Mankiller, Colorado Read online

  Scratch shook his head. “We’ve done our share of livery stable work lately.”

  “I’d say most of the stores could use an extra clerk or two, as well,” Francis said. “I know that’s probably not the sort of job you’re used to, but since you don’t have any money to buy a prospecting outfit, you’re not going to have much choice. You’ve got to make enough to eat.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to be looking for a couple of partners in this mining claim, would you?” Bo asked.

  “I’m afraid not. By the time I pay the Deverys their share, the gold I’ve been taking out of the ground barely pays for my supplies.”

  “That’s what I figured you’d say.”

  Francis shrugged. “Sorry I can’t be of more help.”

  “You’ve done plenty,” Bo assured him, “and Scratch and I really appreciate it. At least we’re alive and have reasonably clean clothes to wear. For a while there it didn’t look like either of those things was going to be possible.”

  They shook hands with Francis, then started trudging upriver toward the settlement. It wouldn’t take them long to reach it. While they were walking, Scratch said, “I don’t much cotton to the idea of hidin’ out from them Deverys.”

  “Neither do I,” Bo said, “but we’ve got to be reasonable about the situation. We can’t take them on like this, broke and unarmed.”

  “What if Edgar sells our horses? We’ve had those animals a long time.”

  Bo nodded. “And they’ve been mighty good mounts, too. But there are other horses out there. Anyway, I don’t think he’s likely to sell them. Nobody around here could afford them except some of the Deverys, which means they’ll still be around Mankiller. We’ll have a chance to get them back, I’m sure of it.”

  “I hope you’re right. I’d like to get my hands on them Remingtons of mine again, too.”

  “They’ll probably wind up in Devery hands. We’ll just have to be patient and see what we can do.”

  When they got close to the settlement, they circled up the slope a ways so they could enter Mankiller by one of the cross streets. They found an alley that ran behind several of the saloons fronting on Main Street.

  “We’ll make a start here,” Bo decided. “Maybe one of these places can use a couple of dishwashers.”

  “I’d rather tend bar, myself,” Scratch said.

  “Yeah, but that would mean being out front where the Deverys could see you if they came in.”

  Scratch frowned. “Damn, I don’t like this! We never run from trouble before, Bo.”

  “I’m not sure we’ve ever been broke and unarmed before, either,” Bo pointed out.

  “Maybe not, but I recollect a time when you wouldn’t have worried so much about that. You used to be willin’ to charge hell with a bucket of water.”

  Bo bristled a little. “Are you saying that I’m getting old?”

  “We ain’t neither one of us spring chickens no more. It’s just that one of us seems more worried about that fact than the other.”

  They stood there in the alley glaring at each other for a second. This wasn’t the first time friction had flared between the two trail partners. No two people with such strong personalities could travel together for years without rubbing each other the wrong way sometimes.

  But after a moment, Bo shrugged and said, “Think whatever you want to. When the time comes, just hide and watch and you’ll see how worried I am about being old.”

  “I’ll do that,” Scratch said. “For now, let’s go see about gettin’ those jobs as…dishwashers.”

  They entered the first of the saloons they came to through the rear door and found a door that probably led to the owner’s office. A knock on that door brought a call to come in. As they stepped inside, a gaunt-faced man with a Vandyke beard looked up from a ledger open before him on a desk.

  “What is it?” he asked in a voice as sharp and pointed as his beard.

  “My friend and I are looking for jobs,” Bo said.

  The saloon keeper leaned back in his chair. His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Jobs?” he repeated. “Most men who come to Mankiller are looking for gold.”

  “Not us,” Bo said. “We’re willing to work at whatever chores you have.”

  The man stroked his beard. “I could use a couple of swampers. Usually I can hire an old drunk for that job, but even they’re out prospecting these days.”

  “How much is the pay?”

  “Fifty dollars a week for each of you. That’s all I can afford.”

  “That sounds pretty good—” Scratch began, but Bo held up a hand to stop him.

  “Wait a minute,” Bo said. “Let me do some figuring. Do you have a place here we can sleep?”

  The saloonkeeper shook his head. “Every bit of space in this building is being used. There’s a storage room down here, but it’s full. My quarters and a couple of other rooms are upstairs, but the girls who work here use those extra rooms…twenty-four hours a day if you know what I mean.”

  “How much is a room in a hotel, assuming we could get one?”

  The man smiled. “You might be able to get an eight-hour shift in one, but it would cost you dearly. The flophouses are easier to get into. Eight hours in a bunk there will run about twenty-five dollars.”

  Bo figured rapidly, recalling what Lucinda Bonner had told them about the price of meals in Mankiller. When he finished his calculations, he said, “What you’re offering us as a week’s pay would only last us about three days.”

  The saloonkeeper shrugged. “I can’t help that. It’s all I can afford.”

  “We’d be losing money going to work for you. If we had any to lose, that is.”

  The man just shrugged again. “Sorry.”

  Bo turned to Scratch. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Maybe one of the other saloons will pay better,” Scratch suggested.

  The bearded man’s laughter followed them out the door.

  Over the next couple of hours, Bo and Scratch paid unobtrusive visits to every saloon, hash house, and mercantile they could find. Every business owner they talked to was eager to hire them, confirming what Francis had said about there being a shortage of able-bodied workers in Mankiller.

  But no one was willing to offer more than fifty dollars a week in wages, and some offered even less. The Texans’ frustration grew.

  “This is sure a bad layout,” Scratch said as they paused in an alley behind one of the general stores. “Everybody needs to hire some help, but they can’t afford to because of havin’ to pay that big cut to the Deverys. We need money, but if we take a job, we’ll be just as broke as we are now, maybe even broker, if there is such a thing!”

  “Yes, it just goes around and around in one of those vicious circles, doesn’t it?” Bo said.

  “Maybe we should mosey down to the bridge and jump whichever Deverys are on duty there collectin’ tolls. We could get a couple of guns that way and start huntin’ ’em down, one or two at a time.”

  “If we did that, we’d be the ones breaking the law,” Bo said.

  “Then, dadgummit, what can we do?”

  “You can come with me,” a woman’s voice said from behind them.

  CHAPTER 11

  Bo and Scratch looked around in surprise. Lucinda Bonner stood there wearing a dark blue dress and looking as lovely as ever. She had taken off the apron she wore while working behind the counter in the café.

  Out of habit, Bo started to reach up and touch the brim of his hat before he remembered that he wasn’t wearing one. He settled for nodding and saying, “Ma’am. It’s good to see you again.”

  “It sure is,” Scratch added. “Best not come too close to us. We’ve still got a little, uh, aroma about us…”

  Lucinda smiled. “Yes, I know. Francis O’Hanrahan told me what happened.”

  “Francis came to see you, did he?” Bo asked.

  Lucinda nodded. “That’s right. He had an idea, and he seemed to think he ought to discuss it with me. Own
ing the café means that I’m acquainted with most of the businessmen in town. I’ve done a little asking around, and it appears that you gentlemen have talked to just about all of those businessmen this morning, asking them for jobs. Why didn’t you come to see me?”

  “Well, for one thing, it didn’t take us long to figure out that folks here in Mankiller can’t afford to pay wages that’ll let a man make a living,” Bo said. “We didn’t figure you’d be any different.”

  “And for another, we still sort of stink,” Scratch added.

  Lucinda said, “It’s true, I can’t pay you a living wage, but if you’ll come with me back to the café, I have a proposition I’d like to discuss with you.”

  “We don’t take charity,” Bo said. “At least, not on a permanent basis.”

  “And that’s not what I have in mind. I assure you, if the two of you go along with what I and some others have in mind, you’ll earn every penny that you make.”

  The Texans looked at each other and frowned. Scratch shrugged and said, “I reckon we might as well hear the lady out.”

  “I don’t see that it would do any harm,” Bo agreed. “All right, Mrs. Bonner, we’ll come with you. We’d better be careful that none of the Deverys see us with you, though. That would probably get you on their bad side.”

  “All right. We’ll go in the back door.”

  She led them through the alleys to the rear entrance of the café. When they stepped into the roomy kitchen, which Bo and Scratch hadn’t visited before, they were surprised to see that more than half a dozen people were waiting there. The Texans recognized some of them as owners of Mankiller’s businesses that they had visited that morning. Lucinda’s two daughters were also there, along with a grizzled, middle-aged man that Bo assumed was Lucinda’s brother Charley, the café’s cook, and Francis Xavier O’Hanrahan, the miner who had helped them out.

  “I found them,” Lucinda announced to the group. “Probably none of you have been formally introduced except for Francis, so I’d like for you to meet Bo Creel and Scratch Morton.” She turned to the Texans. “Gentlemen, you know Francis, of course, and my daughters Callie and Tess. This is my brother Charley Ellis…Lyle Rushford, who owns the Colorado Palace Saloon…”

  Rushford was the man with the Vandyke beard, the first one Bo and Scratch had spoken to after they’d returned to Mankiller. He nodded to them now.

  “Abner Malden, owner of Malden’s Mercantile,” Lucinda went on. “Ed Dabney, from Dabney’s Livery. Wallace Kane, our local assayer. Lionel Gaines, from Gaines’ General Merchandise and Hardware. And Sam Bradfield—”

  “The undertaker,” Bo finished with a smile. “We’ve been advised on a couple of occasions that we ought to make your acquaintance, Mr. Bradfield.”

  “I just hope you won’t need my services any time soon, Mr. Creel,” Bradfield said, returning the smile.

  Lyle Rushford, the saloon man, spoke up. “Do you have any idea why Lucinda brought you here?”

  “She said something about a proposition,” Bo replied. His brain was working swiftly. “I suppose it has something to do with all of you working together to accomplish something?”

  “That’s right,” Rushford said. “You see, individually none of us can afford to pay you what you’d need to live on. But if we all chip in and get the other business owners in town to contribute, too, we can come up with enough money to hire you and make it worth your while to work for us.”

  “To work for all of you, you mean?” Bo asked with a frown.

  Lucinda said, “For the town, actually…Wait a minute. I think I hear someone coming in. Callie, please go see if it’s Reverend Schumacher.”

  Callie, the pretty brunette who had waited on Bo and Scratch the day before, nodded and ducked out through the door between the kitchen and the café’s main room.

  “There’s a church in Mankiller?” Bo asked. “I didn’t notice a steeple.”

  “That’s because there isn’t one up yet,” Lucinda explained. “There isn’t even an actual church building. The members meet in various businesses, moving from one to another every Sunday. When we decided to have this meeting, I offered my kitchen and closed up for the time being, but I gave the reverend a key to the front door. He offered to fetch the other person you need to see.” She smiled. “Being a preacher, he can be very persuasive.”

  Callie pushed open the kitchen door and came in, trailed by two men. One of them was young, wearing a dark, sober suit and a string tie. He had hold of the second man’s arm in a firm grip that both propelled him along and kept him from stumbling and falling.

  The second man was Sheriff Biscuits O’Brien.

  The lawman looked around at the gathering, blinking in confusion. “What’s goin’ on here?” he demanded. His thick voice, red face, and bleary eyes testified to the fact that he had gotten an early start on the day’s drinking. He’d probably had an eye-opener as soon as he crawled out of bed.

  “Sheriff O’Brien,” Lucinda said, “we asked you to come here for a reason. This is a meeting of some of the honest business owners in Mankiller. An unofficial town council, if you will.”

  O’Brien shook his head. “There ain’t no town council. Jackson Devery says we don’t…don’t need one.”

  “Jackson Devery is not the law in this town, Sheriff,” Lucinda told him sternly. “You are. And it’s time you started acting like it and enforcing the law.”

  O’Brien turned toward the door. “I don’t wanna hear this.”

  He found his way blocked by Reverend Schumacher and Francis O’Hanrahan. Francis put his hands on O’Brien’s shoulders and turned him around.

  “You’re going to listen, whether you want to hear it or not, Biscuits,” the miner said.

  “Who pays your salary, Sheriff?” Lucinda asked.

  O’Brien blinked and frowned in confusion. “Why…I reckon Mr. Devery does.”

  “Jackson Devery collects the money for your wages,” Lucinda corrected. “He collects from all of us. That means you work for us.”

  O’Brien started shaking his head again. “No, no…Mr. Devery tells me what to do…”

  “Not anymore. When you took office, you swore to uphold the law.”

  Wallace Kane, a balding man with spectacles, said, “And by God, you’re going to do it whether you like it or not!” He glanced at Schumacher. “Sorry, Reverend.”

  Schumacher didn’t seem to mind. He said, “Listen, Sheriff, you know as well as any of us that lawlessness is running rampant in Mankiller. The town lives up to its name, because there’s at least one murder nearly every night! Men are robbed at gunpoint, crooked gamblers operate openly, and prostitutes ply their trade not only in brothels but in some of the alleys as well! All this has to stop if Mankiller is ever going to become any sort of decent, respectable community.”

  “It’s a boomtown,” O’Brien said. “It won’t never be decent and respectable. It’ll just go on boomin’ until the gold dries up. Then it’ll be a ghost town!”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way,” Lucinda insisted. “If something can be done about the criminal elements, the settlement might grow into a real town, the sort of town that will last once the boom is over. But the lawless have to be rooted out, and that’s your job, Sheriff.”

  O’Brien was bareheaded, and he ran his fingers through his already wild hair, jerking on it and making it go in every direction even more than it already was. “What do you expect me to do?” he asked miserably. “Even if I wanted to clean up the town, I couldn’t do it. I’m just one man.”

  Lucinda smiled. “That’s why we’re going to provide you some help.”

  “Oh, shoot!” Scratch said suddenly. “You’re gonna ask us to be deputies!”

  Bo had figured out where the meeting was going a couple of minutes earlier, so he wasn’t as surprised as Scratch. He didn’t say anything as Lucinda turned and waved a hand toward them, saying, “That’s right. Sheriff O’Brien, meet your new deputies.”

  O’Brien j
ust stared, overcome for the moment. Moisture leaked from one corner of his mouth.

  Bo said, “Don’t you reckon you ought to ask us if we want the job?”

  “What else are you going to do?” Rushford asked. “We all know what happened to you. The Deverys jumped you, stole everything you had, and left you for dead. You’re broke and you need a job. You’re not going to find one that pays better than this.”

  Lucinda looked at the Texans and said, “I’m sorry if it seems like we’re railroading you into this, but the town needs help, and you two gentlemen are the only ones who have come along who seem capable of giving it.”

  “How do you know what we’re capable of?” Bo asked.

  Francis said, “I’ve seen tough hombres before. I know men who can take care of themselves when I see them. You two qualify…even if the first time I saw you, you were covered in…well, never mind. We all know what you were covered in.”

  The other businessmen chimed in, asking Bo and Scratch to take the job. Bo heard the desperation in their voices, and after a minute, he held up his hands for quiet.

  “I don’t reckon you can legally hire us without the sheriff going along with it,” he said. He turned to O’Brien. “What about it, Sheriff? Do you want Scratch and me to be your deputies?”

  A calculating look appeared in O’Brien’s eyes. He might be drunk, but he was still cunning. “Does that mean that you two fellas would do all the work?”

  “I expect we’d have to do most of it,” Scratch answered, not bothering to keep the disgust out of his voice.

  “But I’d still be the sheriff?”

  “Technically, yes,” Lucinda said. “At least until your term of office is up, and that’s not until next year.”

  “Well…as long as I don’t have to do anything…”

  “Blast it, just say yes, Biscuits!” Sam Bradfield burst out.

  O’Brien looked cowed. “All right, all right. You don’t have to yell at me. I guess it’d be all right if these two gents were my deputies.”