Mankiller, Colorado

CHAPTER 21

Lucinda greeted Scratch with a smile as he came up to the counter and rested his hands on it. “Good morning again, Deputy Morton,” she said.

“Scratch,” he reminded her.

“Of course. Scratch. How in the world did you wind up with that name, anyway? Surely it’s not your real name.”

“Well…” He frowned. “You know, it’s been so long ago, I sort of disremember how come folks started called me Scratch. Seems like it’s always been that way, ever since me and Bo were boys back in Texas.”

“What about your real name?”

Scratch shook his head. “Nothin’ I’d want to claim.”

“Now you’ve made me curious,” Lucinda said with a laugh. “I’ll respect your privacy, though.” She paused. “Tess just left here with some meals for the prisoners. I assumed that you’d want me to feed them.”

Scratch grunted. “Your food’s a heap better’n what they deserve, ma’am. I reckon for now, though, that’ll be fine. Maybe the town can make a deal with one of the hash houses to provide meals that ain’t so good. You be sure and keep track of what you’re owed, too. Once the town council’s set up, maybe you can get paid back for it.”

“I’ll do that,” Lucinda said. “And speaking of the town council, I talked it over with Dr. Weathers and several of the local businessmen when they came in to eat breakfast this morning. They all think that the sooner we hold an election, the better.” A blush appeared on her face. “And I’m surprised to say that they were all in agreement with Bo’s suggestion that I run for mayor, too.”

Scratch grinned across the counter. “Those fellas know a good idea when they hear it. Got any idea who’s gonna run for town council?”

“Wallace Kane and Dr. Weathers agreed to. I think they’re good choices, because they don’t have any actual competition in their lines of work. I think I can get Sam Bradfield to say yes, too. We’ll need one more member. That way there’ll be four councilmen, and as mayor, I can cast the deciding vote in case of a tie.” Lucinda put her hand to her throat. “Oh, my. I just assumed that I’m going to be elected, didn’t I? I didn’t mean to sound so…so sure of myself. That’s arrogant.”

“Nothin’ arrogant about it,” Scratch assured her. “Havin’ an election’s just a formality, anyway. I don’t reckon anybody’s likely to run against any of you.”

“We’ll see. It wouldn’t be a proper election unless it was open to anybody who wanted to run, would it?”

“Reckon not,” Scratch agreed.

Lucinda half-turned to reach toward the coffeepot on the stove behind her. “Do you want a cup of coffee?”

“I sure—”

That was as far as Scratch got before he heard someone screaming outside.

“Why don’t you wait here, Miss Bonner?” Bo suggested as he and Tess stood in the doorway of the sheriff’s office. “I’ll help Sheriff O’Brien lie down on the cot in the back room.”

“That’s not necessary on my account, Mr. Creel,” Tess said. “You don’t have to protect my delicate sensibilities. I’ve seen men passed out from drinking before. We’ve lived in Mankiller for a while, and it’s really not that unusual a sight.”

“I suppose not.” Bo reached for the tray. “I’ll just take this to the prisoners. I’ll bring the tray and the plates back later. You don’t have to come in.”

“Again, not necessary.” Without waiting any longer, Tess marched into the office.

Bo shrugged and went around her to unlock the cell block door. As it swung open, one of the prisoners in the cell to the right said loudly, “Damn it, it’s about time you bastards fed us!”

Bo stepped into the aisle between the cells and drew his Colt. He pointed it at Reuben and Simeon and said, “I don’t know which of you men said that, but there’s a lady present and you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head. You understand?”

They flinched back from the menacing muzzle of the gun. “Sure, Deputy,” Reuben muttered. “Didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

The stink from Thad fouling himself the night before still lingered in the air. Bo looked over at the other cell and saw Thad sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall with a dull, dispirited look on his face. Bo knew they’d have to clean him up and get some clean clothes on him somehow. Thad’s father ought to be the one to handle that, Bo decided, whether jails gave him the fantods or not.

“Miss Bonner, just put that tray down on the desk,” Bo called into the front room. “You don’t want to come back here, and I mean it.”

Simeon Devery nudged his brother with an elbow, leered, and said, “They got one of them pretty Bonner girls to bring us breakfast.”

Bo glanced sharply at him. “Forget it,” he said under his breath. “She’s not coming back here, and you’re not going to say one word to her.”

“You’re a cruel man, Deputy,” Simeon said.

Bo went out into the office, where Tess had placed the tray on the desk. “You’re sure you don’t want me to take it to them?” she asked.

“I’m positive,” Bo said. “Thank you, though, and thank your mother for me as well for providing the food.” He went to the still-open front door. “Now, if you want to head back over to the café—”

The sound of a terrified scream coming from somewhere down the street cut the suggestion short.

Bo bit back a surprised exclamation. He didn’t know what was going on, but it occurred to him that Tess might be safer here in the sheriff’s office than she would be out on the street. He looked back at her and snapped, “Stay here!” then stepped out onto the boardwalk and took off quickly toward the sound of the screaming, which hadn’t stopped.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Scratch emerging from the café and knew that his old friend had heard the screams, too. The silver-haired Texan loped across the street to join Bo.

“Got any idea what that commotion’s about?” Scratch asked.

Bo shook his head. “Not one.” He drew his Colt. “I think it’s coming from that alley up there, though.”

The cries echoed from the walls of the buildings on either side of the narrow passage. As Bo and Scratch reached the alley mouth, they saw that it ran all the way through to Grand Street on the other end, where the unknown trouble was taking place. As the Texans started through the alley, Bo saw a woman on her knees next to a huddled, shapeless figure. She had her hands clamped to her cheeks and was swaying back and forth a little as she screamed.

Bo and Scratch came up to her as a crowd began to gather in Grand Street near the alley mouth. Bo saw that the shape on the ground was a man lying on his back. A dark pool of blood surrounded his head. The blood had come from his throat, which had been slashed deeply from one side to the other in a wound that resembled a hideous, grinning mouth.

Scratch reached down to take hold of the screaming woman’s arms. “Ma’am, come on away from there,” he told her, raising his voice to be heard over the cries. “You got to settle down now.”

She tried to pull away from him, but he was too strong. He lifted her to her feet. She turned abruptly and clutched at him, pressing her face against his chest as she began to sob.

Bo looked at the people in the street. “Anybody know who these folks are or what happened here?”

A man pointed at the corpse. “That…that’s Duke Mayo. He’s a gambler, plays at the Fan-Tan most of the time.”

Bo nodded grimly. He and Scratch had passed by the Fan-Tan while they were making their rounds, and he’d heard about the place. It was a dive, a gambling den in a particularly squalid stretch of such establishments along Grand Street, which hardly lived up to its name in places.

“What about the woman?”

“I think she’s a whore. Janey, Jenny, something like that,” the townsman said. “I wouldn’t know for sure. I don’t have no truck with women like that.”

Bo thought the fella was protesting a mite too much, but he didn’t say anything about that. Instead, he asked the woman who was crying, “Ma’am, do you know anything about what happened here?”

She took her face away from Scratch’s tear-streaked shirtfront and stopped wailing long enough to shake her head and say, “N-no. Duke and I…we were supposed to get together for breakfast…like we always do…before we turned in for the day.”

Bo understood what she meant. Gamblers and soiled doves lived their lives mostly at night and slept away the days.

“But he…he didn’t show up,” the woman went on. “So I…I went looking for him…” Her voice trailed off in a series of sobs.

Bo gave her a moment, then said, “And I reckon you found him like this?”

Her head bobbed up and down wordlessly.

“You and him were…friends?”

“He was my…my…husband!”

She went back to wailing.

Bo and Scratch looked at each other, and Bo shrugged. Gamblers and prostitutes could be married just like anybody else, he supposed.

Bo said to the townie who had identified the dead man, “You say he played at the Fan-Tan?”

“Most of the time,” the man replied, adding hastily, “Or so I’ve heard. I don’t frequent places like that, either.”

“Oh, stop worryin’ so much,” Scratch told him. “We’re not gonna go tell your old lady what you been doin’.”

The man started to edge away. “I better be going now…”

Bo let the man go. He said to the other bystanders, “Somebody needs to help this lady.”

That caused the crowd to break up even faster. Bo muttered in disgust. He wasn’t sure what they were going to do with Janey, or Jenny, or whatever her name was.

“Let me take her.”

The Texans turned and looked back along the alley. They saw Lucinda Bonner standing there, trailed by her daughters. Holding out a hand, Lucinda came closer and went on, “We’ll take her back over to the café and see if we can’t calm her down.”

“I don’t know if you want to do that,” Bo said.

“Don’t tell me what I do or don’t want to do, Bo Creel,” Lucinda said. “I’m sure that you and Scratch have business to attend to, so let me help.”

Scratch gently disengaged himself from the soiled dove and turned her around, steering her toward Lucinda. He was obviously glad to be free from the responsibility. “We’re much obliged, ma’am,” he told Lucinda. “If you wouldn’t mind, could you see to it that somebody fetches the undertaker? We got to find out what happened to this fella.”

“We’ve got a pretty good idea what happened,” Bo said. “What we need to do now is find out who did it.”

Lucinda got an arm around the woman’s shoulders and led her away, helped by Callie and Tess. Bo and Scratch went the other way, stepping out onto Grand Street.

“We gonna have a talk with folks at the Fan-Tan?” Scratch asked.

“That’s where we’ll start,” Bo said grimly.