“No, he’s just got a busted wing. But he won’t be wrecking a whorehouse or trying to shoot a lawman, or anybody else, for that matter, any time soon.”
Biscuits closed his eyes and breathed heavily for a moment. Then he said, “I didn’t think things could get any worse, but I reckon they have. We got to let those boys go right now.”
Scratch shook his head. “Can’t do that, Sheriff. They’re under arrest. A judge’ll have to rule before we can release ’em.”
“Judge?” Biscuits shrilled. “What judge? There ain’t no judge around here but the circuit rider, and he won’t be back for weeks!”
Bo said, “There’s going to be an election. Mankiller’s going to elect a judge, along with a mayor and a town council. Things are going to be run properly around here from now on.”
Biscuits stared at him for a few seconds, then said, “I get it now. You’re crazier’n I am! Just a couple of crazy old coots who think you’re real lawmen! There ain’t no such thing in these parts. There’s only the Deverys.”
“Not anymore,” Bo said. “The decent people in town—and there are enough of them to make a difference, whether you believe that or not—have had enough. There may not be anything we can do right now about the Deverys collecting half of what everybody makes, but at least we can stop them from running roughshod over the whole settlement and everybody else in these parts.”
“And while we’re puttin’ a stop to the Deverys’ shenanigans, we’ll clean up the rest of the hellholes around here, too,” Scratch added. “Mankiller’s gonna be a safe place to live.”
“You two really have been chewin’ locoweed, haven’t you?” Biscuits muttered.
Bo smiled. “I’ll tell you something even more loco, Biscuits…you’re going to help us.”
Biscuits started shaking his head. “Oh, no. No, you’re in this mess on your own. I don’t want any part of it!”
“It’s too late for that. You’re the sheriff. Thad and those other boys were arrested on your watch. Jackson Devery’s going to blame you for what happened, too.”
Biscuits shot up out of his chair, and this time he made it. “No!” he cried. He pawed at the badge pinned to his vest and finally succeeded in ripping it free. He threw it on the desk, where it bounced off and landed in the floor with a tinny clatter. “I won’t be the sheriff anymore! I quit! I’m done, you hear me?”
Scratch bent and picked up the badge. He rubbed it against his shirt to get the dust off it. “Don’t reckon you can do that, Biscuits,” he said. “Leastways, not yet.”
Biscuits stared at him in disbelief. “You’re sayin’ I can’t quit my job?”
“There’s no one in authority to accept your resignation,” Bo pointed out. “If you really want to quit, you’ll have to wait until after the election. Then you can turn in your resignation to the town council.”
It was a flimsy excuse and Bo knew it, but he was counting on Biscuits’s head hurting too much for the sheriff to think it through.
That was what happened. Biscuits slumped back into the chair and pulled a little more hair out. By the time the Texans left Mankiller—if they lived to do so—he was liable to be bald as an egg, Bo thought.
“What am I gonna do?” Biscuits asked miserably. “What am I gonna do?”
“Is there any chance you can stay sober? If there is, you can stay here and guard the prisoners while Scratch and I deal with bringing law and order to the rest of the town. You’ll have to keep a clear head, though. The Deverys are liable to try some tricks.”
“Stay…sober?” Biscuits repeated, sounding so uncomprehending that he might as well have been speaking a foreign language.
“That’s right. If you can do that, Biscuits, you’ve got a chance to be a real lawman, whether you think that’s possible or not.”
“I dunno.” Biscuits licked his lips. “I could sure use a drink to help me think.”
Scratch shook his head. “If you’re gonna help us out, Biscuits, you’ve taken your last drink for a while.”
“No! Oh, God…no, I can’t, I just can’t…”
Someone knocked on the front door and interrupted Biscuits’s moaning.
Bo and Scratch turned quickly in that direction, their hands going to their guns. “Who’s there?” Bo called.
“It’s Lucinda Bonner,” a pleasant female voice answered. “Harlan Green told me that you’re living in there now, so I took the liberty of bringing your breakfast over to you. I have flapjacks and bacon and scrambled eggs—”
Biscuits made a gagging, choking sound and bolted out of the chair. He flung himself at the door to the back room and disappeared in there. Hideous sounds filled the office until Bo closed the door, muffling them somewhat. Scratch shook his head and said, “Hope he found a bucket in time.”
“Goodness gracious,” Lucinda said when Bo unlocked the door and opened it for her, so she could carry a large tray filled with covered plates into the office. “What was that racket?”
“Nothing for you to worry about, ma’am,” Bo assured her. “Sheriff O’Brien’s just, uh, not very hungry right now.”
“But that’s all right,” Scratch added with a grin. “More for us that way!”
CHAPTER 20
Biscuits stubbornly refused to eat anything, but he did finally come out of the back room after Lucinda was gone and accept a cup of coffee. As he sat down at the desk to sip the strong black brew, he said with a bleak frown, “You know Devery’s gonna kill all of us, don’t you?”
“He might try,” Scratch said. “That don’t mean he’ll succeed.”
Biscuits shook his head. “I still don’t see why you’re doin’ this. What do you hope to gain from it?”
“They stole our horses and all our gear,” Bo said. “We have to do something about that.”
“So you’re gonna try to take their town away from them?”
Scratch smiled. “Somethin’ like that.”
“Plus it’s just the right thing to do,” Bo added. “Folks around here deserve better than to have the Deverys taking advantage of them. There’s a good chance they’ve gotten away with murder more than once, and that just can’t stand.”
“People get away with murder all the time,” Biscuits said. “You gonna clean up the whole world, Creel?”
“Nope,” Bo said. “Just this little corner of it.”
Biscuits sighed. “You’ve put me in a hell of a bind. Devery’s not gonna trust me now.”
“He never trusted you. If he did, he wouldn’t have tried to keep you drunk all the time by slipping you extra money for whiskey.”
At the mention of drinking, Biscuits’s tongue came out of his mouth and licked nervously over his lips. “Just a taste?” he asked. “Just one damned taste?”
“Not yet,” Bo said. “You need to be away from the stuff for a while before you try to handle it again. You may not be able to, even then.”
“You’re meaner’n a damn Comanche.”
“You’ll thank me later,” Bo said.
“Don’t count on it.”
It was time for Bo and Scratch to make the morning rounds, but before they left, they searched the sheriff’s office for more bottles of whiskey that Biscuits might have stashed here and there. They found several, and Scratch gathered them up in his arms as the Texans prepared to leave.
“What’re you gonna do with that stuff?” Biscuits asked. A pathetic whine came into his voice. “I paid for it with my own money. I need it. You got no right to steal it like this.”
“We’re not stealing it,” Bo said. “We’re just keeping it for you, for the time being. Maybe you’ll get it back sometime.”
“I’m your boss, you know,” Biscuits blustered. “I give the orders around here, not you.”
“If you have any orders concerning the law business, you go right ahead and tell us what they are. But we’re taking this booze away because we’re your friends, not your deputies.”