C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
Well, the madams didn't put up much of a fight. Maybe that's because they were used to it. Most madams had gotten kicked out of five or ten towns, and Doubtful would be no different. Their trade was barely tolerated, and often isolated or confined to special districts, where it would be mostly invisible to the rest of the burg.
About half of them houses were already gone before the March 1 deadline rolled around. Lillian Labrue, who ran Lucky Lil's, a cowboy favorite because she charged a dollar, with regular fifty-cent specials, was one of the first to pack up.
“It's not been the same, not since they shut down the saloons,” she told me. “Cowboys used to roll in here, drink a few and come for a visit, and times were good. But now the whole place is dead, and my trade's down to ten percent of what it was. Not that it was ever tops. Doubtful is not a real good place for a parlor house. Too many cowboys, not enough other sorts around here. You spend your life on a horse, and your equipment knows it. There's not one cowboy in ten that's up to snuff. My poor girls would try real hard, but most of the time it was just wishful thinking for the cowboys that would come in.” She eyed me. “I hope you don't ride that horse of yours too much. You can be salvaged. I could work with you. But you turn yourself into a cowboy, riding broncs all day, and you're not gonna get yourself a wife or family. Look at the ranches. Hardly a woman or a child on them. There's a reason for it.”
She had hired a good coach and a freight wagon, and her six girls waited patiently in the coach while Lil stopped to tell me she was pulling out. She was abandoning her place.
“Let the vultures take it. They'd find a way anyway, sooner or later. No one made an offer, and no one even asked my price. That's how it goes, Cotton. In my trade, you make your bundle in two or three years, get it away from town, and then call it quits. I stayed in it too long. But I'm not broke. These girls there, they're young, and they'll do all right. I let the ranchers know they could be married, if any cowboy wanted one. Hell, I'd get married myself if any man wanted me. You want me, Cotton? You can have me for a two-dollar silver band.”
The coach and freight wagon were attracting a crowd on Courthouse Square. There were plenty of women in town who'd never set eyes on a bawd, and now they were openly examining the poor frails sitting quietly in the coach, frails banished from righteous Doubtful. I watched the Temperance Union gals study the frails furtively, sniff and glare, and then walk away. A proper lady could not be overly curious about things she artfully knew nothing about, at least in public.
“Well, Lil, you have yourself a good trip. I sort of envy you. You'll go somewhere and start over just fine.”
“Any mining town will do,” she said. “Miners, they don't lose it the way cowboys lose it. I can get back on my feet in two or three months in a place like Butte, Montana. And miners pay more. I can charge two-fifty or three bucks and get it. Cowboys, they hate like hell to spend a dollar fifty for a girl, not if there's any sheep around. You know what, Cotton? This is the last cow town I'll ever come to.”
“Well, you have yourself a fine old time, Lil.”
“Better than you will,” she said.
I lifted my battered hat and settled it, while she clambered into the maroon-lacquered coach, and her little caravan started off. A little punk spat at the coach and then leered. I corralled the kid by the scruff of the neck.
“I don't allow spitting, kid.”
“Whores,” the kid said. “I shoulda fired a bigger gob.”
“What's a whore, kid?”
The kid looked stricken. “I don't think I'll tell you,” he said.
“Then don't spit at them.”
“My ma says you're dumb.”
“That's what my ma said, too. And that's what you'll be if I start to shake you until you rattle.”
I let go of the kid, who fled.
The coach rolled out of town, on the road north. Probably heading for Montana. I thought about Lil for a moment. Tough gal, but no trouble. She dealt with drunks and rough men without help. She never called the sheriff. Lil was the toughest of the madams, and now she was gone. It sure was quiet. The town women nervously scattered, their day's excitement over. I wondered what they were feeling. They could hardly miss the fear in the drawn and pale faces inside that coach. Those girls wore their profession like sackcloth and ashes, most of them, and the happy woman was a rarity among them.
“What was that?” asked Amos Grosbeak.
“Lucky Lil pulling out.”
“What about Denver Sally?”
“She's turning her place into a boardinghouse on February twenty-eighth.”
“No she's not, Sheriff, she's just playing a game with us.”
“She's letting her girls go.”
“Baloney, Sheriff. How can you be so dense? She's just going to stay on and sell flesh the way she always has.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“I don't need facts. It's plain as the wart on my nose. Here's what you're going to do. Come March one, you're going to serve papers on her telling her to abate her illicit business, and haul her into your jail.”
“She says she's going to run a boardinghouse, and I have no reason to doubt her. She says she has too much invested in that building. That's a big place, two stories, well built, and she can't find a buyer.”
“Of course she can't. Who'd buy it?”
“She offered it for a low price, she told me, and didn't get an offer. So she's staying.”
“You get her out of there.”
“That's not my job. My job's to enforce the law and keep the peace.”
“You nail her on March one, Sheriff, or there'll be hell to pay.”
“If I'm made aware of a violation, I'll do it. But I'm not going to invent reasons to pinch her.”
“Sheriff, get this straight. Even if she goes straight, runs a real boardinghouse, we don't want her type in Doubtful. She may be an ex-madam, but she's carrying all that baggage and hasn't changed an iota. She'd be bad for the town. Bad for everyone. The reputation of that place would taint anyone who wanted to stay there. Memories don't simply disappear, Sheriff. Some innocent might move in there and the whole town would draw conclusions. But that's obviously not the way it'll be. She's just playing you for a damned fool, and she's going to go right on selling flesh, and you'll turn a blind eye to it.”
“Well, make her a decent offer for her building, and she'll sell. She's not fond of Doubtful.”
“Why make an offer? It'll be an abandoned building shortly, and the city can seize it.”
“And then what happens?”
“It'll be sold at auction. Maybe someone can turn it into a good hotel.”
“Like who?”
“I could list twenty of our outstanding businessmen who'd be glad to pick up the building at a price that would make a venture out of it.”
“I thought so,” I said. “I just thought that's the way it's going to shake out.”
“You will act. You will remove that disreputable woman immediately. You will do so or face disciplining by the supervisors.”
“She keeps to the law, she stays,” I said. “She violates your law, she gets to go to court and pay up if she's found guilty. She violates the law lots of times, maybe the judge will move in on her. She runs an orderly rooming house, she pays her taxes, she keeps to the ordinances, I'll leave her alone. Maybe I'll even move in myself.”
Grosbeak glared. “This isn't over,” he said. “In fact, it's barely started. Consider yourself warned.”
I watched the county supervisor plunge into the courthouse. They didn't care if Sally had gone legal; they just wanted the building and they intended to euchre her out of it, even if there wasn't an iota of justice in it. Some bunch of reformers they were. Doubtful wasn't being reformed; it was being pillaged. Some respectable people were using the law as an excuse to enrich themselves. Already, all the lots the saloons stood on had been sold, in some sort of furtive maneuver that I didn't understand. I'd only heard a few whispers. Most of those structures could be fixed up, turned into stores. And they'd been bought for nothing much. What saloon owner had gotten a nickel out of them?
I sure didn't know what to do. I watched the maroon coach climb the hill out of town and vanish, another one driven out. Lil was predatory, and tough, and maybe she cheated when she could, so I didn't plan to shed any tears, but now her building was up for grabs, and some one of those upright, virtuous, moral, ethical, sterling businessmen in Doubtful would have himself a nice building and lot for just a few pennies on the dollar. It sure set a man to thinking about reforms. Who benefits? That was a good question to ask about any reform. Who stands to gain from it? I'd never been in a place full of reformers before, and it all was an eye-opener to me. I thought maybe these reformers simply had a vision of a good world, and were pursuing it, but now I knew there was more to it. Reform hurt people. Reform transferred a lot of wealth from one hand to another. Reform turned some people into social outcasts. It had never occurred to me before, but there it was.
I found Rusty in the sheriff office.
“You may be sheriff pretty quick,” I said.
“I'd quit. No one's gonna pin your badge on me.”
“Pretty quick, all the businessmen in town are going to own Sporting Row.”
“How can they do that? It's private property.”
“Watch and see,” I said. “They've already got ahold of the saloons.”
“They're gonna open the saloons?”
“No, turn them into stores and stuff. There's one or two with rooms above, maybe rent rooms.”
“Who's got them?”
“I don't know. They'll show up on the county records pretty soon, but maybe not until things settle down a bit.”
“You look blue, Cotton.”
“Oh, I just don't like the way things are going around here. You want a job? You can have it.”
Rusty stood suddenly. “Cotton, don't you go quitting on us. You're the only one strong enough to keep Doubtful fair, and that means plenty to me. I'm talking out of my hat, I guess, but just don't quit. Don't do it.”
“I may get fired.”
“Then we'll both of us make sure the whole town knows why.”
“And then?”
“And then if anyone cares, you've got hope. And if no one cares, it's time for both of us to bail out of Doubtful, Wyoming, and go where the air is clean and the privies don't stink.”
That evening a mess of cowboys rode into town, from all the ranches, including the Admiral and the T-Bar. I hadn't seen so many cowboys since the saloons got shut down, but there they were. I knew plenty of them. Spitting Sam and Big Nose George. Alvin Ream. Foxy Jonas and his brother Weasel. Wiley Wool, Rudy Beaver, Zelda Zanada. And that was just for starters. I sure didn't know what was happening. They didn't stop at Sporting Row, but rode straight toward Courthouse Square, where they seemed to collect as if they were expecting something. There sure were a mess of drovers, and some were armed. They'd have to hang up those sidearms if they were going to enter any merchant place, including the sporting houses.
But more and more kept coming, more cowboys than had been in town since the saloons were running wide open.
Then one of them, Smiley Thistlethwaite, a tough customer if ever there was one, along with Big Nose and Foxy Jonas, all pierced into my bailiwick.
“Gents?” I asked.
“We got news for you, and news for the supervisors,” Big Nose said. “Here's for you. You're going to leave them women alone. You're going to steer clear and let them run their places, just like before. And if you don't, if you send them out on March one, we're going to tear Doubtful to pieces. We'll tear every store to bits, we'll pull this here jail of yours into scrap iron, and we'll maybe hang a supervisor or two. Got that? Now we're gonna go to the courthouse and we're gonna give the same message to Grosbeak, Twining, and Thimble.”
“You got to check your guns in town,” I said. “You can hang them up right here, on them pegs and pick 'em up when you leave.”
“Pickens, you're nuts,” Big Nose said.
“Probably so,” I said. “Since I'm going in there with you.”
C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE
Well, it sure was plain that this wild bunch wasn't going to be hanging its artillery on pegs while they were in town. With the saloons all shut down, there was hardly a peg to hang a gun belt on anyway. All of those drovers were standing there, itching to do something if I started the ball rolling.
Instead, I palavered. “Now if this was one of them dime novels,” I said, “I'd be some sort of lantern-jawed man with two revolvers, and I'd whip them out fast as lightning, and I'd have you all buffaloed real quick, and you'd back off and quit with your tail between and betwixt your skinny legs.”
That sure got their attention.
“Only this ain't a dime novel. This here's a real place, Doubtful, Wyoming, and this isn't a story. You want to take your message to the supervisors, right? Okay, I'll help you do it. You choose two fellers to do the talking, and we'll go talk to the supervisors. You pick two, and those two leave their gun belts with you, and the three of us, we'll parley with whoever you want. I know Grosbeak's in there, and maybe the others are, too.”
Pretty quick they agreed to it, and Big Nose and Smiley Thistlethwaite got themselves elected to give the word to the supervisors. Sure enough, the pair of them unbuckled their artillery, and it was real good steel they were leaving behind. Big Nose had a Colt Peacemaker with a filed-down trigger, and Smiley had a sawed-off twelve-gauge pump-action scattergun that he handed to one of those fellows.
“All right then, we'll just walk on over,” I said, and soon the whole mob of tough cowboys was cornering the square. The mess of them settled in on the courthouse steps, while me, Smiley, and Big Nose went in, our steps echoing in that place with high ceilings and a lot of varnish around. Up on the second floor, I led them into a rather grand office, and sure enough, there was Amos Grosbeak, scowling up at us from behind a mess of papers.
“Make it quick,” Grosbeak said, rattling a sheet. The supervisor eyed me, and then eyed the two cowboys, without acknowledging that he knew who they were, although he did.
It was odd how tamed those cowboys were. With their gun belts off, the bluster went out of them.
“Well?” asked Grosbeak.
“It's about pushing them nice gals out,” Smiley began. “Every drover in the county's agin' it. You should just take back that new law and let them live in peace. They ain't harming a thing there, and they're friends of ours, and this here law is real hard. I mean, it don't seem to be the way we feel.”
Grosbeak was smiling.
“I mean, you repeal that law and we'll do business here in town. At least what's left of it. Ain't much to buy anymore. There's no call to treat them poor ladies like this.”
“And what else?” asked the supervisor.
“Well, if you don't pull that law off the books, it'd be real unfriendly around here,” Big Nose said. “There'd be fellers like the ones out there, they'd maybe not be very happy to come to Doubtful, and maybe they'd not want to spend a nickel here anymore, and maybe they'd ride over to the other towns, even if it means traveling a piece, where a man can have a drink and a screw.”
“Ah, now we're getting somewhere,” Grosbeak said. “If we don't repeal the ordinance, you'll take your business elsewhere.”
“That's the gist of it,” Smiley said.
“And all those gents standing outside, fully armed, would not threaten to tear the whole town apart,” Grosbeak said.
“We'll, they've been talking it up a little.”
“And none of them really wants to tear Doubtful apart, hang the supervisors, shoot the sheriff, and stomp away, with nothing but women and children left in the ruins of the county seat.”
“Where'd you hear that?” Big Nose said.
“It's been rumored for days. There are big ears listening, my friends. Big ears connected to big lips that spill secrets in my ear. There's not a thing I don't know about your talk, your dreaming, your plans.”
“Well then, you can take heed,” Big Nose said. “You've been warned. You let them women alone, and we'll all be happy. You don't, and there'll be trouble in the streets.”
Grosbeak yawned, deliberately, and smiled. “Get your skinny butts out of here and don't come back. Don't threaten elected officials. Don't threaten the sheriff. Don't try to defy the law. Don't expect it to be repealed. Don't think that a mob will change anything at all. If you don't like it in Puma County, we'd be pleased to see you depart. Good afternoon, gentlemen.”
Those two drovers, they just stood stock still, like they'd been poleaxed and didn't know when to die.
Grosbeak nodded to me, so I gestured the drovers toward the door, and sure enough, the cowboys exited, me behind them and Grosbeak smiling blandly. It sure had been something to see.
We exited the courthouse in the bright sun and saw the mob of cowboys waiting at the foot of the steps. “Well,” said Big Nose, “what we learned was we'd better ride on over to Sporting Row and spend every last dime while the spending's good.”
“They gonna repeal?” asked one.
“Nope. They're gonna clean up Doubtful and invite us to take our trade elsewhere. If we don't like Doubtful, we're free to leave. That's what old Grosbeak said. Go on, git, find some other outfit to work for.”
“Well, ain't that something,” said another.
“We oughta maybe tear it up right now,” said one.
“We could, but chances are, no one would get two minutes with one of the girls.”
“Is that all the time you take?” one asked. “I'm good for five, and repeats.”
“Naw, you're done in thirty seconds,” another claimed.
“Let's go on over and find out,” said Big Nose.
That sure did it. The mess of them shifted their weapons around and started down Wyoming Street. Those ladies would do some box office business that afternoon.
I watched them head for their horses. Pretty quick the cowboys were out of sight, and Doubtful settled into its usual gloom that peaceful February afternoon. People appeared on the streets. Store owners in aprons studied the retreating cowboys. One-Eyed Harry, over at his beanery, stood in the road looking disappointed. Usually, when cowboys were in town, he did a good trade. They all liked his beans. He claimed his beans and side pork produced more satisfying music than any other food on the planet, and there were plenty of cowboys who liked to prove it.
Women reemerged, some of them with wicker baskets. It was an ancient habit in Doubtful that when cowboys were on the loose in town, its womenfolk quietly made themselves invisible. I watched ordinary life reassert itself. A farmer loaded up bags of Golden Harvest flour on his spring wagon and covered them with a tarpaulin. I decided things didn't need looking after. Those cowboys down at the sporting edge of town would stay there and not raise any more hell. In a way, I could understand why the ordinary folk of Doubtful wanted to shut down the sporting district entirely. They wanted a peaceful life to commence, even at the cost of some business in the county seat.
I was just about to return to my bailiwick when Eve Grosbeak and Manilla Twining caught up with me.
“Oh, Sheriff, that was grand,” Manilla said.
“What's what?”
“We saw it all from my husband's window in the courthouse. There you were, down below, facing an armed mob, fifty cowboys, and you just standing there courageously, like some hero of a dime novel, standing there without a gun in your hands, unafraid of them.”
“Well, ma'am, I was actually a slight bit nervous.”
“And there you were, talking with the ringleaders and next thing we knew, they were unbuckling their gun belts and handing them to the other ruffians, and you were leading them into the courthouse for a peaceful consultation. We understand you took them to visit with Eve's husband, and he made peace with them, and sent them on their way. You're a hero, Cotton Pickens. You're our dream of a fine sheriff and a fine man.”
“Well, ma'am, all I done was try to keep from getting myself shot.”
“We saw it all. We saw them turn and leave, and now they're on their way home.”
“Well, I guess you could call it home if you want, ma'am.”
“They're not going away?”
“I don't keep track, ma'am. They're coming and going all the time.”
“Pretty soon they won't come at all, and Doubtful will be all the better for it. I can hardly wait for the first day of March, when the last of the sinners depart and we will be a fine place for families.”
Eve Grosbeak looked me over. “Have you made any progress, Cotton?”
“I'm always making progress, when I'm not going backwards, ma'am.”
“Finding a wife? Finding a suitable young lady and starting a family?”
“No, ma'am, I've had a few offers, though.”
“Well, perhaps that's because you need a little more refining. You come with us and we'll get you washed up and mend your clothing. You can't expect to find a proper woman unless you smell just right.”
“Well, I really should get back to the office and relieve my deputy, ma'am.”
“You come with us, Cotton Pickens. You need another lesson in domesticity.”
“What's that?”
“It's what all fine men possess, and make their ladies happy. Domesticity means that you'll sit at the hearth and read the paper and take tea with your wife, and discuss how the children are doing.”
“I sure don't know if that's what ought to be on my platter, ma'am.”
For an answer, Eve Grosbeak tugged at my coat and led me toward the north side, with Manilla tugging on the other lapel. I thought it was better than if they each had ahold of my earlobes and were dragging me over there.
We walked through the gate and were instantly surrounded by peacocks, but Eve had her way with them, and they let Eve and Manilla and me pass by without pecking and fanning their tails. Pretty quick they had me in the sun parlor again.
“All right, dear boy, you just slip behind that screen and hand us your duds, and we'll start heating up some water for your bath.”
“Ma'am, the Hero of Courthouse Square doesn't need a bath. He's only three weeks from his last one.”
“You just obey us, and be quick about it. Manilla, you bring hot water from the stove reservoir, and Mr. Pickens, you just hand us your duds and step into that little tin tub there, and we'll come and get you all scrubbed up, and fragrant for any proper girl you chance to meet.”
“I don't know about this, ma'am. I've got to relieve Rusty.”
“Don't be shy, Sheriff. It's something you'll get used to as soon as you're married. Men were made to live with women.”
“I never did hear that before. My ma, she used to say the opposite.”
“That women were made to live with men?”
“Naw, that men can't stand to live with women most of the time.”
“Well, there's some truth in it, dear child. It takes an artful woman to keep a man happy,” Manilla said.
She vanished into the kitchen and returned with a pail of steaming water, which she dumped into the tin tub, and then went for another.
“While we're waiting I could teach you how to kiss,” Eve said. “You definitely need more lessons, because you sort of, well, failed last time.”
“Well, ma'am, I've kissed Belle under mistletoe, but that's over until next year, and I don't think I should be kissing anyone until Christmas rolls around.”
Eve sighed. “You're a very difficult student, Sheriff.”
“I got to go relieve Rusty, ma'am. He's all alone in the jail, and there's no one except me to cut him loose to go eat dinner.”
Manilla returned with more hot water, poured it into the tin tub, and tested it with her hand. “It's a little hot still,” she said. “But maybe you like it that way. Are you ready? You just slide behind that screen and get yourself ready, and we'll close our eyes when you step into the tub, and then we'll get you all soaped up.”
“Ah, ma'am, I got to go keep Doubtful safe. Like you say, I'm the Hero of Courthouse Square.”
I jammed my hat on and fled, managing to evade the peacocks by running to the gate.
But I wished I could have just stayed on there and let them scrub me up real pink. They sure were nice ladies.