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
