“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. Owning 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.”