C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE
Two fellers who were nothing but trouble were loose, and there wasn’t anything I could do about that. I had other stuff to take care of, and lining up my deputies was top of the list. I needed some backup, and right away.
I simply locked up the sheriff’s office to keep Iceberg and the Butcher out, and went hunting for my old deputies, Burtell and De Graff. I wasn’t at all sure I wanted them or they wanted to work with me. My instinct was that they would blow with the wind. If they thought Berg would be sheriff, they’d try to hire on; if they thought I might be, they’d look for a badge from me. They wasn’t what I’d call loyal. I wanted men who’d walk with me, just as I’d walk with them, through any kind of trouble. I needed to know.
I thought I might find them in the Sampling Room, and sure enough they were in there sucking beer and playing darts. They looked pretty rough, like they hadn’t scraped off their facehair or wiped their butts for a few days. Burtell’s red darts were closer to center than De Graff’s blue ones.
They quit tossing darts, eyed me, studied my badge, and nodded uneasily.
“I’ve kicked Berg out. You want to come in?”
“Where’s Berg?”
“Him and Luke the Butcher are roaming free because Rampart cut them loose from some charges.”
“Rusty in?”
“He will be.”
“The supervisors, they took you back?”
“They never got rid of me but they was working at it.”
“How’s that?” Burtell asked.
I told them the whole thing.
The two eyed each other, and I could pretty well see all them cogs spinning in their heads.
“We’ll think about it,” De Graff said, looking like he wanted to get back to tossing darts at a cork target.
They looked real nervous, like they was hiding something.
“Do that,” I said.
I made up my mind I didn’t want them. Rusty and me, we’d hold the fort until I could lasso some good men. I headed for Rusty’s log cabin and found him sewing up a torn shirt. It didn’t take long for me to tell him how things stood.
“I’ll come in shortly,” he said. “Glad to have a job.”
“Maybe you don’t,” I warned, and he laughed.
Rusty was as loyal as anyone ever could be. I was glad. Now I had someone to man that office or help me. Rusty was as good a peace officer as anyone, and had a real skill at buffaloing dangerous men almost before they knew what bounced off their skulls.
I still was outmanned, and Doubtful didn’t have much law, but it was a start.
I stopped at the opera house on my way back just to thank Ralston for trying to bail me out. Much to my surprise, the matinee was starting up. I could hear that orchestra crank out a tune. Ralston himself was in the box office.
“How come? I thought you’d cancel,” I said.
Ralston laughed. “The show goes on, even with half the cast. We’ve got a full house again.”
“All them gals, they’re in the show?”
“They’re troupers, Pickens. They’re washed up and getting dressed.”
“But they was half sick and awake all night and scared, so how can they do a show?”
“Troupers, every one. And thanks for springing them. I heard the whole story. A slop pail tossed into Iceberg.”
“You get to keep your box office take, Ralston, but I’d sure hide it.”
He turned solemn. “It’s a good thing, and don’t think we’re unaware of how it happened. You’ve got friends here. The girls, for instance. They sure love you.”
“Yeah, I’d like to marry that Ambrosia, but she isn’t interested.”
“You could pop in and see her. We’re going undraped for the matinee.”
“Ouch! Now you’ve got me, Ralston. I’d give a week’s salary to go in there and watch her do the Goddess of Liberty. But I’ve got a thousand troubles to deal with, and fast. The judge cut Iceberg and the Butcher loose.”
“I’ll send her your fond best wishes.” He sure was looking amused, but I didn’t care.
“Your show’s safe as long as I’m sheriff, which may be not long if the county supervisors yank my badge.”
“Matinee and another tonight. That’s twelve hundred clear if we pack the house,” Ralston said.
I guess that’s how theater people thought.
“The girls in this show, they got a hard life,” I said. “They’re never far from trouble and hardly get a good night in a clean bed for weeks on end. I don’t know why they do it.”
Ralson stared. “Most of them come from a life that was worse. Being on the road, with all its trouble, is paradise for some compared to the places they escaped from, the mean fathers, the cruel brothers, the men who treat them like dirt. They’re tough, and they’re loyal, and de Jardine treats them well, actually. He’s turned the girls into a big business.”
“Them women are runaways?”
“Some, and from worse trouble and pain than you or I can imagine.”
“Well, I’d like to run away with Ambrosia,” I said. “But I’d want her to quit taking her undies off in front of people.”
I wanted to watch Ambrosia real bad, and the rest of those leggy girls, but wearing a star changed everything again, so I headed back to the sheriff’s office. Rusty was there, working a mop on all that slop on the jail floor, the windows wide open. Not that fresh air helped any. That whole place stank, and I couldn’t tell what was smelling the worst, that slop pail of crap, or the air Iceberg and the Butcher stunk up in my office.
I was half expecting Ziggy Camp or some other supervisor to come in clutching a letter firing me, but no one showed up—yet. So I was still the law in Puma County. I wondered how long that would last.
“I’m going to find out where them two are hiding,” I said. “I want to see what else Luke the Butcher might have of mine.”
“You think he was the crime wave?”
“I think he was it. And if I can get into his cubbyhole, I’ll probably find a thing or two.”
Dusty quit mopping up that awful slop. “Listen, Cotton, that one’s not just dangerous and powerful, he’s tricky too. He’s a knife man.”
“If he killed Critter, he won’t be any of those things for long.”
I headed for Turk’s, thinking Luke the Butcher was in there, but Turk said the man had got his bedroll out of the hayloft and gone away. After that I tried the Wyoming Hotel, and two flophouses back behind the saloons, and checked three cathouses for good measure. I found the county supervisor, Reggie Thimble, in Aunt Alice’s Parlor House, and Al Smythe, the postmaster, in Sing Long Sally’s House of Joy smoking a hookah, but I didn’t see Iceberg and his pal puffing dope or getting cozy with tarts. But I didn’t expect to. Iceberg was no more interested in women than in mynah birds. And the Butcher, all he wanted was to ruin anything alive. Wherever Iceberg and the Butcher were, it wasn’t anywhere in Doubtful where you paid for a room. I wondered if maybe the two had just quit town since they was out of a job. I decided to wait and see. My ma always said, quit poking if you don’t know where the skunk’s hiding, so I decided just to keep my eyes open. If them two were hiding around town, I’d know it soon enough.
The matinee got out and all them rannies off the ranches were pouring into the saloons for some liquid refreshment. I’d be parched, too, from panting my way through that Grand Luxemburg Follies. I thought it’d be a quiet evening in the saloons. Them cowboys were too busy thinking about women to get into a fight. They’d get drunk and ride out, wondering why the hell they were cowboys on ranches where there wasn’t a female in sight.
I had to knock to get Rusty to let me in, and even then he had his six-gun drawn. He locked the door behind me. I saw in a glance he’d got the office polished up, and the jail, too, and had opened the windows to let the stink outside.
“No sign of Iceberg and the Butcher,” I said. “But they’re around.”
“You line up any help?”
“Just you, Rusty.”
“You know something? I knew it’d work out like that.” He was giving me that red-haired cockeyed grin again.
“I haven’t got a night shift, but we got no one locked up. After the town quiets down, you go on home. We’ll have to work days and evenings for now.”
“Hell, I’d sleep in a cell and make myself comfortable.”
“Your smeller’s weaker than mine.
“I’m going to prowl tonight. I want to find out where the Butcher’s bunking. If I can find anything he lifted from my room at Belle’s, I’ve got him.”
“Iceberg’s the one to worry about,” Rusty said. “He doesn’t steal anything.”
I headed out into a June eve just in time to discover a ruckus at the Ralston Opera House. Them women from the Watch and Ward Society were at it again, and Delphinium Sanders was leading the charge. They’d been real quiet for a couple of nights, when Iceberg was wearing the star, but now they were waving posters and signs and marching like angry hornets. Some cowboys were coming up to the box office to buy some tickets, and the women started shouting.
“Shame on you. What would your mother think?” yelled Mrs. Stanford.
“I think my ma’d say enjoy the sights,” the ranny said.
“Don’t you dare walk into that theater and defile womanhood,” said another old gal.
“Hey, I’ve got the nicest little heifers on the ranch, just like these gals.”
“Got some prime bulls, too,” said another ranny.
It was getting toward curtain time, and bunches of cowboys showed up suddenly, and they were pretty well liquored up. In fact they was likely the same fellers that saw the matinee, and they’d come back for second servings. That’s what pretty girls do for fellers. They’d headed for the nearest bars, soaked up some red-eye, and here they were, real smiley.
They lined up to buy tickets, eyeing the ladies with their posters, and looking pretty cheerful. But them women were yelling now, and waving posters at the ticket-buyers. And then Delphinium cried to her squad of old babes, and they set down their signs and formed a line across the doors, and held hands real tight and wouldn’t let no one walk into the theater.
“Ladies, you can’t do that. You’ve got to let them in,” I said.
“The wages of sin,” one hollered.
“Never, never, never,” yelled another.
Delphinium, she addressed me. “Our hands are locked together in purity. We will let no one enter here. Do violence to us if you must, but we’ll hold on as long as we can, until brute force carries us away.”
The women cheered. All them boozy cowboys, they sort of stared awkwardly.
“You mind if I get around here?” one asked Delphinium.
“Over our dead bodies,” she cried.
This here was getting serious. A big bunch of cowboys was waiting to get inside, and these Watch and Ward women were blocking the path. I didn’t like it.
“Ladies, you’re trespassing, disturbing the peace. I’d hate to have to take you in,” I said.
“Just try it,” Delphinium said. “You brute.”
Ralston waved me over to his box office.
“You’ll get rid of ’em?”
“Well, it’s like this. Them ladies, they’re the banker’s wife, the wives of the merchants, the wives of the trade people, the ones who run this here county. I could haul ’em in and book ’em and lock ’em up. By tomorrow morning, Iceberg would be sheriff. And you could kiss your opera house good-bye. I’ll nab ’em if you want. They’re trespassing. Up to you.”
Ralston sighed. “Take the customers around to the stage door on the alley, but a few at a time so these ladies don’t get their knickers in a twist.”
“Count on me. I’ll get all them rannies seated fast.”
I went to some of those cowboys. “Head for the stage door in small bunches, and don’t be obvious. Pass the word.”
“You the sheriff or something? Why not just nab these dames?”
“Believe me, that’s not a bad idea,” I said. “But you just slide around there in the dark, and they’ll take your tickets back there.”
The cowboy, he just shook his head like I was some sort of lamebrained idiot, and maybe I was. But there was a mess of stuff at stake here. If I arrested those old gals, pretty quick the opera house would shut down, and then Doubtful would shut down, and I’d sure be looking for work.
I drifted back to the stage door on the alley, arriving ahead of the rannies. It sure was quiet.
I felt steel jammed into my gut.
“They’re not going in,” Iceberg said. “And those debased women aren’t coming out.”
I have learned not to argue with a revolver muzzle pressed into my belly.
“You’re a bad joke,” Iceberg said. “Tell the cowboys to go home; no show tonight. Tell them loud and clear, or you’ll be a dead joke as well as a bad joke.”
So I did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
All them cowboys were lining up at the box office to get their money back, and them old biddies was still barring the front doors, arm in arm, looking pretty smug. Inside, the orchestra was cranking up even if there was hardly anyone in there to watch the Grand Luxemburg Follies.
Ralston, he was sure unhappy in his box office as he began to dole out all them coins and greenbacks. But then he yelled at me to come over there.
“I’ve changed my mind. I’m making a complaint. They’re on my property. I asked them to leave. They refuse.”
“You want me to clear ’em out?”
“I have nothing to lose,” he said.
He turned to the cowboys at the head of the line. “You’ll be going in as fast as the sheriff clears the way.”
The orchestra was playing “My Old Kentucky Home” in there, and all them customers were sure itchy to get in.
I went straight to Delphinium Sanders, who stared down her nose at me like I was a caterpillar.
“Sorry ma’am, I’m taking you in. Mr. Ralston, he’s filed a complaint with me. You’re trespassing.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“I know who all of you are.”
“We won’t budge. We’re here to stay.”
“If you don’t come peaceable, ma’am, I’ll add some charges of my own. Disturbing the peace. Resisting arrest. The trespassing, that’s a civil offense. You want to make it criminal?”
“Over my dead body.”
“We won’t budge,” said one of them ladies.
“You come peaceable, or face what I’ll have to do.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“I’ll have Turk send a wagon and you’ll get yourselves hauled.”
This sure was entertaining that crowd of cowboys, who thought it was better than the show starting up in there.
“We’ll help load ’em up,” said one cowboy.
Delphinium glared at him with a look intended to wilt spinach, but he just smiled back and looked real eager.
She turned to me. “You’ll pay. You’ll pay the rest of your life. Very well, we will go. Take us to our fate. We will go with dignity, and as martyrs to our cause, the cause of purity and womanhood.”
But she quit blocking the doors, and all them biddies, in their long skirts and bound up hair, and puffed sleeves, they huffed along toward my office. Behind me I saw that mob of theater patrons pouring into the opera house at last. It sure was strange, me herding them old gals along like they was a bunch of milch cows. All I needed was a good herding dog, like an Australian ridgeback. They kept turning to wither me with their glares, but I didn’t wither up, and just kept prodding them to the sheriff office and the jail. The old bats, they was a mean bunch, but I was meaner. I wouldn’t trade any of them for my ma.
“You realize, young man, that your hours as sheriff are numbered,” Delphinium said. “I will see to it.”
“I do what I have to do, ma’am. I received a complaint; I acted on it. It don’t matter to me who’s what. The law covers everyone, and that includes you same as some vagrant wandering through here.”
“That’s why Mr. Berg will replace you,” she said.
“You just head up them steps and into there, and me and Rusty will book you.”
“Our husbands will have words with you,” one gal said.
“Oh, I’m sure they will,” I said.
But the ladies swept into the office like they owned it. I guess they thought they did own it. Rusty, he was so rattled by all this femaleness coming into his male precinct that he just gaped.
“Take their names and then take them back to the jail,” I said.
“The jail! The jail?” Delphinium Sanders was ready to explode.
“That’s what we do, ma’am. We put people in jail.”
It sure was entertaining, watching them turn pale. One looked ready to swoon.
“You can sit there on that bench, ma’am.”
“I demand to see Judge Rampart at once,” Delphinium said.
“He’ll set bail in the morning,” I said, enjoying myself even if I thought I was committing myself to hell.
“I refuse to spend a night in that loathsome place.”
“You had your chance not to, ma’am. I told you to disperse and you didn’t. I told you to let people through, but you didn’t.”
“I will be a martyr for a noble cause,” she said.
I got their names in the logbook, along with the charges, one by one, except for one woman who wouldn’t say who she was. But I knew anyway. She was Mrs. Ruble, wife of the bank teller Gannymede Ruble, so I just put that down, while Rusty, rolling his eyes and whistling, and making odd noises, escorted them biddies back to the cells. I have to give them credit, though. They held their chins high, and none of them got the vapors or busted into tears or any of that stuff. They were tough, and I sort of admired that. I like tough babes.
I put them into both cells so the gals would be able to sit on the bunks rather than the cement floor, and I could see them staring at them two pails that Rusty had cleaned out, and a couple of them just closed their eyes real tight, not wanting to see what comforts the Puma County lockup provided for its special guests.
I left a lamp lit and waited. It wouldn’t be long before there’d be hammering on the office door, and a mess of the town’s foremost and outstanding citizens would swarm in, probably armed with buggy whips and artillery.
Sure enough, it took about half an hour before the gents arrived, wild-eyed and ornery from what I could see out the window.
Hubert Sanders was leading the assault.
“Open up immediately,” he bawled.
“You got business here?”
“I’ve come to fetch my wife.”
“She’s in for the night, trespassing. Lucky for her I quit right there because I could have added a few more.”
“She’s going to leave there right now or your head will roll.”
“It rolls already. My ma says I need a stiffer neck.”
I heard them slamming themselves against the door, a human battering ram. From inside the jail I heard tweets and twitters.
“Save us,” one gal moaned.
“You out there. You force the door to the sheriff office and you’ll walk into buckshot.”
That didn’t slow them down none, and I was starting to get itchy. They were hammering and thumping on that door, and the old door rattled on its hinges and threatened to cave in.
This sure was getting entertaining.
Rusty, he was looking a little pale at the gills, but you could never wipe a smile off Rusty’s mug. He wasn’t born red-haired for nothing.
The thumping on the office door kept on for a bit, and then things quieted down out there and I wondered what was what. It didn’t take long for me to find out.
“Pickens, this is Judge Rampart. Open this door.”
“Not if there’s going to be a stampede.”
“I said open it.”
I got to thinking about it a little. “You can come in if you come alone and the rest of them rioters clear out.”
“I said open up.”
“You move them rioters back, and I’ll open up. You’re the only one coming in. Agreed?”
“I don’t agree to anything. Release those women. That’s a court order.”
“You come on in alone, and we’ll see about it.”
There was a lot of muttering out there, and some snarls and some shouts, but then Rampart addressed me. “I’ll come in alone. The rest are off the steps and under orders not to rush.”
I nodded to Rusty, who could just see some of the mob from the barred window.
“They’ve backed up some.”
“All right, Judge, you’ll be walking into the bore of a scatter-gun, and if there’s a rush on this door, you’ll get hurt.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I’m keeping order and keeping the law.”
There was a long pause, and then he agreed. “You have my word. I’m ready.”
I unbarred the door, my scatter-gun ready, and let the man in. He was sure steaming. I closed and barred the door behind him.
The ladies, they all cheered and twittered back there.
Rampart glared, took stock, and faced me square. “I am directing you to release them.”
“Soon as they’ve posted bail,” I said. “They’ve been charged proper, according to the law, and they can post bail and I’ll unlock.”
“Now,” he snarled.
“If it wasn’t your friends, would you be yelling at me? You got a law for your friends and their ladies, and another law for the rest of the world?”
“Now,” he snapped.
“Tell you what,” I said. “I swore to uphold the law without favor. I’m doing it. You set bail for these persons, and I’ll collect it or your clerk can, and then I’ll let them loose.”
“Stop pointing that shotgun at me.”
“You stop threatening to break the law, and I will.”
He looked like he was about to get seized up inside, so I lowered the bore a little. That seemed to do it all right.
“I am declaring court in session. I am setting bail at five dollars,” he said.
“You tell that to them outside, and collect it. I’ll give it to your clerk in the morning. Here’s the log.”
He studied the arrest log. “You certainly know how to get your tail in a crack, don’t you, Pickens?”
“I’ll put it in a worse crack if I charge them with disturbing the peace, but I will straight off if this ain’t done proper.”
Rampart fixed me in his cold eyes and didn’t blink. Me, I blink any old time.
He walked to the door and waited for me to unbar it, and stepped out. I closed it and heard some angry talk out there, like that mob wanted to string me up from the nearest eave. But for the moment it was peaceful. Not even the biddies was making any noise. Rusty, he just stood there with a cockeyed grin pasted on his face.
“What are you smiling at?” I asked.
“Thinking about where you’ll be tomorrow,” he said.
A knock on the door. “It’s Rampart,” a voice said.
“You got them people backed off and not coming in?”
“I do.”
I let him in, while Rusty covered that door with the scatter-gun, and I locked it behind the judge. There were some greenbacks in his hand.
“Bail,” he said. “Thirty-five.”
“I’ll give you a receipt,” I said. I wrote numbers real good, and gave him his receipt.
“Release them,” he said.
“You tell them when they’re going to appear in court,” I said.
He looked ready to uncork again, but he nodded.
I went and unlocked the cells. Them seven gals didn’t put on airs this time. They didn’t even stare me down. They just flooded out fast as they could and into my office.
“Oh, thank you, Judge,” Delphinium said. “You’re a saint.”
“I’ll expect all of you in court at nine tomorrow. You are charged with trespassing.”
A fleeting rage floated across her face, but she swallowed it.
She approached me and spat. I sure wasn’t expecting it. That gob, it landed on my star and oozed down and dripped to the floor. Then she stalked away.
“I’m glad you don’t chew, ma’am,” I said. “Never liked brown spit.”
I let them ladies out the door and into the night. Their men were out there, bellowing like bulls.
The judge lingered so I closed the door again.
“I thought Ike Berg was the new sheriff,” he said.
“He fooled me out of my badge, so I took it back.”
“You mind explaining?”
I didn’t mind one bit. “The supervisors was thinking of firing me, saying there was a crime wave around here. Berg showed up and was angling for the job. One day he told me the supervisors had made him sheriff and I should turn over the badge. So I did. Then he went and told them supervisors I’d resigned, and he’d take over. So he fooled them and fooled me. Meanwhile, I found out who was bedeviling me, robbing my room, killing my horse, sticking me up. It was Berg’s new deputy, Luke the Butcher. He killed my horse but I’m having a bad time proving it. I had a chance to toss Berg out and I done it, and took back my badge. And I’m keeping it until I get a written thirty-day notice. And I’m pressing charges against both, as you know.”
The judge just stood there in the lamplight, absorbing all that.
“I’m not going to support you,” he said. “We need a new sheriff and you’re not it. This town’s a cesspool. But I’ll see what I can do to keep Berg out of this office. I’ve got some difficulties ahead of me on that score. Like Delphinium Sanders, a mad moose if ever there was one. I don’t know what’ll happen to the republic if women get the suffrage.”