“It says there’s a big gold strike up in Colorado, at a town called Mankiller.”
“Never heard of it,” Scratch muttered as he rubbed his hands wearily over his face.
“It’s not far from Durango, according to this story.”
“Well, I still never—Wait a minute.” Scratch looked up with a frown. “Did you say gold strike?”
“That’s right. A real bonanza, the paper says. Mankiller’s gone from being a sleepy little wide place in the road to a boomtown almost overnight.” Bo shrugged. “Of course, this paper was published three weeks ago, so it’s not exactly overnight anymore…”
“So we don’t know for sure if the boom’s still goin’ on, or if the the gold petered out in a hurry.”
“No, but I think it’s worth checking out, don’t you?”
“Gold,” Scratch mused. “Seems like we just got tangled up with a gold mine down yonder in Mexico not that long ago. We could have stayed down there if we wanted to be gold miners.”
“Maybe we made the wrong decision. Things haven’t worked out that well for us since we left Mexico, have they?”
“Well…no, I reckon not.”
Bo tapped a finger against the newspaper story. “Maybe this is telling us that we have another chance. We should go to this Mankiller, Colorado, and see if we can get in on the strike.”
Scratch frowned again. “I never knew you to go chasin’ after gold before, Bo, or any other sort of wealth, for that matter. You’ve gotten downright jumpy these days. You’re supposed to be the calm, steady one.”
Bo looked out the window in the hayloft. It faced east, which meant the view overlooked the Rio Grande and the vast, arid ugliness of the
“Time’s running out,” Bo said.
“What?”
“You ever think about how many years we’ve drifted, Scratch? And how little we’ve got to show for it? We’re both still in pretty good health now—”
Scratch thumped his chest with a fist. “Speak for yourself. I’m healthy as a horse!”
“Yeah, but what about ten or fifteen years from now? What if we get sick? Who’s going to take care of us?”
Scratch stared at his old friend for a long moment, then exploded, “What the hell is wrong with you? The odds are that neither of us will live to be old and feeble, the way we keep runnin’ into trouble! Blast it, Bo, ever since we left Texas, we’ve worried about
Bo looked around at the hayloft. Rats scrabbled around here and there.
“Right now doesn’t look like much at the moment.”
“Our lack of dinero is just a temporary setback. We’ll get on our feet again, get us a stake built up—”
“How? We can’t even afford to buy a cup of coffee for breakfast.”
“That’s right,” Scratch said. “So how in hell do you think we’re gonna be able to go all the way to Colorado to look for gold?”
Bo shrugged. “That’s a problem, all right. But I still think we should have a goal—”
“I got a goal.” Scratch heaved himself to his feet and groaned again as he straightened his back and legs and joints creaked and popped into place. “My goal’s to make it to the outhouse. After I’ve managed that, I’ll figure out what to do next.”
Scratch went to the ladder and climbed down, grumbling and muttering as he went. Bo tucked the torn-out newspaper story in his pocket and sighed. He followed Scratch down the ladder. The silver-haired Texan had already disappeared out the rear door of the livery barn.
The elderly proprietor of the stable came out of his office running knobby fingers through a thatch of snowy white hair. “Mornin’,” he said to Bo with a nod. “How’d you fellas sleep?”
“All right, I guess.”
“If you fellas’d like to stay on for a spell, I got some other chores that could use doin’. Roof needs patched, and there are some rotten boards in the walls that ought to be replaced. Things like that. If you boys want to take care of those jobs for me, you can keep on sleepin’ in the loft.”
“How about wages?” Bo asked.
The old man shook his head. “Oh, no, I can’t afford to pay you no wages. This place don’t make that much money.”
“You’d feed us?”
The man’s eyes widened. “Do I look like a rich man? No, a place to sleep in return for the work, that’s all I can offer you.”
“Even slaves got fed,” Bo snapped.
“Don’t get testy with me now. I’m just tryin’ to help you fellas out.”
If that was the old-timer’s idea of helping out, Bo hated to think what he would do to someone he was trying to take advantage of. “No deal,” he said as he headed for the front entrance.
“Hold on just a minute.”
Bo looked back, thinking that the proprietor was going to be more reasonable.
