“That’s right, now that they hit that shipment from the Argosy. At least, they’ve struck at all the bigger mines. There are still a few smaller claims scattered through the hills that don’t produce enough color to make it worthwhile to rob them.”
“You’re still thinkin’, ain’t you, Bo?” Scratch asked.
“Does he do that all the time?” Chloride asked.
Bo chuckled. “Just trying to figure out a few things, that’s all. Something about the Devils doesn’t quite add up to me.”
“What’s to figure out?” Keefer wanted to know. “They’re a bunch of no-good, greedy, murdering road agents! Seems pretty blasted simple to me.”
“You’re probably right,” Bo told the superintendent. “Sometimes I make more out of things than they really are.”
On that note, the men turned in for the night, and early the next morning they were up again, getting ready to roll out on the trip to Deadwood in the cold, pale dawn.
During the morning, clouds rolled in to obscure the weak, watery sunlight, and the temperature dropped even more. As Chloride sent the wagon rolling along the trail, he cast a wary eye toward the skies and warned, “Liable to be some snow ’fore we get to town.” He brightened slightly. “On the other hand, maybe that means them varmints’ll be more likely to leave us alone.”
“If the Devils want to hit us again, I doubt if the weather will stop them,” Bo said.
“I don’t plan on lettin’ my guard down,” Scratch added.
“I never told you to do that,” Chloride said. “I was just pointin’ out that it might snow.”
As a matter of fact, less than an hour later a few powdery flurries spat down from the gunmetal-gray heavens, and the old-timer gleefully pointed them out as evidence that he was right.
The flurries stopped a short time after that, and those were the only flakes that fell. Chloride insisted that since technically it had snowed, his prediction had been correct.
So was his comment about the outlaws not trying to hold them up, although it was impossible to know if the snow flurries had anything to do with the Devils’ leaving them alone. Bo was inclined to doubt it, but it didn’t matter. What was important was that late in the afternoon, the wagon rolled into Deadwood with its load of gold bars intact.
This shipment’s arrival didn’t create as big a commotion as the first one, possibly because the cold had a lot of people indoors close to their stoves, but a small crowd did gather in front of the bank to watch the crates of gold bars being unloaded. Once again Bo watched the clerks place the gold in the vault while Scratch and Chloride kept an eye on the crates that hadn’t been unloaded yet.
That was still going on when Scratch stuck his head inside the bank’s front door and called, “Bo, you better come take a look at this.”
Bo heard the note of concern in his old friend’s voice. That was enough to make him hurry out of the bank and join Scratch and Chloride next to the wagon. They looked down the street toward the eastern end of the settlement, where a troop of blue-uniformed cavalry was riding into Deadwood.
Four years earlier, with the news of the Seventh Cavalry’s massacre on the hills above the Little Big Horn River still fresh in everyone’s mind, the citizens of Deadwood had reacted with riotous celebration when a large detachment of cavalry under the command of General George Crook had ridden into town. In those days, people had been afraid constantly that the Indians were going to slaughter them in their beds some night.
Since then, the threat of an Indian attack had diminished dramatically. But the arrival of the cavalry in town still caused quite a stir. People forgot about how cold it was and came out of their businesses and homes to watch the troopers ride in.
It wasn’t a big patrol, about thirty men led by a lieutenant and a grizzled sergeant. They rode to the middle of town and reined in, and by that time word of what was going on had reached the sheriff’s office. Sheriff Henry Manning strode up, and as the young officer dismounted, Manning demanded, “Lieutenant, what’s going on here? Are you and your men in pursuit of hostiles? I haven’t heard anything about the Indians being on the warpath again.”
The lieutenant didn’t answer Manning’s questions. Instead he asked one of his own. “Who are you, sir?”
“Henry Manning,” the lawman snapped. “I’m the sheriff around here.”
The officer came to attention and saluted. “Lieutenant Vance Holbrook reporting as ordered, sir. I’m to make myself and my men available to you.”
Manning frowned at him, obviously baffled. “Available to me? What for?”
A new voice said, “I’ll tell you what for, Sheriff.” Lawrence Nicholson walked up. “A number of the mine owners got together and sent a letter to Washington several weeks ago requesting assistance with the plague of lawlessness that has erupted in the Black Hills in recent months. At first the Justice Department was just going to send in a United States marshal, but we prevailed upon the authorities to reconsider that decision and assign a troop of cavalry to Deadwood instead. The problem of the Deadwood Devils is too big for one man to handle.”
Manning glared at Nicholson. His eyes were as cold and gray as the sky as he said, “Blast it, you had no right to do that. It’s my place to request any outside help, if I determine that it’s needed.”
“It’s also your place to stop those outlaws from ruining all the mines in the area, but you didn’t seem to be accomplishing that, did you?” Nicholson shot back.
Bo watched with interest as Manning’s face became darkly mottled with rage. “My primary responsibility is to keep the peace in town,” the lawman said. “No one can deny that I’ve done that.”
“Of course not, Sheriff. You’ve been exemplary at that part of your job. But the way things have been going, sooner or later you’ll be keeping the peace in a ghost town after all the mines have shut down. The other owners and I aren’t going to stand for that.” Nicholson turned to the cavalry officer. “My name is Lawrence Nicholson, Lieutenant Holbrook. I own the Argosy Mining Company. I’ll be glad to fill you in on everything that’s happened around here and will help you carry out your orders any way I can.”
