(1986) Deadwood by Pete Dexter Read Free Book Online Page A

the unofficial duties of town sheriff. He'd said they hadn't come to Deadwood to end up as statues in the town square. He took off his reading glasses and looked at Boone May, then he looked at Bullock.
    "You see where this road leads, Mr. Bullock?" he said. "You cannot leave your door open to all God's creatures in the blind faith that they were made by God, and somehow reflect His image."
    Solomon Star had a facility for that. It always sounded like he was quoting the Bible. Boone May walked across the room, tracking mud, and sat down in the chair beside Bullock's desk. He was carrying a leather bag, and smelled like everything he'd touched or eaten in two months.
    Bullock said, "Solomon, would you give us a few minutes?" He always spoke politely to his partner. The little man stood up and put his glasses in his shirt pocket. He took his coat off the hanger and held on to his shirt cuffs as they went into the sleeves of the coat. He stepped in front of the mirror and retied his necktie. His hat went on his head as carefully as you set dynamite.
    Boone May watched him walk out of the office and close the door. He shook his head and smiled. "Paper-collars," he said. He didn't push that too far, though, because he wasn't sure that Seth Bullock wasn't part paper-collar himself.
    Bullock sat still, looking at him in a steady, unfriendly way that made him forget the way he intended to put the case for collecting on Frank Towles's head. Seth Bullock was the hardest man to talk to that Boone May ever met.
    "Lookie," he said, patting the bag, "I got Frank Towles's head that's worth two hundred dollars in Cheyenne. I shot him myself in a legal, fair fight, and did the public's welfare. So I don't see why you couldn't jurisdict this matter to give me the two hundred dollars here, so's I don't have to ride all the way back to Cheyenne."
    Seth Bullock leaned closer. He was big through the arms and shoulders, as big as Boone. "Frank Towles's head isn't worth a nickel in Dakota Territory," he said.
    "You could arrange it," he said.
    Bullock shook his head. "I just paid a Mexican two hundred and fifty dollars gold for an Indian's head, out of the Board of Health funds, because that is municipal law. There is no such reward for Frank Towles." He didn't mention that he'd fined the Mexican the same $250 for endangering public safety, and taken his fifty percent collection fee.
    Boone May covered his eyes. "You paid a Mex two hundred and fifty dollars?" he said. "And a white man's got to sit here and beg for what's comin' to him?"
    "I never asked you to shoot Frank Towles," Bullock said.
    "I don't need nobody to tell me to shoot Frank Towles. Where you find a dollar, you pick it up." He crossed one leg over the other and put his hands behind his head to wait. "I got a legal warrant."
    Bullock said, "I don't know Frank Towles or what he looks like. That could be anybody, and you bring it in here tracking mud and say the town of Deadwood owes you two hundred dollars."
    Boone May stared at Bullock a long minute, trying to decide what he meant about mud. Everybody tracked mud. He untied the bag in his lap, took the head out, and put it on Bullock's desk. "This here is what Frank looks like," he said. "You can ask Lurline Monti Verdi."
    Bullock never acknowledged the head. Boone was watching to see if he was squeamish at heads, but it didn't do a thing, any more than it had for Lurline. Boone didn't know where the fault lay, but socially, Frank Towles's head was a failure. "You come and talk to me and W. H. Llewellyn fast enough when you need somebody killed," he said. "You never mentioned muddy when you wanted somebody tracked down. All I'm askin' here is fair treatment for a white man."
    "I never said 'killed,'" Bullock said. "I always said 'apprehended.'"
    Boone pointed to the head on the desk. "That's apprehended as you get."
    Bullock still wouldn't look at it. Boone thought he must of practiced self-control. Then Boone thought of something