C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN
Rusty and me, we got front-center seats again, thanks to management. I sure didn’t mind because I’d get to watch Ambrosia real close. I was thinking about waiting at the stage door and asking her to marry me. I thought maybe to take her out to a cabin I know about and show her a thing or two. That’s all I thought about. I wasn’t going to let Ambrosia go. I hadn’t really met her yet, but that didn’t make no difference. Anyone who’d say “anytime, anyplace” to me I’d keep in Doubtful if I could.
That next show was even more packed than the opening one. They sold every seat and there must have been fifty people lining the walls, ready to whistle at the girls. It was pretty much the same show, except the girls were covered more. Ambrosia wore a white gown when she played Lady Godiva, which wrecked the scene as far as I could tell, but maybe if I was going to marry her, it’d be best not to have all them people gawking at her like that.
Later in the show, when they did all them imitations of art with the bare girls, they got ’em all covered up. And Ambrosia wore a light blue gown when she played the Goddess of Liberty, which saddened me. I’d been looking forward to the Goddess of Liberty scene all evening and was feeling a little cheated by all that drapery she was wearing. It annoyed me that Ralston and Jardine had caved in so easily to the county, but they had. I guess they needed to make some money and not have it fined away like last time. It was a dandy show, with ballet, choruses, dancers, and all that stuff, and I couldn’t see how anyone would get upset by it.
But I was wrong. No sooner was it over than Ike Berg and his deputy Luke pounced, grabbing the cashbox and hauling Jardine and Ralston over to the courtroom where Judge Rampart and Lawyer Stokes and a few other people were burning lamp oil waiting. Ralston motioned for Rusty and me to come along. I guess the owner of the opera house wanted some witnesses.
But it went just like before. The warrant was for violating public decency, and the fine was the contents of the box office cashbox for that evening. Ralston and Jardine had to defend themselves since the only lawyer in Doubtful was also the county attorney. So Ralston asked to see the written law, and was denied. Rampart said the law was the public sensibility. Jardine asked what in the show violated public decency, and Lawyer Stokes said the show itself did, through and through, and even the music was a crime against decency. He was sort of smiling. Jardine asked the court to find them innocent, since there was no law and no evidence of violating the nonexistent law, but Judge Rampart threatened to fine him ten dollars for contempt, and then found the two guilty.
That sure was fast. I’d heard of deals like that but I never saw it before. Justice was a sort of greased tube, in one end and out the other in two minutes.
The bailiff, he counted the loot in the cashbox, and pronounced it to be six hundred and twelve dollars and change, and the banker Hubert Sanders, he toted the boodle off to his bank to lock up real good in his black-enameled safe, and the bailiff blew out the lamps, and pretty soon everyone was out of there. So far, the Grand Luxemburg Follies hadn’t been allowed to keep one dime, and a lot of town merchants and the hotel and restaurants hadn’t been paid by the show. It sure seemed like a mess.
Meanwhile, Puma County was over eleven hundred dollars richer, and at that rate it wouldn’t need to charge taxes the way it had to pay for all them useless people in the courthouse.
Me and Rusty, we went with Jardine and Ralston back to the opera house, which was dark now, with all them actresses gone for the night. I was hoping Ambrosia was around so I could ask her to marry me, but no luck.
Once we got back to Ralston’s little office and got a lamp lit, I plumb asked Jardine.
“I’m fixing to marry Ambrosia, and don’t know what to ask her,” I said.
“She won’t do it for less than a million dollars,” Jardine said. “But you can ask her any way you want.”
“All right, I’ll ask her for a million,” I said.
Ralston had other things on his mind. “You going to open tomorrow?” he asked Jardine.
“We can’t run a show on wooden nickels,” Jardine said.
“It doesn’t matter how you drape the show,” Ralston said.
“No, it doesn’t. They’ll find a way to take the box office for every show.”
“You could pull out in the morning.”
“I’ve got a cast to pay; a pile of bills to pay. We can’t even get our animals out of the livery barn without paying.”
“You’ve dealt with this in other towns.”
“In other towns there were actual laws on the books, and the fines were twenty-five or thirty dollars for each infraction. Here they’re inventing laws, the only lawyer in town is acting as county attorney, and the sky’s the limit on the fines.”
“Can we appeal?”
Jardine laughed. “To whom? We’re a road show. We’ll be in the next town in a few days, and then the town after that. It’s all here and now. There’s no tomorrow in my racket.”
“How come you don’t get mad?” I asked.
“Anger’s a wasted emotion. If I showed any anger in that kangaroo court, I’d only end up behind bars and fined all the more. And the anger would keep me from calculating the troubles. This is a difficult town. There’s a lot here I don’t grasp.”
“Mr. Jardine, you know there’s different folks with different notions here,” I said. “There’s some like the banker’s wife and those women who think having a theater in Doubtful’s real bad. There’s others, like most of the storekeepers who think the show’s taking cash out of their pockets. But they’re also seeing a lot of trade since the shows started coming in. Like the saloon men. The whole thing’s a mix. Then there’s the politicians. They’re stuck with Ike Berg. And it’s Ike Berg who’s running this here town now. He’s the one making the arrests, collecting the box office, hauling you fellers off to court, telling the judge how much is in the box each night.”
Jardine sighed. “What are we supposed to do about that?”
“Leave it to Rusty and me, and maybe my old deputies. Maybe we can fix it.”
“How?”
“I don’t think Ike Berg’s in there legal,” I said. “I think he took over, and scared the supervisors into going along with him. I think maybe you’d get to keep your take each night if Berg and that Luke the Butcher didn’t jump your ticket window before people hardly get settled for the show.”
Them fellers were staring at me, and so was Rusty.
“You keep the show going, no matter what,” I said. “Me and Rusty, we’ve got some work to do.”
“What sort of work?”
“I’m going to take my badge back.”
“You think you can? And that they supervisors would go along? Weren’t they getting rid of you?”
“I’ve been doing a little poking around,” I said. “That crime wave that got me in trouble, I know where it came from. I haven’t got real hard evidence yet, but I know. I know who held me up that night, who got into my room and stole my gun, who killed your advance man, and who stole Critter and killed the best friend I ever did have.”
“Who?”
“I ain’t saying yet. You keep your show going. Me and Rusty, we have a job to do, and maybe in a few days we’ll get your money back to you. Maybe not. Ike Berg, they call him Iceberg for good reason. And Luke the Butcher, the one who’s deputy now, he’s even more dangerous than Berg.”
“I’m not quite following you, Pickens,” Jardine said.
“I ain’t quite following myself,” I said. “I’m out in front of my thoughts. My ma always warned me about getting in front of my head.”
Rusty rolled his eyes. Rusty never was very patient with me.
“How would Doubtful look to you if there was another sheriff around here?” I asked. “A real sheriff, who reads the law and doesn’t invent it. A real sheriff who doesn’t scare the judge half witless. A real sheriff who tells Lawyer Stokes to back off?”
“Who’d that be?” Ralston asked.
“That badge belongs right here,” I said, tapping my chest.
“But you were fired.”
“It ain’t so. My badge got took from me by Iceberg. He told the supervisors I’d quit but I hadn’t. Then he scared them into accepting him as sheriff, and he’s been keeping ’em scared ever since. When he wants something, they jump. But I’m still sheriff, far as I can figure, and I aim to get my badge back real quick now, and if I do, you’ll get your money back.”
“That would be an improvement on robbing the bank,” Jardine said.
“That sure is an interesting notion,” I said.
“How do you propose to return our box office to us? It’s the county’s.”
“I’m not real sure yet,” I said. “But I will, soon as I get Iceberg and Luke the Butcher out of here.”
They was staring at me like I was nuts. Maybe I was. But when I get stubborn, somebody bends and it won’t be me. “You run your show tomorrow as you see fit,” I said.
“Two shows. Matinee tomorrow,” Ralston said.
“Two shows then. You run both, even if they make off with your box office take again.”
“Are you trying to help us or enrich your county?” Jardine asked.
“Do what you want,” I said, feeling testy. “Hit the road if that’s what you want. Let that Watch and Ward bunch shut down your theater, and drive you out.”
Ralston smiled suddenly. “I’m going to invite Delphinium Sanders to the matinee. He turned to Jardine. “For the sake of art.”
I didn’t think we solved anything back there, but Ralston turned down the wick, and we slipped into the night. Rusty headed to his shack, but I was restless and headed for the Last Chance, intending to buy a five-cent mug of beer from Sammy Upward.
It was a real nice idea, because there were them showgirls in there, with a lot of fellers crowded around, and everyone having a real cozy time. I got my beer from Sammy and headed over there, because Ambrosia was sitting there, her coppery hair drawing me like a magnet.
“Hey, it’s the stage-door johnnie,” she said.
“That’s me, I said. “I was asking your boss if I could marry you, and he said you’d do it for a million dollars.”
“Make it two,” she said.
“That’s real nice,” I said. “You can bring it with you and we’ll get started as fast as I can line up a preacher.”
“Anytime, anyplace,” she said.
Now there was that invitation again. I swear, I’d never heard a woman issue a greeting like that. “How about now?” I asked.
“Are you sure you want a preacher?” she asked. “I don’t like preachers.”
“Well, there ain’t but one in Doubtful, and he’d be asleep by now,” I said, “but we can start this honeymoon in advance, and fix everything regular in the morning.”
She laughed, and I sat there remembering what she looked like as Lady Godiva, but that was nothing compared to how she looked as the Goddess of Liberty. I’d never thought of Liberty as being red-haired before.
Iceberg and Luke the Butcher wandered in just then, and it got real quiet real fast in the Last Chance Saloon. No wonder Berg was called Iceberg. It was a cold wind blowing through the place, cold and mean and bleak.
Berg, he spoke real soft. “This is a disorderly house,” he said. “I’m shutting it down. And for good. This place is closed. And all of you, I’m taking you in. You’re all inmates of a disorderly house, and you’ll face justice in the morning. Come along now. And you, Upward, bring your till with you. You’re going to be paying a lot of fines.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Sammy snapped.
Luke the Butcher slammed a billy club into Sammy, who yelled and dropped behind the bar.
“Get up,” the deputy said.
Sammy did, real slow, rubbing his head where the club had conked his skull.
I couldn’t remember what the fine was for all that, but I didn’t have it, and I knew I’d be spending the night in the Puma County jail, along with these people, and maybe ten days more if I couldn’t come up with the price of my freedom. But I wasn’t the only one who was real unhappy just then. The only happy ones were Iceberg, who had a glint in his dead eye, and Luke the Butcher, who was looking us over like we were slabs of meat.
C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
Iceberg and Luke the Butcher herded us all into a single cell. It was going to be a lot tighter in there than anyone cared for. And with nothing but a single slop pail for us all, men and women.
“I’d like some water please,” one of the showgirls said.
“Morning,” Iceberg replied and locked the door with a clang. It was dark; a single lamp burned in the distant jail office.
“What’s the fine?” someone asked the man with the badge.
“Two dollars for being an inmate; ten for running a disorderly house.”
“What if we don’t have it?”
“Tough luck,” the lawman said.
“When do we go to court?”
“When I feel like taking you.”
“Where can we get bail?”
“I’m fresh out,” Iceberg said.
“Hey, sheriff,” Sammy Upward said. “I’ll bail everyone out from my till.”
Iceberg smiled. “You donated everything in it to the Puma County Retirement Fund.”
“Then you won’t ever see any of it,” Upward said.
“Will we get out in time for the matinee?” someone asked.
“I hope not,” Iceberg said.
“It’s cold; can we have blankets?”
“You sure didn’t catch cold up on that stage with nothing on.”
I thought that was kind of clever of Iceberg, but I wasn’t going to laugh any.
He slammed the jailhouse door and disappeared. And we started to get ourselves comfortable. It didn’t look like there would be enough space for us to get settled on the bare concrete, but we worked it out, sitting down real tight. I sort of wondered how long that would last. Pretty quick, someone would need to take a leak.
I caught a glint of red hair, and worked my way down to sit beside Ambrosia, who was looking pretty grumpy.
“Would you marry me?” I asked.
“You from Doubtful?”
“Sort of.”
“You bust me out of here in the next ten minutes and get me a thousand miles from Doubtful and I’ll marry you if you’re nice.”
She accepted! I was a happy man, and began dreaming about our honeymoon.
“I’d sure like a lot of babies,” I said.
“I’ve been in enough jails,” she replied.
The odor of all them unwashed men sure took over, and it got pretty rank in there. Pretty soon one of the fellers who’d been sitting at the bar began groping around for the bucket, and cut loose. It didn’t bother no one. The showgirls, they didn’t care. But it bothered me. Iceberg, he should have put the women in one cell and the men in the other. But I’m just a fool when it comes to things like that. It helps to think that others have a little dignity.
Keeping a disorderly house, or being an inmate in a disorderly house, were common infractions in western towns. They were sort of a catch-all that could be applied to anyone or anything. Most often, when the city was broke, it rounded up madams and their girls and fined them using that sort of law. I used it a couple of times on a barkeep in the Sampling Room who allowed his customers to brawl with broken beer bottles. He finally got the message that a mess of tendollar fines was sending to him, and kept better order and there was less blood in the sawdust over there.
“Something’s crawling on my leg,” a girl hissed.
“I hope it’s just a cootie, but it could be a sewer slug,” I said.
She bolted to her feet, and announced she would stand the rest of the night.
It sure was a long night. I tried to woo Ambrosia and tell her I like gals who have red hair all over, but she just snarled at me, so I told her I’d wait until we got bailed out.
She jabbed me with a hatpin or something to shut me up, so I just patted her hand and told her I’d take her to Argentina tomorrow.
Dawn finally filtered through the little window high up, and I thought maybe something would happen, but nothing did. I was sure getting thirsty. People could see each other now, and I never saw such a miserable lot. The girls were not very pretty that morning, and looked pretty broke down, like old nags.
Nothing happened. The sun rose, and the place warmed a little, and the smell got worse because so many people had to use the bucket, but still no one showed up. I was wondering how long this would last until we all got real sick, jammed in like that. That slop bucket was running over now, and it was sure tiresome, that stink that we couldn’t get away from. The stuff was puddling on the floor, getting into our boots and shoes, and it was getting about as bad as a jail cell can get. The women, they weren’t sitting anymore, and none of us could sit on that floor now, and I wondered how long it’d be before one keeled over.
A commotion out in the sheriff’s office caught our attention, and I heard Ralston and Jardine in there, and hoped they would bail us out. I caught enough of the talk to know they were trying to free us, but finally it quieted out there, and we were still rotting behind bars, so thick in there we were like a pile of dead rats.
Finally, in the middle of the day, Iceberg opened up the jail door and came back to the cell and looked us over.
“I’ll be taking you to county court now,” he said. “So clean up. Judge Rampart will convene court at two, and you will be fined then.”
“Two? We’ll miss the matinee,” Ambrosia said.
Iceberg smiled slightly.
It seemed like another half hour slipped by and then Iceberg and Luke the Butcher showed up.
“You didn’t clean up,” Iceberg said. “Judge Rampart won’t like that.”
We’d all gotten smart enough to keep our traps shut.
But Luke the Butcher unlocked our cell door and motioned for us to follow him, while Iceberg stood at the cell door, watching us crowd out and into fresher air. I just wanted air, clean air, sweet air, and soon I’d have it.
I was going to be the last out, and was standing behind the others as they crowded past Iceberg, so I plucked up that overflowing slop bucket, and when Iceberg saw it, it was too late. I splashed the whole thing right in his face. It splattered him, blinded him, and oozed down his white shirt and black suit coat, and while he was trying to wipe that crap out of his eyes and nose and mouth I got a hand on his sidearm and yanked it and clobbered him on the skull, and he sank senseless to the ground. I shoved ahead and clobbered Luke the Butcher. He didn’t go down, being built like a bull, but he was dazed long enough for me to shove him back toward that stinking cell, and I pushed him in, and I dragged Iceberg in, and got their keys away from them, and locked them the hell in there.
The stink was so bad I didn’t hang around, but got out of the jail and locked the jailhouse door. But the stink followed me into the sheriff’s office, and I wondered where I could go to wash it off of me, and doubted that I could.
Outside, I saw the people who’d been in there with me vanish this way and that. We were out, but the trouble was only beginning. I returned to the sheriff office and found my own gunbelt, the one that got stole from me at Belle’s, hanging there, so I took it back. There was one more thing I wanted, and that was my badge, so I went back to the jail cell, where Iceberg was sitting, trying to wipe the crap away.
“Toss me the badge,” I said.
He froze.
“Toss it to me or I’ll kill you.”
He studied me a while, and then he unpinned it and pitched it through the bars. He had sense enough not to say anything, because if he’d said anything I’d probably have killed him for saying it. He stared at me with those dead eyes, eyes without life back behind them, and I knew it wasn’t over. The Butcher was just sitting there holding his head.
I had the badge. After a bath and a change of clothing I might put it on.
Me, I wanted to clean up. I hiked through the middle of the day, got to Belle’s, scrubbed my flesh raw, and got into some fresh clothing, leaving the rest to stink until I could get to it. Then I headed for the county courthouse and hunted down a supervisor, finding Reggie Thimble in there soaking his tonsils from a flask.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, from hooded eyes.
“Here is what I’m doing,” I said. I pulled my sheriff star from my pocket and pinned it on, and he stared at it, and me.
“I never quit. Iceberg told you I did, but that was a lie. You may have been fixing to fire me, with some help from Berg, and I told you I wanted thirty days. And until that time’s used up, I’m still sheriff. And if you want to know where Berg is, you’ll find him stinking up a jail cell with his favorite hooligan, Luke the Butcher. If you want me out, you can call a regular meeting of supervisors and do it and tell me proper, in person, and give me notice in writing. Until then, I’ll enforce any law on the books, and protect anyone from being harassed by made-up laws. You give me a law to enforce, and I’ll do it. And that’s what separates me from Berg.”
“That’s quaint,” said Thimble. “Imagine that.”
I had a feeling he was smirking behind his moustache.
“And what are Berg and the Butcher in for?”
“See this gun belt? It’s mine. It’s what went missing in the crime wave that got your knickers in a twist. It was hanging right there, property of Berg and the Butcher. So maybe I’ll just go back there and make some charges.”
“That would be entertaining,” Thimble said. “Never a dull moment around here.”
He was drunk, so I let him stew in his juices. He’d heard from me. I’d told him what needed saying.
I debated what to do with Berg and the Butcher, and decided to deal proper with them, so I went back there, found them stinking and glaring, cleaned the pisspot and handed it to them, and brought them clean drinking water, and dug around for clean stuff for them to wear, all the while saying nothing. I also got them some soap and a bucket of scrub water, and slid it into that stinking cell. It wouldn’t do any good. Some people, they just stink from inside, and even after they’re cleaned up outside, they still stink.
Berg, he just eyed me with those dead eyes.
“When you get cleaned up, I’ll decide what to do with you,” I said.
Berg actually smiled.
I headed out of there, and entered some items in my arrest log, which hadn’t been tended during Berg’s brief stay in my office. I charged them with the theft of my gunbelt, stolen property found in their possession. Maybe I’d come up with a few more items real quick. I thought that impersonating a peace officer was a crime, but I’d have to get Rusty to look it up. My ma, she always said crooked men walked crooked ways, and Iceberg couldn’t walk a straight line if he tried.
I headed back there, let the Butcher out first, frisked and cuffed him, and then did the same for Berg, and walked them across the square to the courthouse. Judge Rampart was in there, and sure looked like he’d seen the Second Coming of Beelzebub when I herded my prisoners in.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“I’m booking them for theft, your eminence.”
“You’re not the sheriff.”
“I’m the sheriff.”
“Would you mind explaining?” Scowl lines corrugated his brow.
I told him real plain, and I couldn’t tell whether he favored liars pretending to be lawmen or a real lawman trying to send liars up the river. Alvin Rampart was part of the bunch who wanted Iceberg around, and me out, but now I was wearing the star, and I had the sidearm, and I had two prisoners.
He sat there awhile, chewing on his Bull Durham–stained lip, his sandy muttonchops wiggling around his hairy ears. I got the impression he itched to have a little conference with the county supervisors and half the businessmen in Doubtful before he proceeded.
Iceberg, he just stood there with his dead eyes, while Luke the Butcher sort of sneered at us all.
But sorting it out would take time, and just now Judge Rampart had two men before him who’d never been sworn as Puma County lawmen, and who’d gotten my badge by fraud. And he liked them two frauds more than he cared about me or the law.
“I will need to consult with the county attorney and supervisors,” he said. “I’m releasing you two on your own recognizance. Don’t leave Puma County. Report to me daily.” He turned to me. “Release these gents.”
“They ain’t gents,” I said, but I pulled off the cuffs.