Mankiller, Colorado

by William W. Johnstone

  “Not anymore, Devery,” Bo said quietly to the man’s back.

  Devery stood there for a long moment, trembling with fury. Then he turned to glare at the Texans again and said in a low voice, “You two bastards are gonna regret this, and so are the fools who put you up to it. I’ll burn this town to the ground before I let anybody take it away from me.”

  “Why would you do a stupid thing like that?” Bo asked. “You’re making a fortune off the gold rush. It’s unfair, but it’s legal. Why can’t you just sit back and collect your money?”

  Devery’s breath hissed between his clenched teeth. “You sons o’ bitches always look down your noses at me and my kin. I seen it all my life. Think you’re better than me and mine.”

  “Mister, you don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Scratch said. “Bo and me, we’re just a couple of hombres who been driftin’ most of our lives, never ownin’ much but our horses and saddles and the clothes on our backs. We don’t think we’re better than anybody, you can damn well bet a hat on that.”

  Devery ignored him. He swung around and waved his hands at the crowd again. “All of you!” he shouted. “All of you will be sorry you crossed Jackson Devery! You hear me?”

  With that, he turned and stalked off along the boardwalk, slashing his arms at the bystanders who didn’t get out of his way fast enough. Jeers and cat-calls followed him.

  Bo said, “I understand why they feel the way they do about Devery, but those folks aren’t making things any better.”

  “Yeah, he’s full of pride and plumb loco to start with,” Scratch agreed. “That ain’t a good combination. Mix that together with anger over his boys bein’ locked up and fear that he’s gonna lose somethin’ he thought he never could lose—”

  “And it’s liable to turn into something dangerous enough to blow up this whole town,” Bo said.

  CHAPTER 18

  Now that they had prisoners locked up in the jail cells, Bo and Scratch knew they couldn’t leave things in the hands of Biscuits O’Brien. Someone would have to stay there all night and guard the place.

  “We’ll take turns,” Scratch suggested. “One of us can stay, and the other can go over to the hotel and get some sleep. I’ll flip you for the first shift.”

  “With what?” Bo asked. “We don’t have any coins, just those few bills Mrs. Bonner was able to give us as an advance.”

  Scratch rubbed his jaw. “Oh, yeah. Dadgummit. I don’t even have my lucky silver dollar no more.”

  “Your two-headed silver dollar, you mean?”

  Scratch put his hand over his heart. “Why, Bo, are you accusin’ me of cheatin’ in the past whenever we’d flip for somethin’? And us havin’ been saddle pards for so long! I can’t believe you don’t trust me.”

  Bo grinned and jerked a thumb toward the door. “Go get some sleep. I’ll take the first shift. I’m not that sleepy right now, anyway.”

  “Well, if that’s the way you want it…” Scratch tucked one of the scatterguns under his arm and then left the office.

  Bo turned the flame on the lamp a little lower, made sure all the blinds were down over the windows, and placed the other shotgun on the desk so it would be within easy reach when he sat down. The front door opened inward and had brackets on either side of it so that a bar could be lowered into them. Bo found the bar in the back room where Biscuits continued to snore. He put it in place, blocking the door.

  He checked the back door. It was locked but didn’t have a bar. If he and Scratch were going to stay on here for very long, they could add a bar to make that door more secure, Bo thought. The front window could use some iron bars mounted in them, too. A lawman sometimes needed to be able to fort up in his office and withstand a siege. Bo could see such a situation developing here in Mankiller, definitely.

  Satisfied that he had done what he could to prepare for trouble, Bo sat down behind the desk. He tipped the chair back a little and raised one booted foot, propping it on the corner of the desk. He wasn’t comfortable enough that he was in any danger of dozing off, but at least the stance was a little restful.

  Meanwhile, Scratch found that there were still quite a few people standing around in the street, watching the jail in amazement as if they couldn’t quite believe that three of the Deverys were actually locked up in there. They stepped aside and gave him respectful nods as he walked toward the hotel.

  Harlan Green was behind the desk in the lobby. “Deputy Morton,” he greeted Scratch. “Where’s Deputy Creel?”

  “Bo’s stayin’ over at the jail for now,” Scratch replied. “You might’ve heard tell about how we got some prisoners that need guardin’ tonight.”

  Green nodded. “Thad, Reuben, and Simeon Devery. It’s all anyone’s been able to talk about. You and Deputy Creel are famous, at least in Mankiller.”

  “Famous for bein’ dumb enough to take on the Deverys, you mean,” Scratch said with a shake of his head.

  “Not at all. Everyone I’ve talked to admires the two of you. It’s just that…”

  “You ain’t sure if we’ll live long enough to do any real good, right?”

  Green shrugged eloquently. “Men have tried to oppose the Deverys before. None of them are still around.”

  “I know what you mean. Bo and me are pretty doggone stubborn, though, and we been around long enough to know a few things about takin’ care of ourselves.”

  “I hope so. I certainly wish you the best. Is there anything I can do for you? Have a tub and some hot water brought up, anything like that?”

  Scratch shook his head again. “No, I’m just gonna turn in and get some shuteye for a while, then go over and relieve Bo. See you later.” He headed for the hallway that ran toward the back of the hotel, right next to the stairway to the second floor. The rooms Green was providing for them were down that corridor, near the back door.

  Scratch found his room and used the key to let himself in. The glow from the dimly lit hallway showed him a small room containing a narrow bed, a rug on the floor beside it, and a night table with a lamp, a basin, and a pitcher of water on it. A porcelain thundermug peeked out from under the bed. A single window had the curtains pulled over it. There was no chair, but Scratch didn’t intend to do any entertaining here, only sleeping.

  A packet of lucifers lay on the table beside the lamp. He snapped one of them to life with his thumbnail and held the flame to the wick, then lowered the chimney and let the yellow glow fill the room. He closed the door and turned the key in the lock, then leaned the shotgun in a corner. The air in the room was a little stuffy, so he pushed the curtain aside to raise the window a couple of inches.

  As he lifted the pane, Colt flame bloomed like a crimson flower in the thick darkness of the alley outside. The glass shattered in front of Scratch’s face. He felt a sting on his cheek where a flying shard nicked him, and at the same time he felt a heated disturbance in the air only inches from his right ear and knew it was a bullet whipping past his head.

  Instinct sent both hands stabbing toward his hips as he ducked away from the broken window, even though he wore only one gun at the moment. That Colt came swiftly and smoothly from its holster and roared as flame licked from its barrel. The window was already busted, so Scratch didn’t worry about that. He just triggered three fast shots at the spot where he had seen the muzzle flash.

  More shots thundered in the alley, sending Scratch diving to the floor. As he rolled over, he caught a glimpse of a shotgun’s twin barrels being thrust through the window. Surging up onto his hands and knees, he dived behind the bed, which was the only cover in the room.

  The Greener’s double blast was so loud in the close confines of the little room that it pounded against Scratch’s eardrums like giant fists. Both loads of buckshot ripped into the bed, shredding the mattress and throwing chopped feathers into the air so that they filled the room and floated down like abnormally large snowflakes.

  With the feathers falling around him, Scratch heaved up from behind the ruined
bed and slammed two more shots through the window into the alley. That emptied his Colt, so he ducked down again and grabbed fresh cartridges from his pocket so he could start thumbing them into the cylinder.

  The shotgun’s roar had deafened him, so he couldn’t hear much of anything. When he had the revolver reloaded, he ventured a look and didn’t see anything except the last of the feathers from the mattress drifting to the floor. He reached over and turned the lamp down until the flame guttered out. Darkness washed over the room.

  Crouched there in the shadows, Scratch waited to see if anybody was going to shoot at him again. No more flashes came from the alley, but maybe the bushwhacking skalleyhooters were just biding their time.

  A heavy pounding on the door made Scratch aware that his hearing had returned. Urgent shouts followed it. “Deputy Morton! Deputy Morton! Are you all right?”

  Scratch recognized the voice. It belonged to Harlan Green.

  After checking himself over for wounds and not finding any other than the little cut on his cheek from the flying glass, Scratch called, “Yeah, I’m fine! Best say outta here, though, Mr. Green. Those varmints could still be out there!”

  “Should I send for Deputy Creel?”

  Scratch hesitated. In addition to wiping him out, the attempt on his life could have been a ploy to lure Bo away from the jail, so that the other Deverys could go in and free the ones who were locked up.

  “No, just keep everybody away from this room!” Scratch called back to Green. “Might still be some lead flyin’ around!”

  He didn’t think the bushwhackers would linger very long after their ambush failed, but he couldn’t rule out the possibility that they were still lurking out there. Since the bedspread was already ruined because the shotgun blast had blown a big hole in it, he pulled it off the bed and balled it up. Then he reached up, found the lamp and the matches on the table, and brought them down. He dumped the oil from the lamp’s reservoir onto the spread.

  Taking the oil-soaked ball of cloth with him, Scratch crawled around the bed and over to the window. Being careful not to get it too close to the bedspread, he lit another lucifer. He held the match to the spread, which whooshed! into flame. Scratch heaved the blazing makeshift torch through the window into the alley and lunged up after it. He kicked out the last of the frame and leaned through the opening, confident that he had taken by surprise anybody who was still skulking out there.

  As he swept the Colt and his eyes from side to side, Scratch saw that the alley was deserted. He climbed through the window and dropped to the ground, then stomped out the burning bedspread. Men clustered on the boardwalk at the mouth of the alley, calling questions to him. Scratch walked up to them with the gun still in his hand, ready if he needed it.

  “Settle down,” he told the men. In the light that came through the windows of the buildings around them, he looked them over, pegging them as miners and townsmen. He didn’t see anybody who looked like a Devery.

  “What happened, Deputy?” one of the men asked.

  “Nothin’ much,” Scratch said. “Some fellas took a few potshots at me through the window of my hotel room, but they missed. Did any of you folks see anybody runnin’ away from this alley?”

  He got head shakes and shrugged shoulders in response to the question. Either nobody had seen anything…or they were still scared to buck the Deverys. Of course, it was possible that the bushwhackers had fled the alley in the other direction.

  Harlan Green came out onto the hotel porch, carrying a rifle. “Deputy Morton, is that you?” he asked.

  Scratch stepped up onto the porch. “Yeah. Anybody hurt in there? The lead was really flyin’ around there for a minute.”

  “Everyone’s fine, as far as I know.”

  “Good. Can’t say the same for the window in that room, though. It’s busted all to pieces. Bed’s torn up, too. It caught both barrels of a shotgun blast that was intended for me.”

  “Window glass and a bed can be replaced,” Green said. “I’m not sure an honest lawman can.”

  Scratch grinned. “Sorry about the damage, anyway. I reckon you could send Pa Devery a bill for it, but I got a hunch he wouldn’t pay up.”

  “You think he’s responsible for what happened?”

  “I’m pert’ near sure of it.”

  Not a hundred percent, though, Scratch thought. While the odds were mighty high that Jackson Devery was behind the ambush, Scratch couldn’t forget the deadly dustup he and Bo had had earlier that day with Finn Murdock and the other three hardcases they’d been forced to kill. It was still possible that some of Murdock’s friends had tried to even the score.

  “I’ll send for a carpenter to board up that broken window,” Green said, “and of course I’ll find another room for you.”

  Scratch shook his head. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t reckon it’s necessary. Think I’ll get my gear and mosey back on over to the jail. Probably better if both of us spend the nights there as long as we’ve got prisoners locked up. Especially those particular prisoners.”

  “You might be right. Good luck, Deputy.”

  “Much obliged,” Scratch said.

  With the odds lined up against them, he and Bo were liable to need all the luck they could get.

  CHAPTER 19

  Bo had barely gotten settled down in the office when he heard the gun-thunder from somewhere not too far away. He bolted up from the chair, grabbing the shotgun from the desk. He was certain that the shots had come from the direction of the hotel, and Scratch had gone over there just a few minutes earlier. It was possible that somebody had been laying in wait to ambush him.

  Bo took a couple of steps toward the door of the sheriff’s office, then stopped short. A grimace pulled at his mouth. Every instinct in his body called out for him to go to the aid of his old friend, but at the same time, alarm bells rang loudly in his brain.

  Someone might be waiting in the darkness for him to yank the door open and rush out of the office, making a perfect target of himself as he was silhouetted by the light behind him. Or it might not be a lone rifleman lurking, but rather several killers armed with shotguns, ready to blast him out of existence.

  And with him out of the way, Bo thought, it would be an easy matter for Jackson Devery to waltz in here and let his sons and nephew out of jail.

  Bo knew he couldn’t allow that to happen. Deep trenches appeared in his cheeks as he heard a Greener roar, followed by more shots from a handgun. All he could do was pray that Scratch was all right.

  Maybe the ruckus didn’t have anything to do with Scratch, Bo told himself. Mankiller was known far and wide as a boomtown, the sort of town where hell was in session nearly twenty-four hours a day. True, the settlement had been surprisingly peaceful today, but Bo suspected that was because everybody was sort of in a state of shock over the idea that somebody would actually stand up to the Deverys. That attitude would wear off, probably sooner rather than later, and Mankiller would return to its wild, wicked ways.

  But even though Bo knew that made sense, he couldn’t bring himself to believe. The same instincts that wanted to send him charging out the door told him that Scratch was right in the middle of all that flying lead.

  The shooting had stopped now, Bo realized grimly. But what that meant, he didn’t know.

  “Hey! Hey, Creel! You hear them shots?”

  That was Thad Devery’s voice coming from the cell block, through the barred window in the door between the two parts of the building. Bo’s head turned in that direction. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a savage snarl.

  “That was the other old fool dyin’! You know that, don’t you, Creel? Why don’t you go and try to help him? See what that gets you! Haw haw haw!”

  The donkeylike bray of laughter was all Bo could stand. He strode across the room, grabbing the key ring along the way, and unlocked the cell block door. The other two Deverys were laughing now, too, but Bo didn’t pay any attention to them.

  Instead he stopped and
swung the shotgun up, leveling the twin barrels as he aimed through the bars at Thad’s face. The laughter stopped like it had been chopped off by an ax. Thad’s eyes widened so much the whites showed all the way around the pupils. He had been standing beside the bunk. Now, he collapsed onto it as all the color washed from his face. His wounded arm bumped the wall and it must have hurt like blazes, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  Bo squinted over the barrels and slowly cocked both hammers on the weapon, one and then the other. Thad panted in terror. A dark stain began to spread over the crotch of his jeans.

  “Please,” he moaned. “Please don’t.”

  “Damn it, deputy, no!” one of the other Deverys said behind Bo. “You can’t just shoot him down like adog!”

  “Yeah,” Bo said through gritted teeth. “Yeah, I could. It’d be easy.”

  “You…you’d n-never forgive yourself!” Thad stammered in desperation.

  A smile as cold as a blue norther blowing through the Texas Panhandle spread across Bo’s face. “You stupid little chickenshit,” he said. “I could blow your brains out and never lose a minute’s sleep over it the rest of my life.”

  Thad must have known that Bo was telling the truth. He covered his eyes with a trembling hand and sat there shaking as he started to cry. Neither of the other prisoners said anything now, as if they were afraid that the slightest sound would cause Bo’s finger to tighten just a little more on those triggers. That was all it would take. Just a little squeeze…

  A fist pounded on the office door. “Bo! Bo, it’s me! Lemme in!”

  Bo dragged a deep breath into his lungs, slowly as if a great weight was pressing against his chest. Then he lowered the shotgun and carefully put the hammers back down.

  “You’re a lucky man, Thad,” he said.

  Thad continued to cry. The stink in the room was ample evidence that he had done more than piss himself in his terror.