Bo nodded. “Yeah, she told us about him getting killed. Something else I was thinking about, Mr. Colemanâ”
“Call me Chloride,” the old-timer interrupted. “Ever'body does. And come to think of it, you ain't told me your names. I know you're from Texas 'cause of the way you talk, but that's all I know about you.”
“I'm Scratch Morton, and this here is Bo Creel,” Scratch supplied.
Chloride nodded. “Pleased to meet you. Now, what was you sayin', Bo?”
Bo said, “I was just thinking that if we do decide to see if we can pick up the trail of those robbers, it might be helpful if you'd ride with us out to the place where they held you up. You could show us exactly where things happened.”
Chloride scratched at his beard. “I dunno . . . I got some bad memories o' that place.”
“It just happened today,” Scratch pointed out.
“Well, they're still memories, ain't they? They ain't happenin' now!”
“We could cut you in on whatever reward we got out of it,” Bo suggested, sensing that that might have some bearing on Chloride's reluctance to help them.
The avarice that instantly glittered in the old man's rheumy eyes told Bo his hunch was right. Chloride nodded and said, “I might could do that. If I got time, that is, once I get a new job.”
“All right. We can find you around town?”
“Yeah, for a day or two, anyway, I expect. Where are you boys stayin'?”
“Hanson's Livery,” Scratch said with a grin.
“The penthouse suite,” Bo added.
Chloride laughed. “Beddin' down in the loft, eh? Well, I can't say I never did the same. So long!”
He went on in the Black Hills Bonanza office while the Texans headed along the street toward the office of the Golden Queen.
“You reckon there's any point in this, if the mine's as bad off as Chloride said?” Scratch asked.
“It might not be as bad as he thinks,” Bo said. “Anyway, it won't hurt to go in there and ask.”
When they reached the small, one-story clapboard building with the simple legend
GOLDEN QUEEN MINING COMPANY
painted on its front window, Scratch frowned and said, “Don't look too promisin'. This place ain't near as fancy as the Argosy or some of the other minin' companies.”
“You can't always tell by looking,” Bo said as he grasped the doorknob and turned.
They stepped inside, and Bo was somewhat surprised to see a young woman sitting at a desk, writing in a ledger. Blond curls fell loosely around her shoulders. Without looking up from what she was doing, she asked, “Yes?”
Bo took his hat off and said, “Pardon me, miss, we're looking for whoever's in charge of the Golden Queen Mining Company.”
That made her lift her head so that Bo could see her face. It was a mighty attractive face, too, with a faintly exotic cast to it, highlighted by a small beauty mark on her cheek near the right corner of her mouth.
“That would be me,” she said. “I
am
the Golden Queen Mining Company.”
CHAPTER 5
Bo managed to keep the surprise off his face, although Scratch stared a little. “You own the company ?” Bo asked.
“That's right,” the young woman said. “I'm Martha Sutton. What can I do for you?”
“Well, I, uh, beg your pardon, miss, but we weren't expectingâ”
“Weren't expecting to find a
girl
in charge of a mining company?” she broke in. “You're not the only one. Some other people in this town seem to have a problem with that, too. That's just too bad.”
“I never said we had a problem with it,” Bo went on quickly. “It's just a little surprising, that's all. My name's Bo Creel, and this is my friend Scratch Morton.”
Scratch snatched his hat off and nodded politely. “Pleased to meet you, ma'am,” he said.
The look of irritation on Martha Sutton's face eased a bit. She said, “Mr. Creel, Mr. Morton . . . I ask again, what can I do for you?”
“We're new in town, and we've been hearing about the Deadwood Devils and how they've been holding up gold shipments from the mines around here,” Bo explained. “Has that happened to your outfit?”
Martha set down the pencil she had been using and leaned back in her chair. “Not that it's any of your business, Mr. Creel, but yes, the Golden Queen has been robbed. Several times, in fact. The Devils have hit us probably more than any of the other mining operations around here.”
“Us?” Bo repeated.
“My father founded the Golden Queen and ran it until about a month ago. That was when he died suddenly. His heart gave out, the doctor said, possibly from worrying about the holdups.”
“We're sorry to hear that,” Scratch said. “That'll happen sometimes when you've got a bum ticker.”
“At any rate, that's why I'm running the company now,” Martha said. “Our shipments have been hijacked several times since then, to the point that no one wants to drive for me anymore or hire on as guards because the others have been killed. The company is on the verge of collapse. Is that what you wanted to know?”
With all the bad luck that had befallen her, Bo couldn't blame Martha Sutton for being a little short-tempered. He said, “You've got us wrong, Miss Sutton. We'd like to help you.”
“How are you going to do that?” she asked, wanting to know.
“If somebody could track down the Deadwood Devils and maybe even find all the loot they've stolen, I imagine it would make things look a lot more promising for the Golden Queen, wouldn't it?”
She regarded the Texans intently for a moment, then said, “If you're angling for me to hire you and your friend as some sort of troubleshooters, Mr. Creel, I can't afford it. Right now I can't even pay the men working in the mine. I owe them a month's back wages, and it's all I can do to continue feeding them.”
“If we were able to recover some of the gold you lost, how would you feel about cutting us in for a share?” Bo suggested.
Martha didn't reject the idea out of hand. Instead she considered it for a moment before finally nodding. “We could probably come to an arrangement like that,” she said. “Ten percent of the value of whatever gold you recover.”
Bo didn't like the idea of haggling with a woman, but he said, “I was thinking more along the lines of twenty percent.”
“Ten's all I can afford,” Martha said flatly.
“Well, in that case, ma'am, you got a deal,” Scratch said before Bo could make a counteroffer. Bo glanced over at his old friend, who was grinning from ear to ear. Scratch never had been able to resist trying to please a pretty woman, even one who was young enough to be his daughter, or maybe even his granddaughter.
But to be honest, he probably would have agreed to the ten percent, too, Bo realized. If that was truly all Martha could afford, he wouldn't want to try to take advantage of her.
She stood up and came out from behind the desk, extending her hand to each of them in turn. She said, “I probably should have asked what your qualifications are to be hunting down gold thieves. Are you lawmen of some sort?”
“We've worked as deputies before,” Bo explained. “Done some scouting for the army as well, so we have experience with tracking.”
“Plus we've wound up in quite a few ruckuses with owlhoots that were none of our doin',” Scratch added. “We don't never go lookin' for trouble, but sometimes it seems like it looks for us.”
“Well, if you find the Deadwood Devils, you can count on one thing,” Martha said. “You'll find plenty of trouble, too. When are you going to start searching for them?”
Bo said, “It's too late in the day to pick up a trail today. First thing in the morning we'll ride out to the place where the Argosy gold wagon was held up today and see what we can find.”
Martha made a face at the mention of the Argosy Mining Company, Bo noted.
“You and the folks at the Argosy don't get along?” he asked, making a shrewd guess.
“That's none of your business, Mr. Creel,” she snapped. “You don't have to concern yourself with anything except finding the Devils and getting back as much of my gold as you can.”
Bo nodded. “You're right, ma'am, we don't.” He put his hat on. “Come on, Scratch.”
They left Martha Sutton in the office. As they walked along the street, Scratch commented, “That's a pretty gal, but she's a mite prickly around the edges.”
“I'd say she has reason to be, as much trouble as she's had. First those gold holdups, and then her pa dying, maybe because of them . . .” Bo shook his head in sympathy. “Meanwhile, we've got to eat tonight. I reckon I've got just enough money hidden away in my saddlebags to buy us a meal at the Red Top.”
“You mean you been squirrelin' away dinero without tellin' me?”
“And it's a good thing, too,” Bo said. “Otherwise we'd be going hungry tonight.”
Â
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The fried steaks Sue Beth Pendleton and her cook Charlie dished up at the café were just as good as the ham at lunch had been. As the Texans were cleaning their plates and washing down the last of the food with coffee, Sue Beth paused on the other side of the counter and said, “I figured you boys would be back.”
“With food this good, where else in town would we eat?” Scratch asked.
“And I figured you might ask me for credit,” Sue Beth went on. “No offense, but you look a little down at the heels.”
“We don't much believe in credit,” Bo said. “We like to pay for what we get as we go along.”
Sue Beth laughed. “If more people were like you, the world would probably be better off.”
“We
are
runnin' a mite short, though,” Scratch said. “But we got some work lined up that ought to help out.”
“Well . . .” Sue Beth hesitated. “If you wind up needing a hand, you can always get a meal here. I don't believe in turning away a hungry man.”
“It won't come to that,” Bo said. “We'll be fine.”
“Yeah,” Scratch said. “We been makin' it for forty years now, so I reckon we'll get by a mite longer.”
Sue Beth nodded. “I'm sure you will. But remember what I said.” She smiled. “You remind me a little of my father, Mr. Morton. I couldn't let you starve.”
“Well, I . . . uh . . .” Scratch fell silent for a moment before finally nodding his head and saying, “Thanks.”
When the Texans left the café a short time later, Bo was smiling. He waited until they were outside and the door was closed behind them before he said, “That's the first time in a while I've seen you struck speechless.”
“I don't know what you're talkin' about,” Scratch said stiffly.
“The look on your face when Miz Pendleton told you that you remind her of her old pa . . . that was just priceless.”
“She was payin' me a compliment,” Scratch insisted.
“And telling you that you're really old,” Bo said.
“Same age as you!”
“Difference is, I'm not denying it,” Bo drawled.
Scratch muttered something under his breath, then said, “Dang it, let's just go to the livery stable, check on our horses, and turn in.”
Bo nodded. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
When they got back to Hanson's Livery, though, they found someone waiting for them. Chloride Coleman was talking to a stocky Mexican who had taken over as the hostler on the night shift. Chloride raised a gnarled hand in greeting as he saw the Texans approaching.
“I figured you fellas'd show up here sooner or later, since you said you was stayin' here,” he said. “I need to have a few words with you.”
“Go ahead and palaver,” Scratch told him.
Chloride licked his lips under the bushy white mustache. “Talkin' always goes better with a mite of lubrication, if you get my drift.”
“If you want whiskey, you'll have to provide your own,” Bo said. “We can't afford it.”
“Oh, well.” Chloride heaved a sigh. “You know what we was talkin' about earlier?”
“Which part?”
“The part about me helpin' you fellas track down the Deadwood Devils. You still interested in that?”
“Maybe,” Bo allowed. “But I thought you were going to be too busy with your new job to give us a hand.”
“Well, as it turns out, there ain't any openin's for drivers right now, so I got more time than I figured I would.”
Based on what Martha Sutton had told them about the difficulty she had encountered in hiring drivers for the Golden Queen, Bo suspected the other mining companies in town were having the same trouble. Nobody wanted to risk his life serving as a target for the Deadwood Devils.
So the fact that Chloride couldn't get a job as a driver probably meant that word had gotten around town about Davenport's suspicions of him. Even though Bo instinctively believed the old-timer's story about the way the holdup had happened, the mine owners had to be worried that Chloride was tied in with the gang somehow. Otherwise under the circumstances they should have jumped at the chance to hire an experienced driver.
“We'd be pleased to have you ride out there with us in the morning, Chloride,” Bo said. “You can help us take a look around and point out exactly where everything happened. But you know we can't pay you.”
Chloride licked his lips again. “You could maybe cut me in on whatever reward you make out of the deal, though, couldn't you?”
Bo and Scratch looked at each other. Scratch shrugged his agreement. Bo said, “That's assuming we even make anything.”
“Sure, sure, I understand that.”
“Do you have a horse?”
“I got a mule. Ain't very comfortable for ridin', but it'll go all day.”
“Is it here at the livery?”
Chloride shook his head. “No, I got a little shack up the gulch a ways. Some prospector must've had a claim there back in the old days, but he didn't find no color and abandoned the place.” His bushy eyebrows rose as a thought obviously occurred to him. “Say, you boys could stay there if you want, and save a little money. You'd have to spread your bedrolls on the floor, but I wouldn't charge you nothin'.”
Bo and Scratch shared a glance again. If they could get a refund from Hanson, they'd be able to eat for a few days longer without having to accept credit from Sue Beth Pendleton.
“That sounds like a good idea,” Scratch said. He turned to the hostler. “What's your name, amigo?”
“Esteban Gonzalez, señor,” the man replied.
“Well, Esteban, tell your boss we won't be needin' to stay here after all, and we'll be takin' our horses with us.”
“He can take out for the feed he's already given them,” Bo said, “but we'll expect the rest of our money back when we come by here in the morning.”
Gonzalez looked doubtful. “I don't know, señores. Once Señor Hanson has money in his pocket, it is always very reluctant to come out again.”
“Just tell him what we said,” Bo requested. “We'll be by early.”
The hostler sighed. “SÃ, señor. I will tell him.”
Bo and Scratch saddled their mounts and led them out of their stalls. “You can ride double with me, Chloride,” Bo offered. He swung up into the saddle and helped the old-timer climb on behind him.
They rode out of Deadwood with Chloride giving them directions. Despite the town's façade of respectability during the day, at night it was obvious that this was still a mining town. The saloons were all busy as the Texans and their elderly companion rode past.