Sidewinders

by William W. Johnstone

  “—all three of ’em dead!” he was saying in a voice that cracked a little with age. “And I come mighty close to sayin’ howdy to Saint Peter my own self!”

  “You’re certain it was the Devils of Deadwood Gulch who attacked you?” asked a tall, portly man in a tweed suit. He didn’t have much hair on top of his head, but a pair of huge muttonchop whiskers framed his florid cheeks.

  “Devils of Deadwood Gulch, Deadwood Devils, call ’em whatever you want to,” Coleman replied. “It was that same bunch of murderin’ skunks, no doubt about it! I seen ’em carvin’ pitchforks on Turley, Berkner, and poor ol’ Mitch Davis. The bodies are still out there on the trail, along with the wrecked wagon. You can go look for yourself if you want, Mr. Davenport.”

  The whiskered man shook his head. “No, I’ll leave it to the undertaker and his helpers to collect the bodies. You can’t blame me for being a bit puzzled, though, Chloride. As far as I know, you’re the first victim of a robbery that the Devils have allowed to remain alive.”

  Coleman puffed up and started to sputter. “You’re . . . you sayin’ I was in on it? That I’m workin’ with them no-good murderin’ polecats?”

  “No, no, not at all,” Davenport said quickly in the face of the old-timer’s wrath. “As I told you, I’m just puzzled. Why do you think they left you alive?”

  “I done told you! That fella who done the carvin’, he was like Satan his own self. He wanted me to come here and tell ever’body in town what happened. He wants ever’body to be scared of that bunch.”

  One of the bystanders said, “I sure as blazes am! It’s not safe to travel any of the roads around here anymore.”

  “And how can the mines keep going if they can’t get their ore and dust to the bank?” a woman in a sunbonnet asked. “If the mines go under, my husband will be out of a job!”

  A wave of angry, agitated muttering rose from the crowd. Davenport lifted his hands and motioned for quiet. When the people had settled down a little, he said, “The mines aren’t going under, and neither are the banks. At least, this one won’t as long as I’m the manager of it!”

  “But if somebody doesn’t stop those outlaws—” a man began.

  “Someone will stop them,” Davenport insisted. “I’m sure of it. The Black Hills aren’t as lawless as they were four years ago when Deadwood was founded. It’s just a matter of time—”

  “Just a matter of time until the Devils kill us all!” another man shouted. That set the crowd off again. Davenport motioned for an end to the hubbub, but the noisy crowd ignored him.

  That lasted until a tall, hawk-faced man in a brown suit and Stetson strode up and said in a loud, clear, commanding voice, “All right, settle down, you people! There’s no need for all this commotion.”

  Despite the fact that the day was chilly, Davenport pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped it over his face as an uneasy quiet settled on the crowd. “Thank God you’re here, Sheriff,” he said to the newcomer. “The gold shipment from the Argosy Mine has been stolen.”

  Bo saw the badge on the hawk-faced man’s vest now. The lawman said to Coleman, “You look like you’ve been through the wringer, Chloride. What happened ?”

  “Well, we was comin’ down Deadwood Gulch,” the old-timer began. Bo and Scratch listened attentively as Coleman went through the story of the robbery, ending with, “After they rode off, I checked on the guards, hopin’ one of ’em might still be alive, but really, I knowed better. When I was sure they was all dead, I hotfooted it for town as fast as these ol’ legs of mine’ll carry me. I thought maybe I’d find that mule team, but I reckon the dang jugheads wandered off up one of the little side gulches.”

  The sheriff nodded. “I can send a search party to look for them, although the bosses out at the Argosy might want to do that since technically the mules belong to them. John Tadrack can fetch the bodies in and see to them.”

  “What about the outlaws, Sheriff ?” Davenport asked. “Are you going to put together a posse to look for them?”

  Instead of answering directly, the lawman looked at Coleman and asked, “How far out did this happen, Chloride?”

  “’Bout four miles, give or take,” Coleman answered.

  The sheriff turned back to Davenport. “In the time it took Chloride to hoof it into town, those owlhoots are long gone, I’m afraid. I’ll ride out there and see if I can pick up their trail, of course, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope of that doing any good.”

  Davenport’s face, which seemed to be flushed normally, darkened even more as blood rushed into it angrily. “Blast it, Sheriff, the community’s in an uproar, and the very basis of the area’s economy is threatened. You have to do something about it!”

  The sheriff smiled thinly and said in a dry voice, “As I was coming up the street, didn’t I hear you assuring these good folks that the Deadwood Devils will be found and stopped? Maybe you should just be patient and let me go on about the business of doing that.”

  Davenport looked like he was going to argue some more, Bo thought, but then the banker gave a grudging nod and said, “All right. But this situation is becoming intolerable.”

  The lawman didn’t respond to that. He put a hand on Coleman’s shoulder instead. “Come on down to the office with me, Chloride. I want you to tell me everything you remember about the men who held you up and killed those guards.”

  “Well, I’ll try,” Coleman said. “It ain’t gonna amount to much, though. I never got a good look at anybody’s face.”

  “Maybe something else will help, like the clothes they wore or the horses they rode.”

  Coleman looked skeptical, but he allowed the sheriff to lead him away. With the old-timer gone, the crowd started to break into smaller groups that continued to discuss this latest outrage. Clearly, the citizens of Deadwood were upset and scared.

  Bo and Scratch crossed the street again to the café. The Red Top’s customers had gone back inside, and so had its namesake. Sue Beth was behind the counter again. She took the Texans’ plates off the stove and put them in front of a pair of empty stools.

  “This time you’d better go ahead and eat,” she warned, “or I’m liable to be insulted.” She got the coffeepot and warmed up their coffee. “Is Chloride all right? He’s a likable old cuss.”

  “He was just scratched and shaken up,” Bo said.

  “From the sound of it, though, he came pretty close to crossin’ the divide,” Scratch added.

  “Did the Devils hold up the Argosy gold wagon?”

  Bo nodded. “That’s right.” He gave Sue Beth an abbreviated version of the story Coleman had told the sheriff.

  “Seemed like there were some hard feelin’s between the sheriff and that banker fella, Davenport,” Scratch put in.

  “Jerome Davenport knows that if things keep on like they have been, the bank may not be able to stay open,” Sue Beth said. “It relies heavily on the gold deposits from the Argosy, the Homestake, the Father De Smet, and the other big mining operations in the area.”

  “Have shipments from all the mines been hit?” Bo asked.

  Sue Beth thought about it, obviously going over in her mind the previous robberies by the gang. After a moment she nodded and said, “Now that the Argosy has lost a shipment, too, yes, all the big mines have been hit.”

  “How do the varmints know when gold is bein’ shipped out?” Scratch wondered.

  “It’s not that difficult,” Bo said. “With all these hills around, put some men with spyglasses on top of them and keep an eye on the mines. They’d be able to see when wagons were being loaded.”

  “Why don’t they try some decoy shipments?”

  Bo shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe they have.” He looked at Sue Beth. “Have you heard anything about that?”

  “No, but the mine owners and superintendents don’t confide their plans in me,” she said. “Now, are you going to dig into that food or just flap your gums over it all day?”

  Scratch picked up his fo
rk and grinned. “We’re diggin’ in, ma’am, don’t you worry about that,” he assured her.

  Even though they weren’t as hot as they had been earlier, the meals were still very good. Bo and Scratch ate hungrily and enjoyed every bite. Sue Beth’s coffee was even better, strong and black just the way the Texans liked it. When they finally pushed their empty plates and cups away, Bo dug a couple of silver dollars out of his pocket and slid them across the counter to Sue Beth, who came along and scooped the coins up deftly, dropping them in a pocket in her apron.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I hope you’ll come again.”

  “As long as you’re servin’ up food like that, Miz Pendleton, I reckon you can count on it,” Scratch told her.

  He and Bo left the café. Once they were outside, Scratch went on. “How much money do we have left now?”

  “Enough to feed and stable our horses for a few nights.”

  “How about feedin’ and stablin’ us?”

  Bo grunted. “You may have to make up your mind whether you want them to have something to eat and a place to stay, or if we do.”

  Scratch winced. “That bad, huh?”

  Bo frowned in thought. “Yeah, but I may have an idea how to change that.”

  “I hope you ain’t plannin’ on us robbin’ the bank. From the sound of it, there ain’t much in there.”

  “No, we’re not going to turn outlaw. I had something else in mind.” Bo pointed to a building he had spotted down the street.

  “What’s in there?” Scratch wanted to know.

  “The offices of the Argosy Mining Company.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “Wait just a doggone minute,” Scratch said as he followed Bo toward the mining company office. “What’d you have in mind?”

  “Maybe the Argosy will offer a reward for anybody who can find those outlaws and recover the gold they lost,” Bo suggested.

  “You mean we’re gonna be bounty hunters?” Scratch shook his head. “We’ve tried that before, Bo. It never works out too good.”

  “Always a first time for everything.”

  “Yeah . . . like gettin’ our fool selves killed. I swear, Bo, sometimes it seems like you’re gettin’ even more reckless than I am in your old age. Folks look at you and think you’re the sober, responsible one, but they just don’t know.”

  Bo just smiled.

  The offices of the Argosy Mining Company were housed in a two-story building even more substantial-looking than the bank. For one thing, it was constructed of brick, one of several brick buildings that now stood along Deadwood’s Main Street and Sherman Street, the two principal thoroughfares. When the Texans had first visited the place, back in its mining camp days, Deadwood had consisted of tents, tarpaper shacks, and a few hastily thrown-together buildings of raw, splintery boards. The presence of brick buildings showed just how much it had changed, how respectable it had gotten.

  But with the arrival of the Deadwood Devils, the same sort of wild lawlessness that had plagued the area back then had cropped up again. No wonder folks were upset. Nobody wanted to go back to the way things had been.

  When Bo and Scratch went in, they found themselves in an outer office with a desk in front of a railing and two more desks behind it, along with a couple of doors. A man in a suit and a stiff collar sat at the desk with a number of papers in front of him. He looked up with an impatient glance at the Texans and said, “Yes? What can I do for you?”

  “Is your boss around?” Bo asked.

  The superior curl of the man’s lip came as no surprise. “If you’re looking for a job at the mine, you’ll have to ride out there and speak to the superintendent,” he said. “We don’t hire any laborers here.”

  “We’re not looking to swing a pickax, sonny,” Bo said, keeping a tight rein on his temper. More and more, he and Scratch ran into these prissy, soft-handed types who would have been more at home back East somewhere, rather than out here on the frontier. But, as he had mentioned to Scratch as they were riding into Deadwood earlier, everybody had to be somewhere.

  “Then what is your business with Mr. Nicholson?” the man wanted to know.

  “He’s the owner of the Argosy Mining Company?”

  “He’s the president,” the clerk replied with barely suppressed annoyance. “And he’s not accustomed to dealing with the likes of you.”

  Scratch grinned, but it wasn’t a very pleasant expression as he leaned over the desk and placed his hands flat down. “You’re kind of a snippy little cuss, ain’t you?” he asked.

  The clerk drew back and paled, although he already had such a pallor it was hard to be sure he lost even more color. He looked like he realized his arrogance might have gone too far.

  But before he could say anything, the door to one of the inner offices behind him opened, and a man stepped out. He stopped short at the sight of Bo and Scratch and said in a loud, rumbling voice, “You two again!”

  Bo and Scratch found themselves staring in surprise at the massive Reese Bardwell, who they had tangled with in the Red Top Café. Scratch straightened from his pose leaning over the frightened clerk’s desk and said softly, “Well, this is an interestin’ turn of events, ain’t it, Bo?”

  “Take it easy,” Bo advised his old friend. “One ruckus a day with a fella ought to be enough.”

  Bardwell stalked forward. “What are you doin’ here?” he demanded. “Did you follow me?”

  “Mister, you’re just about the last hombre we expected to see in here,” Bo said. “We’re looking for the boss.” He glanced at the clerk. “Nicholson, right?”

  “I’m Lawrence Nicholson,” a new voice said. A man who had come out of the office behind Bardwell stepped around him. Bardwell was so big Bo and Scratch hadn’t seen the other man until now. Dressed in a sober dark suit, he was around fifty, with a mild face, thinning gray hair, and deep-set dark eyes.

  “Yes, sir, if you’re the president of the company, you’re the man we want to see,” Bo said. “It’s about that gold shipment of yours that got stolen today.”

  Bardwell clenched his huge fists and started forward. “You two had something to do with that?” he said. “I might’ve known it!”

  Nicholson put a hand on Bardwell’s arm to stop him. Bardwell was almost twice the other man’s size, but he stopped when Nicholson touched him.

  “Take it easy, Reese. I hardly think these gentlemen would just waltz right in here like this if they’d had anything to do with the robbery.”

  “That’s right,” Scratch said. “We ain’t loco. And we ain’t road agents, neither.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Bo said, “We thought you might be offering a reward for tracking down the gang that’s been pulling these holdups.”

  Bardwell made a face like he had just bitten into a rotten apple. “Bounty hunters,” he said.

  Bo shook his head. “No, not really. We’re just a couple of fellas who are down on our luck and short on funds. But we’ve done quite a bit of tracking in our time, and we thought we might have some luck. That would help you out, Mr. Nicholson, and us, too, maybe.”

  “Only if you could also find the gold that the Argosy lost today,” Nicholson said. “I’m as interested in that as I am in bringing the thieves to justice.”

  “Likely they ain’t had a chance to spend any of it yet,” Scratch pointed out. “If they’ve been hittin’ as many shipments as we’ve heard about, they’ve probably got a whole passel of loot cached somewhere.”

  “It’s the sheriff ’s job to track down those owlhoots,” Bardwell snapped.

  “Yes, well, Henry Manning hasn’t done a very good job of that so far, has he?” Nicholson asked crisply. He put his hands in his trouser pockets and regarded Bo and Scratch intently. “I’ve got a good mind to take a chance on these men, Reese. You obviously know them, though, and if you’re opposed to the idea, I’ll bow to your judgment.”

  Scratch gestured toward Bardwell with his left hand and asked, “Just who is this
big galoot, anyway, for you to be askin’ his opinion?”

  Nicholson smiled. “I got the impression you were already well acquainted with each other. Reese Bardwell is the chief engineer and superintendent of the Argosy mine.”

  Bo and Scratch couldn’t stop the looks of surprise that appeared on their faces. After their encounter in the Red Top Café, Bo never would have pegged Bardwell as being smart enough to hold down such an important job. The big man looked barely intelligent enough to swing a sledgehammer or a pickax.

  Bardwell seemed to enjoy their reaction. He sneered and said, “I’d be leery of hirin’ them if I was you, Mr. Nicholson. They jumped me while I was having lunch in Mrs. Pendleton’s café. That one in the fancy jacket attacked me, and the other one threatened me with a gun.”

  “That’s terrible.” Nicholson sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry, gentlemen. But I can’t go against the wishes of Mr. Bardwell in this matter. Maybe you can get the sheriff to sign you on as deputies. Sheriff Manning could use some competent help.”

  “You’re sure?” Bo asked.

  Nicholson shrugged again. “Sorry.”

  A triumphant grin spread across Bardwell’s craggy face. The skinny clerk at the desk looked pleased, too. Bo felt a surge of anger but controlled it. Folks had a right to hire, or not hire, whoever they wanted to . . . even when they were wrong.

  Bo’s natural courtesy prompted him to touch a finger to the brim of his black hat. “I reckon we’ll be going, then,” he said.

  “But, Bo—” Scratch began.

  “Come on. There’s nothing for us here.”

  Bardwell laughed harshly. “That’s for damned sure.”

  When they were back on the street, Scratch said, “Now what?”

  “Now we see if the livery stable owner is willing to let us sleep in the hayloft for a little bit extra if we keep our horses there,” Bo said.

  A few years earlier, sleeping space had been at a premium in Deadwood. The liveryman could have asked five dollars a night for the right to stretch out in the hay, and fortune-seekers eager to search for gold would have paid it gladly.