C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN
The weather was agreeable the next morning, so I headed for Turk's Livery Barn. It would be good to escape dolorous Doubtful. Critter was in an ornery mood, having been stuck in jail for much too long.
“You want to go for a long walk?” I asked.
Critter kicked the stall wall and then the stall gate for good measure.
“If you don't let me in, we're not going anywhere.”
Critter sawed his head up and down and clacked his teeth.
“I'm coming in. If you kick me, you're dog food.”
I opened the stall door cautiously. A hoof hit it so hard the shoe left an imprint.
“Things are about normal,” I said, sliding along the horse with a bridle in hand. “Now hold still.”
Critter leaned into me, jamming me against the stall wall, crushing the air out of me.
“Stop it,” I said, and kneed Critter in the belly. The horse went
whoof
and settled down. I slid the bridle in and looped it over Critter's ears. That pleased Critter, and he dropped some apples. After a bit I eased the horse out, brushed his back, loaded on a blanket and saddle, kneed the air out of the horse and tightened the girth, and then added a travel kit behind the cantle. Some bad-weather gear, a shelter half, a hatchet, and a few fire-starting items.
“You gonna be gone long?” Turk asked.
“Back late tonight or early tomorrow. Going to the Crossing.”
“That's the new county seat,” Turk said. “That's what I hear.”
I boarded and let Critter hump and thump a while. Actually, Critter enjoyed the show and waited eagerly for it with every trip. I yawned. Then I steered Critter smartly away, and soon I was headed for the Crossing, some thirty miles distant. It would be a fine trip if the weather didn't turn.
There was enough frost in the trail to keep it hard, so Critter was having a fine old time of it, lurching along like he wasn't barn sour. But I knew better. Inside that cunning equine brain was a ferment of plotting, and with the slightest carelessness, I would find myself out in the middle of nowhere, on foot, while Critter waltzed back to Turk's, laughing all the way. So I kept a tight rein and was extra careful when he stopped to wet some sagebrush along the way.
It sure was a dandy day to ride, and the frost-hard trail made it easy. Around noon I spotted a group of riders angling in from the Admiral Ranch, so I pulled up and waited. Sure enough, there were six cowboys rippling with good cheer.
“Howdy, fellers, going my way?”
“Howdy, Sheriff. We're off to the Crossing for a little sizzle.” That was Spitting Sam talking.
“What's at the Crossing?”
“Why, bottled goods, Sheriff. Lots of bottled goods.”
“Well, that's where I'm heading, too. Mind if I join you?”
“Come right along,” said Sam. “Join the party.”
“How long's the Crossing been serving?”
“Ever since they shut down Doubtful,” Sam said. “They got the Crossing up and running in a week or so, and had it all worked out. It sure is just fine.”
It amazed me that the bunch should be so open about it. Booze, after all, was outlawed from one border of Puma County to all the other borders. But that didn't bother this crowd. Some had even donned a new bandana, just to get all gussied up for a little saucing.
“Is Yumping Yimminy still running the place?”
“Him and Jimminy Yimminy.”
“That's his wife?”
“Well, I wouldn't go that far. But she's keeping us happy.”
“What kind of place they got?”
“Same as ever, Sheriff, but more of it.”
“What do they charge to take a wagon across?”
“Fifty cents, last I knew.”
“On the flatboat?”
“Yep, but they got a bigger flatboat for the saloon.”
“What do they charge for drinks?”
“Well, that's a sore point. They want two bits. Now, in Doubtful, it was a dime or one bit. But I guess they got transport problems out there. So we just pay up.”
“Lots of ranch hands go out there?”
“More and more, Sheriff. But it's pretty far from them as ranch on the other side of Doubtful. For us, it's about the same, Doubtful or the Crossing, dozen or fifteen miles.”
“Your bosses, they still buy supplies in Doubtful?”
“Some, yes, but Jimminy, she's loading in a lot of stuff and hardly can keep it on a shelf. It sure beats going to Doubtful. Pretty soon now, she'll have a whole mercantile going, and then no one'll go to Doubtful except to get married, which means no one from any ranch.”
“Aw, you can still have a fine time in Doubtful, Sam. There's the ice cream parlor and the horseshoe tournament.”
Spitting Sam cackled. “Sheriff, they always said you was a little thick betwixt the ears.”
“Well, cowboys ain't interested in women, Sam.”
“Sometimes they are.”
“No, if they wanted women, they'd not live in bunkhouses on ranches. Truth is, there's hardly a cowboy in Wyoming that cares a thimble about women. And don't tell me otherwise.”
“Then what about Doubtful's sporting district?”
“That's for temporaries, not real wifey women. Your Admiral Ranch bunch, they go to the sporting houses much?”
“They got more important things to do in Doubtful,” Sam said.
They were traveling in a jog, a gait that covered ground but didn't tire the horses. The trail led through long foothills, around the lip of gulches, into cottonwood parks, and up rocky grades, while off on the horizon loomed the Medicine Bow Mountains, chocked with snow, bold against a glowing blue heaven. Wyoming was a pretty good place, even Puma County, and I always got recharged when I got out into the country.
But it sure was a barren land. From some perspectives, one could gaze in any direction and not see a tree. And not see much sagebrush, either. We ate up the miles through the day, and when the winter sun began to sink, we spotted the Crossing down a long grade leading into the Platte Valley, and the ranch hands turned real smiley.
By then, I was wondering about something. Why was Spitting Sam and that crowd so open about this bootleg saloon operating in dry Puma County? Why did they talk freely to the sheriff? Why weren't they tight-lipped, and trying to divert the sheriff? So now that the place was in sight, a mile away, I asked Sam.
“You sure have been gabby about an illegal saloon, Sam. You fixing to tie me up and toss me into the river?”
Sam, he just laughed. “See for yourself, Sheriff.”
So we kept heading down that grade, out of the plains, with the big, wide river sparkling in the sun. One could see where the road on the other side snaked southward, but it would take a ferry ride to get a man and horse or wagon over to that trail. It sure was a distant corner of Puma County, and as far from the law as anyone could get. So I was wary. There might be big trouble boiling up fast, and I had to be ready.
But no one was paying any attention to that. The Admiral cowboys, they put spur to flank and broke their ponies into a trot, and then a lope, with a few wild yells to celebrate their arrival on the banks of the North Platte.
I took my time, even if Critter wanted to join the fun and go walloping in like all the other nags he'd befriended that long trip. But I thought that a little close observation might be the best thing, so I just jogged along, falling a half mile back as the rest whooped their way in.
Some of the place was as I remembered it. The big house, built of twisty cottonwood logs, was the same. That's where the ferry-keeper Yumping Yimminy and his wife lived. There were a couple of cabins for travelers that wanted shelter, and these were unchanged. There was a corral and a haystack and an open-sided shelter mostly used by the once-a-week stage line from Laramie. But there was now a long log structure with smoke issuing from a chimney, and it reminded me of the bunkhouses I'd seen on a dozen ranches. I saw no sign of a saloon anywhere, at least not in the old log house or the outbuildings. But the ferry was sure different. It was twice as big as the old one, a flatboat that had a regular cabin on top, tethered to the bank. This new ferry was a busy place, with smoke issuing from a stovepipe in the cabin and cow hands coming and going, up a gangplank from the riverbank to the cabin.
There was a hitch rail along there, and the Admiral horses were tied to it, some of them steaming from the run down the long grade. I tied Critter well apart, knowing that my nag would bite pieces of flesh out of any other nag he could get his teeth into. Critter was my burden, my cross to bear, but I bore it manfully. I didn't want any other nag.
I dismounted and was immediately greeted by Yumping Yimminy. “Hey, yah, it's de sheriff! Welcome to de Crossing, Pickens. Come on in and wet your whistle.”
So that was it. This was a floating saloon, at the edge of the county, if the county's boundary stopped at the edge and not the middle of the river. I didn't know for sure, so I wasn't going to be hauling the owners back to Doubtful any time soon. I'd ask Lawyer Stokes about it before I did anything rash.
Then I figured out the rest. This floating saloon was simply a river barge tethered to the shore. It wasn't used to ferry wagons or stock or men; the old ferry did that. This was a thirst parlor on a scow. It had been thrown together of raw planking, a hasty, crude saloon cut from green lumber, as raw as the redeye it served.
I found a compact tavern inside, with a rough plank bar, some tables, and a barkeep pouring drinks. Stumps served as seats. A black sheet-iron stove warmed the place and threatened to burn it down. The place was well patronized, with maybe twenty ranch hands swilling hooch, playing poker, or just rocking along with the river flowing under their feet. A man could drink and then retire to the cottonwood bunkhouse. All in all, a fine resort for the surrounding ranches on both sides of the county line. And making money, too.
I checked faces against my memory of Wanted posters and then decided that most of those pres-ent were not running from the law. Only one or two wore sidearms.
“Sheriff?” said the barkeep, a man who had worked at the Lizard Lounge in Doubtful only a few weeks earlier.
“A sarsaparilla,” I said.
The keep slowly shook his head. “We don't have one. We don't plan on getting none. It's not ever going to happen here. This is the Crossing. Drink or go home.”
“That's a pretty good motto:
âDrink or go home.'
You could frame it and put it behind the bar.”
“Comic, are you?” The barkeep poured something amber from a bottle and set it before me. “Two bits,” the man said.
I sipped a little, letting the fiery stuff clean out my throat. But I was mostly interested in who was there, who wasn't, and what the place felt like. The truth of it was that the Crossing was thirty miles from any law. Even farther if one looked for law in the adjoining counties. It was a hangout for whoever wanted to steer wide of authorities. I didn't like the place. There was something sinister about it, something I couldn't dismiss. I sipped the redeye a little more, set the half-emptied glass on the planks, and slid out into late afternoon light. I wanted some daylight to look the place over. I didn't know what I was looking for, only that I wanted to case the place, stroll the grounds, poke into the cottonwood-laced river bottoms there, see what there was to see. So I wandered up and down the riverbank, watching snowmelt tumble down the North Platte on its way to the Missouri River. I studied the old ferry, tethered and ready to pole across the river. I wandered into the new bunkhouse and saw the crudest sort of shelter, a sod-roofed structure with raised plank bunks. A cowboy was on his own for comfort. A tin stove offered all the heat that place would get. I looked into the two older cabins, a little more civilized, with corn shuck mattresses and homemade chairs. An ancient outhouse served the buildings. The saloon on the scow didn't need one. I retreated into the deepening twilight, wandered the grounds, looking for whatever there was to see, trying to explain my itch to shut the place down. All I needed was a burial ground. A few graves would do the trick, all right.
Then I made a decision and walked over to Critter.
“You ready to go?” I asked. “It's a long way back to Doubtful, and you'll get tired of hauling me.”
Critter aimed a hoof at me, missed, and let me mount. I rode out, without saying good-bye.