CHAPTER 12
After they finished their pie and
coffee, Chloride drove the wagon down to Hanson’s Livery Stable.
The Texans walked along behind, leading their mounts. When they got
there, the wizened liveryman said, “Miss Sutton came by and told me
you’d be leavin’ the wagon and those mules here for the night.
Ain’t no charge. She’s taken care of it already.”
“I hope you gave her a fair price,” Bo
said.
Hanson bristled at those words. “Of
course I did! I treat everybody fair.”
Bo had his doubts about that, but he
didn’t figure it was worth arguing over. He gave Hanson
instructions to have the mule team hitched to the wagon early the
next morning for the return trip to the Golden Queen
mine.
“Whatever you want,” Hanson
said.
They went to Martha’s office next and
found the young woman entering figures in a ledger. She looked up
at them with a smile as she said, “Come in. I was just adding the
shipment you brought in today to the balance sheets. I have to
admit, it makes things look a lot better.”
“And Mr. Keefer said there’s that much
again ready to ship,” Bo told her. “We’ll be heading back up to the
mine first thing in the morning to get it. Be back in town day
after tomorrow, if there aren’t any problems. If that’s what you
want, that is. You’re still the boss.”
Martha set her pen back in its holder.
“The sooner we get the gold here, the better as far as I’m
concerned. When I get through here, I’ll go over to Bullock and
Star’s store and give Mr. Star the order for the supplies I want
you to take with you. He’ll have it ready for you early tomorrow
morning.”
“Sounds good.” Bo nodded and started to
turn away.
“Wait a minute,” Martha said. As the
three men paused, she went on, “Tell me . . . how are things at the
mine? Are the men still in good spirits? They . . . they haven’t
given up on me, have they?”
“No, ma’am,” Scratch replied without
hesitation. “As far as I could tell, everybody’s workin’ hard and
pullin’ for you to make a go of it.”
Bo nodded. “I agree. They’re a mite
worried, of course, considering everything that’s been going
on—”
“How could they not be?” Martha said
quietly.
“That’s right. But like Scratch says,
they’re still on your side.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m going to do
everything in my power to see to it that their loyalty is rewarded.
Now, what are the three of you doing tonight?”
The question surprised Bo a little. “We
figured we’d get some supper after a while, then head back out to
Chloride’s cabin, I reckon.”
Martha shook her head and said, “Why
don’t you stay here in town? You can get rooms at the hotel for the
night. I’ll pay for them.”
She was feeling mighty flush right now,
Bo realized, and he didn’t blame her. Having any sort of success
again was probably a big relief to her. But as much as she still
owed, she didn’t need to be spending her money on hotel rooms for
the three of them.
“We’ll be fine at Chloride’s,” he said
firmly before either of his companions could speak up. “You can
find a better use for your money than that.”
Martha looked a little disappointed.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Scratch said, following
Bo’s lead. “Shoot, I reckon old reprobates like us wouldn’t feel
comfortable stayin’ in some fancy hotel.”
“The Grand Central isn’t exactly what
you’d call fancy,” Martha said with a smile, “but if you’re sure, I
suppose that’s all right. Have a good evening, and I’ll see you in
the morning before you leave.”
Bo smiled and nodded and ushered his
companions outside.
“I notice you didn’t ask me whether I wanted to spend the night in a fancy
hotel,” Chloride complained.
“With the kind of digs you’ve got, I
didn’t think you’d even consider it,” Bo told him with a grin.
“Come on. Let’s get some supper. Unless you’re still full from that
pie . . . ?”
“I could eat,” Chloride
said.
After they had eaten supper and traded
some more pleasant conversation with Sue Beth when she could find
the time in the busy café, Chloride once again brought up the idea
of having a drink.
“You and Scratch go ahead,” Bo said,
trading a quick glance with Scratch to confirm that the
silver-haired Texan would look after the old-timer. “I’ve got
another errand I want to take care of.”
“What errand’s that?” Chloride wanted
to know.
“Don’t waste your breath askin’,”
Scratch advised. “I can tell by the look on Bo’s face that he’s got
some idea percolatin’ around in his head, but he don’t like to talk
about such things until he’s sure he’s got the whole shootin’ match
figured out.”
“It’s just something I want to check
on, that’s all,” Bo said. “I’ll find you later at the saloon, if
you can tell me which one you’re going to.”
“The Bella Union’s the best,” Chloride
said. “If we ain’t there, try the Gem.”
Bo nodded and said so long to the two
of them.
While Scratch and Chloride headed down
Main Street toward the Bella Union Saloon, Bo turned his steps the
other way and headed for the sheriff’s office.
He was glad to see a light burning in
the window, telling him that someone was there. When he went in, he
found Sheriff Henry Manning sitting behind the desk. The lean,
hawk-faced lawman looked up and asked, “What can I do for
you?”
“My name’s Bo Creel, Sheriff. My
partner Scratch Morton and I helped bring in that gold shipment
from the Golden Queen mine today.”
Manning nodded. “I heard about that, of
course.” He looked more interested now. “I also heard that you shot
it out with the Deadwood Devils.”
“That’s right. I was wondering if you’d
let me take a look through the wanted posters and reward dodgers
you have on hand.”
“You think you recognized one of the
outlaws?” Manning asked with a frown.
“I didn’t say that. I’d just like to
check on something.”
For a moment Bo thought the sheriff was
going to refuse. Manning was curious, and he obviously didn’t like
his questions going unanswered. But then he shrugged and said, “All
right. Things like that are a matter of public record, after all.”
He leaned over, opened a drawer in the desk, and took out a thick
stack of papers that he placed on the desk. “Help yourself,
Creel.”
Bo nodded. “Much obliged.”
“If you find anything that would help
me bring those thieves and murderers to justice, it’s your
responsibility to tell me,” Manning added.
“I’ll sure do that, Sheriff,” Bo
promised. Of course, that left it open to his own interpretation of
what he thought might be helpful, he told himself.
He took the reward posters and sat down
in an armchair close to the potbellied stove, where a fire was
burning merrily. It promised to be another cold night, and old
bones felt the chill more than they used to. As he sat there
warming himself, Bo began going through the papers, studying the
pictures and descriptions of the wanted men printed on
them.
Those posters told a story, too, a
sordid tale of lawlessness, death, and desperation. Some of the men
whose likenesses adorned the posters had been prodded to their
crimes by bad luck. As the outlaw Cole Younger had put it a few
years earlier, “We were victims of circumstances. We were drove to
it.”
Others, though, had been born bad. Bo
had read in a newspaper once about how some doctor back East, or
maybe in Europe, had claimed that pure evil didn’t exist, that
every lawbreaker had been forced into a life of crime by the way
the world treated him. That was complete and utter horse droppings,
and Bo knew it. He knew that some hombres were born evil and stayed
that way their whole lives. He knew that because he’d had to blow
holes in some of them to save his life or Scratch’s or some other
innocent person’s.
When he stopped flipping through the
reward dodgers to study a particular one, he couldn’t tell by
looking at the picture on it if the wanted man was one of the pure
evil ones or some fella who’d had a run of bad luck. He was more
interested in the name under the drawing of a craggy-faced man with
a short, dark beard.
Tom
Bardwell.
Wanted for bank robbery, train robbery,
murder, and assault in Kansas. Also known as Black Tom or sometimes
Four-Finger Tom because the little finger on his left hand was
gone, lost in some unknown accident. There was a $2,000 reward on
his head, and a $500 reward, minimum, for anybody riding with him
in the gang he led.
The date on the poster was two years
earlier. It was a good thing Sheriff Manning didn’t clean these out
of his desk very often, Bo mused.
He didn’t linger long on the poster
before he set it aside with the others he had gone through already.
To make it look good—because he could feel Manning’s eyes on him—he
continued studying the posters, pausing now and then over one that
didn’t mean anything to him. When he was finished, he picked up the
whole stack, tapped it on his leg to square it up, and took them
back to the desk.
“I appreciate it, Sheriff,” he said as
he set the stack of posters on the desk.
“Find what you were looking for?”
Manning asked.
“Not really,” Bo said, “but thanks for
letting me look anyway.”
Manning leaned back in his chair and
regarded his visitor speculatively. “You know,” he said, “a
suspicious man might wonder if you were looking through those
dodgers to make sure you and that partner of yours weren’t on any
of them.”
That hadn’t occurred to Bo. The thought
brought a chuckle to his lips. “There’s no paper out on us,
Sheriff,” he told Manning. “At least, not that I know of, and if
there is, it’s a mistake. We’re peaceable, law-abiding hombres,
Scratch and me.”
“Who carry guns and look like you know
how to use them.”
“So do a lot of other
men.”
“Other men haven’t been able to shoot
it out with the Deadwood Devils and stay alive. I think I’m going
to be keeping my eyes on you and Morton, Creel.”
“That’s fine,” Bo said. “We won’t be in
town for long, though. We’re headed back to the Golden Queen mine
tomorrow to pick up another shipment of gold.”
“Good luck,” Manning said. He added
dryly, “You’re liable to need it.”
Bo left the sheriff ’s office and
walked to the Bella Union. He found Scratch and Chloride at the bar
in the large, ornate saloon. The fire that had raged through the
eastern end of Deadwood the year before had almost reached this
far, but it had stopped just short of the Bella Union, sparing the
saloon.
“Get your errand
done?” Chloride asked.
Bo nodded. “I did. Did you get your
thirst taken care of?”
“I’m workin’ on it.” Chloride lifted
the half-full mug of beer in front of him and drained the rest of
the amber liquid in one long swallow. As he thumped the empty onto
the hardwood, he wiped the back of his other hand across his
whiskery mouth and then let out a loud belch. “There. I reckon
that’ll do the job.”
Scratch finished off his own beer. “You
ready to go?” he asked Bo.
“Yeah.”
They had left their horses temporarily
at the livery stable. Bo mounted up, then gave Chloride a hand
climbing on behind him. The three of them rode up the gulch to the
old-timer’s cabin. An icy wind whistled along the
creek.
“Got a hunch winter’s comin’ early this
year,” Chloride commented. “We’re liable to see snow before
Thanksgivin’.”
“I hope not,” Scratch said. “I got to
find a wild turkey for Sue Beth to cook up for the
feast.”
“We’ll keep our eyes open,” Bo told
him. “There are bound to be a few gobblers left around
here.”
The old cabin was dark and quiet when
they reached their destination. Bo and Scratch kept their hands
near their guns until Chloride had the candle lit, just in case
anybody was lurking around who shouldn’t be. The old-timer poked up
the ashes in the stove and got a fire burning again to take some of
the chill out of the air.
On a cold night like this, the best
thing to do was curl up in some blankets and sleep. The Texans
spread their bedrolls and turned in pretty quickly, followed
shortly by Chloride. They would be up before dawn to get ready for
the trip back up the gulch to the mine.
Long years of experience had gotten
both Bo and Scratch in the habit of sleeping lightly. It didn’t
take much to wake them. The slightest unusual sound or any other
warning of potential danger would do it.
In this case it was a smell. Bo didn’t
know how long he had been asleep when his eyes suddenly opened.
Instantly he was fully awake. His life had depended on just such a
swift reaction too many times for it to be otherwise. He lifted his
head and sniffed the air.
The sharp tang he smelled was familiar,
and as he recognized it, he threw the blankets off and reached for
his boots. “Scratch!” he said in an urgent whisper.
“I smell it,” the silver-haired Texan
replied in the same tone. “Coal oil!”
“Yeah. Wake Chloride, but try to keep
him quiet. We don’t want the varmints to know we’re awake just
yet.”
There was only one explanation for the
smell of coal oil being so strong inside the cabin. Somebody was
splashing the stuff around outside, soaking the walls with it,
getting ready to burn the cabin to the ground . . . with Bo,
Scratch, and Chloride inside it. The citizens of Deadwood would
probably think the candle or an overturned lantern had started the
blaze, but in reality, it would be pure murder.
If the men outside got away with it. Bo
didn’t intend to let that happen.
Moving quietly, he pulled on his boots,
buckled on his gunbelt, shrugged into his coat, and picked up his
hat and Winchester. As he moved toward the door, he heard the soft
whisper as Scratch tried to wake Chloride as quietly as possible,
so they could take the would-be arsonists by surprise.
That didn’t work. Chloride came up off
his bunk sputtering and yelling. “What is it? Who’s there? Injuns!
Don’t let ’em scalp you—”
Just as Bo reached the door, he heard a
man’s harsh voice outside, ordering, “Light it up!” Bo grabbed the
door and jerked it open.
A sheet of fire roared up in his
face.