Chloride just snorted in contempt.
Bardwell and the men with him rode past and headed on down the gulch toward the settlement. Bardwell glanced back one last time to glare at the Texans and Chloride. The other men didn’t pay any more attention to them, which reinforced Bo’s hunch that they were hired guns. Men like that didn’t care about anything unless they were paid to.
Chloride swiped the back of a hand across his mouth. “Sorry about that, boys,” he said. “Almost talked my way into a ruckus, didn’t I?”
“We couldn’t have stopped Bardwell if he’d gone after you,” Bo pointed out. “Not with our fists, anyway. That means guns would have had to be involved, and then those other hombres would have taken a hand.”
“Could’ve been bullets flyin’ everywhere, Chloride,” Scratch added.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” the old-timer said. “I’m a mite too touchy. Always have been. Bardwell just rubs me the wrong way, though.”
“I understand the feeling,” Bo said as he put his foot in the stirrup. He swung up and went on, “Let’s get going.”
They forded the creek and headed up the narrow, twisting side canyon toward the Golden Queen. As they rode, Bo asked, “What was that about Bardwell’s brother?”
“There was a rumor goin’ around the camp that he had a brother who was an owlhoot down Kansas way. Nobody would ask him about it to his face—”
“I reckon not,” Scratch said. “That hombre’s fists are big enough he could knock down a door with ’em.”
“Anyway,” Chloride continued, “some folks said that the law finally caught up to Bardwell’s brother and hanged him, whilst others claimed him and his gang got away and disappeared. I don’t know which is true, or if Bardwell even had an owlhoot brother to start with. I was just tryin’ to stick a burr under his saddle.”
Bo nodded. “I saw the look on his face when you brought up his brother. I’d say you succeeded, Chloride. And I’d say there must be something to the story, too, otherwise it wouldn’t have bothered him so much.”
“I reckon you’re right. If it was a lie, he wouldn’t have got so durned mad.”
“That’s sort of interestin’,” Scratch mused.
“You mean the way a gang of outlaws shows up and starts raising hell in the same area where Bardwell’s working as a mine superintendent?” Bo asked. “Yeah, interesting is the word for it, all right.” He looked over at Chloride as they rode along the canyon. “How come you didn’t say anything about Bardwell’s brother before now?”
The old-timer grunted. “Nobody asked me, now did they?”
Bo had to chuckle. He said, “No, I reckon not.”
They rode on, and a few minutes later Bo began to hear the steady, pounding thump of a donkey engine. “That’s coming from the mine?” he asked Chloride.
“Yeah, they’re probably usin’ it to haul ore cars outta the shaft. All the mines in these parts started out as placer outfits, since the first prospectors panned for gold in the creeks just like the fellas did in the California rivers back in forty-nine. The bigger operators come in, bought up claims, and built flumes and long toms to wash more gravel from the stream beds. But at the same time, they were startin’ to dig into the slopes, too, hopin’ to find the quartz lodes those flecks o’ gold in the creeks came from.”
Bo nodded. “That’s the usual pattern when there’s a gold strike, all right.”
“But the lodes here in the Black Hills ain’t like the ones anywheres else,” Chloride said. “Most places, if you find a pocket of gold-bearin’ ore, you can make a pretty good guess which way it’s gonna run. Not around here. A pocket or a ledge can run any which- a-way around here, which is why you got tunnels branchin’ ever’ which way underground. The placer gold’s just about played out now. There’s just enough left so that most of the outfits keep a sluice goin’ to get as much dust as they can, but mostly they’re after ore now.”
“And it takes a big company to do that effectively,” Bo said. “A lone miner with a shovel and a pickax can’t dig out enough gold to make the effort worth his while.”
“Yeah, it didn’t take long for all the little fellas to get crowded out,” Chloride agreed. “A lot of ’em wound up sellin’ their claims for little or nothin’, then stayin’ on to work for wages from the big outfits.”
“We saw the same thing happen in California and Nevada,” Scratch said, “and when we moseyed up here to Deadwood a few years back, we could tell it was gonna be the same story all over again. That’s why we didn’t bother stayin’ around and breakin’ our backs lookin’ for gold.”
They rode around a bend and saw the mine buildings up ahead on their right. The bunkhouse, cook shack, and mess hall were on the fairly level ground at the bottom of the canyon, along with a sturdy log structure that housed the superintendent’s quarters. The mill was built on the slope, at the head of the main shaft sunk into the ridge. A few smaller storage buildings were scattered around, and Bo spotted a squat building made of thick logs a hundred yards up the canyon. That would be where the supply of blasting powder was kept. A while back, he and Scratch had worked at a mine down in Mexico, a long way from here but a setup that had been remarkably similar in some ways.
Bo saw a corral with a dozen mules in it, and a couple of empty wagons were parked next to the enclosure. He pointed them out to Scratch and Chloride and said, “I guess we’ll be using one of those to haul the gold.”
“Can you handle a wagon like that, old-timer?” Scratch asked.
“There you go with that old-timer business again!” Chloride sputtered. “You ain’t no spring chicken! And I can handle anything with four wheels and mules hitched to it!”
Bo grinned as he turned his horse toward the superintendent’s house. “We’d better find Andrew Keefer and give him Miss Sutton’s letter before he starts wondering who we are and gets nervous,” he said.
However, it was too late for that. As they rode up to the house, the door opened and a stocky, balding man with bushy, rust-colored side-whiskers stepped out with a shotgun in his hands. He pointed the Greener at the newcomers and bellowed, “If you’ve come to rob us, you damned Devils, I’ll blow you right out of your saddles!”
CHAPTER 10
Bo and Scratch were experienced enough to keep their hands well away from their guns in a situation like this. Bo could only hope that Chloride would do the same thing. The man on the porch was already spooked, and it wouldn’t take much to make him pull the triggers on that scattergun.
“Take it easy, mister,” Bo said in a calm, steady voice, just like he was trying to settle down a skittish horse. “We’re not here to rob anybody, and we’re sure not members of the Deadwood Devils. Are you Andrew Keefer?”
The question seemed to take the man by surprise, but it got through to him. He lowered the shotgun slightly as he frowned. “I’m Keefer,” he admitted. “Who in blazes are you?”
Bo nodded toward his companions. “This is Scratch Morton and Chloride Coleman. My name’s Bo Creel. Miss Sutton sent us out here from Deadwood to pick up a shipment of ore and take it back to the bank.”
“Coleman,” Keefer repeated as he studied the old-timer. “I know you. You drive for the Argosy.”
“Drove,” Chloride corrected. “I don’t work for Nicholson no more.”
“What happened?”
“You haven’t heard about the Argosy gold wagon being held up a couple of days ago?” Bo asked.
“Nobody from out here has been to town and back the past few days,” Keefer said. “No reason to go. Nobody’s got any money to spend.” The shotgun’s twin barrels rose again. “How do I know you’re who you say you are?”
“Miss Sutton sent a letter with us,” Bo said. “If you’ll let me reach inside my coat without your trigger finger getting too itchy, I’ll get it for you.”