Mankiller, Colorado

CHAPTER 17

As the Texans ushered their prisoners out of the parlor at gunpoint, Bella rushed down the stairs and asked, “Where’s George? Is he alive?”

The bouncer came out of the parlor behind Bo and Scratch, stumbling a little because he was still unsteady on his feet from the blow on the head. “I’m all right, Miz Bella,” he told her as he rubbed his forehead.

“Oh, good Lord!” Bella exclaimed. “You’re hurt. What’d they do to you?”

“One of ’em snuck up on me and walloped me with somethin’. A gun barrel, I think.”

“Better have the doctor look at that cut,” Bo advised. “It might need some sewing up.”

“The sawbones’ll be over at the jail for a while,” Scratch added. “Got a prisoner here with an arm that needs patchin’ up.”

Bella stared. “One of you shot Thad Devery?”

“I did,” Bo said. “He was fixing to shoot me at the time, so I figured it was best to stop him.”

George shook his head ponderously. “You done brought the wrath o’ that whole clan down on your head now, mister. They ain’t never gonna forgive nor forget this.”

“Well, the Deverys weren’t exactly our amigos to start with,” Scratch said with a grin. He prodded Simeon in the back with the barrel of his gun. “Go on now, get movin’.”

A stunned silence fell over the crowd gathered outside the whorehouse as the three prisoners emerged with Bo and Scratch behind them. The citizens of Mankiller had grown accustomed to the idea that the Deverys did whatever they damn well pleased and got away with it.

Now, here was vivid, indisputable evidence that things had changed, at least for the time being.

“You folks get out of the way,” Scratch called. “Let us through.”

“And somebody please fetch the doctor and have him come up to the jail,” Bo added. “We have a man here who needs medical attention.”

He didn’t add that the wounded prisoner was Thad Devery. Everybody could see that with their own eyes. Several men took off at a run, each evidently determined to be the first to reach the doctor and give him the summons.

An ambush seemed unlikely with so many people around, but on the other hand, a crowd made a good hiding place for would-be killers, Bo thought. Gunmen could open fire on him and Scratch, and in this mob it would be hard to tell where the shots were coming from.

Bo didn’t believe the other Deverys would risk it, though, with Thad, Reuben, and Simeon right there in the line of fire, too. He had suspected a trap all along, but he was starting to lean toward the idea that it was purely a coincidence the three men had gone on a rampage at Bella’s when their perverted desires were thwarted.

No one tried to ventilate the Texans as they marched the prisoners over to Main Street and up to the sheriff’s office and jail. Most of the crowd followed them, looking on this incident as part of the evening’s entertainment.

Not all of the bystanders came along. Bo was confident that some of them had already slipped away to pay a visit to the old house at the top of the hill and give Jackson Devery the shocking news that two of his sons and his nephew had been arrested.

As they came into the office, Bo saw that Biscuits O’Brien had returned at last. The sheriff sat behind the desk. He was slumped forward with his head turned so that his cheek rested on the blotter. Loud snores issued from his mouth. He didn’t wake up or even budge as the five men tramped through the office and into the cell block.

“Help Thad onto the bunk in that cell,” Bo told Reuben and Simeon, “and then you two take the other cell.”

They did as he said, and when Thad was stretched out groaning on the bunk in one cell and his cousins were in the other one, Scratch slammed the barred doors. He wasn’t gentle about it, either, making quite a racket.

Biscuits kept snoring in the front room.

“I reckon it’d take the angel Gabriel blowin’ the last trump to wake that varmint, and I ain’t sure about that,” Scratch said disgustedly. “You figure he’s got any actual blood left in him, Bo, or is rotgut the only thing flowin’ in his veins anymore?”

Bo smiled and shook his head. “I don’t know, but when he does wake up, I’ll bet he’s surprised to find that he’s got some prisoners in his jail.”

“Especially these prisoners.”

A few minutes later, a middle-aged man with a bristly white mustache came into the office. “I’m Dr. Jason Weathers,” he announced. “I hear you’ve got a wounded man here.”

“That’s right,” Bo said. “We saw you earlier today, after that shoot-out, but nobody introduced us. I’m Bo Creel, and this is Scratch Morton.”

“Texan, by the sound of your voice.”

Scratch grinned. “Born, bred, and forever. Some things don’t go away.”

“I’d better get to work,” Weathers said. “I hear my patient moaning and cussing back there.” He started for the cell block, then paused and lowered his voice to ask, “Is it true? You really shot Thad Devery and arrested him and two of his cousins?”

“It’s the truth,” Bo assured the doctor.

“Well, all I can say is…it’s about time.” Weathers gave them a curt nod and went into the cell block.

Bo followed with the key ring that had been hanging on a nail in the wall behind the desk. He unlocked the cell where Thad lay on the bunk and then stepped back to let Weathers go in. Keeping his hand on his gun, Bo stood in the little hallway between the cells and watched as the doctor cleaned the wound.

Thad carried on even more while that was going on, and screamed like a little girl when Weathers set the broken bone. The doctor put splints in place on both sides of the arm and then wrapped it securely. By the time that was finished, Thad’s head had fallen back on the bunk, and he appeared to have passed out.

“Good work, Doctor,” Bo said as he closed the cell door behind Weathers. “Fella called George down at Bella’s place is in need of your services, too.”

Weathers nodded and said, “So I’ve heard. That’s where I’m going now.”

The two of them went out into the office. Bo closed the cell block door. Weathers paused beside the desk to look down at the still-snoring Biscuits and shake his head.

“He never should have been made the sheriff. As long as he didn’t have a regular job, he never had enough money to drink constantly, like he does now. And I’m convinced that Jackson Devery slips him some extra, just to make sure that he never sobers up and tries to actually enforce the law.”

“Well, that’s changed now, ain’t it?” Scratch said.

“Yes…for now. But if I was you, I’d be sure to make the acquaintance of—”

“Sam Bradfield,” Bo and Scratch said in unison.

Weathers didn’t smile, but grim amusement twinkled in his pale blue eyes. “I see I’m not the only one who’s given you that particular bit of advice.” He nodded to them as he went to the door. “Good night, gentlemen. I hope you’re still alive come morning.”

“What do you mean by that?” Bo asked.

“I mean that when Jackson Devery hears that his boys are behind bars, he may not wait until the sun comes up to declare open war on you two.”

When the doctor was gone, Bo went over to the desk and gripped Biscuits’s shoulder. Giving it a good hard shake, he said, “Sheriff! Sheriff, wake up!”

Biscuits’s head lolled back and forth while Bo was shaking him, but as soon as Bo stopped, a particularly loud snore issued from the mouth of the sleeping man. Scratch laughed.

“You’ve got a real chore in front of you, Bo, if you figure on wakin’ him up any time soon. What’s wrong with just lettin’ him sleep it off right where he is?”

“Nothing, I suppose,” Bo said. “But if there’s trouble, we’ll have to worry about him getting hit by a stray bullet.”

“There’s a cot in the back room, right? Why don’t we pick him up and put him back there? At least he’d be out of the way.”

Bo nodded. “I reckon that’s the best thing we can do. You want his feet or his head?”

“I’ll take his feet. There’s probably so much whiskey on his breath it’d make a man tipsy just to get too close to him.”

They pulled the chair back and took hold of Biscuits. He was dead weight as they lifted him and carried him into the back room, which was so narrow there was room for the cot but not much more. When they lowered him onto it, Biscuits stirred slightly and muttered something completely unintelligible, then started sawing wood again.

“And that’s our boss,” Scratch said.

As they went into the front room, they heard a rising tide of loud voices in the street outside. The Texans looked at each other, and Scratch said, “That don’t sound good.”

“We’d better see what it’s all about,” Bo said.

Scratch went to the gun rack and took down one of the Greeners. “Don’t open that door yet,” he advised. “Not until I load up this street-sweeper.”

He brought the shotgun to the desk, broke it open, and took shells from a drawer to load it. Bo said, “That’s a good idea,” and followed suit, lifting down one of the scatterguns for himself. No matter how arrogant and angry a man might be, facing the double barrels of a shotgun would make him stop and think twice about doing anything foolish.

When the Texans were well armed, Bo nodded to Scratch, who grasped the doorknob and turned it. They stepped out onto the porch, and a sudden hush fell over the street.

A man stood with his back turned toward the jail, facing the crowd. His arms were raised as if he had been haranguing the onlookers. Now he lowered them and turned slowly.

Bo had already recognized the man from his size and white hair as Jackson Devery, so he wasn’t surprised to see the hatchet face of the clan’s patriarch. A quick scan of the crowd didn’t reveal Luke or anyone else Bo recognized as a Devery. Their leader appeared to have come alone to the jail.

“What do you want, Devery?” Bo asked curtly.

A muscle in Devery’s tightly clenched jaw jumped a little as he pointed at the jail and said, “You got two of my boys and my nephew locked up in there.”

“That’s right, we do.”

“Well, what the hell’s wrong with you?” Devery thundered. “Let ’em out!”

Bo shook his head. “We can’t do that. They’re under arrest for assault, destruction of property, and attempted murder.”

“Murder?” Devery roared.

“They pistol-whipped a fella who works in the establishment they tore up.”

Devery waved that away. “You mean a darky who works in a damn whorehouse! Nobody cares about that!”

“The law does,” Bo said. “For that matter, your nephew Thad drew on me, so that probably counts as attempted murder, too.”

“I hear you shot him! Shot him like a dog!”

“Bo could’ve killed him, easy,” Scratch said. “Thad’s lucky to be alive, considerin’ the stunt he pulled, and that’s the truth.”

Devery shook his head. “I don’t care about any of that. You can’t hold ’em. You can’t put Deverys behind bars. Not in this town!”

“Sorry. They’ll have to stay locked up until we figure out what to do about a trial.”

A gleam of triumph suddenly appeared in Devery’s eyes. “There ain’t gonna be no trial!” he trumpeted. “Because there ain’t no judge! It’ll be six months before the circuit judge comes through again, if he ever comes at all!”

Bo didn’t know if that was true or not, but if it was, it was a blow to his hopes. On the other hand, maybe it was an opening…

He raised his voice so that it carried clearly to everybody in the street and said, “If that’s the case, then it sounds to me like what the citizens of Mankiller need to do is elect their own judge, so they won’t have to wait for somebody to come in from outside in order to see justice done!”

A surprised silence hung over the street for a moment, before someone in the back of the crowd called, “Hell, yeah! We need our own judge!”

Other people took up the cry, and as the cheers of support for the idea grew, Jackson Devery’s face flushed darker and darker with rage.

Scratch caught on to what Bo was doing. He held up a hand for silence, and when the crowd quieted enough for him to be heard, he said, “While you’re electin’ a judge, you might as well go ahead and elect a mayor and a town council, too! Then this town can be run like a real town ought to be!”

That declaration brought even more thunderous cheers. Devery suddenly swung around and jabbed a shaking finger at the crowd.

“Shut up! Shut the hell up, all of you! There ain’t gonna be no election, not for a judge, not for a town council, and not for no damned mayor! I founded this town! I own the land all up and down this valley! I run things around here, by God!”

“Not anymore, Devery,” Bo said quietly to the man’s back.

Devery stood there for a long moment, trembling with fury. Then he turned to glare at the Texans again and said in a low voice, “You two bastards are gonna regret this, and so are the fools who put you up to it. I’ll burn this town to the ground before I let anybody take it away from me.”

“Why would you do a stupid thing like that?” Bo asked. “You’re making a fortune off the gold rush. It’s unfair, but it’s legal. Why can’t you just sit back and collect your money?”

Devery’s breath hissed between his clenched teeth. “You sons o’ bitches always look down your noses at me and my kin. I seen it all my life. Think you’re better than me and mine.”

“Mister, you don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Scratch said. “Bo and me, we’re just a couple of hombres who been driftin’ most of our lives, never ownin’ much but our horses and saddles and the clothes on our backs. We don’t think we’re better than anybody, you can damn well bet a hat on that.”

Devery ignored him. He swung around and waved his hands at the crowd again. “All of you!” he shouted. “All of you will be sorry you crossed Jackson Devery! You hear me?”

With that, he turned and stalked off along the boardwalk, slashing his arms at the bystanders who didn’t get out of his way fast enough. Jeers and cat-calls followed him.

Bo said, “I understand why they feel the way they do about Devery, but those folks aren’t making things any better.”

“Yeah, he’s full of pride and plumb loco to start with,” Scratch agreed. “That ain’t a good combination. Mix that together with anger over his boys bein’ locked up and fear that he’s gonna lose somethin’ he thought he never could lose—”

“And it’s liable to turn into something dangerous enough to blow up this whole town,” Bo said.