CHAPTER 4
“Wait just a doggone minute,” Scratch
said as he followed Bo toward the mining company office. “What’d
you have in mind?”
“Maybe the Argosy will offer a reward
for anybody who can find those outlaws and recover the gold they
lost,” Bo suggested.
“You mean we’re gonna be bounty
hunters?” Scratch shook his head. “We’ve tried that before, Bo. It
never works out too good.”
“Always a first time for
everything.”
“Yeah . . . like gettin’ our fool
selves killed. I swear, Bo, sometimes it seems like you’re gettin’
even more reckless than I am in your old age. Folks look at you and
think you’re the sober, responsible one, but they just don’t
know.”
Bo just smiled.
The offices of the Argosy Mining
Company were housed in a two-story building even more
substantial-looking than the bank. For one thing, it was
constructed of brick, one of several brick buildings that now stood
along Deadwood’s Main Street and Sherman Street, the two principal
thoroughfares. When the Texans had first visited the place, back in
its mining camp days, Deadwood had consisted of tents, tarpaper
shacks, and a few hastily thrown-together buildings of raw,
splintery boards. The presence of brick buildings showed just how
much it had changed, how respectable it had gotten.
But with the arrival of the Deadwood
Devils, the same sort of wild lawlessness that had plagued the area
back then had cropped up again. No wonder folks were upset. Nobody
wanted to go back to the way things had been.
When Bo and Scratch went in, they found
themselves in an outer office with a desk in front of a railing and
two more desks behind it, along with a couple of doors. A man in a
suit and a stiff collar sat at the desk with a number of papers in
front of him. He looked up with an impatient glance at the Texans
and said, “Yes? What can I do for you?”
“Is your boss around?” Bo
asked.
The superior curl of the man’s lip came
as no surprise. “If you’re looking for a job at the mine, you’ll
have to ride out there and speak to the superintendent,” he said.
“We don’t hire any laborers here.”
“We’re not looking to swing a pickax,
sonny,” Bo said, keeping a tight rein on his temper. More and more,
he and Scratch ran into these prissy, soft-handed types who would
have been more at home back East somewhere, rather than out here on
the frontier. But, as he had mentioned to Scratch as they were
riding into Deadwood earlier, everybody had to be
somewhere.
“Then what is your business with Mr.
Nicholson?” the man wanted to know.
“He’s the owner of the Argosy Mining
Company?”
“He’s the president,” the clerk replied
with barely suppressed annoyance. “And he’s not accustomed to
dealing with the likes of you.”
Scratch grinned, but it wasn’t a very
pleasant expression as he leaned over the desk and placed his hands
flat down. “You’re kind of a snippy little cuss, ain’t you?” he
asked.
The clerk drew back and paled, although
he already had such a pallor it was hard to be sure he lost even
more color. He looked like he realized his arrogance might have
gone too far.
But before he could say anything, the
door to one of the inner offices behind him opened, and a man
stepped out. He stopped short at the sight of Bo and Scratch and
said in a loud, rumbling voice, “You two again!”
Bo and Scratch found themselves staring
in surprise at the massive Reese Bardwell, who they had tangled
with in the Red Top Café. Scratch straightened from his pose
leaning over the frightened clerk’s desk and said softly, “Well,
this is an interestin’ turn of events, ain’t it, Bo?”
“Take it easy,” Bo advised his old
friend. “One ruckus a day with a fella ought to be
enough.”
Bardwell stalked forward. “What are you
doin’ here?” he demanded. “Did you follow me?”
“Mister, you’re just about the last
hombre we expected to see in here,” Bo said. “We’re looking for the
boss.” He glanced at the clerk. “Nicholson, right?”
“I’m Lawrence Nicholson,” a new voice
said. A man who had come out of the office behind Bardwell stepped
around him. Bardwell was so big Bo and Scratch hadn’t seen the
other man until now. Dressed in a sober dark suit, he was around
fifty, with a mild face, thinning gray hair, and deep-set dark
eyes.
“Yes, sir, if you’re the president of
the company, you’re the man we want to see,” Bo said. “It’s about
that gold shipment of yours that got stolen today.”
Bardwell clenched his huge fists and
started forward. “You two had something to do with that?” he said.
“I might’ve known it!”
Nicholson put a hand on Bardwell’s arm
to stop him. Bardwell was almost twice the other man’s size, but he
stopped when Nicholson touched him.
“Take it easy, Reese. I hardly think
these gentlemen would just waltz right in here like this if they’d
had anything to do with the robbery.”
“That’s right,” Scratch said. “We ain’t
loco. And we ain’t road agents, neither.”
“Then why are
you here?”
Bo said, “We thought you might be
offering a reward for tracking down the gang that’s been pulling
these holdups.”
Bardwell made a face like he had just
bitten into a rotten apple. “Bounty hunters,” he said.
Bo shook his head. “No, not really.
We’re just a couple of fellas who are down on our luck and short on
funds. But we’ve done quite a bit of tracking in our time, and we
thought we might have some luck. That would help you out, Mr.
Nicholson, and us, too, maybe.”
“Only if you could also find the gold
that the Argosy lost today,” Nicholson said. “I’m as interested in
that as I am in bringing the thieves to justice.”
“Likely they ain’t had a chance to
spend any of it yet,” Scratch pointed out. “If they’ve been hittin’
as many shipments as we’ve heard about, they’ve probably got a
whole passel of loot cached somewhere.”
“It’s the sheriff ’s job to track down
those owlhoots,” Bardwell snapped.
“Yes, well, Henry Manning hasn’t done a
very good job of that so far, has he?” Nicholson asked crisply. He
put his hands in his trouser pockets and regarded Bo and Scratch
intently. “I’ve got a good mind to take a chance on these men,
Reese. You obviously know them, though, and if you’re opposed to
the idea, I’ll bow to your judgment.”
Scratch gestured toward Bardwell with
his left hand and asked, “Just who is this big galoot, anyway, for
you to be askin’ his opinion?”
Nicholson smiled. “I got the impression
you were already well acquainted with each other. Reese Bardwell is
the chief engineer and superintendent of the Argosy
mine.”
Bo and Scratch couldn’t stop the looks
of surprise that appeared on their faces. After their encounter in
the Red Top Café, Bo never would have pegged Bardwell as being
smart enough to hold down such an important job. The big man looked
barely intelligent enough to swing a sledgehammer or a
pickax.
Bardwell seemed to enjoy their
reaction. He sneered and said, “I’d be leery of hirin’ them if I
was you, Mr. Nicholson. They jumped me while I was having lunch in
Mrs. Pendleton’s café. That one in the fancy jacket attacked me,
and the other one threatened me with a gun.”
“That’s terrible.” Nicholson sighed and
shook his head. “I’m sorry, gentlemen. But I can’t go against the
wishes of Mr. Bardwell in this matter. Maybe you can get the
sheriff to sign you on as deputies. Sheriff Manning could use some
competent help.”
“You’re sure?” Bo asked.
Nicholson shrugged again.
“Sorry.”
A triumphant grin spread across
Bardwell’s craggy face. The skinny clerk at the desk looked
pleased, too. Bo felt a surge of anger but controlled it. Folks had
a right to hire, or not hire, whoever they wanted to . . . even
when they were wrong.
Bo’s natural courtesy prompted him to
touch a finger to the brim of his black hat. “I reckon we’ll be
going, then,” he said.
“But, Bo—” Scratch began.
“Come on. There’s nothing for us
here.”
Bardwell laughed harshly. “That’s for
damned sure.”
When they were back on the street,
Scratch said, “Now what?”
“Now we see if the livery stable owner
is willing to let us sleep in the hayloft for a little bit extra if
we keep our horses there,” Bo said.
A few years earlier, sleeping space had
been at a premium in Deadwood. The liveryman could have asked five
dollars a night for the right to stretch out in the hay, and
fortune-seekers eager to search for gold would have paid it
gladly.
Now that things had settled down a
little, the situation had changed. The elderly liveryman was
agreeable to the arrangement Bo proposed. For an extra four bits a
night, the Texans would have a place to sleep, even though they
might have to share it with bugs and rats.
It wouldn’t be the first
time.
“We still got to eat,” Scratch pointed
out after he and Bo had left their mounts at the stable. “You
reckon Miz Pendleton might let us have a few meals on the cuff
?”
“She might,” Bo said, “but I don’t want
to ask her. I never have liked being beholden to
anybody.”
“Me, neither,” Scratch agreed. “Do we
offer to wash dishes?”
Bo laughed. “It may come to that. Let’s
not give up just yet, though. There are other mining companies in
Deadwood, and some of them have lost gold shipments, too. Maybe one
of them would like to hire a couple of trackers.”
“Worth a try,” Scratch
agreed.
They spent the afternoon going from
office to office, but with no luck. Although the reception they got
at the other companies wasn’t as hostile as the one at the Argosy,
no one was willing to hire them to try to track down the Deadwood
Devils.
“That’s the sheriff’s job,” they were
told more than once.
The Texans were coming out of the
office of the Black Hills Bonanza Mining Company when they almost
ran into a smaller figure scurrying along the boardwalk. Bo put out
a hand to steady the little white-bearded man, who he recognized as
Chloride Coleman.
“Take it easy there, old-timer,” Bo
said, which drew an angry snort from Coleman.
“Who’re you callin’ old-timer? A few
more years and your hair’ll be just as white as mine, mister.”
Coleman jerked a thumb at Scratch. “His already is.”
“My hair’s silver,” Scratch corrected.
“Not white.”
Coleman snorted again. “You still ain’t
that much younger’n me, and don’t you forget it. Now step aside. I
got business to tend to.”
Bo inclined his head toward the door.
“With the Black Hills Bonanza?”
“That’s right.” Coleman drew himself up
to his full height, which was still a head shorter than the
Texans’. “I got to see if they want to hire the best dang gold
wagon driver in the whole blasted Dakota Territory.”
“I thought you worked for the Argosy
Mining Company,” Bo said.
Coleman grimaced and for a moment
looked like he was trying to chew a particularly tough piece of
meat. Finally he said, “Not that it’s any o’ your business, mister,
but word got back to Mr. Nicholson that that rascal Davenport over
to the bank was askin’ questions about how come the Devils didn’t
kill me like they have ever’body else they’ve held up. Must’ve got
him nervous, ’cause he decided they could dispense with my
wagon-drivin’ services, as he put it.” Coleman turned his head and
disgustedly spat a stream of tobacco juice into the
street.
“That’s a shame,” Scratch said. “We’re
outta work, too, and been tryin’ to hire on with one of the
companies to track down those road agents.”
“None of ’em hired you, did they?”
Coleman guessed.
“Not yet,” Bo said. “There’s one more
left, though.”
“Which one’s that?”
“The Golden Queen.”
Coleman shook his head. “You don’t want
to work for that outfit. Take my word for it.”
“Why not?” Scratch asked.
“For one thing, it’s about to go under.
It’s been hit harder than any of the other companies. The fellas
who work for the Golden Queen been gettin’ by on promises instead
o’ wages for nigh on to a month now.”
Bo rubbed his chin as he thought.
“Maybe what we should do is try to find those outlaws first, and
then find somebody who’s willing to pay us for what we
know.”
“How do we eat in the meantime?”
Scratch asked.
Bo sighed. “I don’t like to say it, but
maybe we could ask Mrs. Pendleton for some credit after
all.”
“Sue Beth Pendleton?” Coleman piped up.
“That there is one handsome woman, lemme tell you. Serves up a
mighty fine helpin’ of vittles, too. Feisty, though. Mighty feisty.
Darned shame about her husband Tom. He was a good
fella.”
Bo nodded. “Yeah, she told us about him
getting killed. Something else I was thinking about, Mr.
Coleman—”
“Call me Chloride,” the old-timer
interrupted. “Ever’body does. And come to think of it, you ain’t
told me your names. I know you’re from Texas ’cause of the way you
talk, but that’s all I know about you.”
“I’m Scratch Morton, and this here is
Bo Creel,” Scratch supplied.
Chloride nodded. “Pleased to meet you.
Now, what was you sayin’, Bo?”
Bo said, “I was just thinking that if
we do decide to see if we can pick up the trail of those robbers,
it might be helpful if you’d ride with us out to the place where
they held you up. You could show us exactly where things
happened.”
Chloride scratched at his beard. “I
dunno . . . I got some bad memories o’ that place.”
“It just happened today,” Scratch
pointed out.
“Well, they’re still memories, ain’t
they? They ain’t happenin’ now!”
“We could cut you in on whatever reward
we got out of it,” Bo suggested, sensing that that might have some
bearing on Chloride’s reluctance to help them.
The avarice that instantly glittered in
the old man’s rheumy eyes told Bo his hunch was right. Chloride
nodded and said, “I might could do that. If I got time, that is,
once I get a new job.”
“All right. We can find you around
town?”
“Yeah, for a day or two, anyway, I
expect. Where are you boys stayin’?”
“Hanson’s Livery,” Scratch said with a
grin.
“The penthouse suite,” Bo
added.
Chloride laughed. “Beddin’ down in the
loft, eh? Well, I can’t say I never did the same. So
long!”
He went on in the Black Hills Bonanza
office while the Texans headed along the street toward the office
of the Golden Queen.
“You reckon there’s any point in this,
if the mine’s as bad off as Chloride said?” Scratch
asked.
“It might not be as bad as he thinks,”
Bo said. “Anyway, it won’t hurt to go in there and
ask.”
When they reached the small, one-story
clapboard building with the simple legend GOLDEN
QUEEN MINING COMPANY painted on its front window, Scratch
frowned and said, “Don’t look too promisin’. This place ain’t near
as fancy as the Argosy or some of the other minin’
companies.”
“You can’t always tell by looking,” Bo
said as he grasped the doorknob and turned.
They stepped inside, and Bo was
somewhat surprised to see a young woman sitting at a desk, writing
in a ledger. Blond curls fell loosely around her shoulders. Without
looking up from what she was doing, she asked, “Yes?”
Bo took his hat off and said, “Pardon
me, miss, we’re looking for whoever’s in charge of the Golden Queen
Mining Company.”
That made her lift her head so that Bo
could see her face. It was a mighty attractive face, too, with a
faintly exotic cast to it, highlighted by a small beauty mark on
her cheek near the right corner of her mouth.
“That would be me,” she said. “I
am the Golden Queen Mining
Company.”