“I don’t remember askin’ you to be my friends, damn it!”
“Well,” Bo said, “sometimes friendship is forced upon us.”
Biscuits slumped back in the chair and shook his head miserably. “Go on. Get out. And if you really want to do me a favor, get on your horses and ride out of Mankiller and don’t ever come back!”
Scratch looked at Bo. “That reminds me. We’d best go talk to Edgar and make sure he got our horses back from his brother.”
“Good idea,” Bo said with a nod. To Biscuits, he added, “If the prisoners get restless, you can tell them that we’ll bring back some breakfast for them in a little while.”
Biscuits didn’t look up. He just waved a trembling hand to acknowledge that he heard.
Once they were in the street and out of earshot, Scratch said, “You know, it’s fixin’ to get a lot worse for that gent. He’ll be sicker the longer he’s without his tonic.”
Bo nodded. “I know. I wish one of those cells was empty. It would be better if we could just lock him up until he’s over the worst of it. Unless we stay there and watch him every minute of the time, he can slip out and find something to drink. We may not be able to help him at all.”
“But we can try, is that it?”
“I reckon it’s worth it to try,” Bo said. He nodded toward the whiskey bottles in Scratch’s arms. “What are you going to do with those?”
“Thought we might take ’em over to the hotel and see if Harlan’d lock ’em up in his safe for us,” Scratch said with a smile. “They’re valuables. At least, ol’ Biscuits thinks they are.”
“That’s a good idea. Come on.”
They went along the street to the Rocky Mountain Hotel, where Harlan Green was surprised but willing to lock up the whiskey for them.
“First time I’ve ever had bottles in my safe, I think,” he commented. “I’m not supposed to give these back to Sheriff O’Brien, is that it?”
“He shouldn’t even know that you have them, but if he comes asking about them, just deny knowing anything,” Bo said. “We’ll take the responsibility.”
Green nodded. “Fine.” He paused. “You know, after the attempt on Deputy Morton’s life, last night was about as quiet as any we’ve had around here for a while. I think maybe the two of you have gotten the town so shaken up already that folks are more likely to behave themselves.”
“Maybe,” Bo said, “but I wouldn’t count on that lasting.”
From the hotel they walked up to Edgar’s Livery Stable. Edgar Devery was standing in front of the barn as they approached. He cut his eyes back and forth as if wondering if he ought to go and hide from them, but in the end he stayed where he was and gave Bo and Scratch a curt nod as they came up to him.
“Your horses are back in their stalls,” he told them. “My brother didn’t like it at all, but he went along with it.”
“Good,” Bo said. “We won’t have to arrest you for horse theft, then.”
“That trumped-up charge never would’a stuck,” Edgar said.
“I don’t reckon we’ll ever know,” Scratch said. “Has any of our other gear shown up?”
“Now that’s something I don’t know a damned thing about. I didn’t mess with anything except those horses. You’ll have to take up the other with somebody else.”
“Like Luke and Thad?” Bo suggested.
“Thad’s already in jail,” Scratch added. “Maybe we could convince him to talk.”
Edgar glared at them. “You hurt that boy and you’ll regret it. He’s my son, and I won’t stand for him bein’ mistreated.”
“Yeah, I can tell how concerned you are about him by the fact that you ain’t even paid him a visit since he’s been locked up.”
Edgar looked uncomfortable, shifting his feet as he said, “I don’t much cotton to jails. Fact is, them iron bars give me the fantods.”
“Been on the wrong side of ’em before, have you?”
“That ain’t none of your business,” the liveryman snapped. “I’ll be by to see Thad sometime. You just make sure he’s fed and took care of proper-like, or you’ll answer to me.”
“He’ll be taken care of,” Bo said. “But it might go a little easier for him if he confessed to the other things he’s done that he shouldn’t have.”
“Talk to him, not me,” Edgar said, eyes downcast.
Bo took out one of the bills Lucinda had given them. He said, “Here, put this on our account, too. We’ll be in Mankiller for a while, so I suppose we might as well leave our horses here.”
Edgar stared in surprise at the money Bo was extending toward him. Without taking the bill, he said, “I figured you’d want to move them horses to one of the other stables.”
“You’ll feed and water them properly, won’t you?”
“Well, sure. I never mistreated an animal, not in my whole life.”
“There you go. Take the money, Edgar.”
The liveryman still hesitated, but after a moment he lifted his hand and took the bill from Bo. As he tucked it into a pocket of his overalls, he gave the Texans a surly nod and muttered, “Obliged.”
As they walked away, Scratch asked quietly, “What’d you do that for? I figured we’d take the horses down to Dabney’s place. He’d probably take care of ’em for free, since he’s one of the bunch who wanted us to be deputies.”
“I’m sure he would have,” Bo agreed. “But maybe by leaving them with Edgar, we’ve planted a seed that tells him we’re not as bad as he thinks we are.”
“We arrested his boy,” Scratch pointed out. “And I don’t reckon he’s ever gone against his brother in his life. You ain’t gonna turn him against Jackson, Bo.”
“Maybe not, but it doesn’t cost much to try.”
Scratch didn’t argue, but the way he shook his head made it clear that he thought Bo was wasting time and money on the effort.
They walked around the rest of the town. It was early enough in the day that the saloons, brothels, and gambling dens weren’t doing much business, although none of them were actually closed. The general stores owned by Abner Malden and Lionel Gaines had plenty of customers, though, and the Texans saw several men going into Wallace Kane’s assay office to have the ore they’d gouged out of the hillsides checked for gold.
Lyle Rushford stood on the porch of the Colorado Palace Saloon, smoking a cigar. He nodded to Bo and Scratch as they came along the boardwalk.
“Morning, deputies. Any more trouble last night after that shooting at the hotel?”
“No, it was quiet,” Bo said.
Rushford nodded. “I’m not surprised. Nobody kicked up a ruckus in my place, and since it’s the biggest saloon in Mankiller, some sort of hell-raising usually goes on. I haven’t even heard about anybody being found in an alley with his throat cut and his poke gone this morning.”
“Does that happen very often?” Scratch asked.
Rushford sighed and said, “More often than I’d like to think about. The murders here in town haven’t averaged one a night…but the number is too close to that for comfort.”
“I hope we can put a stop to that,” Bo said, “but there’s only two of us, and we can’t watch everywhere, all the time. What we may have to do is close some of the worst places down.”
“That won’t make you any friends,” Rushford warned.
“Well…we didn’t take the jobs to make friends.”
They moved on to the café, where they met blond Tess Bonner coming out the door with a tray in her hands. She smiled at them and said, “My mother asked me to take this food over to the jail for the prisoners.”
“Better let me go with you,” Bo said. He didn’t want Tess anywhere near the prisoners with only Biscuits O’Brien around to keep an eye on things.
Scratch jerked a thumb at the door. “I’ll go on in and talk to Miz Bonner,” he said.
Bo nodded. “That’s fine. We need to start getting an election organized, and I’m sure she can be a big help with that.”