C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-TWO
One by one, those madams pulled out, wagons of stuff and a few girls in hired coaches with the shades drawn, so no one in Doubtful got a peek. Whoever was inside those coaches sure didn't want to be seen in bright sunlight. They usually pulled out at dawn, before the town was awake, and next anyone knew, another parlor house was shut down tight.
By March one, the day the new ordinance took place in Puma County, they were all gone. Word was that some had gone to Cheyenne, but most of the gals headed for Montana, especially Butte, where there were lots of miners and plenty of business.
Doubtful sure was peaceful, or so it seemed. The county had some way of condemning all those buildings and putting them up for auction, so the gals who owned them didn't see any return on them. I wasn't sure how that was done and meant to ask Lawyer Stokes about it, because he did it, and the auctions all took place about two or three days after the madams and the ladies left town.
But there was the new boardinghouse owned by the madam who called herself Denver Sally before, and now called herself Sally Sweet. It was mostly empty. She'd rented to a few vagrants for two bits a night, but she wasn't getting much trade. The gals had gone, and she was alone in her suite on the first floor. But she wasn't budging, and she owned the building, and she was legal, and she wasn't violating any law that I could think of. It sure wasn't illegal to run a boardinghouse and rent out rooms and serve up breakfasts and suppers, which is what Sally did.
I didn't have any notion that there was trouble afoot until Amos Grosbeak called me in one day, maybe two weeks after all the ladies of the night had fled Doubtful and were gone forever.
“What are you doing about the boardinghouse?” Grosbeak asked.
“Not a thing. Sally's as legal as anyone can get.”
“I think you should put a little heat on her. We don't really want her kind in Puma County.”
“What's she doing wrong?”
“Just being here, with her reputation, gives the town and the county a bad name, Cotton. We don't want that sort of female anywhere around. We've got a real nice little paradise going here, and she sort of sits there like a reminder of the past. Get rid of her.”
“You tell me what law she's violating, and I might have something to pin on her.”
“Find a way, Sheriff.”
“Not if she's legal.”
“I said, find a way.”
“And I said, she's legal.”
I was getting a little huffy about it. If anything graveled me, it was abusing justice. Maybe I wasn't the brightest light in Puma County, but I knew an injustice when I saw one, and I wasn't going to permit it if I could help it.
Oddly, Grosbeak didn't press it. Instead he settled back in his quilted leather chair and gazed out the window. The snow was melting, and the promise of spring lay upon Doubtful.
“It's a sweet little burg, isn't it, Sheriff? Here we are, deep in the West, building a small paradise where people can live in peace and beauty. We have our wives to thank for that. They saw the need and organized their Women's Temperance Union, and set out to weed the town of vices that disturbed our fair city, that filled citizens with fear, and which led our children astray. Now we're almost done. The county supervisors will enact Sunday Closing Laws at the next meeting. Our wives inspired us once again. No matter what your belief, we should all have a day of rest, when no business remains open and people can contemplate all the good things that have been placed before us. Yes, it will be a day to halt all commerce.”
“What commerce?”
“Stores and restaurants will be closed. Public transportation will cease. No stagecoaches on Sundays, Cotton. No employed person shall work on Sundays. No boardinghouse can serve meals.”
“A feller's got to eat, Mr. Grosbeak. If I don't get fed by Belle, I take my meals at Barney's Beanery.”
“Well, fasting will be good for you. We all need moments of sacrifice.”
“I guess that means me and Rusty don't work Sundays.”
“That's right. There will be no crime on Sundays. We've driven out the criminal element.”
“Well, there's always mean schoolboys roaming around, looking for trouble.”
“They will be kept at home by their loving parents on Sunday. There's going to be nothing for you to do.”
“That's getting enacted real quick?”
“March meeting. And we'll enact the anti-tobacco law, too. That was inspired by Manilla Twining, who came to us with the idea. Tobacco means a lot of foul smoke and spitting, and it's hard on people. It's a costly vice. And we're against vice. So we'll outlaw it. Truth to tell, some of our friends and allies smoke, and they're a bit testy about it, but they'll get used to it, and once freed from the demon, they will rejoice and thank us. They can spend the money they save to buy beautiful bonnets for their wives.”
“Well, I hope it's not up to me to arrest some feller for smoking a cigar.”
“Oh, it will be. The fines will help pay the county budget, and George Waller says that when the city enacts the spitting ordinance, the fines will pretty much pay all municipal costs.”
“Maybe I won't nip some feller for spitting.”
“Of course you will. The law's the law, and you'll enforce it.”
I wasn't so sure I would, but I kept quiet about that. This was getting serious. I was going to have to stash food to eat on Sundays and pinch people with a wad of chew in their cheeks. I knew who the victims would be. Traveling salesmen dropping into town. They'd get themselves fined, and the fines would pay the city and county expenses.
“Now, what are you going to do if a mess of them cowboys off the ranches ride in on a Sunday and want to tree the town if they can't get themselves a meal or a haircut?” I asked.
“Arrest them. The Sunday Law's going to have a quiet clause, a provision against unseemly, boisterous, unruly, or unregulated conduct.”
Amos Grosbeak was smiling, and looking so dreamy that I thought he was voicing the very thoughts Eve Grosbeak had whispered to him from her pillow beside him. That Eve, she sure was changing the whole world.
Doubtful had changed, no doubt about it. When I wandered out onto Courthouse Square, the place seemed almost dreamy. I wandered up Wyoming Street and saw ranch wagons parked in front of the mercantile, and ranch hands loading in flour and sugar and oatmeal and molasses. At the Emporium, Leonard Silver was helping the Admiral Ranch load up.
“You're still in business, Leonard,” I said.
“I thought we'd get hurt, but it's not happening. Ranches still need supplies, and still send their crews in to buy them. It's just the saloons and tonsorial parlors got hurt.”
“You approve of the change?”
“Didn't at first; now I do. Town's better than ever.”
“They're going to enact some Sunday laws, I hear.”
“Don't bother me none.”
That's how it went. Doubtful was happy. The wildest town in Wyoming had settled into the most pacific one. It sure was strange, I thought. I didn't even need a billy club, much less a sidearm. There was so much civilization around that I was pretty near choking on it.
Still, I had a whole county to patrol, and maybe I'd better start taking little tours around the area. There sure would be a temptation to open up little grog shops in hidden valleys, where the bozos could get a drink or two. I thought I wouldn't mind getting one or two myself, and I knew Rusty positively pined for a snort.
The only cloud on the horizon was Sally Sweet and her new boardinghouse, but I was pretty sure that if I ignored Amos Grosbeak's threats, that would go away. Who cared what sort of past Sally had? There were plenty of wives of respectable businessmen in Doubtful who had a past as colorful as Sally's past, or even more so, but that didn't faze the county supervisors.
I headed south, thinking to check up on Sally. Maybe I could learn a little about what sort of heat the supervisors were putting on her and do something about it. It sure was a benign March day, with the snow vanishing, a few birds celebrating the warmth, and a few rowdy crows protesting my every step.
The whole sporting district looked sort of forlorn, but Sally's boardinghouse flew the Wyoming flag from a staff, and the steps were swept.
I entered to the jangle of cowbells.
“You gonna arrest me for something, Cotton?” she asked.
“Nope, but you can pour me some coffee and tell me how business is.”
“Business is so thin I'm losing weight,” she said, bustling about. She had a speckled blue pot on her wood-fired range and poured some into a mug. It tasted like varnish.
“You hanging on, Sally?”
“They sure are hungry, ain't they, Cotton?”
“Who's they?”
“Stokes. County Attorney, but also a lobo wolf if you ask me. He wants this building so bad it's like a permanent hard-on in his mind.”
“This place? Why?”
“Cotton, this here's the finest building in Doubtful. I built it that way. It's a natural for a hotel. Twelve rooms, suite, parlor, dining, kitchen, indoor plumbing, water closet at the end of the hall, copper roof. You know what I spent? Five grand and change. You know what Stokes offered? Two hundred, and said I'd be lucky to take that because I couldn't keep it and he'd make sure of it.” She shrugged. “I told him to get his ass out the door.”
“Hotel?”
“Yeah, better than the Wyoming up on the square. Great hotel, but only if the whole sporting district got shut down and turned into something else. You know where I was before I came up here? Dodge City, Kansas. You know what Front Street had on it? The saloons, the Long-branch, the sporting places? You know what the wheat farmers did to Front Street? They stamped it out. They erased it from memory. They made Dodge the most respectable and dry town in the whole state. They turned Front Street into ice cream parlors and hat shops. Dodge City, for crying out loud, Cotton!”
“And that's what they're doing here,” I said.
“Sort of. Stokes wants this place, and he's working on it, and he's got a few ways and means that scare me. How do you get rid of Sally Sweet? Maybe you think up a few old charges and get me arrested. He come to you with those, yet? It's coming, Cotton. Or maybe he'll find some flaw in the title here, the papers I got saying this here place is mine and paid up. He's coming, Cotton, and he'll phony something up. You'll see.”
“He'll have to get past me, Sally. You're legal and I don't intend to let anything get in your way. You've got rights and you've got property here, and if you're pressured, you tell me, Sally. Don't hide it from me.”
She sighed. “You want me? You can have me anytime, for free, Cotton.”
“You're twice my age, Sally.”
“Rub it in, will you? Fine friend you are.”
“I think I'm going to talk with Lawyer Stokes. He's going to learn something about the sheriff. He's going to learn that I don't budge.”
She looked a little harassed. “I swear to God, Cotton, I don't know what's coming at me. I know they want me out, and the excuse is that I'm an old whore, but there's more going on here. They want a five-thousand-dollar hotel for free, or almost free, and they'll do anything to get it, because the owner's vulnerable and they can cook up anything they want and throw it at me.” She stared out the window. “I sure as hell don't know what it is, and I hate the waiting. If they're going to screw me out of my property, I'd like to know how.”
“I'll find out, Sally. I ain't gonna let this happen. You just hang on, and let me rattle Lawyer Stokes's teeth a little, and then I'll have some news for you.”
“Maybe you should just be real quiet, Cotton.”
“My ma used to say, if you see something bad going on and you don't do anything about it, then you share the blame. I'm going to do what I can, Sally.”
She sat there, fear in her eyes, and I knew this whole thing was like a case of dynamite about to blow.
C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-THREE
There was only one way to deal with Lawyer Stokes, and that was head-on, so I marched up Wyoming Street to the man's office and barged in. Lawyer Stokes looked a little pained, but rallied swiftly and adjusted his waistcoat to restore dignity.
I didn't much care for the man. The lawyer was so skinny that an ounce of fat would have bulged like a cancer on him. He burned off his entire supply of energy scheming how to improve his fortunes. There wasn't enough law work in Doubtful to feed half a lawyer, but Stokes managed to wax prosperous with great speed. Now he peered up from rimless spectacles at me, letting annoyance play over his thin lips and twitchy cheeks.
“Yes, what is it, Pickens?”
“You're picking on Sally Sweet, and you're going to quit it right now.”
“Picking on Sally?” Stokes removed his spectacles and polished them and replaced them carefully, his skinny lips forming unspoken thoughts.
“Sheriff, she's an undesirable, engaged in criminal activity, and I am doing my utmost to get her to remove herself from Puma County. My sole problem is a sheriff who declines to enforce the law and clean up vice in our community.”
“She's operating a boardinghouse. She sent her girls packing when the law took hold. She's as legal as she can be.”
Stokes removed his spectacles once more, breathed on them, and wiped them clean using the sleeve of his long johns, which were peeking through under his shirtsleeve.
“Sheriff, if you don't mind my saying so, you are thick-skulled and witless, if not just plain stupid. In fact, I don't know how you got past first grade. You made it all the way to fifth grade, but that was only because of the kindness of your teacher, who willfully passed you through second, third, and fourth before you met your Waterloo in fifth. I don't quite know how you became sheriff, but it has been an ordeal for Puma County officials to get you to enforce the plain law, the law right there on the books.”
“Well, my ma, she always said I'm quick with my trigger finger.”
Stokes studied the cleaned lenses and placed his spectacles on his face, adjusting them slightly down the nose, which was his preferred mode of viewing the world.
“Sally Sweet as you call her, also known as Denver Sally before going underground, is continuing to ply her trade on her own. That she sent her girls away matters not a whit. She welcomes boarders and well, offers services. It's as plain as the wart on your nose, and just as annoying.”
“I haven't seen it. You got proof?”
“Proof? You mean a witness? Who needs it? There is ample circumstantial evidence. She operates an alleged residence for males and flourishes there, and her reputation speaks loudly in this community. I haven't the slightest doubt that she is engaged in her nefarious trade, and if she were brought before any judge in Wyoming the verdict would be clear.”
“You sure know a lot more than I know. I know she's hardly got any business yet. People quit coming to Doubtful since all them laws got on the books. She's mostly waiting for things to pick up.”
“Sheriff, are you one of her customers? Is that it?”
“Well, she did tell me she'd rent cheaper than Belle, but I like old Belle, so I didn't move over there.”
“Sally offered rent and other services?”
“Yep, rent and breakfast and supper.”
“Some fine dining in her suite, I imagine.”
“No, just some good potatoes and gravy and meat loaf on Tuesdays.”
“You will arrest her and charge her with operating a house of ill repute. I will bring you the papers and you will proceed.”
“You got any evidence?”
“Why, what you just told me.”
“I don't get it, Stokes. And I'm not hauling her in until there's some reason for it.”
“I see. Dereliction of duty. An actionable offense. Maybe I'll charge you. Send Sheriff Pickens up the river, is that it?”
“You quit picking on Sally. You heard me. You quit picking on her. You quit trying to buy her place for nothing. You're trying to pick up some property that's worth more than any other building in Doubtful. And if you cheat her any way, maybe you'll be the one in my jailhouse.”
Stokes stared at me, ice building in his gray face, and I knew the man had gone from adversary to dangerous enemy.
But, oddly, Stokes changed the subject. “You're neglecting the Crossing. There's a wicked little makeshift town ballooning there. And putting vice onto river scows doesn't cut the mustard. I've researched it. County lines extend to the middle of any streambed that forms a boundary. Go do something about it.”
“Give me some paper and I will.”
“You don't need paper. You need to stop the vice . . . if you're capable of it, which I doubt. Or if you've not been bought, which entertains my doubts.”
Lawyer Stokes arose suddenly. “You've wasted enough of my time. I don't relish explaining things to a fare-thee-well. It would be helpful if we had a diligent sheriff with half an education at the minimum.”
“Yep, I know it would, but they made me the man,” I said. “I enforce the laws, until I'm out.”
“Better sooner than later,” Stokes said.
So, Stokes had some business for me out of town. I headed across the square, looking for Rusty, and found him swabbing out the jail cells with a mop.
“Looks like I got to go to the Crossing to do a little business,” I said. “County attorney says there's wild and wicked stuff happening there, and that the county line runs to the middle of the Platte River. So, I'll be gone a day or two, and you'll be the law in lawless Doubtful, Wyoming.”
“Sounds exciting,” Rusty said.
“Lawyer Stokes has got something up his sleeve. About ten minutes after I'm outa here, he's going to show up with some paper, and that paper will be a warrant for Sally Sweet, and he'll want you to bring her in and charge her with running a house of ill repute.”
“He still after her?”
“He doesn't care about her. He wants that building. It'd make the best hotel in Doubtful. She put a lot into it, about five thousand, and he wants to cop it for nothing. The first step is to get her fined and out, and then he'll maneuver it into his paws, maybe for back taxes or something like that.”
“So, what am I going to do?”
“Nothing, Rusty. You just leave her alone. She's not running a house of ill repute. She's mostly trying to keep her own property with a boardinghouse operation. Just leave her alone.”
“Don't serve her? Don't bring her in?”
“More than that. Keep him and the supervisors off her back.”
“You sure she's not selling it?”
“No, not sure. But there's got to be some evidence, some reason, for making the pinch, and they won't be on the warrants.”
“So I defy the county attorney?”
“Just delay. I'll do the defying when I get back. All you need is some sick leave, something like that. The way things are going, you'll probably be sheriff in a few days.”
Rusty grinned. “That's what I like about you, Cotton.”
I headed back to Belle's, got my slicker and a few overnight items, and headed for Turk's Livery Barn. Maybe Critter would like a trip, but maybe he wouldn't. You never knew about Critter, but a knee in his belly usually got him to thinking about his sins. Critter was a horse that needed to repent every Sunday.
As soon as I slid into that cold dark barn, Critter whickered.
“I guess you want to get out of here,” I said.
Critter snorted and nickered and sawed his head up and down.
“You look friendly today. I'll saddle you in the aisle,” I said, unhooking the stall gate.
Critter didn't move.
“Come on out of there, you miserable beast.”
But Critter moved to the head of the stall, refusing to back out.
“All right then, I'll come in for you.”
I edged along a stall wall, and Critter exploded. A hoof narrowly missed me, crashing into the plank and leaving splinters in it.
“You're dog food,” I said, sliding the bit between Critter's yellow teeth. In a moment, I backed Critter out and began brushing Critter in the aisle.
“High time you got out of town,” Turk said. “If you'd quit arresting people I'd have some business.”
“Pretty quiet in Doubtful, but there's some action at the Crossing.”
“Invite them to town,” Turk said. “This place is a bore.”
Critter decided to bite Turk, who dodged the teeth.
“Sell him to the canners,” Turk said.
“I thought I'd sell him to the county supervisors,” I said, tightening up the girth.
I loaded my gear onto the saddle and tied it down, and led Critter into winter daylight. Critter humped and danced. I climbed aboard and felt myself being tossed around a while, and then Critter sighed, happily, and awaited directions.
“Need a couple of packhorses to carry bodies?” Turk asked.
“The supervisors wouldn't pay you,” I said, and touched my boot heel to Critter's flank. The rank horse burst into a trot, and I settled him into a fast walk that would put me at the Crossing at dusk.
It was that time of year when nature is bleakest, with rotting snow and dirty heaps of slush, with naked trees and mean winds, with mire on the trails slowing travel and mud sticking to everything. But I was elated to get out, and Critter's mood matched mine, and we headed south along the mucky trail that would take us to the Crossing.
It was, actually, that time of year when mortals traveled least. So it was a solitary ride that March day, sometimes fast on frozen ground, sometimes slow and sloppy. I missed supper but slid into the Crossing after dark. It had grown dramatically, a whole city that had mushroomed up beginning even before Puma County shut down and blew out the candles. But here were lights galore, lights in every window. I saw no livery or hostler and was glad I'd brought a feedbag of oats for Critter. There were plenty of saddle horses in view, mostly tied to long hitch rails along the riverbank. There were more bunkhouses than before, with a lamp shining in most, and I also spotted a few pens, where horses could be kept safely for the night. But all the new log buildings on the Puma County riverbank were nothing but shadows compared to what I saw on the river, tied to the shore with hawsers wrapped around snubbing posts. At the time of my previous trip, there was one floating saloon, but now there were three floating palaces, all of them built on large scows, or flatboats, and accessed with gangplanks from the riverbank. The saloon was still there, a long room atop the scow, and it looked crowded. Tied next to it was a gambling parlor, which also served booze, brightly lit. The third, and plainer, riverboat was darker and cruder, and had a red lamp burning at the door. So at least some of the gals had set up shop here, thirty miles from Doubtful, in cramped quarters stretching in a line on a big scow. There looked to be a small kitchen or dining area at the rear end of the scow, but no other amenities. I couldn't even see how the rooms were heated. Maybe they weren't. Stove pipes rose from the saloon and gambling parlor, emitting thin white threads of wood smoke into the dusk.
No one had noticed me arrive. I studied the layout closely. There was still a flatboat used for crossing the river, guided by a cable anchored on both banks of the North Platte. It was big enough to carry a wagon and team and some passengers. On the Puma County side, a virtual city had sprung up, mostly bunks and corrals, and one beanery with a tired-looking old cripple standing in the lamplight.
I probed through the dark, simply curious about what lay on the outskirts of this instant burg. What interested me most was new graves, but it was too dark, and I kept stumbling over cottonwood roots and gave up on that. The people who owned that property and operated the ferry, the Yumping Yimminys, were probably in the dark house, but no lamp was lit. I hiked along the riverbank, watching the mighty river, swollen from early thaws, roll by in starlight. It was a piece of water, and the county line ran down its middle. Them saloons and parlors were plainly in Puma County if that old turd of a lawyer was right. But who knows? I wished I could see the law saying the county lines split the rivers.
The scows bobbed in the inky waters, their great hawsers wrapped tight around the posts set deep into the bank. They sure weren't going anywhere. I saw someone from the gambler scow step out, head for the rear railing, and piss. That's how it was done around there. There'd be no water closets on board any of the scows, and a feller would need to head for an outhouse near the bunkhouses for relief if he needed to.
I didn't know who owned any of it. But it was time to serve the papers and start shutting the hidden city down. It sure wouldn't be easy.