Mankiller, Colorado

CHAPTER 23

Three out of the four men in the Fan-Tan looked surprised when Bo and Scratch came back into the gambling den. The swamper kept his eyes downcast and watched his mop making damp circles on the floor, but there was nothing unusual in that.

“Forget something?” Ashton asked from behind the bar. He didn’t look the least bit happy to see the Texans again.

“Yeah, we did,” Bo said as he came to a stop beside the table where Stansbridge and Keegan sat. “We forgot to arrest these two four-flushers for murdering and robbing Duke Mayo.”

Stansbridge’s face flushed with anger. “Damn it, we told you we haven’t been out of here for hours.”

“And Mike backed us up on that,” Keegan added.

“Yeah, but we got a witness who says that all three of you are lyin’,” Scratch said.

“Witness!” Ashton repeated. “What witness?”

“Never mind about that,” Bo said. “You’ll find out all about it later. We’re taking these two to jail, and you’re coming along, too, Ashton. You lied to a peace officer, and that’s against the law.”

Ashton shook his head and rumbled, “I’m not goin’ anywhere.” He looked and sounded like an angry old bull.

“We’d rather you came along peaceable-like,” Bo said, “but one way or another, you’re under arrest, too.”

“The hell with this!” Keegan suddenly exclaimed. “You two are about to wind up dead in an alley just like Mayo!”

“Damn it!” Stansbridge exploded. He realized what his friend had just done.

A grim smile played over Bo’s lips. “We didn’t say anything about where Mayo’s body was found. How would you know it was in an alley, Keegan, if you didn’t have something to do with him dying there?”

Keegan cursed and sprang to his feet. His hand darted under his coat and came out with a pocket pistol. At the same time, Stansbridge surged up from his chair. He thrust his arms out, twisting his forearms as he did so, and a pair of derringers leaped into his hands from under his sleeves, where they had been concealed in spring-loaded sheaths.

Bo and Scratch were moving, too, splitting up and slapping leather at the same time. Colts blurred from their holsters. Muzzle flame stabbed through the dim interior of the Fan-Tan as gun-thunder echoed against the low ceiling.

Both shots that crashed out from Scratch’s gun found their target. The slugs drove deep into Keegan’s chest and knocked him back, off his feet. The little pistol in his hand cracked wickedly, but the barrel had tilted up and the bullet went harmlessly into the ceiling.

At the same time, a bullet from Bo’s gun punched into Stansbridge’s midsection. He doubled over in agony, hunched above the table. His fingers tightened involuntarily on the triggers of the derringers, causing both weapons to fire. The bullets struck the cards that the men had picked up to resume their game of showdown. The pasteboards scattered again. A second later, Stansbridge collapsed on the table and began bleeding on the green felt.

“Look out!”

The shout from the swamper made both Texans swing around. They saw that Ashton had grabbed a sawed-off shotgun from under the bar and pointed it at them. Before Ashton could pull the triggers, the swamper brought his mop up and struck the barrels of the deadly scattergun with the handle. That knocked the weapon up enough so that the double load of buckshot went over the heads of Bo and Scratch and tore into the ceiling and the wall behind them instead.

Both Colts roared. Seeing the sawed-off pointed at them, Bo and Scratch had reacted instinctively and fired. Their slugs smashed into Ashton and sent him stumbling back against the shelves of liquor behind the bar. The bottles came crashing down, shattering and filling the room with the overpowering smell of spilled booze. It mingled with the acrid tang of gun smoke as Ashton dropped the shotgun, flopped forward onto the hardwood, and then slid off to land behind the bar.

Bo hurried to the end of the bar so that he could cover the man, although he had a hunch Ashton wasn’t a threat anymore. Seeing the sightless eyes staring at the ceiling, he knew he was right. Ashton was dead.

So were Stansbridge and Keegan. Scratch made sure of that, then reported, “These tinhorns have crossed the divide, Bo.”

“So has Ashton,” Bo replied. He looked at the swamper. “Are you all right, mister?”

The old man ran trembling fingers through his wispy white hair. “Y-yeah, I reckon so. I didn’t get hit by any of those shots.” He leaned over the bar to look at Ashton’s corpse. “You’re sure he’s dead?”

“I’m sure,” Bo told him.

The old man licked his lips. “That’s a lot of whiskey goin’ to waste, soakin’ into the floor like that.”

“Yeah, but only a man with no dignity left at all would get down and try to lap it up like a dog. You’re better than that, amigo. You proved it by telling us what you knew about Duke Mayo’s murder.”

The swamper sighed. “I reckon you’re right. Still, it’s a mortal shame to see all that whiskey spilled.”

“I agree with you,” Scratch said. “Nothin’ we can do about it, though.”

The shots had drawn some attention. Bo and Scratch had left the door standing halfway open when they came back in, and now a couple of curious townsmen poked their heads in.

“I’d be obliged if one of you gents would let Sam Barfield know that his services are needed here, too,” Bo said.

“What happened?” one of the men asked.

Bo snapped his gun’s cylinder closed after replacing the round he had fired. “The men who murdered Duke Mayo got what was coming to them,” he said. “And so did the man who tried to cover up for them and then threw down on a couple of lawmen.”

“Take a good look, boys, and spread the word,” Scratch invited. “That’s what’s gonna happen to hombres who figure on breakin’ the law in Mankiller.”

The two men looked at the corpses with big eyes, then disappeared. The sound of running footsteps came from outside. One of the men had probably gone to alert the undertaker that he was needed, as Bo had requested, and the other was probably going to be busy spreading the news about the shoot-out in the Fan-Tan.

As he finished reloading his Colt, Scratch said, “Well, this solves one problem.”

“What’s that?” Bo asked.

“Now we don’t have to figure out where we’re gonna lock up these varmints.”

“True enough. We can’t just kill everybody who breaks the law, though.”

Scratch sighed. “No, I suppose not.” He paused. “I’m glad Biscuits ain’t here.”

“Why’s that?”

Scratch nodded toward the bar. “Because I got a hunch that no matter what you said, he’d be down on his knees behind that bar right now, lappin’ up those puddles of who-hit-John like a dog!”

News of the shoot-out spread like wildfire from one end of Mankiller to the other. In less than twenty-four hours as deputies, the Texans had killed seven men, wounded another, and arrested three members of the most powerful family in town, plus the shoot-out Scratch had had with the bushwhackers at the hotel. People couldn’t stop talking about how the new lawmen were going to either clean up Mankiller at last…

Or be dead before they had a chance to do anything else.

When they got back to the sheriff’s office, Biscuits O’Brien was still asleep on the cot in the back room. Bo and Scratch got him up and forced him to drink black coffee until he was reasonably awake, if not sober. He refused to reveal where he’d had the extra bottle of whiskey hidden. Short of beating it out of him, the Texans didn’t know what else to do.

Reuben and Simeon yelled complaints from the cell block, but Bo and Scratch ignored them. Bo left Scratch there to keep an eye on things and went to pay a visit to Edgar Devery.

“You need to come down to the jail,” Bo began, and when Edgar started to shake his head, he went on, “Hear me out. Your boy Thad’s in a bad way.”

“Is that wound in his arm festerin’ up?” Edgar asked with obvious concern in his voice. “Dang you, Deputy—”

“His arm’s fine,” Bo cut in. “But he messed himself last night, and he needs some clean clothes.”

“That ain’t my responsibility.”

“He’s your son, and nobody else is going to take care of him.”

“His sister will,” Edgar said with a scowl.

“His sister? You’d send a man’s sister in to help him clean up after something like that?” Bo didn’t bother trying to keep the contempt out of his voice. “What kind of man are you, Edgar?”

“All right, all right, damn it! Quit pesterin’ me. I’ll go up to the house and get him some clean clothes, then I’ll be down to the jail after a while.”

“Thanks,” Bo said. “And I’m sure Thad will be grateful to you, too.”

“I wouldn’t count on it. Boy’s as mean and surly as a bear with a toothache.”

“I didn’t know you had a daughter,” Bo commented. “In fact, I haven’t seen any female Deverys.”

“Yeah. Name’s Myra. She don’t come out much. Mostly she stays in her room on the second floor.” Edgar tapped the side of his head. “Poor gal ain’t quite right. She’d rather be shut up readin’ books and such-like. Seems sort of embarrassed about bein’ a member of the family.”

From what he had seen of them so far, Bo would have said that Myra Devery might just be the sanest one of them all, if she felt like that.

He wasn’t sure if Edgar would live up to his promise or not, but true to his word, the liveryman showed up at the jail that afternoon with some clean clothes, a handful of rags, and a bucket of water. Scratch patted him down to make sure he wasn’t trying to smuggle a weapon to the prisoners, then they let him go into the cell block. Scratch unlocked Thad’s cell and then relocked the door behind Edgar. When the liveryman called to be let out half an hour later, he said, “Ought to smell better in there now.”

“We can dang sure hope so,” Scratch said.

The one drawback to having Edgar come in and help Thad clean up was that he got to take a good look at the jail and its defenses, such as they were. Bo still expected an attempt to free the prisoners, maybe as soon as that night.

However, the night passed quietly. The Texans took turns sleeping and standing guard, just as they had taken turns going across the street to the café for meals. Lucinda reported how everybody was talking about them and how there was a sense of law and order growing suddenly in Mankiller that the citizens had never experienced before.

The next night, the Texans were summoned to one of the town’s saloons, where a couple of drunken miners were brawling. Bo left Scratch at the jail and answered the call for help, and as soon as he pushed the batwings aside and stepped into the saloon, silence fell like a hammer. The two men who’d been wrestling on the floor picked each other up and quickly started righting the tables and chairs they’d knocked over. They weren’t completely sober, but they weren’t nearly as drunk as they had been a few minutes earlier, either.

“We’re sorry, Deputy Creel,” one of them said.

“Yeah, don’t know what came over us,” the other miner added. “We got to arguin’ and just got carried away a mite.”

“We’ll pay for any damages,” the first one offered.

“Well…” Bo looked at the proprietor, who nodded his agreement to the suggestion. “All right,” he told the two men, “but next time find some way to settle your argument without causing any trouble.”

“Yes, sir, Deputy, we sure will!” Both men nodded vehemently.

Outside the saloon, Bo paused, grunted in surprise, and shook his head. A reputation as a town-taming lawmen nobody wanted to cross was one thing he’d never figured on having. It seemed to be pretty effective, though.

Over the next week, he and Scratch found out just how effective. After the extraordinarily violent first twenty-four hours on the job, the next seven days were relatively trouble free. There were no murders, the first time in memory that an entire week had gone by without a killing, and only a few fights broke out that the Texans had to break up.

The Deverys also seemed to be lying low. Jackson Devery didn’t make any more appearances demanding that his sons and nephew be released. The prisoners complained incessantly, but they seemed to be getting used to being behind bars. Edgar visited Thad a few times, which perked up the young man. He began to get some of his natural piss and vinegar back, which Bo wasn’t sure was a good thing.

Thad’s sister Myra came to visit him, too. She was a pale, blond young woman who spoke in a shy half-whisper when she said anything at all and kept her eyes downcast. Her visits seemed to lift Thad’s spirits, too. Bo was convinced she was the person he’d seen peeking out through the curtains in the second-floor window of the old Devery house.

With one of the Texans keeping an eye on him nearly all the time, Biscuits O’Brien had suffered the torments of the damned. He had been sick at his stomach, he’d had the shakes, he had been drenched in a cold sweat. But by the time a week had gone past, he was sober…and mad as hell about that fact.

He was complaining about that very thing one afternoon when the office door opened and Lucinda Bonner came in. Bo and Scratch were straddling ladderback chairs, but they stood up instantly and nodded to her. “Ma’am,” Scratch said.

“You boys are too polite,” Lucinda said as she waved them back into their chairs, but her smile said that she liked the attention.

“That’s our Texas upbringin’,” Scratch told her. “My ma would’a kicked me from heck to Goliad if I didn’t stand up when a lady entered a room.”

“Mine, too,” Bo agreed.

“Well, that’s nice of you,” Lucinda said, “but you can sit down and relax. I brought something I want you to see.”

She had a stack of papers in her hand. They looked like handbills of some sort, Bo thought, and as Lucinda held one up, he saw that he was right.

The printing was big and bold and read:

ELECTION, JUNE 5^th

COLORADO PALACE SALOON

VOTE

Mrs. Lucinda Bonner for MAYOR

Dr. Jason Weathers • Harlan Green

Sam Bradfield • Wallace Kane

for TOWN COUNCIL

Col. Horace Macauley for JUDGE

VOTE for Progress

VOTE for Law and Order

VOTE for Mankiller’s Future!

“Well,” Bo said as he looked at the handbill and thought about how the Deverys might react to it, “that ought to do it.”