William W. Johnstone (8 page)
Read William W. Johnstone Online
Authors: Massacre Mountain
Tags: #Murder, #Western Stories, #Wyoming, #Westerns, #Fiction, #Sheriffs - Wyoming, #General, #Mountain Life
I decided not to argue against the snub-nose revolver in his hand, pointing in the general direction of my heart.
“I’m temporarily outgunned,” I said, and let her go.
“We’re going to close this show. Right now. And you won’t interfere.”
They was plumb serious about it, and that revolver never wavered.
I done what I’ve tried a few times, and brought my billy club up from below before he could think about things, and whacked his arm to one side as he pulled the trigger. The shot went up in the air. Then I whacked his hand, and he dropped the gun and howled. A couple more whacks put him in a real howling mood.
My ma, she always said be kind to dogs, so I quit. I picked up the piece, and motioned to them both. “You go ahead of me,” I said. “You’ll have Ike Berg for your cellmate.”
C
HAPTER
T
WELVE
HAPTER
T
WELVE
That banker and his old lady, they weren’t just mad. Mad is shouting and carrying on, but this pair, they just turned silent, and it was so cold they frosted over half of Wyoming. But they walked right along ahead of me and into my sheriff digs.
Rusty, he’d gone home, and De Graff was around somewhere, maybe with his pants on. I thought of booking the two, and I didn’t have any trouble thinking up a few laws that got trampled on, but then I decided I’d just let them cool off for a couple of hours and let them go. They were mostly just trying to be good people and had gotten a little violent about it. They were the most powerful couple in town. Bankers are like that, I guess.
So I just ushered them into the jail, eased them into my last empty cell, next to Arty, who was next to Iceberg, and slammed the door behind them. It clanged shut real hard. They didn’t say one word. I guess they thought I was beneath talking to. But Arty was staring, and Iceberg, he had himself a leer on his skinny puss, like this was the best entertainment he’d seen.
The Sanderses, they stared at me like I was already in my grave, and I stared back. They didn’t even ask what I’d charge them with, or when they could get out, or get bail, or whatever they wanted to know. They just glared. Then Delphinium stared at the slop bucket, and at the males in the other cells, and closed her eyes real tight. I sort of enjoyed that. I hoped she’d keep them eyes tight shut for a while, and think about what she done.
They sort of wanted me dead. My ma used to tell me I wasn’t the sweetest voice in the church choir, but I never paid much mind to it. Tossing the powerful banker in there—and his rainbarrel wife—now that would set some sort of record for folly in Doubtful. So I just smiled.
“That there pail’s for your needs,” I said.
Hubert Sanders, he was clamping his hands around the bars so tight his knuckles were white. That was fine with me.
I headed out, after locking the jail door tight, and went back to the opera house. Sure enough, all them Watch and Ward people had fled after I nabbed the ringleaders. And the last of the theater-goers were slipping in. I followed. Ralston nodded, an eyebrow arched, but I didn’t tell him nothing. The house lamps were dim, but I could see the place was only half filled. They didn’t get the last-night crowd they hoped for. About the time them fellows lit the footlamps, I decided to vamoose. What I wanted was to keep an eye on Doubtful when so many were in the opera house watching the show. So I headed out.
“You send Sanders home?” Ralston asked.
“No, they’ll cool their heels awhile. I’ll let ’em out when I’m good and ready.”
“I hope you have nine lives,” he said.
I smiled.
It sure was a nice summer’s eve in Doubtful. The June light lingered, and the town seemed at peace. I decided just to patrol, and steer clear of the saloons. So I headed over to the north side of town, where all the swells lived and ordinary people like me weren’t ever invited, and walked through those three blocks of comfortable homes on Wyoming Street. Most of them picketers lived around there, and now they were back inside of the white frame houses, many of them with shiplap siding. I could look through all them big glass windows, framed by curtains, and see nice rooms lit by kerosene lamps, all pleasant and secure.
Most of the trouble in Doubtful was south of Main Street, so I didn’t get over to this area much. The town sort of faded into grassy fields with long gulches full of cottonwood trees, and after that, the foothills. All those people in their comfortable houses treated the country behind them as a sort of village green, where they would go picnicking and walking. There was sort of an unwritten rule: that was for the business people in Doubtful, and ordinary folks weren’t welcome there. I don’t think I’d ever been back in there.
What caught my eye was a mess of ravens and crows and magpies loading up some cottonwoods back in one gulch. I didn’t like the looks of that. When all them black birds collected, it was for a funeral. Every once in a while something would stir them up, and they would rise in a cloud of wings and settle again. I eyed the crowd, and figured someone’s dead dog had been tossed back there, or something like that. I was fixing to return to Main Street, and maybe join the intermission crowd at the opera house, but my feet kept hauling me past them nice homes and out on the meadow and finally into the gulch, where I sure stirred up not just a bunch of birds, but a lot of little animals that kept busting loose when they saw me working my way up the gulch.
I finally got to the heart of it, and discovered a horse lying there, or what was left of it. It was mostly picked down to the bone, and there wasn’t much left to feed a crowd of scavengers like that. I thought maybe I knew that horse, because I knew the color of the hide, and when I got in a little bit, I found myself staring at Critter. His throat had been slashed and he’d been left to bleed to death. It was him, all right. His empty eye sockets were full of blackness. None of all his kicks, all his life, kicked me as hard as I got kicked right then, right in my gut. I got kicked so hard I could hardly think.
Critter was gone.
I thought of all the places we’d gone together, over mountaintops and across meadows and through canyons. And how he’d stood over me when I climbed into my bedroll. And how he had notions and I had notions and sometimes he won. And the time he stopped dead and refused to move and I was spurring him and trying to make him move, but all he did was crow-hop. And then I saw the big prairie rattler on a high rock, ready to sink his fangs into me or into Critter.
I stared at the mess of hide and bone and gristle. It was getting dark.
I backed out of there, knowing Critter hadn’t been stolen from Turk’s Livery Barn by some ranny who wanted a horse; Critter was stolen to hurt me as bad as a man can be hurt. It wasn’t a very good feeling. Someone killing an innocent horse to get at me. Some holdup man sticking me up on Main Street. Some burglar getting into my room at Belle’s, and taking my good revolver and belt and holster. It had come together as a pattern. These here weren’t random acts; they were all intended to get at me one way or another. And that meant someone sure didn’t want me around Doubtful anymore, or maybe someone just wanted to make me as miserable as a man can get.
Which I was. Losing Critter was like losing a friend. Maybe like losing one’s own pa. Critter was like a pa sometimes, teaching me stuff I was too thickheaded to teach myself.
That discovery up there in that lonely gulch, in June twilight, maybe half a mile above Main Street, sort of changed my life. It didn’t matter whether I wore a star or not; whoever was doing this stuff to me would be brought to justice, whether I was sheriff or Iceberg had the job.
I headed back into town. I’d missed the intermission at the opera house, when half them cowboys were outside puffing away on their cheroots. So the final act of the final night for the Gildersleeve Company was playing in there. I walked past Turk’s and found some of the roustabouts from the show harnessing them wagons. That show would be off and gone within minutes of the final curtain.
I found the sheriff office real quiet; De Graff was gone somewhere, as usual, and nothing but a smoky lamp burned, its bad wick needing a trim. I unlocked the jail door and headed through the dim light back to the cell where them Sanderses were enjoying a little visit. Iceberg stared. Arty stared. The Sanderses sat side by side on the single iron bunk, staring.
I unlocked that cell.
“Go home. Don’t ever pull a gun on a peace officer again,” I said.
They stared at me, not quite believing they were free to go. Finally Delphinium rose, dusted off her clothing as if it was full of lice, and pulled Hubert up, and they walked out, ahead of me.
“Where’s my revolver?” Hubert said.
“I’m going to keep that for a day or two, until you quiet down,” I said.
“It’s not your property.”
“It’s my peace. I’m a peace officer. You’ll get it back when it seems fitting.”
At least Sanders was speaking. All the way from the opera house to the jail cell he had not said a word, but those burning eyes spoke a lot better than his tongue and lips ever could. I could see Iceberg smirking in there.
“Kill a horse, did you?” I asked, not knowing why I said it. I just felt like saying it. Iceberg stopped smirking.
I locked up the jail and escorted the banker and his wife to the door.
They neither thanked me for cutting them loose nor cursed me nor said one word. Instead, they showed me their backs, and walked stiffly into the twilight. I watched them turn north. They had the biggest house on Wyoming Street, which is the way bankers live. Maybe they’d watched that convention of black birds up the gulch a way behind their place. Maybe they’d enjoyed the sight.
The show must have ended. I saw some fellers wander out of the opera house and head for the saloons. Hardly anyone in Doubtful went straight home after one of them shows. They went to the Sampling Room, hoping to mix with the girls. But even as people poured out of the theater and vanished into the summer darkness, the roustabouts and teamsters were driving those wagons and coaches straight up to Ralston’s place, and began piling in all the theater stuff, the settings and lamps and all that. One freight wagon already had the trunks of the cast in it; they must have packed up before the show. The gals hardly got their greasepaint off before they were crawling into the coaches, while Madame Gildersleeve and her fixer, Harry Frost, were huddled with Ralston. I watched that a little, knowing that they were summing up the take and who got what. But eventually Ralston handed over some packets of cash and coin, and Frost pushed it into his black portmanteau, and headed for the mud wagon that would carry the madame and some of the top people in the show.
That looked like a heap of money to me, but Ralston had told me it didn’t amount to a whole lot. What the businessmen in town saw was a lot of cash leaving Doubtful for good, cash that could have kept circulating right there, making all the local folks real happy. That mud wagon apparently had a lockbox in there somewhere, because I could make out Frost pushing his hand down in and clamping a padlock on it. That wouldn’t stop a holdup gang for long.
My ma, she always said to see guests to the door, so I wandered over there and had my say to the madame.
“Awful nice of you folks to come by, and you come again now,” I said.
“Next time, we’ll want some rooms and some box office,” she said, sort of tart.
“I thought you filled it up pretty good,” I said.
“Good? First night, maybe. Let me tell you a thing or two, Sheriff. This was the make or break night. We’d win or lose in Doubtful depending on a full house. We lost. If you’d chased those crazy women off, maybe we’d have sold out. But you didn’t.”
“They had a right to wave their signs, long as it was peaceful, ma’am.”
“Sheriff, if you want Doubtful on the show circuit, you’d better welcome us real nice.”
“It sure was a good show,” I said.
“Legs,” she said. “They wanted bare legs and undies so we gave them legs and undies.”
“Those are pretty gals you got, ma’am.”
“The prettier they are, the more impossible they are, Sheriff. There’s some need a harness and a whip. If I could put a show on the road without a single broad in it, I’d do it in a trice.”
“It’s a hard world,” I said. “All them male singers and comics and magicians and the cowboys of Wyoming don’t cross your palm with silver.”
She eyed me like I was a snake. “You’re a card, Pickens.”
“My ma always said I was the two of clubs,” I replied.
She smiled, and climbed into that mud wagon, and Frost climbed in beside her. I watched them getting settled down in there, while the driver climbed up on the box and got aholt of all them reins.
In an amazingly short time, that show was loaded up, and the girls settled into a wagon, and the roustabouts and teamsters were lining out the drays and teams, and next I knew, just as a big moon tipped the horizon, that Gildersleeve Variety Company was rattling out of Doubtful and into the bright June afterglow.
It somehow seemed kind of lonesome.
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN
Ralston joined me.
“They’ll reach the railroad tomorrow,” he said.
“They’re carrying some cash.”
“Not as much as you suppose. It cost them plenty to board the company. More to take them to the next stop.”
“The merchants are all whining.”
Ralston laughed. “After gouging the company for meals, rooms, supplies, booze, animal feed, and all the rest. Whine away, I say.”
“They think the company’s simply walking off with cash that should be theirs.”
“And right now Harry Frost is blistering Madame Gildersleeve’s ear about how Doubtful euchred them out of a profit.”
“How do
you
see it?” I asked.
you
see it?” I asked.
“Doubtful profited. It added to the town’s business. It brought cowboys off the ranches in droves.”
“I think so too, but you’ll have trouble persuading Hubert Sanders of it.”
“He’ll change his tune. Just wait until the Grand Luxemburg Follies open up.”
“What’ll happen?”
“It’ll draw every last male off every last ranch in Puma County, and half the males in the next counties over. And they’ll spend.”
“Guess that should please our barkeeps,” I said.
“It’ll please the barkeeps, the madams, the merchants, and the banker—if he’s got eyes to see. Doubtful’s going to do a land-office trade.”
“If the show opens up,” I said. “If I can keep Ike Berg locked down, maybe it’ll be like you say. But they’re all ganging up on me.”
Ralston eyed me quietly. “I’m depending on you,” he said.
“Right now I’m worried that the Gildersleeve outfit’ll be jumped.”
“There’s hooligans in every town on the circuit who think they’ll clean out the company when it leaves. If they try to set up an ambush around here, they’ll be in for a surprise. Those traveling companies expect it, and know how to deal with it.”
“I thought it might be something like that.”
“They’ll keep Doc Harrison busy, and it won’t be patching up the Gildersleeve company, either.”
I was real tired, and it had been a bad day. My old horse was dead, murdered in a gulch. I had a cough. My night deputy couldn’t keep his pants on. And I was trying to hang on to my job, which someone wanted me out of real bad.
“Guess I’ll fold,” I said.
“Guess I’ll lock up,” he replied.
I made my way to Belle’s, ready for a week of sleep.
It finally got good and dark. Sometimes I thought June days never quit.
I got as far as Colorado Street when a stickup man hit me.
“Hands up, Sheriff, and don’t swing the billy club. I’m too far behind you.”
That sounded authoritative so I slowly raised my arms.
“Higher!”
“You got everything last time and the county hasn’t paid me.”
“Higher!”
“Ah, hell, if you’re going to shoot, then shoot.”
“Pull your pockets out.”
“I got my hands up.”
“Lower them and pull your pockets. I want your jail key.”
“Don’t have it on me.” I pulled my pockets and dropped a couple of dimes. He ignored them.
“Head for the jail,” he said.
It sure was turning into a long night, but I done as he said, and he followed behind, and we hiked back to Main and up the stairs and in. De Graff was still off somewhere.
“No tricks, Pickens. Get the jail keys and drop them on the floor. If you pick up anything else, you’re Maxwell’s meat.”
“I forget where they are,” I said, trying to turn my head around to get a glimpse of the holdup man. It was dark in there, with one lamp lit and its chimney smoked up. There were a couple of shotguns and a couple of rifles in the rack on the wall, none loaded. The jail keys were kept out of sight. Mine were in my desk drawer. I wondered if I could reach the sawed-off scatter-gun I’d been using, which was on my desk.
“Don’t,” he said.
“I plumb forgot where them keys are,” I said.
The shot lifted my hat plumb off my noggin. It sure made a lot of noise.
“I just remembered,” I said.
I pulled the bottom drawer and pitched the keys in his direction. He scooped them up, and now I got a glimpse. He had a kerchief over his face, and was wide and short, and dark-haired. He could have been any of a dozen people I’d seen around town.
“Pull your star off,” he said. “You got fired and now you’ll stay fired.”
I got an idea where this was heading. I unpinned my badge and laid it real gentle on my desk.
“Leave that billy club on your desk.”
I done that, too.
“Now, head out the door,” he said.
I walked out, and the door slammed behind me and I heard him bolt the lock. It sure was quiet and dark in Doubtful.
I slid off into the shadows and waited. It didn’t take long. The door opened up, spilling lamplight, and the holdup man and Ike Berg emerged. Ike was wearing a star, and I thought it was probably mine. My sheriff job had come to a screeching halt.
At least that’s what they thought. Me, I’d keep right on with it, whether they liked that or not. From my shadowed view, under a store gallery, I eyed the pair. I thought the stickup man was the same as robbed me earlier, and when I thunk about it, maybe he was a horse thief, a horse killer, and worse, all rolled into one.
I sure was tired. I kept on watching and saw them head for the hotel and go in. It was so dark I couldn’t be sure. I edged over to the hotel, trying to see into the lobby, but there wasn’t anyone in there, and not one lamp was lit. I waited awhile, thinking the stickup man might come out, but he didn’t.
I got to coughing, and knew I’d better get to bed or get worse again. But first I hiked over to Rusty, and knocked on his door. He had a little shack behind the cathouses. He opened up real fast, his six-gun in his fist.
He looked me over and invited me in with a nod. Then he lit a lamp.
“What?” he asked.
I told him. And then I told him about Critter, too.
“I’m Berg’s deputy now?” he asked.
“Looks that way.”
“The hell I am. I’ll quit.”
“I’d like you to stay on, Rusty. That stickup man’s gonna wander in and you’ll figure a few things out, like who he is. They haven’t run me out of town yet, but that’s next. They might fire you, too, might fire all my deputies and put in their own. If they do, will you join me? We’ve got us a crime wave, and now it’s in my office.”
He eyed me awhile, and simply grinned. That’s what I like about Rusty.
“I’ve got an old iron to lend you,” he said. He headed into the rear room and came out with a battered gun belt with a Smith and Wesson parked in it, and handed it to me. I strapped it on, and it felt real good.
“It doesn’t fire true,” he said, “but it makes lots of noise.”
“They even took my billy club,” I said. “And I was partial to that sawed-off scatter-gun, but that’s the county’s.”
“Look, Cotton, they won’t want us around. They know we’ll stick together. I’m expecting I’ll get my marching orders when I walk in. The rest, too. I don’t know what your plans are, but I want to tell you something. Whatever they are, deal me in. I think the others will agree.”
“The thing is, I don’t know what’s behind it,” I said. “I’ve been a good peace officer, kept the lid on, and now this.”
“Yeah, it’s a mystery. The supervisors, they’re itching to get rid of you. Something’s pushing and shoving them,” Rusty said.
“Care to guess who?”
“Somebody with a lot of push and shove,” he said, yawning.
I got out of there. I hiked across the south side, past the saloons and cathouses and all that stuff, which were still lit up. It felt strange, not having that badge on my chest. I was just another citizen now, without the power to do much. I got to my room, glad to throw myself into my bunk, barely taking time to unbuckle Rusty’s hardware. I had intended to lie there and speculate a little, try to figure out what tomorrow would bring. But all I managed to do was drop into a deep sleep, and I didn’t break out of that until the next dawn, when sunlight tickled me awake.
It occurred to me I had to make a living. On Monday, I’d owe Belle for another week. And somehow I would need to pump some chow into me. I didn’t even have a horse to take me out to the ranches, where I might hire on to do a little cowboying. The thought of Critter, his throat slit, lying in that gulch, sure didn’t make getting up and facing the day any better.
I rifled the stocking where I kept a few singles, stuffed them into my pocket, and headed out the door. Belle waylaid me before I could escape.
“It’s all over town,” she said. “You’re out, Skinny’s in.”
“It’s a mystery,” I said.
“No, it ain’t. The banker’s wife, she’s been pushing to shut down all the saloons and the, ah, pleasure places, and clean up Doubtful, and you’re the obstacle. She wants Doubtful to turn Baptist, or whatever she is, and get dipped in the river.”
“You think so? How do you know that?”
Belle glared at me. “Sometimes, Cotton Pickens, you don’t know where your feet are.”
“That’s what my ma always said.”
“Maybe I should go get myself baptised before they shut me down,” she said. “Once you’ve been pushed under water, wearing all white, they leave you alone.”
I got out of there. The Beanery was a likely place for some cheap chow, so I barged in—and discovered my whole crew there.
“We knew you’d show up,” Burtell said.
I stared at them. No badges.
They waved me to their table. “We’re out. They collected our badges. We don’t know who Iceberg’s naming as his deputies, but it ain’t us,” said De Graff.
“Where were you last night?” I asked.
“Patrolling the tenderloin.”
“Yeah, every room,” Rusty said.
De Graff smiled cheerily. “I keep ’em all from overcharging customers,” he said. “Personal inspection.”
Billy Bono, the proprietor, set a bowl of oatmeal before me, which was fine. I could breakfast for one thin dime.
“How come they fired you?” he asked.
“Because of the crime wave,” I said.
Bono laughed. “Word sure got around.”
Rusty waited for Bono to vamoose. “What’s gonna happen next?” he asked.
“Me, I’m going to find out who killed Critter, who robbed me, who stole my gun belt. And why. What are you fellers going to do?”
“Help you,” Rusty said. “Until we run out of money, which won’t be long. But we’ll help out. We’ve been making a few plans of our own. Something’s gone real wrong in Doubtful, and there ain’t nobody but ourselves to put it straight.”
“That would be mighty fine, mighty fine,” I said. “We’ve got a friend, Cyrus Ralston. It’s also a place for us to meet on the quiet. Cy’s plenty worried that this is all directed at him, that the goal of half the merchants in town is to shut down his opera house and keep those variety companies from playing here. And we’re the only help he’s got, especially now with the county supervisors, the sheriff, the banker, and all the town’s merchants lined up against him. There’s something we can do, starting today when the next company rolls in. We can protect it, and keep Ralston’s doors open.”
“What for?” De Graff asked.
“It’s a girlie show,” I said.
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