Bo slid a half-eagle across the counter to Lucinda Bonner. He kept a few coins in his pocket, and so did Scratch, but the rest of their stake was split up between a pair of money belts, one worn by each of them.
“There you go, ma’am,” he told her. As he touched a finger to the brim of his black hat, he added, “Best of luck to you and your daughters and brother.”
“Thank you.” Her hand moved, and the coin disappeared.
Bo and Scratch left the cafe. As they paused outside, Bo said, “I’ve got a feeling that if you intended to court that woman, Scratch, you may have ruined those plans by accusing her of overcharging us for those meals.”
“Now, that ain’t exactly what I said,” Scratch protested.
“Close enough.”
Scratch sighed. “You may be right about that, Bo. I was just surprised, that’s all, and you know sometimes my talkin’ is a few steps ahead of my thinkin’. I should’ve knowed better. We’ve been in enough boomtowns to know how it is.”
“Yeah, we sure have.” Bo untied the reins of his dun and the packhorse from the hitch rail. “I hope we can find room in a stable for these animals.”
They led the horses along the street and were turned away at a couple of livery stables that were already full up. When they came to a ramshackle barn with a crudely lettered sign that read EDGAR’S LIVERY, Bo shrugged and said, “This may be the best we can do.”
“Or maybe we ain’t hit bottom yet,” Scratch said. “Reckon all we can do is go in and ask.”
They found the liveryman inside, mucking out a stall. That brought back unpleasant memories of Socorro and Johnny Burford.
“Are you Edgar?” Bo asked the thickset proprietor.
“That’s right. You boys lookin’ for a place to stable them cayuses?”
“Do you have room for them?”
The man nodded. “Yeah, I do. Be four dollars a day for each of ’em.”
Scratch let out a whistle. “There’s nothin’ cheap in this town, is there?”
“Not right now there ain’t,” Edgar agreed. “Not in the middle of a gold boom.” He rubbed at his grizzled jaw. “Tell you want I’ll do, though…you got three hosses, so we’ll call it ten bucks a day for all three. How’s that sound?”
“Still a mite like highway robbery,” Scratch grumbled.
“But we’ll take it,” Bo added. “Thanks.”
He handed over a double eagle to pay for two days. At the rate their money was going, he hoped they would be able to find gold soon. Otherwise their stake would be gone and they’d have to move on.
Of course, that wouldn’t necessarily be such a bad thing. They had gambled before and lost, and the good thing about being drifters was they could always ride away and leave those troubles behind them, as long as they had enough money left for a few supplies.
Edgar showed them the empty stalls. As they were unsaddling their mounts, Bo asked the liveryman, “Do you know a family named Devery?”
Edgar looked surprised. “Yeah, I know ’em. Why do you ask?”
Scratch said, “We had a run-in with a couple of ’em at the bridge leadin’ into town.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. Had to pull iron on ’em.”
Bo said, “Sheriff O’Brien told us the Devery family owns a lot of the land hereabouts.”
Edgar laughed. “Still seems strange to me that ol’ Biscuits wears a law badge now. Wasn’t that long ago he was the one bein’ locked up all the time.” The liveryman lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “Biscuits drinks a mite, you know.”
Bo nodded. “We got that idea. We don’t want any hard feelings with the Deverys. We just didn’t think they had any right to charge us a toll. From what the sheriff said, though, maybe we should have paid.”
“It was mighty high,” Scratch put in, “but then, so’s everything else around here.”
“You know where we can find them?” Bo asked.
Edgar stroked his chin and nodded. “When you rode in, did you see that big ol’ house up at the head o’ Main Street?”
“We did.”
“Well, that’s the old Devery house. Jackson Devery—Pa Devery, some call him—lives there with his brood. You don’t need to go all the way up there to see Luke and Thad, though.”
“Why not?” Scratch asked, but Bo had already tumbled to something his partner hadn’t.
“We didn’t mention their names,” he snapped as he started to reach for his gun.
It was too late. With a rush of footsteps, several people charged them from behind. The Texans tried to turn and draw their guns, but before they could manage that, crashing blows fell on their heads. They were driven forward, tackled, brought down on the hard-packed dirt of the barn’s center aisle. Fists and booted feet and, for all they knew, gun butts thudded into them. Bo and Scratch struggled to throw off their attackers and get up, but there was too much weight pinning them down. Their heads spun wildly from blow after vicious blow.
Bo didn’t know who lost consciousness first, him or Scratch, and it didn’t matter one damned bit, anyway.
