Half an hour after the break-in, six of Kingston’s Regulators under Art Shadie arrived at the Motherlode packing enough artillery to equip a small revolution. They took up vantage points around the mine in case the miners decided to try to re-take the place. As Benedict and Foley Kingston inspected the offices and installations for signs of damage, Brazos sat on his spurs in the shade of the porch overhang of the main office building. A cigarette dangling from his lips, Brazos playfully tossed pebbles at a drowsing Bullpup.
“Everything seems in order,” Brazos heard Kingston say to Benedict as the two emerged from the steep-roofed wagon house and walked towards a towering ore crusher. “Lucky for them, too.”
He didn’t catch Benedict’s response, mainly because he wasn’t much interested, and secondly because he had just sighted a man approaching down the road towards the gates. A man dressed in a miner’s blue denim.
Uncoiling lazily to his feet, Brazos stretched powerful arms and looked across at Shadie and his men. They were too busy gabbing about the victory to notice the solitary walker, and Kingston and Benedict were out of sight beyond the crushing machine. Brazos stepped out into the brutal sun and, with Bullpup trailing, slouched across to the gates to see what the fellow wanted.
Brazos recognized the miner as one of Clancy’s men, a quiet-looking joker of about fifty who Brazos recalled trying to pacify the others when the trouble broke out.
“Forget somethin’, friend?” Brazos said with a half grin as the man trudged up.
The miner answered the Texan’s smile a little wearily and moved into the shade beside him to mop at his face with a dark blue bandanna.
“Not really, young feller,” he said in a pleasantly soft voice.. “You’re Brazos, aren’t you? Delaney’s my name, Shamus Delaney.”
Before Brazos could answer, Shadie’s men spotted the miner and started to raise hell. Turning from the hips, Brazos shouted back to them to shut up, then he grinned at Delaney again.
“Boys are a little jumpy, Shamus. Somethin’ we can do for you?”
“I came back to see if I mightn’t have a little talk with Mr. Kingston. Here he comes now.”
Foley Kingston certainly was coming. Outstripping Benedict, the big man was striding towards them, his face red and angry in the shade of his broad-brimmed white hat.
“Delaney!” he barked. “What do you think you’re doing here?”
“He’s come to parley,” Brazos said.
“Indeed I have, Mr. Kingston,” Delaney said. “I’m not sure if it’s the time or place but—”
“You’re damned right it’s not,” Kingston snorted. “We just got rid of you law-breaking troublemakers and we don’t want you showing your faces around here again.”
“Perhaps we could hear what Mr. Delaney has to say, Foley,” Benedict suggested.
The Irishman shot a grateful look at Benedict and said, “Mr. Kingston, I just wanted to be sayin’ that after what happened here today, maybe it’s time we tried sittin’ down and talkin’ things over again. I think you know that I’ve never really supported Clancy and his friends, and I’m thinkin’ we might all be lucky that nobody got killed here today. Don’t you think now might be a good time to talk before the whole thing gets out of hand?”
The proposal sounded reasonable to Brazos and Benedict—but not to Foley Kingston.
“I’ve no intention of talking with you, Delaney,” he said coldly. “The time for talking is past and now you and your rebellious friends can just sit back and reap what you have sown.”
“But, Mr. Kingston—”
“That’s all, Delaney. Now move on or I’ll have you moved.”
Delaney looked at Benedict and Brazos, seemed about to say something more, then turned and trudged off down the glaring stretch of road.
“I don’t understand it, Foley,” Duke Benedict said after a long silence. “He seemed as if he genuinely wanted to talk.”
“They’re as crafty as coyotes, those Irish, Duke,” Kingston said. “Not one of them is to be trusted, believe me.” His smile returned. “But let’s not worry about Delaney and his ilk at the moment. This is a special day of achievement and we’re all going to enjoy it. I’m going to the office in town, but before I do I want your assurance that you’ll come up to the house this evening.” Kingston’s winning smile flashed at Brazos. “I’m going to put on a victory supper, Hank, and I’ve told Duke I insist on you two attending.”
Brazos looked at Benedict who said quietly, “We’ll be there, Foley.”
“Good, good,” Kingston replied. Then as he turned to go, “And tonight you’ll definitely meet my wife, boys. I’m certain you’ll find that quite a treat. I know Rhea is going to be as happy about our victory as I am.”
Standing on either side of the gateway, neither man spoke until Kingston had ridden out with Regulators Hasty and Miller and was dusting towards town. Then Brazos said:
“I don’t figure it, Yank. Kingston acts like he don’t give a damn whether them miners come back to work or not. How the hell’s he expect to get this outfit goin’ again if he won’t even talk to ’em?”
There was no reply from Benedict. He was thinking hard about Foley Kingston. He was aware, far more sharply than at any time before, that Foley hadn’t completely leveled with him about the set-up in Spargo. Foley was holding a few cards back in this game which, as dealer, he likely had a right to do. But Benedict hoped one of the cards wasn’t a joker.
“There, pet, does that feel better?”
“Much better, Mother,” Clancy said. “Now I’ll—”
“Now don’t start fidgetin’, you big lump. I haven’t put the bandage around your head yet.”
“It’s all right, Mother.”
“Sure and who knows what’s best for ye, son, you or your mother?”
“You do, Mother, but—”
“Then shut your great gapin’ gob and let me be for gettin’ on with it,” Mother Clancy snapped in a characteristically swift switch from solicitude to bossiness. “Do ye think a body’s got nothin’ better to be doin’ than patchin’ up your bumps and bruises all day long?”
With a sigh of resignation, Clancy fell silent and let the skinny woman get on with the job of strapping up his big hard head where Duke Benedict’s six-gun barrel had made violent contact an hour back. There was a two-inch split in the hairline that had bled a little, but he’d had fifty times worse and laughed about it, though there was no telling his mother that. She treated him like an overgrown child all the time, and doubly so at times like this.
Soon Mother Clancy’s brisk wrinkled little hands finished their task and she stood back from the stool her son sat on in the middle of the tiny kitchen to admire her handiwork. Seated, Clancy was a fraction taller than his mother standing. She was barely over five feet tall, a skinny, wrinkled, fiercely energetic little Irishwoman in a black grannie dress and high-button boots. A clay pipe jutted from her jaw. Her face was like intricately wrinkled parchment with two black nails driven into it for eyes, and her gray hair was pulled severely back in a bun. Though she wouldn’t weigh a hundred pounds pulled from a lake, Mother Clancy had the authority of a field gun and there were few men in town who hadn’t trembled under the caustic lick of her Killarney tongue at one time or another—and that went double for Clancy.
“All right,” she said, “now tell me how you got it cracked.”
Clancy rose and had to bend his bandaged head to protect it from a ceiling that had been built to accommodate men of normal size.
“I told ye, Mother, I fell over in the street.”
“Ye great lyin’ spalpeen! You’re thinkin’ a body’s so old and squinty she can’t be tellin’ a pistol-whippin’ when she sees one? Who hit ye—and why?”
“I fell over and that’s the truth.”
“I should wash your mouth out,” the woman snapped, but her old face sagged with worry as she turned to her stove. She had heard rumors—a word here, a snippet there, but that was all. What did she understand about strikes and suchlike? But she was aware that her son was deeply involved in a dangerous situation and she prayed every night on the beads that he would not come to real harm.
She was fixing coffee for him when a knock sounded on the door. Clancy opened the door to O’Rourke who had a message from uptown: Ace Beauford wanted to see Clancy.
“All right,” Clancy said quickly, “I’ll be comin’. Wait out at the gate. You know how mother is about ye.”
“What’s that gaspin’, hackin’ little Orangeman want with ye?” Mother Clancy snapped as the door closed.
“Well, he just come to remind me the lads are havin’ a meetin’ at the hotel to—”
“Liar! I heard him say somethin’ about Beauford. What does that black-eyed divil always be wantin’ with ye these days? Ye know I’ve got no time for him.”
Clancy threw up his hands in exasperation. “Blast it all, half the time you’re sayin’ you’re deaf as a post, but you hear more’n a jackrabbit I’m thinkin’.”
“I hear enough and see enough to know that you’re lettin’ yourself be dragged down to somethin’ way over your head in this misbegotten town of trouble.”
For once Mother Clancy was off the mark. It was her darling son who was in the forefront of the trouble in Spargo—dragging down a lot of other men who were as much in awe of his crushing fists as he was of his mother’s waspish tongue.
“You fret too much,” he told her, rolling the sleeves of his plaid shirt up above his mighty biceps as he went out. “I know what I’m doin’.”
“That’s what your drunken sot of a father used to say,” she called after him from the doorway. “Until the night they brought him home on a door. Now ye don’t be gettin’ into any more bother and don’t be sneakin’ in late, hear?”
Clancy scowled murderously as he strode through the gate and tramped down poverty-stricken Bonanza Street with O’Rourke trotting at his heels. He was so used to his mother’s tirades that he didn’t notice them half the time, but he hated her calling him down within earshot of anybody.
They’d gone fifty yards before he noticed O’Rourke was grinning.
“What are ye smilin’ at, ye fool?” he growled.
“Don’t be gettin’ home late,” O’Rourke mimicked. “And don’t be gettin’ into trouble.”
O’Rourke should have known better. Hardly breaking stride, Clancy clapped him to the side of the head, knocking him sideways. Eyes rolling, O’Rourke crashed into Buck Jackson’s fragile front fence which collapsed about him with a great clatter as he went down.
Alerted by the crash, people came running out to see what was going on. Clancy paid them no heed. Arms swinging, big boots covering five feet at a stride, he went on until he reached the Delaney house, where Shamus Delaney and his dark-haired daughter stood on their front porch staring at him.
Clancy stopped at the fence. His ferocious intimidating stare, which just about everybody but his mother was familiar with in Spargo, stabbed accusingly at Delaney.
“So, Delaney, they’re tellin’ me you went back to the mine today on your own after I said you weren’t to. Is it the truth?”
Delaney came down his path, but his slender, pretty daughter remained on the verandah.
“Sure, I went back, Clancy,” he said in his soft brogue. “I thought I might be able to talk with Foley Kingston.”
“But he wouldn’t listen, would he?”
“No ... no, he wouldn’t.”
“Then next time you might follow my orders.” Clancy poked Delaney in the chest with an iron finger and prodded him back a step. “In fact, next time, if you don’t, I might take it personal and feel I got to crack a few of your old chicken bones. Understand me, Delaney?”
Pale-faced, Delaney said, “I was only tryin’ to—”
“Don’t try anything,” Clancy warned, and with a cold stare at the girl, strode off.
Tricia Delaney hurried down to her father and took his arm. “Oh, Dad, did he hurt you?”
“Of course not, me darlin’.” He patted her hand. “Clancy’s just a little worked up over what happened at the mine is all. He means no harm.”
“He does and you know it, Dad,” the girl said. “I could just see by his face how angry he is about what’s happened. What do you think he’ll do about those men, Brazos and Benedict?”
Delaney sighed. “It’s hard to say what he’ll do, Tricia.”
“But we know he’ll be doing something.”
Delaney suddenly felt the full weight of his years. “Aye, he’ll be doing something, child. Never was one to take somethin’ lyin’ down was Clancy ...”
“A toast,” said a beaming Foley Kingston from the head of the great dining table. He twirled the wine glass in his fingers and grinned boyishly. “Forgive the immodesty, but I’m proposing this toast to me—yes, to me—for having the good sense to ask my friend Duke for assistance, without which today’s success could certainly not have been achieved.”
Benedict and Brazos lifted their glasses, but Rhea Kingston left her glass on the table. Rhea, breathtakingly beautiful in a figure-hugging white evening dress with diamonds glittering at wrists and throat, stared across the table at Benedict.
Rhea Kingston was intrigued. She had agreed to dine with her husband and his two guests tonight only because Foley had insisted. He had painted a glowing picture of Duke Benedict, but she’d still expected him to be a cold-eyed killer with the stamp of his trade all over him. Instead she found herself confronted by a gentleman of style, wit and charm who was probably the most handsome man she had ever met.
“I do believe it is my turn now, Foley,” Benedict said, getting to his feet. Gray eyes smiling, he lifted his glass to Rhea. “A toast, gentlemen, to the rarest of all God’s creatures, a truly beautiful woman.”
Rhea was angry with herself for blushing. Foley beamed proudly, but Cole Kingston frowned. As for Brazos, he was thinking it would be a lot more comfortable down town at the Lucky Cuss or the Silver King with his fist around a beer instead of listening to all this hoopla and watching Benedict and Kingston’s luscious wife devour each other with their eyes.
“Beautifully put, Duke, beautifully put,” Kingston said as they resumed their seats. “And now, before I bring the musicians in to entertain us, I have some serious announcements to make.”
“Don’t you think you’ve talked enough for one night, Foley?” Rhea said in her husky voice.
“Patience, my dear,” Kingston said. “I’m sure this will interest you, too.” Kingston made a tent with his fingers and looked at Brazos and Benedict. “Gentlemen, I could tell today that you were puzzled when I showed no interest in talking with Shamus Delaney after we got the better of them at the Motherlode. Right?”
They nodded together, and Rhea Kingston looked curious.
“Very well,” Foley continued, “I think the time has come to explain, and I’m sure that what I have to tell you will clarify a great number of things in your minds. The fact of the matter is, I have no interest in negotiating with Delaney, Clancy or anybody else, for I don’t intend that the miners will return to work in my mine except on my terms. I have other plans.”
“Strike-breakers?”
It was Cole Kingston who spoke. They glanced sharply at him, then back to Kingston who was smiling.
“Exactly, Cole. Strike-breakers.” Kingston turned to his wife. “You recall the other evening when Shadie returned from the south and you were curious, my dear? Well, he had been to Granite to see a labor dealer named Heck Lafe. Lafe told Shadie he could let me have a hundred Mexican laborers to work the Motherlode—at only one dollar a day per man. I wired Lafe to stand by with the Mexicans. Now, thanks to Duke, and Hank, too, of course, I can send for them. What do you think of that?”
Rhea Kingston looked as if she didn’t know quite what to think of it, but Benedict found words quickly.
“Won’t bringing in cheap labor antagonize the strikers, Foley? Isn’t there another way?”
“No, Duke,” said Kingston, looking every inch the man with the big stick now as he slapped the table top. “I’ve been convinced from the start that the strikers are out to ruin me and it’s not going to happen. I’m not going to be bullied or blackmailed by a bunch of illiterate shanty Irish. They’ve had their fun and now it’s my turn.”
Benedict glanced at Brazos who looked as if he were having trouble following Kingston’s words. Cole Kingston seemed apprehensive. Rhea was now staring at Foley with an intent expression that was unreadable. Benedict was frowning as he turned his gaze back to Kingston.
“Foley, what you do here is your business, I suppose, but something just struck me. There has to be big trouble here in Spargo if you try to bring cheap labor in. Is that why you really sent for me? To have me on hand when that particular trouble breaks?”
“Exactly, Duke, and I make no apologies. Of course, if you don’t agree with what I’m doing, you’re free to pull out. You’re under no obligation to ride for me. I trust you understand that?”
Benedict had to smile at the subtle use of the word obligation. He was obliged right enough, and Kingston was reminding him of it. Because Foley had dragged him unconscious from the path of a Rebel cavalry charge at Bull Run, he was expected to stand at Foley’s shoulder here in Spargo. Obligation was the word.
“I understand, Foley,” he murmured, the soft candlelight gleaming on his black hair as he bent his head and took out his cigar case. “I’m still with you.”
“Fine,” Kingston beamed, “fine.” He glanced around the table. “Well, my news seems to have had a sobering effect, though I’m not sure why. Cole, go tell the boys to bring their instruments in, will you? What we need here is some music and some more wine. Come on, everybody, cheer up—this is a celebration, not a wake.”