The Savage Gun Read Free Page A

with him, and he’s had more time on that creek.”
    â€œHow’d they come to name it Cripple Creek, anyways?” Mandrake asked.
    â€œStory is a cow clumped acrost it and broke its leg,” Dillard said. “Leastways, that’s the way I heard it.”
    â€œYou heard right,” Ollie said. “Bob Womack’s family farmed up here nearabouts. That’s what got him started looking for gold up all these creeks. I guess he didn’t like farmin’ much.”
    The others all laughed, low in their throats, so that they sounded like feral beasts feeding on carrion.
    Â 
Pete Rutter handed the binoculars to Luke Wilkins, who was lying next to him on large boulder atop an outcropping in the dense forest upstream from Dan Savage’s mining camp. Tall pines shielded the pair from being seen by anyone downstream, but there were also spruce and juniper growing nearby, and two large deadfalls in front of them and to the rear that would make it difficult for anyone to reach them in a hurry. Their horses were tied to some pine trees less than a hundred yards away. A thick bank of fog hung over the creek, but the sun was already burning off some of the thin clouds that shawled the mountainside on the other side of the creek.
    â€œWonder what that explosion was?” Luke asked.
    â€œMiners are always blowing holes in the mountain. Don’t mean nothin’,” Pete said.
    â€œSounded damned close.”
    â€œIt was up on that mountain yonder, but it don’t mean they found gold. It means somebody’s lookin’ for gold.”
    â€œI saw the smoke, then them clouds came down, so I couldn’t tell rightly where it was.”
    â€œDon’t worry about it, Luke.”
    â€œYeah, sure.”
    â€œHere, take a look, Luke. I still can’t see a damned thing. Just a lot of shadows.”
    â€œI can hear them moving around down there,” Wilkins said, taking the binoculars from Pete.
    â€œYeah. I think everybody’s up by now, but that damn fog’s stickin’ like cotton candy to the creek and everything on both banks.”
    â€œWhere’d you ever see cotton candy, Pete?”
    â€œIn St. Louis. Carnival come to town when I was a boy and us kids got some for a penny. Man used a bellows to blow the sugar stuff into a big reddish puff. We got it all over our mouths and clothes and Ma like to had a pure-dee fit.”
    â€œI had some once’t down in N’Orleans. My brother told me it was made by spiders and I wouldn’t touch it.”
    Pete laughed.
    â€œLuke, you’re dumber’n a sock full of hickory nuts.”
    Luke put the binoculars to his eyes, peered at the camp downstream.
    â€œI can see some legs. Oh, there’s a shovel. And arms. I can hear that gravel going into the sluice box. And now they’ve got a bucket brigade goin’, a-sloshin’ water into that long box, runnin’ the sand down over the ribs. Yep, they’re working that stream good, Pete. I hope they find a lot of color by the time that fog lifts.”
    Luke took the binoculars away from his eyes and rubbed them.
    â€œWhat do you think, Pete? Too soon?”
    â€œTo go back and tell Ollie? Yeah. He said don’t come until we can see every hair on those boys’ skin. Still too much fog.”
    â€œBut the sun’s up now. Should burn off pretty quick, I’m thinkin’.”
    â€œYeah. Should. Been that way nigh ever’ day since we got here. Every morning, anyways.”
    â€œYou see that sunrise this morning, Pete?”
    â€œYeah, I saw it.”
    â€œGoin’ to come a hell of a storm tonight or tomorrow.”
    â€œWe got slickers.”
    â€œYeah, and rain’ll make it hard to track us.”
    â€œWell, I think Ollie’s going to have something to say about that, less I miss my guess,” Pete said.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œYou know damned well what I mean,