The Last Gunfighter Hell Town

by Johnstone, William J.

  “Yeah, he’s wasting his time.”

  Munro nodded. “Good. We can move on to other things. That terrible accident at the Crown Royal has given us a definite advantage for a while. Our only real competition now is Woodford’s Lucky Lizard Mine.”

  “Something might happen there too,” Hammersmith said, knowing that Munro would take his meaning correctly.

  “Not an explosion, though. That would be an incredible coincidence. Some people might not believe that it was a coincidence.”

  “What do you reckon might cause the most problems for them?”

  Munro smiled. “It would be very unfortunate for Woodford if he was hit with the bane of all mining men: labor troubles. A miners’ strike would shut down the Lucky Lizard for no telling how long.”

  Hammersmith rubbed his heavy jaw in thought. “I don’t think Woodford has to worry too much about that,” he said after a few seconds. “From what I hear, he treats the fellas who work for him pretty good.”

  “Well, you never know. All it takes is one or two hotheads to stir things up. Miners are like sheep, Hammersmith. They’re easily led, and once they get some idea in their head, it’s almost impossible to get it out.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Let me think about it, Boss.”

  “Don’t think too long,” Munro snapped. “Every mine I’ve ever been involved with has been the largest and most successful in its area. Things aren’t going to be any different here.”

  “We’re well on our way. I got a feeling the Lucky Lizard’s in for a run of bad luck, one way or another.” Hammersmith paused, then added, “Did you want to talk about the assay reports?”

  “I looked them over,” Munro said. “The preliminary tests indicate that with the new methods, the ore will assay out at a satisfactory amount of silver per ton. I think you should go ahead and increase production as much as possible right away.”

  Hammersmith nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “I’ve no doubt of that.”

  It should have made Hammersmith feel better for Munro to express his confidence that way, but for some reason, it didn’t. For one thing, only half an hour earlier, Hammersmith had been kissing Munro’s wife and running his eager hands over her body. For another, Hammersmith couldn’t forget that Munro had things set up so that if anybody ever got in trouble with the law over the things they had been doing, it would be him, Gunther Hammersmith. Munro wasn’t that worried about Morgan because the marshal couldn’t prove anything against him. It might be a different story where Hammersmith was concerned.

  Despite what Munro had said earlier, maybe it was time to start thinking about how some “accident” might befall Frank Morgan….

  When they got back to the office, they found Jessica rested and ready for the ride back to Buckskin. She took Hammersmith’s hand in hers and squeezed it as she said, “Thank you again, Mr. Hammersmith. You were an excellent host.”

  “Always glad to oblige, ma’am,” he told her. “Come back and visit the Alhambra any time you want.”

  “I think one visit will be enough for Jessica,” Munro said. “Come along, my dear.”

  He helped her into the coach and followed her inside. The driver and the guard climbed onto the box, and a moment later the stagecoach was rolling over the dusty trail back to the settlement, a couple of miles away. Hammersmith watched it go, thinking about what Munro had said. He’d been forced to hide his disappointment when Munro decreed that Jessica wouldn’t be coming out to the mine anymore. He figured that she would be able to change his mind about that if she wanted to. He hoped she wanted to.

  If not, he would just have to find a way to see her in town. Hammersmith’s mind was full at the moment, thoughts about various subjects whirling around inside his head. He had to worry about Frank Morgan and come up with a way to foment a miners’ strike at the Lucky Lizard.

  But uppermost in his thoughts were Jessica Munro and his need to see her again. To hold her in his arms once more and feast on those sweet lips of hers. To experience all the wonders that her sleek, supple body promised.

  All the other problems sort of paled beside that, and he was very glad that she had accompanied her husband today.

  “You look tired, my dear,” Hamish Munro said as they rocked along in the coach.

  “I am,” Jessica said. “This visit to the mine was interesting, but I’m exhausted now.”

  “Really?” Munro frowned. “I was hoping that when we got back to the hotel….”

  “I’m sorry, Hamish. I’m afraid all I want to do when I get back is soak in a hot tub to get this rock dust off of me, then have a nice long nap.”

  The look of disappointment on his face was priceless, she thought. He was so easily manipulated. She could dictate his moods according to her whims, jerking him around like a puppet on a string. To the world, he was Hamish Munro, as rich and powerful as a king. But to Jessica he was just another man, powerless in the face of his need for her. He actually thought that she loved him, and as long as he believed that, he would do anything she wanted him to.

  She had looked over the assay reports in the office while her husband was off talking to Gunther Hammersmith. They were probably plotting something together, as men liked to do. Jessica didn’t care. Let them play their games. She had found out what she wanted to know. She knew how the ore assayed out, and her brain could calculate the income per ton even faster than Munro’s could. It was easy to speculate on how much the mine would be worth in the long run.

  It had been a productive day in other ways too. Hammersmith had bitten hard on the hook, and now she had him on the line if she needed him. Pulling him in would be no challenge at all. When the time came, with Hammersmith’s help, she could make herself a very rich woman indeed. All she had to do was wait for the right moment….

  Jessica became aware that Munro was looking at her from the stagecoach’s other seat. There was no suspicion in his eyes, only longing.

  She smiled at him. She could throw him that bone anyway.

  It was all he was going to get.

  Chapter 22

  Since keeping the corpses of the dead men on display in front of the undertaking parlor didn’t seem to be doing any good, Frank told Claude Langley to go ahead and bury them. Frank and Dog had gone over the scene of the gun battle with the men and hadn’t found anything to indicate who they had been working for. Riding in the stream the way they had prevented Dog from backtracking them. The man who had slit the throat of the surviving outlaw must have also ridden in the stream, because Frank couldn’t find his track either.

  Frank’s frustration grew over the next few days as it seemed that his visit with Munro wasn’t paying any dividends either. That attempt on his life he had halfway expected didn’t happen. In fact, things in Buckskin were pretty peaceful again. The rush of newcomers into town finally seemed to be slowing down. The settlement was still crowded, and there were drunken brawls in the saloons, fights over poker games and women, and the occasional robbery. But nothing happened that Frank couldn’t take care of easily with help from Catamount Jack and Clint Farnum.

  The new deputy seemed to be settling right in. He had made some friends, including Becky Humphries, who seemed to have given up her interest in Garrett Claiborne now that Diana was spending so much time with the mining engineer. Frank went by Dr. Garland’s place every day, and knew that Claiborne was getting more and more restless. He was anxious to get back out to the Crown Royal and go to work, even though the new equipment for the stamp mill hadn’t arrived yet. There was still rebuilding work to do, and Claiborne wanted to supervise it. The doctor’s orders were firm, though. Claiborne still had some more recuperating to do.

  Frank was coming out of Leo Benjamin’s store one morning, carrying a box of .45 cartridges he had just picked up, when he saw Tip Woodford hurrying toward him. The mayor’s urgent manner, plus the worried look on his face, told Frank that Buckskin’s peaceful respite was probably over.

  “What’s wrong, Tip?” F
rank asked.

  “Got some trouble out at the Lucky Lizard,” Tip replied. “The fellas are sayin’ that I ain’t treatin’ ’em right.”

  Frank frowned in surprise. “You’re talking about the men who work in the mine?”

  Tip nodded. “Yeah.”

  “That’s crazy. You pay them fair wages, you do everything you can to make sure the working conditions are safe, you don’t expect more than an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wage.”

  “Yeah, but that ain’t stopped a couple o’ the boys from tryin’ to get all the rest stirred up and mad at me.” Tip pushed his hat back and scratched his head. “To tell you the truth, Frank, I ain’t sure I ought to be talkin’ to you about this, seein’ as you and me are rivals, so to speak.”

  Frank shook his head. “Diana told you what Claiborne said about me.”

  “Yeah. You wouldn’t expect her to keep somethin’ like that a secret, would you?”

  “No, I reckon not. But listen to me, Tip. My late wife and my son were the ones who built up that business empire. I had nothing to do with it. For years I was just a drifter, like that nickname somebody hung on me. It was only after my wife died that I inherited a stake in all those holdings, including the Browning Mining Syndicate. I don’t have anything to do with the running of it, and I let my lawyers in Denver and San Francisco handle all the money. As far as I’m concerned, my only real job is being the marshal of Buckskin.”

  “Well, it ain’t that I doubt you…”

  “Good, because I’m not in the habit of lying,” Frank said.

  Tip nodded, wearing the look of a man who had just made a decision. “All right. In that case, I reckon I done the right thing by comin’ to you for help. Can you come out to the mine and have a talk with those fellas?”

  “Problem is, I’m not sure how much I can do,” Frank said. “The mine’s not in my jurisdiction—”

  “That didn’t stop you from goin’ after the sons o’ bitches who blew up the Crown Royal,” Tip pointed out. “And remember, there’s that old offshoot tunnel that runs all the way down here under the office. Since that’s in town, I reckon you could say that by extension, the rest o’ the mine is too.”

  Frank chuckled. “That’s a little bit of a stretch,” he said, “but I can’t argue with that reasoning. Anyway, my job is to keep the peace here in town, and if there’s unrest at your mine, it could spill over down here any time.”

  Tip nodded and said, “Yep, that’s what I was thinkin’ too.”

  “I’ll go out there and see if I can find out what the problem is. You want to come with me?”

  Tip rubbed his jaw. “Might be better if you went by yourself. Those boys might come closer to shootin’ straight with you if I ain’t around.”

  “Who’s the ringleader?”

  “There’s two of ’em, a couple o’ brothers I hired not long ago. Their names are Fowler. Mike and Gib Fowler.”

  Frank nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I’m obliged, Frank. Things have been goin’ pretty well. I don’t need some new trouble.”

  “None of us do,” Frank said.

  He left Tip and headed for Hillman’s livery stable. Having two horses had worked out fairly well, since one of them was always fresh and well-rested. Stormy hadn’t gotten over his resentment of the fact that sometimes Frank saddled up Goldy and rode out on the other horse, as he did today, but Frank supposed the Appaloosa would get used to it sooner or later.

  The Lucky Lizard was the closest of the mines to the settlement, close enough so that the noise from the mill could be heard in Buckskin most of the time. It didn’t take long for Frank to ride out there. Tip Woodford served as his own superintendent, but he had several foremen who supervised most of the day-to-day operations. When Frank rode in, he spotted one of the men walking from the stamp mill toward one of the storage buildings and hailed him.

  “I’m looking for the Fowler brothers,” Frank told the foreman. “Got any idea where I can find them?”

  “Mr. Woodford talked to you about the trouble out here, right?” the foreman asked.

  Frank nodded.

  “Well, Gib Fowler is down in the mine right now, but Mike is over in the barracks, I think. He came off shift just a little while ago.”

  “You put them on different shifts?”

  “Thought it would best,” the foreman replied. “The way those two run their mouths, if they were both in the same crew no work would ever get done.”

  “If they’re causing trouble, why doesn’t Tip just fire them?”

  “I’ve asked him the same question, Marshal. He says that he can’t fire somebody for having an opinion, that it just wouldn’t be right. But if you ask me, he ought to boot both of ’em out of here.”

  The foreman had just brought up a point that bothered Frank. As long as the Fowler brothers were just talking, he didn’t see what he could do about them. This was America, where folks had a right to express their opinions, no matter how annoying or upsetting or downright stupid they were.

  Frank nodded his thanks and reined Goldy over toward the barracks. The door of the building was open, and as Frank dismounted he heard a loud, angry voice coming from inside.

  “If you don’t stand up to Woodford, he’s just gonna keep takin’ advantage of you,” the man said. “He ain’t ever gonna treat you fair unless you make him do it!”

  Frank stepped into the doorway. He saw a wiry man with a bristling red brush of a beard standing in the center of the aisle between the bunks, waving his hands in the air as he talked.

  “Just because Woodford’s the boss don’t mean he’s got the right to treat us like animals!”

  Half-a-dozen miners were either stretched out or sitting on their bunks, listening to the man. Some of them noticed Frank’s entrance and looked past the speaker at him. The man with the red beard noticed that and fell silent, turning toward the door with a suspicious glare on his face.

  “Are you Mike Fowler?” Frank asked, even though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer to that question.

  “I’m Red Mike,” the man replied, and his beard made it obvious how he had gotten the nickname. He squinted at the badge pinned to Frank’s shirt and went on. “I can see who you are, mister. Woodford’s called in the law to try to shut me up and keep me from tellin’ the truth!”

  “The only reason I’m here is because I’ve heard reports that somebody was trying to stir up trouble out here at the Lucky Lizard,” Frank said.

  “Trouble!” Fowler practically yelped. “The only one stirrin’ up trouble around here is Woodford, because he don’t pay fair wages nor treat his workers right!”

  Frank looked at the other miners scattered around the barracks and asked, “How do you boys feel about that? Do you think Woodford’s not treating you right?”

  None of the men responded for a moment, but then one of them said, “I always figured he was a pretty good boss, but then I found out that Mr. Munro over at the Alhambra is payin’ ten cents an hour more.”

  Another man spoke up. “Yeah, and he’s got his men workin’ in ten-hour shifts, instead of twelve hours at a time.”

  “Mike says the shaft is shored up better over there too,” a third man added.

  “Is that a fact?” Frank asked, casting a speculative look at Red Mike. “Were you the one who told them about the pay and the hours too?”

  “Somebody’s got to tell the truth,” Fowler replied with a defiant glare on his bearded face.

  “How is it that you know so much about the wages and the hours and the working conditions at the Alhambra?”

  Fowler shook his head. “You ain’t gonna twist things around and make these men distrust me, Marshal. I been honest with them from the first. They know that my brother and me used to work over there for Munro.”

  “If it’s so much better at the Alhambra, why aren’t you still working there?”

  “Because Munro fired us, me and Gib both.” Fowler shrugged. “W
e got a mite likkered up one night and got in a fight with one of the foremen. Hammersmith actually fired us, the bald-headed bastard, but Munro backed him up on it. So you see, we ain’t got no love for Hammersmith or Munro either one, and we damn sure got no reason to be tellin’ folks that their mine is better than this one, except for one…it’s the truth.”

  Frank pondered that. He had thought in the back of his mind that Munro might have something to do with the problem developing here at the Lucky Lizard, but it appeared that wasn’t the case.

  He nodded toward the other miners and asked Fowler, “Are you saying these fellas should go to work for the Alhambra?”

  Fowler made a face. “Wouldn’t do ’em any good if they tried. Hammersmith’s got a full crew over there. What I think they should do is get Woodford to pay them right and treat them better.”

  “Has anybody talked to him about that?”

  A disgusted snort came from Fowler. “We tried. He won’t listen to reason. Just says that he can’t afford to pay us any more than he already is, and he claims the mine is safe. All he’d do is promise to think about cutting back on the number of hours in a shift, but thinkin’ about it ain’t gonna get it done.”

  Tip hadn’t told Frank all those details, and hearing them just made the situation more troublesome. The wages that Tip was paying seemed fair enough to Frank, but he wasn’t the one working for them. A twelve-hour shift was pretty common, but gouging ore out of the earth was pretty hard work. As for the mine’s safety, Frank couldn’t say about that, because he hadn’t taken a good look at the inside of the Lucky Lizard. Maybe there were some improvements that should be made.

  “If you don’t get what you want, what do you plan to do?”

  Red Mike crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Frank. “We’ll do the only thing we can do to make Woodford listen to us. We’ll call a strike.” He looked around at the others. “Ain’t that right, boys?”

  Frank noticed that some of the miners looked pretty dubious about that idea, but the rest gave enthusiastic nods and one man said, “Damn right we will!”