Bo’s eyes flicked back to Thad and saw the young man dragging his gun from its holster. Thad was reasonably fast, although no one was ever going to mistake him for a real shootist like Smoke Jensen or Matt Bodine.
That was the kind of speed it would have taken to outdraw an already drawn gun. Bo didn’t have to hurry his shot. Thad had barely cleared leather when Bo’s Colt roared.
Because he’d had a chance to take aim, Bo didn’t have to kill Thad. He drilled Thad’s gun arm instead, the bullet breaking the bone about halfway between elbow and shoulder. Thad dropped his revolver, screamed in pain, and grabbed his arm as he slumped against the piano.
Bo switched his aim to Reuben while Scratch kept Simeon covered. “Either of you boys want to take cards in this game?” Bo asked in a hard, dangerous voice.
They shook their heads, eyes wide with shock as they looked at their cousin, who had slipped down to a sitting position on the floor. Thad whimpered and rocked back and forth as he clutched his wounded arm.
“You’re damned lucky you ain’t dead,” Scratch told him. “Bo could’ve put that round right through your ticker.”
Bo wiggled the barrel of his .44. “Guns, gents. On the floor.”
Reuben and Simeon hastened to follow the order this time. When they had put their irons on the floor and kicked them away, Bo said, “All right, give your cousin a hand. We’ll take him over to the jail and let the doctor have a look at him there.”
“You’re really arrestin’ us?” Reuben asked. “But we’re Deverys.”
“Get used to it,” Scratch said.
CHAPTER 17
As the Texans ushered their prisoners out of the parlor at gunpoint, Bella rushed down the stairs and asked, “Where’s George? Is he alive?”
The bouncer came out of the parlor behind Bo and Scratch, stumbling a little because he was still unsteady on his feet from the blow on the head. “I’m all right, Miz Bella,” he told her as he rubbed his forehead.
“Oh, good Lord!” Bella exclaimed. “You’re hurt. What’d they do to you?”
“One of ’em snuck up on me and walloped me with somethin’. A gun barrel, I think.”
“Better have the doctor look at that cut,” Bo advised. “It might need some sewing up.”
“The sawbones’ll be over at the jail for a while,” Scratch added. “Got a prisoner here with an arm that needs patchin’ up.”
Bella stared. “One of you shot Thad Devery?”
“I did,” Bo said. “He was fixing to shoot me at the time, so I figured it was best to stop him.”
George shook his head ponderously. “You done brought the wrath o’ that whole clan down on your head now, mister. They ain’t never gonna forgive nor forget this.”
“Well, the Deverys weren’t exactly our amigos to start with,” Scratch said with a grin. He prodded Simeon in the back with the barrel of his gun. “Go on now, get movin’.”
A stunned silence fell over the crowd gathered outside the whorehouse as the three prisoners emerged with Bo and Scratch behind them. The citizens of Mankiller had grown accustomed to the idea that the Deverys did whatever they damn well pleased and got away with it.
Now, here was vivid, indisputable evidence that things had changed, at least for the time being.
“You folks get out of the way,” Scratch called. “Let us through.”
“And somebody please fetch the doctor and have him come up to the jail,” Bo added. “We have a man here who needs medical attention.”
He didn’t add that the wounded prisoner was Thad Devery. Everybody could see that with their own eyes. Several men took off at a run, each evidently determined to be the first to reach the doctor and give him the summons.
An ambush seemed unlikely with so many people around, but on the other hand, a crowd made a good hiding place for would-be killers, Bo thought. Gunmen could open fire on him and Scratch, and in this mob it would be hard to tell where the shots were coming from.
Bo didn’t believe the other Deverys would risk it, though, with Thad, Reuben, and Simeon right there in the line of fire, too. He had suspected a trap all along, but he was starting to lean toward the idea that it was purely a coincidence the three men had gone on a rampage at Bella’s when their perverted desires were thwarted.
No one tried to ventilate the Texans as they marched the prisoners over to Main Street and up to the sheriff’s office and jail. Most of the crowd followed them, looking on this incident as part of the evening’s entertainment.
Not all of the bystanders came along. Bo was confident that some of them had already slipped away to pay a visit to the old house at the top of the hill and give Jackson Devery the shocking news that two of his sons and his nephew had been arrested.
As they came into the office, Bo saw that Biscuits O’Brien had returned at last. The sheriff sat behind the desk. He was slumped forward with his head turned so that his cheek rested on the blotter. Loud snores issued from his mouth. He didn’t wake up or even budge as the five men tramped through the office and into the cell block.
“Help Thad onto the bunk in that cell,” Bo told Reuben and Simeon, “and then you two take the other cell.”
They did as he said, and when Thad was stretched out groaning on the bunk in one cell and his cousins were in the other one, Scratch slammed the barred doors. He wasn’t gentle about it, either, making quite a racket.
Biscuits kept snoring in the front room.
“I reckon it’d take the angel Gabriel blowin’ the last trump to wake that varmint, and I ain’t sure about that,” Scratch said disgustedly. “You figure he’s got any actual blood left in him, Bo, or is rotgut the only thing flowin’ in his veins anymore?”
Bo smiled and shook his head. “I don’t know, but when he does wake up, I’ll bet he’s surprised to find that he’s got some prisoners in his jail.”
“Especially these prisoners.”
A few minutes later, a middle-aged man with a bristly white mustache came into the office. “I’m Dr. Jason Weathers,” he announced. “I hear you’ve got a wounded man here.”
“That’s right,” Bo said. “We saw you earlier today, after that shoot-out, but nobody introduced us. I’m Bo Creel, and this is Scratch Morton.”
“Texan, by the sound of your voice.”
Scratch grinned. “Born, bred, and forever. Some things don’t go away.”
“I’d better get to work,” Weathers said. “I hear my patient moaning and cussing back there.” He started for the cell block, then paused and lowered his voice to ask, “Is it true? You really shot Thad Devery and arrested him and two of his cousins?”
“It’s the truth,” Bo assured the doctor.
“Well, all I can say is…it’s about time.” Weathers gave them a curt nod and went into the cell block.
Bo followed with the key ring that had been hanging on a nail in the wall behind the desk. He unlocked the cell where Thad lay on the bunk and then stepped back to let Weathers go in. Keeping his hand on his gun, Bo stood in the little hallway between the cells and watched as the doctor cleaned the wound.
Thad carried on even more while that was going on, and screamed like a little girl when Weathers set the broken bone. The doctor put splints in place on both sides of the arm and then wrapped it securely. By the time that was finished, Thad’s head had fallen back on the bunk, and he appeared to have passed out.
“Good work, Doctor,” Bo said as he closed the cell door behind Weathers. “Fella called George down at Bella’s place is in need of your services, too.”
Weathers nodded and said, “So I’ve heard. That’s where I’m going now.”
The two of them went out into the office. Bo closed the cell block door. Weathers paused beside the desk to look down at the still-snoring Biscuits and shake his head.
“He never should have been made the sheriff. As long as he didn’t have a regular job, he never had enough money to drink constantly, like he does now. And I’m convinced that Jackson Devery slips him some extra, just to make sure that he never sobers up and tries to actually enforce the law.”