Free Hardcastle by John Yount Page A

fixin to catch a visit from the state mine inspector; just got a call from Elsie Coal Company over the ridge.”
    “Didn’t know the state inspector ever got any closer to the mine than the commissary,” Regus said.
    “Yeah,” Bert said and grinned, “but you can’t count on that sucker. He don’t like those low drifts, that’s a fact; but if he was to ride into the mountain, it would cost twice as much to buy him off. Hell, they’s so much water back in there, the sucker might drown.” He turned his back on them, looked at the mountain, and spoke without turning his head. “Got to get a couple of one-arm johnnies in yonder and pump a little out, maybe brattice about half the son of a bitch off,” he said and began to move away across the railroad tracks toward the tipple.
    “Talks a little funny, don’t he?” Music said.
    “Hmmm, don’t let him fool ye. He’s the second-hardest man around here. The first is comin yonder,” Regus said and pointed to two men coming across the plank bridge toward them, one wearing a black, broad-brimmed hat, and the other a straw skimmer such as a city drummer or a college boy might wear.
    “Which one?” Music asked.
    “The one a-wearin his gun straight down over his pecker,” Regus said. “That’s Grady Burnside. The one in the fancy hat, that’s Cawood, his nephew—ain’t nuthin but a mean, fool kid.” Regus gave a little snort of laughter. “He won’t last. Some miner, or one of them niggers down at Mink Slide, will likely kill his ass fore he ever sees twenty-one.”
    The two of them came on across the plank bridge toward where Music and Regus were standing. They were pretty big men, half a head taller even than Regus.
    “Ay, Regus,” the younger one shouted, “you gettin any gravel fer yer goose?”
    Regus turned his head and spat, and when the two of them drew up, he said, “I’d like ye boys to meet Bill Music, the new mine guard.”
    “Music,” Cawood said and laughed with great good cheer, “Music? What kind of a name is that?”
    Music shrugged. He wasn’t even looking at Cawood, but at Grady, whose great, long face had two beardless, waxy scars, one on each cheek. “The one I was born with,” he said, and he and Grady exchanged a nod.
    “Zat right,” Cawood said. “You gettin any frogjaw fer yerself? Nawh,” he said, “hangin around with Regus I don’t guess you would be, but I can put ye on to some. I don’t mind ye eatin my fuckin pussy, but don’t want ye fuckin my eatin pussy.”
    At last Music was able to look from Grady to Cawood and nod to him as well.
    “I guess I’d best show Bill on around the place, so he’ll know what to guard,” Regus said. “See you boys in the mornin.”
    “Yes,” Grady said.
    “We’ll hold this shit heap till you get here,” Cawood said.
    After Music and Regus had drawn off a few paces, Regus said, “That Cawood’s a charmer, ain’t he? Jesus, hit’s a wonder to me that someone ain’t cored him like an apple before this. Grady, though”—Regus jerked his head to one side as though in awe—“Grady’s done already been killed once or twice and won’t stay dead. Sid Hatfield, for one, shot him to pieces nearly ten year ago.”
    As the two of them went on toward the commissary Regus explained how Grady Burnside had once been a Baldwin-Felts detective, Baldwin-Felts being a kind of private police hired by the coal operators to shoot up or otherwise run off any unionizers they could find; to ferret out miners who were union members; get them fired and blackballed; and finally to see to it that the miners and their families were evicted from company housing, taken off company property and dumped somewhere beside the road with neither job, nor shelter, nor sometimes—if they happened to owe the company any sizeable bill at the commissary—even any personal belongings. “That was Grady’s kind of work,” Regus said. “He taken to it, like a bee to honey. But he run into a hard case in