Read Online Sliphammer by Brian Garfield - Free Book Online Page B

Sparrow’s mouth was compressed into a thin lipless slash.
    Cardiff and Cooley got to their feet, and Tree, seated between them, stood up as well, not wanting to be trapped in an armchair, surrounded by primed men on their feet. Across the table, the three Earps kept their seats. Wyatt Earp’s hand lay near his coat lapel; other than that, if he was at all uneasy he gave no sign of it. He looked sleepy and only casually concerned.
    Floyd Sparrow stopped six feet from Wayde Cardiff. The millionaire opened his mouth angrily but Sparrow spoke first, in a high-pitched nasal voice: “We want to talk to you.”
    â€œThis ain’t the place.”
    Reese Cooley drawled, “You boys drag-gin’ your pickets. This room’s out of bounds to you.”
    Tree heard Josie snort. Floyd Sparrow snapped, “We’ll go anyplace we have to go to make you listen. We’ve got grievances—we mean to be heard.” His raspy voice was an unpleasant irritant, perhaps deliberately so; it echoed with the harsh, hurried accents of city slums. Abruptly his mean glance shifted to Tree: “Who’re you?”
    Wayde Cardiff growled, “You’re disrupting the peace. This is a private club for gentlemen—take this rabble out of here.”
    One of the miners cleared his throat and said, in a singsong Welsh voice, “Rabble, are we?” His fist, raised and poised, was the size of a sledgehammer and appeared just as hard.
    Sparrow shook his head. “We came here to talk. If anybody starts violencing, it’ll be them, not us.” He wheeled, jabbing a pale finger toward Cardiff: “We’ve got just and reasonable demands. Either you meet them or you’ve got a miner’s strike on your hands—not just you, Cardiff, but every high-pockets son of a bitch on the Gunnison Slope. That’s the message. You bastard robber barons have exploited us long enough. We mean business.”
    â€œ Us? ” Cardiff said with soft insinuation. He gave the miners a sardonic look. “Any of you boys ever see this Eastern sewer rat dirty his hands on a pick? Don’t you know when you’re being used?”
    Sparrow said quickly, “That’s why they’re here—because you bastards are using them. They’ve had all the contempt and cruelty they’re going to take from you and your kind.”
    Cardiff measured him with insulting calm over a long stretch of time that made Sparrow’s hands flutter; Cardiff finally said, “In just ten seconds I’m going to send for the sheriff. You people are trespassing on private property, which is a misdemeanor punishable by thirty days in jail.”
    Warren Earp’s voice shot forward from behind Tree: “And if the sheriff wants help he’ll get plenty—from the Earp brothers. You understand what that means?”
    In the corner of his eye, Tree saw Wyatt lift a hand casually to silence Warren.
    Sparrow went right on talking to Cardiff as if he hadn’t heard: “We’re not afraid of your hired gunmen. Look at these men, Cardiff. You ever take a good hard look at the men you’ve made slaves of? Look at them! Fallon here lost two brothers when your number seven shaft caved in—because you’re too goddamned skinflinted to put proper shoring in those tunnels. Weed here’s got a wife back East and eight kids to support on the stinking sixty dollars a month you pay him to break his back a thousand feet underground in a tunnel that may collapse any day now.”
    Cardiff turned without hurry and spoke across the room to a man standing at the bar. He hardly raised his voice. “Leroy, trot yourself on over to Ollie McKesson’s and ask him to come down here. Tell him he’ll need half a dozen sets of handcuffs.”
    â€œYes sir, Mister Cardiff.” The man headed for the door on the run.
    Floyd Sparrow stepped toward Cardiff and made as if to grab the front of