Longarm was about a quarter mile along the road and just about to get warmed up to the hike when he saw a pale curl of dust rising near the entrance to the canyon—or hollow, if one preferred—where the tracks led. The dust became more and more clearly visible, and soon a buckboard came into view. The wagon was fair flying along. And close behind it a two-wheeled cart bounced crazily, only one wheel at a time touching the earth as the pony between the bars raced to get ahead of the team of cobs that were pulling the buckboard.
The two vehicles seemed an unlikely match for a race, but the price of the entertainment was certainly right, so Longarm paused in his walking so he could enjoy the contest. Wagon and cart careened closer, the driver of the wagon several times deliberately veering in front of the cart to force the red and white pony into the creek bed. The driver of the paint had to either give way or crash. He chose to give way, but he didn’t much like it. As the racing vehicles came ever nearer, Longarm could hear the drivers swearing at each other. They were shouting and hollering about as hard as they were driving. Neither one of them was much more than a kid, Longarm saw once they were close enough. He guessed the wagon driver to be about fourteen, the boy in the cart a year or two younger.
Both of them were dashing hellbent, urging their animals, screaming insults, leaning forward and straining as if that would somehow lend speed to their rigs. The wagon and the cart alike were bouncing high into the air and wobbling from side to side so hard it was an amazement that either boy could remain inside his own vehicle, much less keep any degree of control.
Longarm was so busy watching all this with a sense of detached amusement that it damn near failed to dawn on him that he was standing in the very same road these boys were racing down. Once the realization finally dawned, he had to step lively to reach the safety of the railroad tracks in time to avoid being run over.
He escaped with his life, if not with quite all his dignity, and turned to see, much to his surprise, both boys setting back hard on their driving lines and struggling to turn their excited animals around. Horses and pony alike were fighting the bits and wanting to race on.
“Whoa, you sons of bitches, whoa,” the older boy in the wagon was shouting.
“Me, mister, pick me,” the younger one shrieked, cutting straight to the heart of the matter and seeking to claim a prize he hadn’t exactly won.
Longarm reckoned he had to thank that conductor fella all over again for being thoughtful enough to ask for a toot on the train whistle. It seemed that his transportation into Cargyle had arrived.
Chapter 11
The boys were named Buddy and Rick. Buddy was the younger one with the pony and cart. Rick was the kid with the buckboard. In, about, and through all the yammering, the cussing—some of it fairly inventive considering the early ages of the cussers—and the accusations, Longarm worked it out that Buddy had a mother who was the legitimate owner of the pony and cart rig and that Rick was a sometime employee of the greengrocer who was the true owner of the wagon and team. There was some question, at least in Buddy’s mind, as to whether Rick was officially authorized to utilize the buckboard for purposes of secondary employment. This was not a question Longarm felt qualified to arbitrate, so he settled the matter short of fisticuffs by offering a compromise solution.
“What I’m gonna do,” he told the red-faced and furious combatants, “is hire the both of you. Rick, I’m gonna pay you a dime, hard money, to carry my bag an’ saddle in that wagon there. An’ Buddy, I’m gonna pay you a dime to carry me on the seat of that cart. Buddy, don’t you dare open that mouth of yours till I’m finished talking; d’you think I don’t see your lip floppin’ open? You hush up too there, Rick. Now … if I can finish what I was fixin’ to say here … the deal is this. We’ll do ‘er just like I said or else I’ll walk the rest of the way like I started out to do to begin with. So you each do like I say an’ work together so’s each of you makes hisself a dime … or else you don’t neither one earn a damn thing. Suit yourselves.”
There was no discussion necessary and scant hesitation. Rick jumped down off the buckboard to grab Longarm’s things and stow them carefully into the wagon bed, while Buddy was just as quick to steady his pony, still agitated and wanting to run after the excitement of the race, so the paying customer could climb onto the cart. A couple minutes more and they were moving calmly—well, more or less so—in the direction of Cargyle.
The town pretty much turned out to be a repeat of all the other coal mining company towns along this stretch of country. At the mouth of the shallow canyon leading into Cargyle a meager scattering of shanties, saloons, and businesses of dubious purpose sat like a clump of toadstools between the railroad tracks and the creek bed. These, Longarm knew, would be the few genuine private businesses to be found hereabouts. Some of them anyhow. Many of the big companies owned these “shadow” businesses that popped up wherever there were workingmen drawing regular pay. And for sure, regardless of who might actually own the places, none could operate here without the consent of the all-powerful company, in Cargyle’s case the GWC&C. All of them, however, would be situated on public land, or at least on parcels that were not directly owned by the company. That pattern seemed to be inviolable because with it the company could not be blamed for anything unsavory that might take place close to, but not located directly upon, company property.
In this particular instance there wasn’t any signpost or gate to show where the company property line was drawn. But Longarm could guess at it close enough for his purposes. It would be within twenty feet, maybe less, of the last shanty in this clump of pathetic businesses. Everything beyond that would belong to Great Western Coal and Coke.
As for what all of that might encompass, he couldn’t yet actually see. But once again he knew good and well what to expect, at least in a generalized sort of way.
From the mouth of the canyon he could see the creek bed, the rails, and the winding, dusty roadway. Beyond that, somewhere past the first bend in the irregular hillsides, several plumes of pale smoke lifted into the midday air. Up there he knew he would find dozens and dozens of tiny box-like shacks that would be the company housing rented out to men with wives and children. There would be barracks-like boardinghouses, huge and efficient chow halls, fairly grand administrative offices, and some nice homes that would be assigned to the company managers, a company store or possibly several of them, one of which would include a post office, a small jail—and dominating everything else, above and beyond all the rest of it, there would be the coal. Gaping drift mouths with the black residues spreading fan-like beneath the openings. Great storage piles and railcar loading hoppers. Steam engines to drive the conveyors. Tool sheds and handcars and all the thousand and one things it took to make a mine and keep it functioning.
Cargyle, Longarm knew, had nothing to do with structures and damn little to do with people. What Cargyle was, had been, and always would be was coal. And nothing but.
“You goin’ up to the offices, mister?” little Buddy asked.
“I don’t know, son. Is there a hotel up there?”
“No hotel here, mister. No need for one. Everybody that comes here gets company housing one way or another. If he don’t get company housing, then he ain’t welcome anyhow and might as well go back where he come from.”
Longarm suspected the kid was quoting most of that speech. But the message was clear enough anyway. He scratched under his chin and pondered. He wasn’t at all sure he would qualify to be given a room courtesy of the GWC&C. And if he did qualify, he wasn’t at all sure that he’d want one. Not that he had anything against the GWC&C. He didn’t. But he sure as hell wouldn’t want to be beholden to Harry Bolt. Not in any way, shape, or form.