The train whistle was shrill enough to wake the dead. Braxton's rooster. The break of day. Everyone in Braxton heard it. Everyone at the mine heard it. Aaron Roberts and Tom Paine walked the line of men at the main gate to the mine. The day was winter without snow, gray and raw, sleet instead of rain. The train rolled in past the station. It rolled to a stop between the piles of timber, the engine black as coal, four green cars attached, steam like a dragon's breath. No one was there to greet it. Four men with wide brimmed hats, gold badges pinned to their dark coats, climbed down from the first green car." All right!" one of them yelled. "All right!" meant men climbing down from the cars. Men, all shapes and sizes, with little difference between their clothes, heavy coats and heavy trousers, only a few without some type of hat. One after the other, fifty, a hundred, a hundred and fifty.A ramp banged down from the fourth car. Five, six horses were led down the ramp. The horses carried on and complained until they were all together and saddled, their riders with with those wide brimmed hats and those gold badges. The first two men off the train formed the rest of them in two long lines. The men with the badges wore Colt revolvers under their heavy coats. "Bring em down!" was the order. Wooden rifle boxes were handed down off the cars metal steps. The boxes were pried open. Axe handles, brand new, bone white, dozens and dozens of them.
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