A few yards away, Scratch fired while on the move. Both long-barreled, ivory-handled Remingtons roared and bucked in his hands.
The man he targeted got a shot off, too, but it went wide to Scratch’s left, passing harmlessly between him and Bo. Meanwhile, the two .44 slugs from Scratch’s revolvers pounded into the man’s body, one striking him in the chest while the other ripped into his Adam’s apple.
The man went over backward, crimson fountaining from his bullet-torn throat.
The other two had managed to get their guns out by now, but seeing what had happened to their companions unnerved them. One yelled a curse and fired, but his shot didn’t come anywhere close to either Bo or Scratch.
With more time to aim, Bo drilled the third man through the shoulder, shattering bone and spinning him halfway around. The man cried out in pain and dropped his gun, then clutched his wounded shoulder with his other hand as he fell to his knees. Blood welled redly between his fingers.
If he was lucky, he might be able to use his right arm again, at least a little, but it would take a long time for him to recover that much. He was out of the fight now, that was for sure.
The fourth and final man who had been trying to rob Cyrus Keegan saw Scratch’s revolvers swinging rapidly toward him. He dropped his gun so vehemently that it flew a good six feet in front of him before it thudded to the ground.
“Don’t shoot!” he cried as he thrust both hands into the air. “For God’s sake, don’t kill me!”
Scratch’s thumbs had both hammers drawn back. He held them there and said, “Don’t move, hombre. If you do, I’ll let daylight through you, sure as hell.”
“I . . . I won’t. I swear! I don’t want any trouble!”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Bo said. “It looked to me like you and your pards were trying to rough up and rob this fella.”
“We . . . we were just gonna take his money. You didn’t have to kill Birch and Sadler!”
“They shouldn’t have thrown down on us,” Scratch drawled. “That’s the reason they’re dead.”
Bo motioned with his gun and said, “Back away, mister, but don’t try to run off.” He looked at the intended victim. “Are you all right, Mr. Keegan?”
Cyrus Keegan had stood stock-still while the shooting was going on. He was pale and wide eyed but still composed. He nodded and said, “I think so. They hadn’t gotten around to really trying to hurt me yet. But they would have.”
“More than likely,” Bo agreed. “Step off to the side over there, just in case either of these varmints gets any more ideas.”
That seemed pretty unlikely. The wounded man was still on his knees, clutching his shoulder and whimpering, while the man who had surrendered still had his hands in the air and looked too scared to try anything.
The gun thunder had been enough to attract plenty of attention. Bo heard shouts from the street, then running footsteps. A couple of men carrying shotguns burst into the alley from the passage beside the saloon.
Seeing law badges pinned to the newcomers’ shirts, Bo and Scratch pouched their irons and stood easy, hands in plain sight. Making a man holding a scattergun nervous was never a good idea.
The deputies pointed the weapons at Bo and Scratch. One of them demanded, “What in blazes is goin’ on here?”
“Gentlemen,” Keegan said as he moved forward a little, “I can explain everything.”
One of the deputies swung his shotgun toward Keegan and snapped, “Hold it right there.”
Keegan stopped and hastily thrust his hands up, too.
“I’m unarmed,” he said. With a nod toward Bo and Scratch, he added, “And these two men haven’t done anything wrong. They kept me from being robbed, and they may well have saved my life.”
“Are those fellas dead?” the second deputy asked as he stared at the robbers called Birch and Sadler, who lay motionless in slowly spreading pools of blood.
“If they ain’t, they’re doin’ a mighty good imitation of it,” the first deputy responded with a note of impatience in his voice. “Of course they’re dead!”
“I’d be glad to explain everything,” Keegan said again.
“Save it for the marshal.” The first deputy glanced over his shoulder. “Here he comes now.”
Indeed, another man had entered the alley behind the buildings. He strolled unhurriedly toward the scene of the shootings, but Bo noted that the lawman kept his hand on the butt of the gun at his hip, just in case he needed it. Such caution was common among men who packed a star.
This man was well built, a little taller than average, wearing a brown suit and vest and hat. His badge was pinned to his coat lapel. A luxuriant mustache adorned his upper lip, and thick, wavy hair came down over his ears and touched his collar. He was a handsome man and obviously a bit of a dandy.
The deputies spread out a little so the marshal could step up between them. He came to a stop and said, “Mr. Keegan, is that you?”
“Yes, Marshal,” Keegan replied, putting his hands down.
With an amused smile on his face, despite the carnage in the alley, the marshal said, “For a man in your line of work, you seem to find yourself in the middle of trouble fairly often.”
“I know, and I can’t explain it, Marshal. You know what a peaceable man I am.”
The lawman just grunted and said, “Tell me what happened here.”
“These men”—Keegan waved a hand to indicate the two bodies, the wounded man, and the one with his hands still in the air—“grabbed me off the street, brought me back here, and were going to assault and rob me. I was quite in fear of losing my life, not just my money and valuables, when these two gentlemen came along and intervened on my behalf.”
Coolly, the marshal regarded Bo and Scratch, then asked, “And who might you be?”
“Bo Creel,” Bo said, introducing himself.
“Scratch Morton,” Scratch added.
The marshal appeared to consider for a moment before saying, “I don’t recognize the names from any wanted posters.”
“That’s because there ain’t any dodgers out on us,” Scratch said.
That might be stretching the truth just a little, Bo thought. He and Scratch had run afoul of lawmen—usually, but not always, crooked ones—in the past, and a few, mostly spurious, charges had been leveled against them here and there. Nothing serious enough to have bounty hunters tracking them down, but there were areas in the West where rewards were still posted on them.
As far as they knew, however, they weren’t wanted in Texas, so there was no need to bring up any of those other places.
“You killed those two men?” the marshal asked as he nodded toward Birch and Sadler.
“We gave them a chance to walk away,” Bo said.
“They weren’t of a mind to,” Scratch said. “They drew first.”
Keegan said, “That’s very true, Marshal, and I’ll testify to it if I need to.”
“You’ll need to,” the marshal said. “There’ll have to be an inquest on these deaths.”
He relaxed and hooked his thumbs in his vest pockets as he looked at Bo and Scratch.
“But I don’t doubt that they’ll be ruled justifiable killings. Because of that, I’m not going to take you two gents into custody. In fact, you may have the thanks of the community coming to you. There’s been a rash of such violent robberies recently. A couple of the victims have been beaten so badly they died. So there’s a good chance you just rid Fort Worth of a pair of murderers and will be responsible for two more being locked up.”
The robber who had surrendered blurted out, “I never killed nobody, Marshal. That was all Birch’s doin’. If anybody tried to put up a fight, he’d get mad and hit ’em too much and too hard.”
The lawman smiled and said, “We’ll be sure that’s entered into the record at your trial.”
He turned to his deputies. “Get the prisoners out of here. That one’s shoulder will need patching up, but you can send for the doctor once you’ve got the
m behind bars, where they belong. And get the undertaker back here, too.”
To Bo and Scratch, he said, “As I said, you’re not under arrest, but don’t leave town until after the inquest is held.”
“We weren’t plannin’ to, Marshal,” Scratch said. “We just got here.”
“And found yourselves up to your necks in a shooting scrape almost right away,” the lawman mused. “Does trouble seem to follow you around?”
“It’s sort of stubborn that way, all right,” Bo said.
CHAPTER 3
Bo and Scratch stood with Cyrus Keegan while the marshal ambled off and the deputies took charge of the two prisoners. The wounded man had to be helped to his feet, and one of the deputies took his left arm to steady him as he stumbled out of the alley.
“So that was Jim Courtright, eh?” Bo said to Keegan. “The famous gunfighting marshal?”
“That’s right. He’s gone a long way toward cleaning up Fort Worth. Certain unsavory elements hate him, though. I certainly wouldn’t want his job.”
“Neither would I,” Scratch said. “Bo and me have packed stars before, now and again, but it ain’t somethin’ I’m overfond of.”
“That’s because you’re too fiddle footed to stay in one place for very long,” Bo said with a smile.
Scratch chuckled and said, “There’s an old sayin’ about the pot callin’ the kettle black.”
Keegan looked at them and shook his head. He said, “You were just involved in a desperate gun battle that could have cost your lives. You killed two men and badly wounded another mere minutes ago, and yet now you appear as cool and calm as can be.”
“Well, the shootin’s over, ain’t it? And we’re all still breathin’.” Scratch shrugged. “No reason to be upset.”
“You remind me of two young men I met a while back. They were quite levelheaded and handy with their guns, as well.”
“It’s a good quality to have,” Bo said. “Otherwise we might not have stayed alive as long as we have.”
Scratch laughed and said, “I guaran-damn-tee we wouldn’t have.”
“What brings you to Fort Worth?” Keegan asked. “Are you here on business?”
“We don’t really have any business,” Bo said, “except for seeing what’s on the other side of the next hill.”
“Right now, though, we were fixin’ to have a drink,” Scratch said.
“Then let me buy it for you,” Keegan said without hesitation. “It’s the least I can do.” He glanced at the bodies nearby, which had already started to attract flies. The buzzing was loud in the warm afternoon air. “And I’d just as soon go somewhere that’s not quite so, ah, grim.”
“The Lucky Cuss is right here,” Scratch responded with a grin.
A few minutes later, the three of them were sitting at a table in the saloon, which was a busy place full of cowboys, railroad workers, and townsmen drinking and gambling.
Cyrus Keegan looked around curiously and said, “I’ve never been in here.”
He had stopped at the bar and gotten three mugs of beer for them while Bo and Scratch had claimed the empty table.
“This wasn’t where you were headin’ when those scoundrels jumped you?” Scratch asked.
“Goodness, no,” Keegan said as he slid full mugs of cold, foaming beer in front of his companions. “I was just passing by. It’s not that I don’t enjoy a drink now and then.” A sheepish look came over his face. “In fact, in the past I had a tendency to, ah, overindulge from time to time. But a mishap that involved a broken leg convinced me that it would be wise to hew more closely to the straight and narrow. So since then I’ve avoided getting carried away.”
“I can drink that beer for you if it’s too much of a temptation,” Scratch offered.
“No, no, that won’t be necessary. Whiskey is my weakness. An occasional beer is perfectly fine.”
As if to demonstrate, Keegan lifted the mug and took a long, healthy swallow. When he lowered it, he licked foam off his upper lip and then sighed in satisfaction.
“Ah,” he said. “To be honest, after everything that’s happened, I needed a bit of a bracer to fortify my nerves, and that did the job quite nicely.”
Bo drank some of his beer and agreed that it was pretty good. He said, “Mr. Keegan—”
“Please, call me Cyrus,” the little man interrupted in his high-pitched voice.
“All right, Cyrus,” Bo went on. “Something Marshal Courtright said made it sound like you’d been mixed up in some ruckuses before.”
“I’m afraid so,” Keegan said with a solemn nod. “It had to do with those two young men I told you about who were handy with their guns.”
“The marshal mentioned your line of work, too. What is that, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Not at all. After you risked your lives to save me, you have the right to ask anything you want. I’m a matrimonial agent.”
“A matri-what?” Scratch said. “I don’t much like the sound of that. Too much like matrimony.”
“Well, of course it is. A matrimonial agent arranges marriages. Or to be more specific, in my case, provides brides for prospective grooms.”
“Mail-order brides,” Bo said.
Keegan nodded and said, “That’s the commonly accepted term, yes. I think it sounds a bit mercenary. . . but it is the way I make my living, so I suppose that’s accurate.”
“I can’t for the life of me figure out why somebody would be so desperate for a wife that he’d send off for one,” Scratch commented, shaking his head. “Seems to me it’s hard enough to avoid gettin’ saddled with some gal, without goin’ out lookin’ for trouble.”
“We’re fine ones to talk about not looking for trouble,” Bo pointed out.
“Yeah, but there’s trouble . . . and then there’s trouble.”
Keegan chuckled and said, “I’m glad not every man feels like you, Mr. Morton, or I’d be out of business.”
“Mr. Morton’s my pa. I’m Scratch.”
“And I’m Bo. That sounds like mighty interesting work you do, Cyrus, but I don’t think we’ll need to avail ourselves of your services.”
“All right,” Keegan said, “but if you ever change your minds, I maintain a file of eligible ladies, mostly from the East and Midwest, who are all refined, intelligent, and domestically skilled. If you think any of them might be to your liking, you can correspond with them and get to know them better.”
Scratch said, “You didn’t mention anything about ’em bein’ good-lookin’.”
“Well . . . beauty is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it?”
They sat there for a while, nursing the beers and talking. Keegan was very interested in the adventures the two drifters had had, and while Bo wasn’t the type to talk much about such things, such modesty didn’t make up any part of Scratch’s personality. He spun a few yarns, and when he embellished things to make the tales sound ever wilder and woollier to the rapt Cyrus Keegan, Bo didn’t point that out. Scratch and Keegan both seemed to be enjoying themselves, so Bo didn’t see what a few whoppers would hurt.
Finally, Keegan suggested, “Why don’t the two of you come back to the office with me?”
“We told you, Cyrus,” Scratch began, “we ain’t in the market for no brides—”
“No, no, that’s not what I had in mind. I need to pick up some papers there, and then I thought perhaps you’d like to accompany me to my home and have supper with me. My housekeeper, Lantana, is an excellent cook. I daresay you won’t find a better meal in Fort Worth. I’d like to repay you for coming to my rescue with more than just a beer.”
“That’s not necessary,” Bo said. “We weren’t looking for any repayment.”
“We just don’t like to see anybody gettin’ picked on,” Scratch said.
“Please,” Keegan insisted. “I’ll be insulted if you don’t accept my hospitality.”
Being Texans, born and raised, Bo and Scratch both understood that sentiment. They looked at each other and nodd
ed.
Scratch said, “Sure. I reckon we can do that, Cyrus.”
“Excellent,” the little man replied, beaming.
Bo said, “We need to stable our horses and find a hotel room, so why don’t you tell us where your office is and we’ll meet you there in a little while?”
“All right. It’s over on Rusk Street. That’s four blocks east of here. Just go to Fourth Street, here at the corner, and walk straight over to Rusk. Then turn left, and the office will be halfway up the block, on the left.” Keegan drained the last of his beer. “I’ll wait there until you arrive.”
“We’ll try not to be too long,” Bo promised. “Do you know a good livery stable around here?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. Patterson’s Livery is on your way. You’ll see it. And there’s a good hotel close by, too.”
Keegan left the Lucky Cuss. Armed with the information he had given them, Bo and Scratch reclaimed their horses from the hitch rail and walked toward the stable.
“Seems like we’ve made ourselves a friend,” Scratch commented with a smile.
“He’s just grateful to us for helping him out,” Bo said. “We’ll have supper with him, and I reckon that’ll be the end of it.”
They turned their horses over to the proprietor of the stable, a friendly, stocky man with a close-cropped, rust-colored beard. When Bo mentioned that Cyrus Keegan had recommended the place, the stableman chuckled and said, “Yeah, he keeps his wagon and team here. He’s quite a character. Used to come in drunk as a lord, but he seems to have straightened up lately.”
“He said as much to us. Mentioned some sort of accident that got him a broken leg,” Bo said.
“A mule kicked him,” Patterson said, “because he was drunk and stumbling around and trying to hitch up the team himself. Reckon that taught him a lesson.”
“Mule kicks have away of doin’ that,” Scratch said.
They found the hotel less than a block away, made arrangements to rent a room for a few nights, and then walked on toward Rusk Street and Keegan’s office. Wagons rattled through the streets, and people crowded the sidewalks. Fort Worth wasn’t exactly a boomtown, but it seemed to be thriving.
Have Brides, Will Travel Page 2