Scratch stood toe-to-toe with a husky miner and traded punches, each man giving as good as he got for several moments. Scratch’s opponent had the advantage in just about everything: height, weight, reach, and age.
But Scratch had the wiliness that came from years of brawling. He feinted so skillfully that the man fell for it and left himself wide open for the hard left that Scratch planted on his nose. He bit on the next feint as well and let Scratch get close enough to lift a knee into his groin. It was a low blow, but effective. The man groaned and doubled over as he clutched at himself. Scratch clubbed his hands together and brought them down on the back of the man’s neck. The impact hammered the man to the floor.
George grabbed two more men by their necks and banged their heads together. Their skulls met with a loud thud. When George let go of them, they collapsed bonelessly.
“That looks like all of them,” Bo said.
It was true. Some of the men had knocked each other out, and the Texans and George had taken care of the others. A few of the men on the floor were moaning and semiconscious, but most of them were out cold. Bo checked for pulses and found that they were all still alive. He was grateful for that, anyway.
The three men weren’t hurt except for some bumps, bruises, and scrapes. Bo and Scratch found their hats, which had come off during the fracas, and put them back on. Then Bo turned to Bella and asked, “What started this?”
“I don’t know,” the redheaded madam said helplessly. “About half a dozen of those men just came in and started fighting with some of my customers. There was no reason for it I could see unless they were carrying a grudge because of something that happened somewhere else.”
That was possible, Bo thought. The two bunches could have been enemies, and one could have followed the other here to the brothel.
Bella’s green eyes suddenly widened. “Unless…” she began.
“Unless what?” Bo asked when she paused.
“Can you come with me, Deputy? There’s something in my office I want to tell you.”
Bo looked over at Scratch and George. “Can you keep an eye on those varmints in case they start to wake up?”
Scratch grunted and drew his Colt. “If they start to wake up, I’m liable to give ’em a little love tap with my gun butt.”
“Just don’t bust any skulls permanent-like,” Bo said.
He followed Bella back to her office in the rear of the building. It was a small but comfortably furnished room. She motioned Bo into a leather armchair and went behind the desk.
“Jackson Devery came to see me this afternoon, Deputy,” she said as she sat down.
“Devery?” Bo repeated with a frown. “What did he want? I mean—”
Bella smiled and shook her head. “Devery’s a lot of things, none of ’em good, but he’s not a man who patronizes a whorehouse. No, he acted all friendly-like and asked a favor of me.”
“A favor?”
“He said he wanted me and my girls to tell every man who comes in here to vote for him and the other Deverys in the election. Said we ought to tell them that if that bunch on the other side is elected, they’ll shut down all the saloons and gambling dens and houses like this one.”
“I doubt if that would happen,” Bo said. “I haven’t heard them say anything like that, and Lyle Rushford, the owner of the Colorado Palace, is a member of the group.”
Bella nodded. “I know. It doesn’t seem likely to me, either, and I said as much to Devery. I told him I wasn’t going to mess with politics. When a man’s here visiting one of my girls, the last thing he wants to hear is some damned political speech.”
Bo figured that was probably true. He asked, “How did Devery react to that?”
“The same way he reacts to just about everything. He got mad.” Bella leaned forward. “And he said that if I didn’t go along with what he wanted, I’d be sorry, Deputy. Mighty sorry.”
CHAPTER 26
Bo looked across the desk at Bella for a long moment, then said, “You think Devery had something to do with what happened here tonight?”
“He threatened me, Deputy. There’s no other way to look at it. It can’t be a coincidence that he came to see me today, and this fight broke out tonight after I wouldn’t go along with what he wanted.”
Bo scraped a thumbnail along his jaw. “You might be right. You said those miners came in and started the fight for no reason. Maybe Devery paid them to do it, or forced them in some other way.”
Bella nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. You know he owns all the claims around here and demands a share from the miners. Maybe he told them he’d take a bigger cut if they didn’t do what he said.”
“Or bribed them by promising that he’d take a smaller cut,” Bo speculated. “Either way, sending them here to start a fight is crooked.”
“What about trying to get me and my girls to tell people how to vote?”
Bo shook his head. “That’s just electioneering. A mite dirty, maybe, but not against the law. The threatening and the fighting, that’s what’s crossed the line.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“First things first,” Bo said as he put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. “We have to get some proof that Devery had anything to do with this ruckus.”
He and Bella went back to the parlor. Bo told Scratch what Bella had said, then asked the madam to point out which of the unconscious men had started the fight. When she had done so, Scratch and George dragged the men to one side of the room.
Bella’s soiled doves started fussing over the men who’d been the victims in the attack. Those hombres might have headaches when they came to, Bo thought, but other than that it would probably be a pretty pleasant awakening.
Not so for the ones who’d started the fight. George brought a bucket of water from the kitchen and threw it in their faces. The men came awake, sputtering and snorting as the water went up their noses.
Bo and Scratch had their guns drawn again. They showed the Colts to the men, and Bo said, “You fellas just take it easy. Sit there on the floor, and don’t try to get up.”
“You can’t do this,” one of the miners protested as he wiped water out of his eyes. “We didn’t do nothin’.”
“The hell you didn’t,” Bella said. “You caused a couple hundred dollars’ worth of damage, and who knows how bad you hurt some of my regular customers.”
The men glared at her.
“We’re going to have to lock you boys up,” Bo went on. “You’re under arrest for assault and disturbing the peace, and you’ll stay locked up until after the election, when Mankiller’s got a real judge who can decide what to do with you.”
That brought more protests and words of alarm from the miners. “We can’t leave our claims alone that long!” one of them said. “Somebody’ll come along and take all the gold out of ’em.”
“You should’a thought of that before you agreed to do Pa Devery’s dirty work,” Scratch said.
From the looks of surprise that appeared on the faces of the men, Bo knew that Bella’s hunch was right. Devery was behind the riot that had broken out here tonight.
The miners concealed the reaction as best they could, but it was too late. Bo said, “What did Devery do? Threaten to take even more of what you make from your claims, or promise to take less?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about,” the first man replied in a surly voice. “I ain’t seen Devery in weeks.”
“Me, neither,” another man said, and the rest of them chimed in with similar denials.
“You know,” Bo said, “as long as the damage gets paid for, Deputy Morton and I might see our way clear to forgetting about the charges. That way you wouldn’t have to stay locked up in a smokehouse for a week or more, and your claims wouldn’t be unprotected for that long.” He saw hope start to creep onto the faces of the men, then added, “But you’d have to be willing to testify why you came in here tonight and started a riot for no apparent reason.”