Free Easy Pickings by Richard S. Wheeler

justice done.”
    â€œGet a sheriff and a warrant, if that’s what’s needed.”
    â€œYou’re getting a little too smart, I think. Woman running around in pants.”
    â€œMaybe you should run around in skirts, and see what it makes you.”
    Some feral hatred bloomed in his eyes.
    â€œGet off my property,” she said, lifting the shotgun a notch.
    He grinned suddenly, but it was wolfish.
    â€œYou coming in with me, proper and lawful?”
    â€œWhat you’re doing isn’t proper. And not lawful.”
    â€œGuess we’ll see about that,” he said.
    â€œDon’t come back,” she said.
    He was slow to leave, lingering, mocking, and only the shotgun stood between her and him. But then he left.

 
    Nine
    March watched the ebony buggy pulled by an ebony horse climb the steep road toward the mine. The buggy carried one person, its driver, who was swathed in a black suit, and seemed at that distance to have shiny black hair.
    She saw no sign of a weapon. Indeed, the man looked to be a gentleman of means, perhaps a professional. Certainly he was well attired, in a gray cravat and polished black boots, a gold watch fob dangling from his waistcoat.
    The dray struggled up the last fifty yards, where the road curved around a shoulder and then stopped at the little flat where her burned cabin lay in a heap.
    She felt oddly intimidated. No such elegantly dressed person had ever visited the McPhee Mine. She had taken to wearing Kermit’s pants and shirts because they were suited for the hard work she was doing. She had created a sort of outside living area, employing the salvaged woodstove for her meals, which were drawing down what lay in her root cellar.
    But curiosity prevailed, and she strode toward the slightly dusty buggy as its owner pulled the dray to a halt. She did not neglect to carry her shotgun. It had become as intimate to her as a spare limb, and she was never far from it.
    He lifted a black derby, and eyed her with warm, spaniel eyes, all the while examining her whole self, the camp, and the ruined cabin.
    â€œYou’re Mrs. McPhee,” he said. “Permit me to introduce myself. I am Hermes Apollo, a practitioner of law. My mother couldn’t decide whether it was Hermes or Apollo who fathered me, so she named me after both suspects. She lived in a world of her own. May I have a brief visit with you?”
    â€œWhy don’t you just sit there on that quilted leather seat, and tell me?” she asked.
    â€œI would feel discomfited, my nether regions resting in comfort while yours are perched on a stump. But I am at your service.”
    â€œThat’s what I’m afraid of. I’ll give you one minute to lay it out.”
    â€œMadam, dire events are descending on you. Word is, in Marysville, that you will be hauled into assorted Territorial courts, where creditors intend to attach your mine, or prove that its patent is invalid, or prove that claims were filed on that lode prior to your husband’s. In short, the jackals are looking for carrion, and I propose to be your knight.”
    â€œI’ll probably have it sold to a reputable buyer before they all start the tango,” she said.
    â€œAh, madam, you are innocent of human nature.”
    â€œSo I am. That’s why I keep a shotgun handy.”
    â€œI noticed it. A handy instrument, but of little value in a world of torts. No, madam, you need much more.”
    â€œAnd what is your price, sir?”
    â€œAbsolutely nothing. I have admired you from afar, often envying your late husband for his great good fortune, and now my every wish, to be of service to you, is coming true.”
    March chewed on that one for a while, and didn’t quite know which point on the compass it was leading. But she was damned if she’d be any man’s mistress.
    â€œSorry,” she said. “If you were a regular fee-charging lawyer, we might do business. But neither of us