commanding voice, “All right, settle down, you people! There’s no need for all this commotion.”
Despite the fact that the day was chilly, Davenport pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped it over his face as an uneasy quiet settled on the crowd. “Thank God you’re here, Sheriff,” he said to the newcomer. “The gold shipment from the Argosy Mine has been stolen.”
Bo saw the badge on the hawk-faced man’s vest now. The lawman said to Coleman, “You look like you’ve been through the wringer, Chloride. What happened ?”
“Well, we was comin’ down Deadwood Gulch,” the old-timer began. Bo and Scratch listened attentively as Coleman went through the story of the robbery, ending with, “After they rode off, I checked on the guards, hopin’ one of ’em might still be alive, but really, I knowed better. When I was sure they was all dead, I hotfooted it for town as fast as these ol’ legs of mine’ll carry me. I thought maybe I’d find that mule team, but I reckon the dang jugheads wandered off up one of the little side gulches.”
The sheriff nodded. “I can send a search party to look for them, although the bosses out at the Argosy might want to do that since technically the mules belong to them. John Tadrack can fetch the bodies in and see to them.”
“What about the outlaws, Sheriff ?” Davenport asked. “Are you going to put together a posse to look for them?”
Instead of answering directly, the lawman looked at Coleman and asked, “How far out did this happen, Chloride?”
“’Bout four miles, give or take,” Coleman answered.
The sheriff turned back to Davenport. “In the time it took Chloride to hoof it into town, those owlhoots are long gone, I’m afraid. I’ll ride out there and see if I can pick up their trail, of course, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope of that doing any good.”
Davenport’s face, which seemed to be flushed normally, darkened even more as blood rushed into it angrily. “Blast it, Sheriff, the community’s in an uproar, and the very basis of the area’s economy is threatened. You have to do something about it!”
The sheriff smiled thinly and said in a dry voice, “As I was coming up the street, didn’t I hear you assuring these good folks that the Deadwood Devils will be found and stopped? Maybe you should just be patient and let me go on about the business of doing that.”
Davenport looked like he was going to argue some more, Bo thought, but then the banker gave a grudging nod and said, “All right. But this situation is becoming intolerable.”
The lawman didn’t respond to that. He put a hand on Coleman’s shoulder instead. “Come on down to the office with me, Chloride. I want you to tell me everything you remember about the men who held you up and killed those guards.”
“Well, I’ll try,” Coleman said. “It ain’t gonna amount to much, though. I never got a good look at anybody’s face.”
“Maybe something else will help, like the clothes they wore or the horses they rode.”
Coleman looked skeptical, but he allowed the sheriff to lead him away. With the old-timer gone, the crowd started to break into smaller groups that continued to discuss this latest outrage. Clearly, the citizens of Deadwood were upset and scared.
Bo and Scratch crossed the street again to the cafe. The Red Top’s customers had gone back inside, and so had its namesake. Sue Beth was behind the counter again. She took the Texans’ plates off the stove and put them in front of a pair of empty stools.
“This time you’d better go ahead and eat,” she warned, “or I’m liable to be insulted.” She got the coffeepot and warmed up their coffee. “Is Chloride all right? He’s a likable old cuss.”
“He was just scratched and shaken up,” Bo said.
“From the sound of it, though, he came pretty close to crossin’ the divide,” Scratch added.
“Did the Devils hold up the Argosy gold wagon?”
Bo nodded. “That’s right.” He gave Sue Beth an abbreviated version of the story Coleman had told the sheriff.
“Seemed like there were some hard feelin’s between the sheriff and that banker fella, Davenport,” Scratch put in.
“Jerome Davenport knows that if things keep on like they have been, the bank may not be able to stay open,” Sue Beth said. “It relies heavily on the gold deposits from the Argosy, the Homestake, the Father De Smet, and the other big mining operations in the area.”
“Have shipments from all the mines been hit?” Bo asked.
Sue Beth thought about it, obviously going over in her mind the previous robberies by the gang. After a moment she nodded and said, “Now that the Argosy has lost a shipment, too, yes, all the big mines have been hit.”
“How do the varmints know when gold is bein’ shipped out?” Scratch wondered.
“It’s not that difficult,” Bo said. “With all these hills around, put some men with spyglasses on top of them and keep an eye on the mines. They’d be able to see when wagons were being loaded.”
“Why don’t they try some decoy shipments?”
Bo shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe they have.” He looked at Sue Beth. “Have you heard anything about that?”
“No, but the mine owners and superintendents don’t confide their plans in me,” she said. “Now, are you going to dig into that food or just flap your gums over it all day?”
Scratch picked up his fork and grinned. “We’re diggin’ in, ma’am, don’t you worry about that,” he assured her.
