely story,” said Brashear.
Muggsy waved the scattergun at him. “You lay off. Maybe you done it yourself. You’re the only one went out there last hour or so.”
The district mining secretary who carried a deputy badge didn’t like that none.
“Brashear, maybe I’ll just ride up to Butte and tell the sheriff about this,” I said.
The mining district clerk looked real itchy. “No, that’s my job. I’ll do it,” he said.
“Then go do it,” Muggsy said.
That’s when the whistle blew up at the Fat Tuesday mine. The second shift was done, and in a few minutes most of them miners would be sitting right here, ordering suds and a shot on the side. Maybe that would be a good thing.
Brashear, he looked sort of tentative at Muggsy, and then edged out the door and into the night.
“That outfit in the railroad car, they wanted Argo out,” Muggsy said. “And they own Brashear. You can bet that he’s taking the news up there.”
“Anything happens in the valley, someone’s running up to the railroad car to talk about it,” I said. “Johnny Brashear’s a regular errand boy, looks like.”
“I got a body in my saloon, and I want to get it out of here,” Muggsy said.
“Anybody know anything about Argo? Like who’s his relatives? And who’s partners with him in his mine?” I asked.
“Armand Argo, he come in here for almost the first time tonight. Like he was looking for someone, or gonna meet someone here.”
“I guess he met someone, all right,” I said.
“He came and went. He looked around here, didn’t see what he was looking for, and headed out the doors.”
“Rear door?”
“Naw, front door. And that was the end of it, until you carried him in here.”
“Them off-shift miners are comin’. Maybe we better see what they know,” I said.
“I don’t like it. I want the boys to have a good time in here.”
“Muggsy, there’ll be no good time for anyone tonight,” I said.
About then, the double doors swung open, and five or six of them Fat Tuesday second-shift men pushed in, laughing and ready for a beer and a shot. It was a hard thing to watch. They crowded in, noticed what was lying on the billiard table, and crowded around it, dead silent.
“It’s the boss,” one said.
“Argo, yes. In the alley. We brought him in,” Muggsy said, starting to fill some mugs from his tap.
That sure was a quiet crowd. Three more came in, caught the silence, and gathered at the table. Not a one of ’em said a thing.
“What?” asked a big one with a flowing beard.
“Found him in the alley behind here, just a few minutes ago,” I said.
“Executed. Hands tied!” the miner said.
“You know why?” I asked.
“Hell, yes, we all know why,” the bearded one said.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Card Penrose,” he said. “I’m the shift foreman.” He sighed, ran a big grimy hand through his locks. “We all knew it would come, sooner or later.”
“Scruples?”
The foreman nodded. “Can’t be no other. They told him to sell out or get out and gave him a deadline. I think it was yesterday. Sell out for a cheap price or face the music.”
“Threatened him?”
“Argo, he just laughed, and said they wouldn’t dare.”
“Looks like they dared,” I said.
“Argo, he always carried a piece,” Penrose said.
I nodded at him, and he reluctantly opened Argo’s coat and felt around the chest, and then shook his head.
“Not now,” he said.
“You know if he had partners? Or family? Or heirs? Who owns this mine?”
“He had a little office at the mine,” one of them said.
“Where’d he live?”
“He had him a place above the Moulin Rouge.”
That was a gamblin’ parlor and maybe a little more, down the block. Rumor had it that he owned the gamblin’ franchise there, but not the bar. Kept his hand in his business, which was cards and dice.
I sure didn’t know what to do. I just come to Swamp Creek to get me a meal and a flop. But no one around there was doin’ much.
“I guess we’d better see what we can see at the Fat Tuesday office and maybe in his rooms,” I said.
“I’ll see what’s in his rooms,” Muggsy Pitt said. “Anyone needs a refill, pour it yourself and put it in the till.”
“I’ll go with you, Muggsy,” one of them miners said. That was a good idea.
“Penrose, let’s you and me see what’s in that mine office,” I said. “I got a feeling we ought to get there and make sure things are proper.”
The rest, they didn’t want to know, seems like, and crowded the bar with their back to their late boss. But no one was sayin’ much.
We stepped into the chill night. Swamp Creek was plain black at this hour, but for a couple of saloons catering to the last shift. I remembered I didn’t have no gun. Them Transactions people had got ever’ gun I owned, and I was nakkid as a jaybird. Seein’ as how there wasn’t no law to speak of, a man in Swamp Creek without an iron is sure gonna invite every mugger around.
“You work long for Argo?” I asked Penrose.
“Come over from Cornwall ’twas two years past and this was just starting up, and I thought it’s a good place in the New World for a old tin miner, so I hired on. That was before Argo won the place in a game of cards. Now that gravels me Methodist heart, it does, betting cards on a mine.”
“Were his miners happy with him?”
Penrose didn’t reply at first. “About average, I’d say. He wasn’t doin’ his miners any favors, and that mine needs more air. But so do the rest.”
“Someone plain kilt him.”
“And there’s no heirs neither,” he said. “I had a few talks with old Armand. His whole family died of yellow fever down there in New Orleans.”
“Who’s gonna get this mine?”
“I’d guess it’s already gotten,” Penrose said.
We trailed up a sharp grade. The mine head was located well above the town. But it was already dark up there, lamps out and all.
“I can’t see nothing,” I said.
“I know my way around,” he said.
He put a hand on my shoulder and guided me off to the side, where some dark buildings loomed. I’d never been to the Fat Tuesday, and was sort of wonderin’ how I got mixed up in all this stuff. But there I was.
Penrose, he steered me toward a dark building off to the side, and gently tried the door. It wasn’t locked, so he pushed her open and we stepped in.
“The office,” Penrose said. “Probably some records here.”
A wooden floor creaked under us, and then a match flared. It blinded me a moment, and when I got past the surprise, there was The Apocalypse standin’ there, one of his stubby little pot-shooters aimed square at me, and next to him was Arnold.
“Well, well,” said The Apocalypse, waving his stubby revolver in my direction. “Fancy finding you here.”
Arnold lit a lamp, and sure enough, there was four of us in that office. It wasn’t no grubby office neither, but one with red wallpaper and real nice furniture.
This was getting tiresome, me without a gun since everything got took by them nice folks in the railroad car. I always say, if you don’t have a gun, go git one, so I sprang straight at The Apocalypse. Only he was ready for me this time, and cracked a shot that burned across my upper arm, but then I landed on the little fart and knocked him over ’bout the time the next shot cracked right next to my ear. I was scuffling with him hard; for a little guy he was mean, but I figured I’d just better win or he’d put my lights out, so I got one of them popguns loose from him, and was goin’ for the other when the whole world went black, and I knew Arnold had landed a good one on me and I might wake up in a week or two.
Well, that was something all right. I wasn’t out long, and when I woke up I didn’t even had no headache. Arnold was an expert. He just thunked me in some way as to douse my lights. I lay there on the floor with them two Scruples men a-watching me, and old Penrose standing there. He had a lump on his head, so I knew that Arnold had knocked him loose of a few teeth, too. And The Apocalypse was smirky.
“Thought you could get away with it, did you, Cotton?” he asked.
He was armed with both of his popguns again, but didn’t even have one in hand. All he needed was Arnold to keep me on the floor. I didn’t argue with that none. That Arnold, he was a man with talents, and it took nothing more than a boot to keep me real quiet there on that polished wood.
There was one other thing I was just discoverin’, and that is that my hands were tied behind my back, real tight. That was a little unsettling, given the local history during the last hour or two, but there wasn’t nothing to do about it. The Apocalypse was watching and smirking, and seeing me wiggle my fingers a little just to try them out. He laughed softly.
“Out like a light,” he said.
“Well, I suppose you got some reason for being here in this office,” I said.
“Trespassers,” the little gunman replied. “Mr. Scruples frowns on trespassers.”
“Let me guess. The Fat Tuesday now belongs to Transactions, Incorporated, right?”
“Your wisdom is remarkable,” the twerp said.
“And let me guess. You’re here because you heard Armand Argo’s no longer the owner, right?”
“Poor devil had an accident, it seems,” The Apocalypse said.
“I reckon he did,” I said. “And I suppose you’re of a mind to cause a few more accidents.”
He sighed. “I wish I could, Cotton, but Amanda, she wants you all for herself. She says you and she have unfinished business she’s going to finish, even if you got your hands tied behind your back.”
“She said that, did she?” I asked stupidly. “How’d she know where to find me?”
“I sent word that you were expected here, Cotton. You’re lucky. You’ll spend the night with Amanda.”
This was getting plumb entertaining.
“To hell with Amanda. I ain’t going,” I said. “Tell her no, I ain’t a-going up there. And here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna get a bandage on my arm. You’re gonna tell her she owes me a shirt, and I want a good shirt right now. You’re gonna cut me loose and I’m going back to Swamp Creek. Me and Penrose here, we’re going down to town.”
The Apocalypse sighed softly.
“Amanda wouldn’t like it,” he said.
“That’s just too bad. You fix up my arm and cut me loose now.”
The little gunman smiled sadly and nodded to Arnold.
Next I knew, my lights went out again. That Arnold, he had skills I never seen before. When I did wake up, I knew exactly where I was. There was that oil painting of Amanda hanging above the bed, and there was Amanda, dressed just like in the painting. My arm was bound up real nice, but that’s all I was wearing.
“Hello, Cotton,” she said. “You sure are hard to get.”