You read the title right, this is a Western story from a mining town.
Miners work buddy plan, and usually, no matter the job, each is more adapt at some particular task than the other. For instance, one could possibly splice cable with the speed and skill of a surgeon while his partner would mess it up, like a granny knitting six year old gloves with steel wool.
He would be known as Splicer Bill, another would be Rigger and so on. This is the story how one man earned the title of TOP GUN the deadliest and tallest man on spurs.
Mike wasn't the John Wayne type. He didn't have the stature, nor the looks. He was lean and smaller but he had this certain alert look, a sense of hidden power, and this mannerism of quick hands always hovering near lean lithe wide hips. If you, squinted your eyes a little, you could almost see the notched guns glinting in the gloom, Anyone for "red eye"?
Now, his buddy, Jim, was nothing more than a "baseball" nut", but no better miner ever soiled a pair of wool socks. Off the job, he didn't miss an evening at the park, "warming up" and “chawing off". Sometimes, I wished his old man had been named Ruth or something. That way I ,would never have met him.
At lunch break, he prate about BA's and RBI;s. Not being a "ball" man I didn't know If these were tops and bottoms of some new underwear, the Stanley people were Pushing, to boost the economy In "blue nose" country Like I said, he had a real "bug" on baseball. Now back to Miner Ville.
One day, these two buddies, where approaching each other down a long wide stope "meeting up" at their designated place of work. If you "freeze" them now, they are about ninety feet apart. Jim was carrying powder. This was supposed to be in his powder bag but for this once (we stipulate) he had one stick in his hand. And Mike, well, Mike was his usual alert self and was burdened with nothing more, than a miner's shovel.
Now, off to the side and a little higher up the stope, this darn Joker takes in the tableau, and with an Alfred Hitchcock sense of timing, bawls out: LOOK OUT, JIM! He's gonna draw on you."
Without even thinking, and forgetting he was gripping one stick of the best 70 % 1 x 8 Cilgel, and not a baseball; Jim winds up the old arm and throws a perfect curve towards his buddy Mike, now about eighty feet distant. I almost believe he would have made it too.
In a flash, Mike took in the situation. Not losing his cool and with the, skill of Mickey Mantle, and a lightning draw that would have done credit to Billy the Kid, he whizzed his miner's shovel, end over end, on a "spitball" colliding course. BROTHER! He stopped that plug "dead In its tracks" about stopped half way down. Well, not exactly "dead"'. The resulting explosion did little more, than cover them both with dust and smoke.
Jim was left standing dumbfounded "retired on the mound" and when the dust and smoke cleared, Mike was still TOP GUN.
You might think this is a careless way to handle powder and you're probably right. However, a miner regards one stick of powder as "firecracker" stuff. Why, he just as soon use a plug to hang his billie on, to boll up (if he had to) as he would, a stick.
Want a light? Well, boy, I forgot my matches, but hang on, there should be a fuse cap lying around here somewhere Hey! Come back here.
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