a lot of pine forest at its base, and more forest high up, where the jagged mountains stretched toward the blue. That poppin’ got louder, so I knew I was gettin’ close, but so far I couldn’t see nothing.
I was taking myself and my sturdy horse into someplace where lead was flying around, and I argued with myself some. My ma, she always told me to stay outta trouble, and my pa, he always told me to stay clear of women, but they’s both gone now, so I get into whatever I get into. I wish I’d paid them more heed, because even though I didn’t know it then, I was going to get into trouble and women both.
I rounded a bend that opened on a wide gulch feeding into that valley, and now at last I got me a little peek at what the ruckus was all about.
“Critter,” I says to the nag, “I do believe they’ve got a little claim jumping party a-going full tilt.”
Up in the middle of that cliff was a mine head. All I could see was the mouth of a shaft driven into the side of that big old mountain, a black hole staring down upon me. And blocking that hole was an overturned one-ton ore car, rusty yeller, and a few chunks of metal I couldn’t rightly name ’cause when it comes to hauling rock outta the ground, I’m dumb as a stump.
But I hauled up to study the matter, stayin’ well out of range of any hot lead. It was plain enough, even to a dumb-ass cowboy. Up yonder were half a dozen hardcases banging away at someone holed up at the mine. That old boy in the mine, he had him a Sharps, with a big throaty boom, while the rest were using lighter artillery, and no one was gittin’ anywhere.
Like that feller at the mine was outnumbered but dug in.
It didn’t look like any fair fight either, ’cause I seen some hardcases working around to either side, like they’re planning to rush the old boy in the mine, coming at him from the flanks where he won’t see much until it’s too late.
I got the itchy feeling they were gettin’ set to shoot that old miner plumb dead, probably for reasons I didn’t want to think about, such as ownership. It must be quite a mine, I thought, to stir up a kettle full of pain like that.
“Well, Critter, you and me are going to buy into this here fracas,” I said. Critter, he rolled an ear back and shook his muzzle in disgust. He was telling me I’m plumb nuts, and I never would argue the case, ’cause he and I both agree to it.
Ahead was a mighty stand of lodgepole pine, sticking straight and true into the air, and I headed that way mostly to keep clear of that Sharps up there, and also to get me a better view of the proceedings.
I steered the horse up a grassy slope and into the forest, which was so thick that afternoon turned to twilight, and I let Critter pick his way over fallen timber, which crosshatched the ground. There was no way to escape making a noise as loud as a steam engine, so I just let the nag poke along, while I kept a sharp eye out for surprises.
Well, I got myself surprised, all right, when a dude in a dove-gray swallowtail coat and black trousers and shiny shoes and black silk stovepipe hat appears from nowhere, pointing a shiny little pepperbox at me, maybe nine barrels in all. A quaint little weapon, outmoded by revolvers, but as lethal as any.
“Hands high,” the gent says, so I consider it’s my duty to obey, real careful, because pepperboxes are ornery little guns with a habit of shooting off all barrels at once.
I raised my pinkies toward the evergreen limbs above, and smiled kindly. “Just wandering through,” says I. “I’m never one to miss a good show.”
The gent looked me over and saw a young cowboy, well armed, skinny as hell, with a few acne patches on my cheeks that were some embarrassing, even if half hid by the scruffy layer of beard I’d not scraped away for a week or two. Me, I saw a smoothly shaven face, black hawk eyes, a trim gray mustache, clean white teeth, fancy dark sideburns, and soft hands that had never done a lick of log-splitting, shoveling, ax-swinging, or plow-wrestling. In short, he was some Fancy Dan. He even had one of them gold watch fobs dangling across his middle.
“Who are you?” the man asked, as if he expected a reply.
“I don’t like to spell her out,” I said. “I never was too happy with the name, so I keep her to myself.”
“Nine barrels. Shall I shoot the first?”
“Cotton,” says I, all hasty. “It’s not a name I cotton to.”
“And?”
“You plumb gonna have to kill me dead before I give out the rest.”
He smiled suddenly. “Cotton Pickens,” he said. “You’ve been hanging around Swamp Creek looking for trouble to get into.”
I flushed pure red. How anyone got ahold of my rear handle I don’t know. I never tell it to anyone.
“This is fortuitous,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Now that was a word I couldn’t pronounce, much less figure out. “Put that in words someone like me’d know some of,” I said.
“Fortunate,” he said. “I heard you are good with a gun, and I thought to hire you.”
“Well, I’m not rightly sure I’m for sale,” I said. This feller was too clean-shaven for me. My gut feeling is not to trust anyone in a swallowtail coat and a mustache. “But you can give me the what-for.”
He shrugged. “This,” he said. “We have paper giving us that mine. But that gentleman resists.”
“Paper?”
“Deed and mineral rights. We paid the back taxes and bought it at auction.”
“But he still figures possession is nine tenths of the law, right?”
“You know some law, Cotton.”
“Well, you got to read something in an outhouse, especially when you’re as slow to do your business as I am.
