Mankiller, Colorado

by William W. Johnstone

  “Is that the marshal?” Bo asked Mosely.

  The banker nodded. “Yes, that’s Ralph Peterson.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d tell him I’m not the robber. I hate to see any man holding a shotgun get nervous.”

  Mosely held up a hand, palm out, and called, “Take it easy, Ralph, it’s all over! A man tried to rob the bank, but he’s dead.”

  The lawman came to a stop in the street next to the boardwalk and squinted suspiciously at Bo. “Who’s this old varmint?”

  “I don’t know, but he saved my life and the bank’s money as well.” Mosely looked over at Bo. “What’s your name, friend?”

  “Bo Creel.”

  “Well, Mr. Creel, I think you’ve just earned yourself a reward.”

  Bo drew in a deep breath. He hadn’t even thought about the possibility of a reward when he decided to get his rifle and see what was going on. He was just curious, more than anything else, and he had suspected that a bank robbery was under way.

  “Bo! Bo, you all right?”

  That worried shout came from Scratch, who came running down the street from the livery stable with both Remingtons in his hands. Bo motioned for him to slow down. “Friend of mine, Marshal,” he told Peterson. “Nothing to get alarmed about.”

  “Well, tell him to put those fancy hoglegs up,” Peterson snapped. “I don’t like people waving guns around in my town.”

  “Pouch those irons, Scratch,” Bo said as his friend came to a stop in front of the bank. “The trouble’s all over.”

  Scratch hesitated, then slid the long-barreled revolvers back into leather. “What in blazes happened?” he asked. “I go off to commune with nature for a spell, and when I come out, the fella at the livery stable tells me you’re down here fightin’ the Battle of San Jacinto all over again.”

  “Somebody tried to rob the bank,” Bo explained.

  Scratch looked at the legs hanging out the broken window. “I reckon he saw the error of his ways?”

  “You could say that.”

  Mosely took hold of Bo’s arm. “Come inside, Mr. Creel,” he invited. “Come inside. I know it’s awfully early in the morning, but I have a bottle of brandy in my desk, and I think this occasion warrants breaking into it.” He looked at Peterson. “Ralph, you’ll see about getting the undertaker down here to, ah, clean up this mess?”

  The marshal nodded. “Looks like you need to have the sawbones take a look at your head, too, Frank. I’ll send for Doc Holmes. You’ll need the carpenter to board up that window, too, until you can replace it.”

  “If you’ll tend to all that, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Sure thing,” the lawman agreed. The town banker was one of the most important men in any settlement, and most folks liked to stay on his good side, even the local star packer.

  “Come along,” Mosely said to Bo. “Your friend, too.”

  “To tell you the truth, Mr. Mosely,” Bo said, “I think we’d rather have some coffee and something to eat instead of that brandy.”

  Scratch grinned. “Now, Bo, don’t go offendin’ the man by turnin’ down his offer of a drink.”

  “Once we’ve settled the matter of that reward, you’ll have plenty of money for coffee and breakfast,” Mosely said.

  Scratch licked his lips and repeated, “Reward?”

  Bo said, “Grab that money bag and bring it in, Scratch. I want to find out what stopped the first shot of mine.”

  As it turned out, there was a smaller pouch inside the bag, packed tightly with double eagles. The .44-40 slug from Bo’s Winchester had struck the coins as such an angle that it penetrated several of them before its force was finally spent. The rest of the bag was full of greenbacks.

  “He didn’t actually clean out the vault,” Mosely said as he sat at his desk, looking at the spot on the floor just inside the window where the dead robber’s body had sprawled until the undertaker arrived to remove it. There was a dark stain on the highly polished wood. “But he got enough that it would have been a severely damaging blow to the bank to lose it.”

  The doctor had shown up as well and cleaned and bandaged the gash on Mosely’s forehead. The local handyman had swept up the broken glass and was now measuring the window so he could see about nailing up some boards to cover it.

  A short, squat glass with a little brandy in it sat on the desk in front of Mosely. Scratch held a similar glass and sipped the amber liquid in it. Bo had turned down the drink.

  Mosely picked up some bills from the pile he had dumped onto the desk from the bag. “I want you to have this,” he told Bo as he extended the cash across the desk. “You deserve it for saving the bank’s money…and my life.”

  “He probably wouldn’t have killed you,” Bo said. “But with all that lead flying around, you might’ve gotten hit by a stray bullet, especially if he’d made it back into the bank with you as his hostage.”

  Scratch reached out and took the bills. “What Bo means to say, Mr. Mosely, is thanks. We’re much obliged to you for your kindliness and your generosity—” He stopped and let out a low whistle as he riffled through the money. “There’s five hundred bucks here!”

  “A small price to pay for a man’s life,” the banker said solemnly.

  “That’s not depositors’ money, is it?” Bo asked.

  Mosely shook his head. “I’ll replace it from the bank’s operating fund. Don’t worry, Mr. Creel. None of the depositors will lose a penny today…thanks to you.”

  “In that case…” Bo nodded. “Thank you.”

  Marshal Peterson came into the bank carrying a piece of paper. As he walked over to Mosely’s desk, opening the gate in the railing along the way, Bo recognized the paper as a wanted poster. The marshal placed the paper on the desk and asked, “Recognize this gent?”

  Bo looked at the harsh, beard-stubbled face drawn on the reward dodger and knew good and well where he’d seen it recently. “That’s the fella who tried to rob the bank.”

  “Yep. Bill Page, sometimes called Indiana Bill. Wanted in three states and four territories for bank robbery and murder. There’s a five-hundred-dollar reward for him, dead or alive. I thought I’d seen the jasper before.”

  “Five hundred dollars?” Scratch said with a frown. “That’s all he’s worth, charged with all them robberies and killin’s?”

  The marshal shrugged. “I guess they were small banks and he didn’t kill anybody all that important. Anyway, five hundred dollars is nothin’ to sneeze at.”

  “Especially when you combine it with the reward I’m paying,” Mosely put in. “You have a nice cool thousand dollars coming to you, Mr. Creel. What are you going to do with it?”

  Bo rubbed his chin. “Well, we still haven’t gotten that coffee and breakfast, and there’s a little debt to settle up with the fella who owns the livery stable…”

  “Johnny Burford?” the marshal asked. “Watch yourself around him. He’d steal pennies out of a blind man’s cup.”

  “What about the other nine hundred and ninety-five dollars?” Mosely asked.

  “Scratch and I were thinking about taking a little trip up north,” Bo said.

  CHAPTER 6

  “So that’s it,” Scratch said as he and Bo reined their horses to a halt atop a ridge a couple of weeks later and looked down at the settlement below them. “Mankiller, Colorado.”

  Durango lay a day’s ride behind them. Off to the left, the Animas River snaked its sparkling course through a narrow valley. Farther to the northeast towered snowcapped Mount Wilson and Lizard Head Pass. A number of other rugged peaks in the San Juan range loomed all around them. It was pretty country, no doubt about it, but Bo and Scratch were more interested in what lay below the surface.

  Gold.

  They had heard in Durango that the boom was still going on in Mankiller, and even if they hadn’t, they would have been able to tell that much from what was happening in the streets of the settlement. Wagons, men on horseback, and more men on foot clogged those streets
. The boardwalks were equally crowded, although without the wagon and horse traffic.

  Bo wouldn’t have been surprised to see some drunken miner ride a horse right up onto the boardwalk, or even into one of the numerous saloons that lined the street. In Durango, the Texans had also heard about how Mankiller was wide open and lawless. Saloon shoot-outs, rampant prostitution, lynchings, and murders were the order of the day. In this boomtown, getting killed was as easy as plucking a dandelion.

  Mankiller sprawled over a hillside, surrounded by pine trees. Other trees had been cleared to expand the town; stumps were still visible here and there in the streets. The three main streets ran upward for several blocks, starting at the base of the slope. Side streets were laid out across the slope.

  Most of the buildings were frame structures, made from rough boards probably whipsawed out of the trees that had been felled to make room for them. There were still some tents and tar paper shacks, though, and they were probably some of the original dwellings in town. At the other end of the spectrum were several solid-looking brick structures that appeared to be built to last. Someone, at least, believed that Mankiller would have a life beyond this gold-fueled boom.

  Bo and Scratch hadn’t wasted any time getting up here after leaving Socorro, but it was a long ride up the valley of the Rio Grande and then over across the Colorado Plateau, past the majestic and mysterious cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde, and on through Durango and up the Animas River.

  They had bought a packhorse and supplies in Socorro, using the reward money. They’d had to overpay for the horse, since they bought it from Johnny Burford, but it was a good animal. They had more than half of the thousand dollars left, which gave them a good stake. They would be able to outfit themselves, find a good claim, and start prospecting right away.

  That was the plan, anyway.

  “We’re here,” Scratch went on. “Feel any better now?”

  “We’ll see,” Bo said. “I guess it depends on what we find down there.”

  He lifted his reins and hitched the dun into motion again.

  The Texans rode down the hill and started across the river on a wooden bridge. The hooves of their horses thudded on the planks, providing counterpoint to the bubbling music of the swift-flowing stream.

  A couple of men came out of a tar paper shack not far from the western end of the span. Bo’s eyes narrowed in instinctive dislike as he watched them walk toward the bridge.

  Both men wore patched denim trousers held up by suspenders. One was shirtless. The other wore only long, faded red underwear above the waist. Their hats were old and floppy-brimmed. The shirtless one had a long red beard that came down over the top of his bare chest. The other was clean-shaven, revealing a lantern jaw so extreme that his face looked almost like a figure eight. There was some resemblance between the two, probably not enough for them to be brothers, but maybe cousins.

  Each man carried a shotgun as well.

  “I don’t much like the looks of this,” Scratch said under his breath.

  “Neither do I,” agreed Bo. “But we’ll wait and see how it plays out.”

  The two men planted themselves in the middle of the road where it began on the other side of the bridge. The shirtless, bearded one tucked his scattergun under an arm and held up his hand.

  “Howdy, fellers,” he said as Bo and Scratch reined in. “Come to Mankiller to look for gold?”

  “That’s the idea,” Bo said.

  Shirtless grinned. “Well, good! Let me be the first one to wish you all the luck in the world. And Thad here’ll be the second. Ain’t that right, Thad?”

  Lantern-Jaw nodded. “That’s right, Luke. Good luck to you fellers. Hope you find a lot of gold.”

  “We appreciate that,” Scratch told Luke and Thad. “And it’s mighty nice of you boys to give us a warm welcome like this. Now, if you’ll move aside so we can get on into town…”

  Luke shook his head. “Oh, we can’t do that.”

  “You can’t?” Bo said.

  “Nope. Not until you pay the toll for crossin’ the bridge. We’re the official toll collectors today.”

  Bo wasn’t surprised by the demand. He had expected something like that as soon as he saw the two men blocking the road. He said, “I didn’t see any sign about a toll at the other end of the bridge.”

  “Has that ol’ sign fallen down again?” Luke laughed and shook his head. “Well, it don’t really matter whether the sign’s up or not. Rules is rules, and it’s a rule around here that you got to pay to use the bridge to get into Mankiller.”

  “What about to get out of Mankiller?” Scratch asked.

  “Oh, there ain’t no charge for that. But you got to pay to come in again.”

  “How much is the toll?” Bo asked.

  Luke held up a couple of grimy fingers. “Two dollars.”

  “For each horse,” Thad added.

  “Yeah, so you’d owe us six dollars, seein’ as how you got a packhorse, too.”

  Scratch said, “Kind of steep, ain’t it?”

  “Well, there’s an old sayin’ about what the traffic will bear. Folks been payin’ two dollars, so I reckon that’s a good price.”

  “Does the money go to the town?” Bo asked. He figured he knew the answer.

  The question brought laughter from both men. Thad dug an elbow into Luke’s side and repeated, “Does the money go to the town? That’s a good’un, ain’t it, Luke?”

  “It sure is.” Luke looked up at Bo and Scratch and shook his head. “The money goes where it’s supposed to, don’t you worry none ’bout that, mister. Now, do you fellers want to pay the toll, or are you gonna turn around and go back where you come from?”

  “Maybe we’ll find some other place to cross,” Scratch suggested.

  Luke shook his head. “Ain’t no other place to cross for miles up and down stream, and I wouldn’t recommend tryin’ to swim them horses across, neither. This river’s mighty cold and fast. You might get swept away, and nobody’d ever see you again. Not alive, anyway.”

  Bo was fast running out of patience. “I don’t believe this is actually a toll bridge,” he said. “I think the two of you are just trying to extort money out of us. But I’ll check with the sheriff to be sure, and if I’m wrong, we’ll come back and pay you what we owe. Fair enough?”

  The false affability that Luke and Thad had been displaying vanished. Thad’s lips twisted in a snarl. Luke said sharply, “No, it ain’t fair enough. We’ve told you how it is, you danged old codger. Now pay us the twelve bucks, or you ain’t gettin’ into Mankiller.”

  “I thought it was six,” Scratch said.

  “Price has gone up to four dollars per horse while you been wastin’ our time with all that jawin’.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Bo said. “We’re not paying you. Now get out of our way if you don’t want us to ride you down.”

  Thad cursed and started to swing his shotgun up. “Why, you damned old—”

  Bo’s Colt came out of its holster and leveled before Thad could raise the Greener enough to fire it. Thad stopped short and gulped as he found himself staring down the revolver’s barrel.

  At the same time and with equal swiftness, Scratch drew his right-hand Remington and pointed it at Luke, who in his arrogance still had his shotgun tucked under his arm. “I wouldn’t be gettin’ any ideas if I was you,” advised the silver-haired Texan.

  Luke glared at them but didn’t try to move his gun. “Take it easy, Thad,” he said. “I ain’t quite sure how they did it, but these old mossbacks got the drop on us.”

  “That’s right, we do,” Bo said. “Now toss those shotguns over there in the brush.”

  “The hell we will!” Thad burst out.

  “It’s either that or toss them in the river,” Scratch said. “Choice is up to you. But if you think we’re gonna ride past you boys while you’re still armed, you’re loco.”

  “Not as loco as you are for buckin’ us, old man,” Luke said through tight lips. He
jerked his head at Thad. “Throw your gun in the brush, like they said.”

  “But Luke—”

  “Do it.” As an example, Luke tossed his shotgun into the thick brush on the left side of the road. “Don’t worry, Thad. This ain’t over.”

  “No, it’s not,” Bo agreed as Thad grudgingly followed suit and threw his Greener into the brush. “Like I told you, if I find out we were wrong about you boys, we’ll come back and pay what we honestly owe.”

  “You were wrong, all right.” Luke sneered. “Dead wrong.”

  “Man could take that as a threat,” Scratch said.

  “Take it any way you want.”

  Bo motioned with his Colt. “Step aside now.”

  Luke and Thad moved to the side of the road. Bo and Scratch rode past after Bo holstered his gun so he could lead the packhorse. Scratch kept his Remington in his hand and hipped around in the saddle so he could watch the two men. They didn’t make any move to retrieve their weapons.

  “Looks like they’re gonna let it go,” Scratch commented.

  “For now.” Bo didn’t look around. “I’ll bet Luke meant what he said about it not being over, though.”

  “You believe they really had a right to charge us that toll?”

  Bo shook his head. “Not for a second. But if it turns out we’re wrong, we’ll settle up.”

  A humorless laugh came from Scratch. “I don’t think payin’ the toll’s gonna be enough. Not after we made ’em back down like that. We better keep an eye out for trouble.”

  “Just like always, you mean?”

  Scratch grinned. “Yeah. Just like always.”

  They started up the sloping main street. At the far end of it, sitting square in the middle of where the road would have run if it had continued past the town, was a large, ramshackle old house that looked older than any other building in Mankiller. It had a broad verandah along the front with a roof supported by thick, square beams.

  As Bo and Scratch rode along the street, Bo looked for the sheriff’s office. They passed a number of businesses, including a couple of hotels, a bank, a newspaper office, an assayer’s office, a pair of decent-looking restaurants, a hole-in-the-wall hash house, and more than a dozen saloons. In fact, there were so many saloons that each of the more respectable businesses seemed to be completely surrounded by them, as if they were little islands in a sea of debauchery.