A lot of men have come to try their hands at prospecting since word of the new strike got out, but most of them haven’t had any luck. Some of them will be glad to work for wages again. I don’t know that you’ll find anything in the old Crown Royal, though.”
“I intend to do a thorough exploration and assessment of the mine,” Claiborne said. “Not to brag, but I’m pretty good at finding ore if it’s there to find.”
“Well, I wish you luck. I’ll introduce you to the mayor and some of the other folks around town and help you find a place to stay. There might be an empty room over at the Benjamins’ boardinghouse.”
“I plan to stay at the mine. All I need is a tent and a cot, and I have both packed in the rear of my buggy.”
Frank shrugged. “All right. You can probably manage that fine at this time of year. Might get a little chilly at night, but not too bad.”
“This mayor you mentioned…that’s Thomas Woodford, correct?”
“Right,” Frank nodded.
“One of our competitors.” Now there was a note of disapproval in Claiborne’s voice.
“Tip Woodford’s a fine man,” Frank said, and his tone was brisk and businesslike now. “I won’t stand for any cutthroat tactics just because he owns a mine too.”
“You don’t have to worry about such behavior from me, Mr. Morgan,” Claiborne said. “I’m sure Mr. Woodford and I will get along just fine. You’d be better advised to be concerned about Hamish Munro.”
“Who the hell is Hamish Munro?”
“The man who now owns the Alhambra Mine, not far from the Crown Royal and the Lucky Lizard.” Claiborne pushed his spectacles up on his nose. “And a man for whom, if I’m not mistaken, the word cutthroat was invented.”
Chapter 6
The canyon was located up in the Nevada high country, way the hell and gone from anywhere. That was the way the men who were camped here liked it. Isolation was their first line of defense. The way the mountains folded in on themselves, nobody would even know the canyon was here just to look at it. You had to be aware of its existence, and even then, you’d have a hard time finding the trails in and out without a guide.
And if you did, chances are you’d be shot out of the saddle before you got within a mile of the place.
Half-a-dozen log cabins were scattered around the floor of the narrow canyon, which was watered by a tiny stream that sprang from the cliffs where they narrowed back down to a solid wall. A couple of sturdy pole corrals had been erected nearby. Plenty of game still roamed the area, so the smell of roasting venison usually filled the air.
Several members of the gang had wives—at least they called themselves that, whether the unions were strictly legal or not—and they stayed here at the hideout all the time, along with a couple of old-timers who were too stove-up to go out on jobs anymore, plus any of the other men who were recuperating from bullet wounds and needed more time to get better before they resumed their careers of outlawry.
The gang’s numbers varied. At its core was a group of six men who had ridden together for years, but other owlhoots came and went. There might be twenty or thirty men in the hidden canyon at times.
Today there were fifteen, and they were bored, so they gathered in front of one of the cabins to watch Gates Tucker and Dagnabbit Dabney try to cut each other to pieces with bowie knives.
The trouble started over a woman, but it could have just as easily been a disagreement over cards, or a spilled drink, or any other excuse to break the monotony of waiting for the next job to come along. Tucker’s woman had taken up with Dabney behind Tucker’s back, and Tucker might not have found out about it if he hadn’t passed by Dabney’s cabin and overheard him saying, “Dagnabbit! Dagnabbit!” as he had the habit of doing while he was in the throes of passion. Tucker knew that Dabney didn’t have a woman in the canyon at the moment, and curious as to who it was Dabney was screwing, he’d peeked in the window and seen his own sweet Hannah bouncing her hips on a corn-shuck mattress with Dabney on top of her.
Tucker didn’t bother going around to the door. He just climbed in the window and roared, “I’ll make you think dagnabbit, you son of a bitch!”
In the resulting fracas, he had pitched a still-stark-naked Dabney out the window, and probably would have killed him if several other members of the gang who’d been attracted by the commotion hadn’t grabbed him and held him back. In order to liven things up around the hideout, and to make the fight more fair since Tucker was a head taller and fifty pounds heavier than Dabney, they had suggested that the two men settle their dispute with cold steel. The old saying was that God created all men equal but that Sam Colt made them more equal. A bowie wasn’t quite the same as a Peacemaker, but it went quite a ways toward evening things up.
So Dabney got dressed, Hannah wrapped a sheet around her, and most of the outlaws gathered to watch the fight. It went without saying that the fight would be to the death.
Tucker had the longer reach, but Dabney was quicker. They circled each other, darted in and out, thrust and parried and cut. Blade rang against blade, and sparks flew as the steel clashed. Tucker drew first blood, but Dabney returned the favor a heartbeat later. After ten minutes, both men had several bleeding cuts.
The door of one of the other cabins opened and a tall, powerful man in a fringed buckskin shirt stepped out onto its rickety porch. A blond beard covered his jaw, and fair hair hung from under a hat with a pushed-up brim. He wore a scowl on his face as he stared toward the two men slashing at each other with knives. “What the hell?” he muttered.
He went down the steps to the ground and stalked toward the group of spectators, who were yelling encouragement to the two fighters and making bets with each other over which one would survive the fight.
“What’s goin’ on here?” the newcomer demanded of one of the outlaws.
The man looked around and said, “Oh, howdy, Jory. You ain’t heard?”
“I heard all hell breakin’ loose, sounded like,” the man called Jory snapped. “Before that I was tryin’ to get some shut-eye.”
“Well, Gates and Dagnabbit is fightin’—”
“I can see that. What started it?”
“Gates found out that Dagnabbit’s been beddin’ his woman.”
Jory frowned. “Is there anybody in camp who ain’t bedded Hannah at one time or another?”
“No, I reckon not, but Gates told ever’body to steer clear of her. He’s done gone sweet on her.”
“Lord have mercy,” Jory muttered. “Nothin’ makes a man stupider’n a woman. You’re bettin’ on which one’s gonna win?”
“That’s right. You want some of the action?”
Jory scratched at his beard and thought about it for a moment, then said, “Anybody betting that neither one of them live through it?”
The other outlaw shook his head. “Nope. Ever’body’s bettin’ on one or the other.”
“Then I’ll bet that neither one of them makes it through this fight alive,” Jory said.
“Hell, I’ll take that bet!”
Several of the other outlaws joined in and within minutes, Jory had a sizable amount of money wagered on the outcome. Meanwhile, Tucker and Dabney were bloodier than ever and were visibly tiring. It would only be a matter of minutes before one of the men made a fatal slip.
All the bets were down, so Jory shouted, “Hey! Gates! Dagnabbit!”
Both of the fighters paused, startled by the shout. As they looked around, Jory pulled his gun from its holster and shot them both, the pair of shots slamming out so close together, the reports sounded almost