Hell Town. William W. Johnstone
few jaws clenched in anger, but nobody said anything, and after a second the men began paying off on their bets.
Because this was the infamous Jory Pool they were dealing with, their leader, the fastest on the draw and the most vicious member of the bunch, and nobody wanted to cross him.
A hail from one of the lookouts posted up on the canyon wall told Pool that riders were coming in. The newcomers had to be members of the gang; otherwise they would have been gunned down out of hand if they approached the hideout. Pool collected his winnings, then walked out to meet the two riders.
He recognized Hap Mitchell and Lonnie Beeman, both of whom had ridden with the gang on several jobs in the past. They hadn’t been here to the hideout for quite a while, so as they reined in and raised their hands in greeting, Pool said, “Howdy, boys. Where you been lately?”
“Oh, here and there,” Mitchell answered, being deliberately vague about it. Pool wouldn’t have expected any less.
“You didn’t lead no posse back here, did you?” Pool asked with a scowl.
Beeman laughed and said, “You know us better’n that, Jory. No bunch of lawdogs could follow us less’n we wanted them to.”
“We came across something a few days ago we thought you might be interested in,” Mitchell said. “You heard of a place called Buckskin?”
“Ghost town, ain’t it?” Pool asked with a grunt.
“It used to be, but it’s not anymore. They found silver there again. One of the mines has opened back up, and it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the others did too. And there are prospectors roamin’ all over those hills looking for other veins. Buckskin’s a boomtown again, and I expect it’ll just get bigger.”
An avaricious grin spread across Pool’s bearded face. “Lots of dinero there for the takin’ in a boomtown,” he commented.
“Yeah, but that’s not all,” Beeman said. “They got themselves a marshal.”
Pool gave a contemptuous snort. “I’m not worried about some two-bit tin badge.”
In a quiet voice, Mitchell said, “The fella packing the star in Buckskin is Frank Morgan.”
Pool’s eyes widened in surprise. “Morgan? The one they call The Drifter?”
“His own self,” Mitchell confirmed.
“Never thought anybody as fiddle-footed as Morgan would ever settle down and take a marshal’s job. I’ve wanted to cross trails with him for a long time.” Pool grinned again. “You’re right, that is interestin’. Mighty interestin’.”
He started to laugh. It wasn’t a pretty sound.
Behind him, the rest of the gang had finished emptying the pockets of Gates Tucker and Dagnabbit Dabney. Now, some of them picked up the bodies and started to carry them toward the ravine, where they would be tossed in to await the scavengers.
“What’s goin’ on over there?” Mitchell asked as he looked past Pool.
“Never mind about that,” Pool said. “Tell me more about this place called Buckskin.”
Garrett Claiborne wanted to go out and have a look at the Crown Royal Mine the same afternoon he arrived in Buckskin, but Frank convinced him it was too late in the day for that. Although Frank had a good general idea of the mine’s location and was sure he could find it, he hadn’t been out there himself since coming to Buckskin, even though he knew he was a part-owner of the property.
Instead, Frank took Claiborne around town and introduced him to people, explaining that Claiborne had come to reopen the Crown Royal. That created quite a bit of interest among Buckskin’s merchants, especially Leo Benjamin. Another working mine meant more miners with money to spend.
When they went into the offices of the Lucky Lizard Mining Company, Tip Woodford wasn’t there, but Diana was. She was seated at a desk, going over columns of figures entered in a ledger. Frank knew that Diana did some of the bookkeeping work for her father, but he had never seen her actually engaged in that chore. Nor had he seen her wearing spectacles, as she was now.
To tell the truth, they didn’t look bad on her.
She seemed embarrassed, though, and reached up to remove the spectacles as soon as she saw Frank coming in to the office. She put a smile on her face and said, “Hello, Marshal. What are you doing here?”
“Thought I’d stop by and introduce Garrett Claiborne here to your father,” Frank said.
“I’m sorry, he’s still out at the mine. But I’m glad to meet you, Mr…. Claiborne, was it?”
“That’s right,” the mining engineer said. “I take it you’re Miss Woodford?” He stepped forward and extended his hand. “The pleasure is all mine, I assure you.”
Diana stood up and took his hand. “Why, Mr. Claiborne, how gallant of you. With a name like that, I assume you’re Southern?”
“From Georgia, ma’am,” Claiborne said, although to Frank’s ear he didn’t have much of a Southern accent, certainly not one like Claude Langley’s. Frank supposed that since Claiborne was a mining engineer, he had lived all over, which had a way of diminishing an accent.
“What brings you to Buckskin?” Diana asked.
“I work for the Browning Mining Syndicate. I’ve come to take charge of the Crown Royal Mine and put it back into operation.”
Diana’s eyebrows rose, and her voice was a little cooler as she said, “Really? I wasn’t aware that there were any plans to do that.”
“Yes, indeed. Once we found out about your father’s rediscovery of the Lucky Lizard vein, we decided it would be worthwhile to do some further explorations in the Crown Royal.”
“I suppose the word was bound to get out.”
“Yes, when we heard from—”
Frank broke into the conversation, saying, “I reckon most folks in Nevada have heard about the new strike by now.” No one in Buckskin knew that he had any stake in the Crown Royal, and he wanted to keep it that way. Folks had a way of treating wealthy people differently. He preferred to remain just plain old Frank Morgan. The reputation as a gunfighter that he carried with him was bad enough without people knowing he was rich too.
Evidently, Claiborne was smart enough to pick up on what Frank’s interruption meant, because he said, “Yes, the word’s spread far and wide by now. In fact, the Alhambra Mine will be opening again too. It was bought not long ago from the original owner, Milton Jernigan, by a man named Hamish Munro.”
Frank was curious about that. After Claiborne’s earlier comment about Munro, not much more had been said about the man. Now Frank asked, “Did Munro know about the strike before he bought the Alhambra?”
“My understanding is that he did not. Munro makes a habit of buying old mines and claims, on the chance that he can make something of them where the original owners failed. More often than not, he’s right.” Claiborne smiled. “But he had a real stroke of luck with the Alhambra, even more so than usual. That’s why, according to the rumors I’ve heard, he’s coming to Buckskin to supervise the mine’s operation personally.”
“You don’t know that he’s going to be lucky,” Diana pointed out. “No offense, Mr. Claiborne, but most of the prospectors who have come here looking for silver haven’t found any yet. My father is the only one who’s been really successful.”
Claiborne shrugged. “It’s possible that the Crown Royal vein really is played out. But mining methods have improved in the past decade, Miss Woodford. We can find and remove ore with greater ease and efficiency now than we could then. So there’s really only one way to find out.”
“Well, I wish you luck.” Diana laughed. “At any rate, it’s good to have