Mankiller, Colorado

before Jackson Devery stepped forward and silenced the crowd with a glare.

“These people—” He flung a hand toward the candidates at the other end of the platform. “These people been talkin’ to your hearts. I’m gonna talk to your brains and your guts. You’re all smart enough to know that it ain’t wise to vote against me and my kin.”

“Is that a threat?” Colonel Macauley demanded.

Devery’s head snapped toward him. “I didn’t interrupt you, you old blowhard, so keep your trap shut while I’m talkin’! And no, it ain’t a threat. It’s a fact.” He pointed toward the crowd. “And ever’ one of those folks know it. They know it in their head, and they know it in their gut.” He took a moment to sweep his gaze over the crowd, dragging it out as if he were studying the face of everyone there so that he could remember them. Then he said, “You know what you better do.”

With that, he turned and walked off the platform, taking Luke, Edgar, and Granville with him. The crowd stood there quietly. The buzz of conversation didn’t start up again until all the Deverys went back up the hill to the old house that had disgorged them.

“The son of a bitch put it plain enough,” Scratch said to Bo. “What I can’t figure out is why he’s goin’ to this much trouble. Why’s he want to win this election instead of just grabbin’ power with all the guns on his side?”

“Because in the long run, guns aren’t enough,” Bo said. “Santa Anna had a lot more guns than we did, but in the end that didn’t stop us from booting him out. Same thing was true of King George and the American colonists a hundred years ago. Devery’s trying to scare folks into supporting him, and that won’t work, either. People have to believe in their leaders, like we believed in Sam Houston.”

“Well, I reckon they can believe in Lucinda, after those speeches she made.”

Bo nodded. “They were pretty good, all right.”

He and Scratch went to the back of the platform, where Lucinda and the other candidates were coming down the steps. Callie and Tess greeted their mother with hugs. Now that it was all over, Lucinda looked nervous again.

She turned to Bo and Scratch and asked, “Did I do all right?”

“You did more’n all right,” Scratch assured her. “You said just the right things, and anybody with a lick of sense is gonna vote for you.”

She shook her head doubtfully. “I’m not sure. Jackson Devery pretty much came right out and said that if he and the others aren’t elected, they’ll take revenge on the town.”

“Let him try it,” Colonel Macauley said. “Let him just try it, and he’ll see what happens then!”

“What will happen then?” Lucinda asked. “You all saw, he had at least twenty men with him. Twenty well-armed men who are used to violence and who’ll do whatever he tells them to do. What do we have in answer to that threat?”

Everyone’s eyes swung to Bo and Scratch.

Scratch grinned and shrugged. “Ten-to-one odds,” he said. “Nothin’ to worry about.”

But Bo knew from their worried expressions that no one here tonight believed that.

CHAPTER 29

The morning of June 5, election day in Mankiller, dawned beautifully. At this elevation the heat of summer hadn’t taken over yet, so there was still a pleasantly cool crispness to the air. The sky over the mountains was a deep blue, dotted here and there with white clouds swept along by a good breeze. It was the sort of day that made a man feel glad to be alive.

And if he and Scratch were still alive at the end of it, Bo reflected, he would be glad about that, too. Maybe even a little surprised.

When they got to the Colorado Palace Saloon, they found the doors closed and locked. Scratch rapped on one of the doors, and after a moment Lyle Rushford looked out the window to see who was there and then came over to unlock the door.

“We closed down a short time ago,” Rushford explained as the Texans came into the saloon. “Some of my regulars didn’t like being kicked out, but I told them we’d be open again tonight, after the election’s over.”

“Appreciate you volunteering the use of your place,” Bo said.

Rushford shrugged. “It’s the biggest room in town. Anyway, in the long run it’ll be good for business. People will hang around to find out what the results of the election are, and then they’ll already be here when they want to celebrate afterward.”

“Let’s hope there’s somethin’ to celebrate,” Scratch said.

“There will be,” the saloon keeper replied. “I’ve got a good feeling about it.”

Bo hoped Rushford was right. If the vote went against the Deverys, what could Jackson Devery do? He couldn’t seriously think that he and his family could gun down all the winning candidates, along with the town’s lawmen, and get away with it. Could he?

The problem was, Bo honestly didn’t know the answer to that question. He didn’t know how crazy drunk with power Jackson Devery really was.

The election was scheduled to last from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon. That would give every man in Mankiller enough time to vote. Bo and Scratch planned to be on hand the whole time, just to make certain there were no disturbances.

Rushford’s bartenders were moving the tables back, creating a large open space where people could line up to vote. They would be given ballots at one table, stop at another table to mark them, and then drop the ballots in a strongbox with a hole cut in the lid that sat on a third table.

“We’ll leave you to finish getting ready,” Bo told the saloonkeeper. “We’ll be back before the voting starts,