Mankiller, Colorado

CHAPTER 24

It didn’t take long, either. Lucinda paid a couple of local boys to nail the handbills up around town, and as soon as they started appearing, folks began to talk. It was like a tidal wave of sensation washed over Mankiller. Everybody was talking about the impending election, which was only a week away.

Bo was in the café having a cup of coffee when the door opened and heavy footsteps sounded. The place was busy as usual, but silence fell as all the conversations abruptly ceased. Bo turned his head and saw Jackson Devery stalking toward the counter.

Devery didn’t appear to be armed, but his face was flushed with barely contained rage, as usual. He slapped one of the handbills down on the counter in front of Lucinda, who had been talking to Bo. It was torn in the upper corners where it had been ripped down.

“What the hell is this?” Devery demanded.

“Keep a civil tongue in your head, Devery,” Bo snapped. “There’s no law against cussing in town, so I can’t arrest you for it, but I can give you a thrashing if I have to.”

Devery sneered at him. “You could try.” He turned his attention back to Lucinda. A finger stabbed down on the handbill. “You can’t do this. It ain’t legal.”

Lucinda was staying calm in the face of Devery’s anger, and Bo admired her for it. She said, “Actually, it is legal, Mr. Devery. Colonel Macauley, who, as you may know, is an accomplished attorney, has advised us that the citizens of a town have the right to call an election. All it requires is that the majority of eligible voters sign a petition requesting that an election be held.”

“Petition?” Devery repeated. “What petition?”

Lucinda reached below the counter and brought up a stack of papers which she set beside the handbill. “This one. People have been signing it all week. There are copies at the general store and the assay office, too. Once we had enough signatures, we could set the election date and candidates could declare.”

The steady assurance with which she spoke took some of the wind out of Devery’s sails. Bo could see it. It didn’t take Devery long to recover, though.

“I can hire lawyers, too,” he said. “I’ll sue you. This has got to be illegal. Mankiller is my town.”

“You may own the land, but that doesn’t give you any sort of legal authority over the citizens. They have a right to determine their own local government. When Mankiller was awarded a post office, the State of Colorado recognized it as a town, which means everything about this election is legal, Mr. Devery.”

“It won’t stand.” Devery thumped a fist on the counter. “It won’t stand, I tell you!”

“Wait and see,” Lucinda said softly.

Looking like fire and brimstone was about to explode from him, Devery turned and stomped out of the café. Stunned silence remained behind him for a moment, then the customers began to talk again, louder and more excited than before.

Lucinda must have put quite a bit of effort into maintaining her control. She looked and sounded a little shaky now as she asked Bo, “What do you think he’s going to do?”

“There’s nothing he can do to stop the election,” Bo told her. “From what you’ve told me and what you just explained to Devery, the law’s on your side. If he does try to interfere, the state could come in and arrest him. Might even get some U.S. marshals in here.”

Lucinda shook her head. “He’s too smart to attract much outside attention to what he’s been doing. Not unless it was a last resort, anyway. But I can’t imagine that he’ll just allow this to happen without trying to stop it somehow.”

Bo agreed with her. “We’ll just have to keep our eyes open,” he said. “When trouble comes, we’ll be ready for it.”

Bo wasn’t ready for what happened bright and early the next morning, though. The sound of hammering drew his attention as he left the sheriff’s office to start morning rounds. He looked along the boardwalk and saw Luke Devery standing next to one of the posts holding up the awning in front of the assay office. Luke had a hammer in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other.

“What in blazes are you doing?” Bo asked as he walked up behind Luke.

Red beard jutting out belligerently, Luke turned to face him. “What’s the matter, lawdog? Can’t you read?”

Bo could read, all right, and he didn’t like what he read on the piece of paper Luke had just nailed to the post. Somehow, the words on the hand-lettered notice didn’t surprise him.

Vote JACKSON DEVERY For Mayor

LUKE DEVERY

REUBEN DEVERY

SIMEON DEVERY

GRANVILLE DEVERY

For Town Council

EDGAR DEVERY For Judge

Vote for THE DEVERYS

Founders Of Mankiller

“You got a problem with that, Deputy?” Luke’s voice dripped scorn as he spoke.

“Well…I’m not sure your Uncle Edgar is qualified to be a judge.”

“He’s fair, and that’s all a fella needs. And speakin’ of fair, you don’t intend to give me any trouble over puttin’ up these posters when you let that Bonner woman have her handbills nailed up all over town, do you?”

Grim-faced, Bo made a gesture of dismissal and said, “Go ahead. Put them up on the boardwalk posts all you want. But you’d better get permission before you nail one onto the wall of somebody’s business.”

Luke grinned. “Don’t you worry. If I need permission for anything, I’ll get it.”

Whistling a jaunty tune, he sauntered away along the boardwalk, pausing three or four posts farther down the street to take some nails from a pocket of his overalls and put up another poster. Bo looked at the first one and studied the writing, wondering who had done the lettering. It was nice work, and he suspected that Myra Devery was responsible for it. He wasn’t sure any of the others in the family had a delicate enough touch to produce something like that.

By the time he got to the café to break the news to Lucinda, he found that she had already heard about this new development. Mankiller’s grapevine was working efficiently this morning.

“Can the Deverys do that?” Bo asked. “Just up and run for election against you like that?”

Lucinda smiled ruefully. “Any citizen of Mankiller can declare himself a candidate.”

“Or herself,” Bo pointed out.

“That’s probably the shakiest part of the whole proposition,” she admitted. “Being a woman, I’m not an eligible voter. However, if I’m elected and it’s set aside legally later on, the town council will have the power to appoint one of themselves as acting mayor until a special election can be held. That’s what Colonel Macauley says, anyway, and he knows more law than anybody else around here. So we’re going to carry on as planned. Now we just have to defeat Jackson Devery and his bunch.”

Bo grunted. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Maybe more so than you think,” Lucinda said with a frown. “I don’t think anyone in town actually likes the Deverys, but there are people who’d like to curry favor with them. And there are plenty of people who are afraid of them. They might think it would be safer to vote for the Deverys. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did something to try to make more people feel that way before the election.”

“Intimidate the voters, you mean.”

Lucinda nodded. “Exactly.”

“That would be against the law, wouldn’t it?”

“I would think so.”

Bo rubbed his jaw. “Let ’em try it, then. They might wind up with more trouble on their hands than they bargained for.”

Bo had to get on with his rounds, so he said so long to Lucinda and left the café. As he walked along the street, he saw a number of people gathered around the handbills that Luke Devery had put up. The Deverys’ entry into the election campaign had stirred up a lot of interest.

Other than that, the town was quiet this morning. Another night had passed without a murder. The citizens of Mankiller might be starting to feel secure and safe for a change. Bo hoped that if that were the case, it wouldn’t turn out to be a big mistake for them.

When he returned to the sheriff’s office, he found Biscuits O’Brien saying to Scratch, “Tell me again how all that whiskey spilled on the floor in the Fan-Tan.”

Scratch shook his head. “I ain’t gonna do it. You know good and well it’ll just give you nightmares, Biscuits.”

“Yeah, I know. I can see it in my head. Haven’t been able to stop thinkin’ about it ever since you told me.” Biscuits shuddered.

Scratch glanced at Bo, then looked again. “You appear to have somethin’ on your mind, pard,” he said. “What is it?”

Bo beckoned for them to follow him as he started toward the cell block door. “You’re right,” he told Scratch. “Come along back here so I’ll only have to say it once.”

Wearing puzzled expressions, Scratch and Biscuits followed Bo into the cell block. Reuben and Simeon immediately started to complain, but Bo held up a hand to silence them. Thad just glared from the cell across the aisle.

“I’ve got some news for you boys,” Bo told the brothers. “You probably don’t know it yet, but you’re running for town council in the election.”

“What?” The exclamation came from four people: Scratch, Biscuits, and the two candidates themselves. Thad was the only one who still didn’t say anything.

“I said you’re running for town council,” Bo repeated. “Your brother Luke is, too. He’s out nailing up handbills all over town about it right now.”

“But that ain’t possible,” Scratch protested. “They’re in jail!”

Bo shrugged. “That doesn’t keep them from running. If they’re elected, I figure the new judge will dismiss the charges against them.”

“What new judge?”

“Their Uncle Edgar.”

“That damn liveryman who tried to steal our horses?”

“One and the same,” Bo replied with a nod.

“But he can’t be a judge! He takes care of horses and mucks out stalls for a livin’.”

“Evidently that doesn’t disqualify him. And I’m sure that if these two get elected, it’ll mean that the rest of the Devery slate won the election, too.”

“The rest of the Devery slate?” Biscuits asked.

“The old man’s running for mayor, and somebody named Granville Devery is running for the other spot on the town council.”

Reuben said, “That’s one of our cousins. Uncle Lester’s boy.”

“I don’t recall hearing about a Lester Devery,” Bo said.

“That’s ’cause he’s dead,” Reuben explained. “Fever got him a little more’n a year ago.”

Scratch grunted. “Sorry…I guess.” He looked around at Thad in the other cell. “I notice they didn’t put you up for election.”

Thad sneered. “I’m not interested in bein’ on any damn town council. The whole thing’s loco anyway. When I get outta here, I’ll show all of you who the real law is in Mankiller.”

“I reckon we’ll see about that,” Bo said, although he thought it was a foregone conclusion that if the Deverys got elected, Edgar would dismiss the charges against his own son. Bo went on, “It won’t take long, either. The election’s only six days away.”

“A lot can happen in six days,” Thad said.

Bo didn’t like the sound of that. Didn’t like it one damned bit.