The undertaker shook his head. “No, no, don’t get me wrong, Deputy. Absolutely, you should keep the peace and enforce the law. I just didn’t expect that there would be gunplay involved so soon.”
“Before we get this town cleaned up, I expect there’ll be more,” Bo said.
When they came into the sheriff’s office a short time later, after Bradfield hauled off the bodies in his wagon, the Texans found Biscuits O’Brien sitting at the desk, a puzzled frown on his face.
“I thought I heard shootin’ a little while ago,” Biscuits said. “You fellas know anything about that?”
“A little,” Scratch said dryly. “We had to gun down some hardcases who were attackin’ a citizen and tryin’ to steal his claim.”
The sheriff’s bloodshot eyes widened in surprise. “Did you say…gun down?”
Bo nodded. “I’m afraid so. We gave them a chance to back off, but they weren’t having any of it.”
“You…you killed them? How many were there?”
“Four,” Scratch said. “Two of ’em died pretty quick, and the other two crossed the divide a few minutes later. We sent somebody to fetch the doc, but by the time he got there, it was too late.”
Biscuits scrubbed his hands over his face and rocked back and forth in his chair. “This is bad, this is really bad,” he said. “Who was it you killed?”
“The leader of the bunch called himself Finn Murdock,” Bo said. “We never got the names of the other three, but I reckon we can try to find out.”
Biscuits shook his head. “No, no, that’s all right. Doesn’t really matter, I guess. But people are gonna hear about this. It’s liable to cause more trouble.”
Bo propped a hip on the corner of the desk and nodded. “It’s possible. Any time there’s a gunfight, there’s somebody out there who hears about it and thinks that he ought to challenge the winner, just to find out if he’s faster.”
“But there’ll be other hombres who hear about it and decide that they’d better behave themselves while they’re in Mankiller,” Scratch pointed out. “So it sort of evens out in the long run, if you look at it that way.”
“What if the men you killed had friends who’ll want to even the score for them?”
“We’ll deal with that when and if the time comes,” Bo said. “If you heard the shooting, Sheriff, why didn’t you come to see what was going on?”
“Didn’t figure it was any of my business,” Biscuits replied. Then, as if realizing how that sounded, he added, “Anyway, I knew I had two deputies out on patrol to handle anything that happened.”
“Yeah, you could look at it like that,” Scratch said dryly.
“One thing lawmen do is watch each other’s back,” Bo said. “We’re not professional star packers, but we’ve worn law badges before and know a little bit about it. Have you ever worn a badge before, Sheriff?”
Biscuits shook his head and reached up to touch the tin star pinned to his vest. He looked at it like he had never seen it before and couldn’t figure out how it got there.
“Maybe you should be the sheriff instead of me, uh…what was your name again?”
“Bo Creel.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Bo.” Biscuits looked at Scratch. “And you’re Scratch, right?”
“Yep.”
Biscuits started fumbling with the badge in an attempt to unpin it and take it off. “I’ll just resign,” he said, “and one of you can have the job, I don’t care which—”
Bo reached over and took hold of Biscuits’s wrist, guiding his hand gently away from the badge. “You’re the duly elected sheriff,” Bo said. “There’s no reason for you to resign.”
“Duly elected,” Biscuits repeated, then gave a hollow laugh. “I don’t think anybody even voted in that election ’cept for Deverys and their friends and relatives. I can’t be sure about that because, well, I was drunk all day Election Day. And just about every day since, for that matter.”
He seemed sober at the moment. Bo knew that looks could be deceptive. Somebody like Biscuits who drank all the time could stay drunk, even when they didn’t look it.
“It doesn’t matter who voted for you. You’re the sheriff, and you swore to do your duty and uphold the law.”
“Oh, hell,” Biscuits muttered. “Those are just words.”
“And words mean something,” Bo said. “So do actions. You can still be a good sheriff. You just have to act like one.”
Biscuits looked up at him and laughed again. “You ain’t gonna try to reform me, are you, Bo? I warn you, it’s been tried before. Ask Reverend Schumacher. Hell, ask anybody in Mankiller. They’ll all tell you how worthless I am.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“You’ll get yourself killed. I warn you about that right now. You go to dependin’ on me, you’re takin’ your life in your hands.” Biscuits shoved to his feet. “Now, I got to go.”
Bo stood up. “You mean go and get a drink?”
“If I do, that’s my business.” Biscuits came out from behind the desk and stumbled toward the door.
Scratch moved to get in his way, but Bo shook his head and said, “Let him go.”
“Yeah, lemme go,” Biscuits said. “Don’t waste your breath tryin’ to save me, Scratch.”
When Biscuits was gone, Scratch looked at the door that had closed behind the sheriff and said, “That is one sorry-ass son of a bitch.”
“Right now, maybe.”
“He’s right, Bo. You can’t save everybody. Some folks are too far gone, and some just flat-out ain’t worth it. I reckon Sheriff Biscuits O’Brien may fall into both them categories.”
“We’ll see,” Bo said.
He sat down at the desk and spent the next few minutes going through the stack of reward posters he had gotten out of the drawer earlier, thinking that he might find a reward dodger on Finn Murdock or one of Murdock’s companions. There was nothing on Murdock, however, and none of the drawings on the other posters matched the three men who were now keeping Murdock company down at the undertaking parlor.
It was well after noon by now, and the Texans hadn’t eaten since breakfast at Francis O’Hanrahan’s dugout that morning. They left the office and walked over to the café. The lunch rush had cleared out a little, so they went to the counter and sat down on stools there. Lucinda Bonner came over to them, a slight frown on her face.
“What’s wrong, Mrs. Bonner?” Bo asked.
“I heard about that gunfight,” she said. “You killed four men?”
Scratch shrugged. “Seemed like the thing to do at the time, since they were tryin’ to kill us.”
“Oh, I know, you had to defend yourselves. I don’t fault you for that. I just hate to hear about more violence, and so soon after we hired you.”
“You hired us to clean up the town,” Bo pointed out.
“Yes, of course. But Mankiller already has a reputation for being a dangerous place. I mean, even that name…! I just wish there was some way to get rid of the troublemakers without having to…to…”
“Shoot ’em?” Scratch suggested.
“Well, yes.”
“We’ll settle things peacefully with anybody who’ll let us,” Bo said. “We would have let those four gunmen walk away a while ago. It was their choice not to. I reckon you’ve seen enough of life on the frontier, Mrs. Bonner, to know that sometimes the only way to deal with trouble is to meet it head-on.”
Lucinda nodded. “Unfortunately, that’s true. And you certainly didn’t waste any time letting everyone in town know that law and order has returned. I suppose that’s a good thing.”
“Have you thought any more about what we discussed earlier, about electing a town council and a mayor?”
“Yes, I spoke to Wallace Kane when he came back in for lunch, as well as Mr. Malden and Mr. Gaines. They’re all for the idea. I think we can get all the men who were here earlier for the meeting to run for town council, except for Francis O’Hanrahan, of course. He doesn’t live in the town limits. I suppose we can just pick one of them to be the mayor.”