“I knew there’d be a hitch,” Rusty said.
“I’m not much for dancing,” I said.
“All the better,” Higgins said. “You and your esteemed citizens can throw a fine party, maybe in one of those cleaned out saloons, with lots of sarsaparilla on hand.”
“I’m not making any promises,” I said.
Somehow I didn’t like this deal, but it was the best thing I had going. And the whole heist would come while all the drunks were sleeping it off. By noon of New Year’s Day, Doubtful would be cleaned out, the law would be in force, and it would all be done peaceably. All them cowboys would grumble and ride back to all the ranches that surrounded the town. Not a bad plan, I thought. It’d keep the peace in Puma County, at least until the other ranchers rode into the Mormons’ ranch and hanged the whole lot and buried each one with a stake through the heart.
“I sure don’t like waiting until the dawn,” I said. “That dry law starts at midnight, and I’m sworn to uphold it.”
“Cotton, you’re an idiot,” Rusty said.
“That’s what my ma always told me.”
I itched to escape Rusty, who was in a dour mood. So I clambered into my heavy coat, pulled a hat over my ears, and headed into the wintry town to do some patrolling. I’d freeze my butt, and frost my fingers, but Doubtful would get patrolled even on a peaceful winter’s day.
There wasn’t much happening. It was a time to huddle around the stoves, not a time to be galavanting. But when I got to Saloon Row, I found a freight wagon pulled by two frosted and ice-caked draft horses parked next to the Last Chance. I knew the wagon, all right. It belonged to Alphonso Flynn, who ran a big cow-calf operation east of town. Alphonso was a big, dark-haired bull-shaped man with pointy boots. Some whispered that he had Spanish blood mixed in with the Irish.
The wagon was being filled with cases of booze, twelve bottles to a carton, along with stout kegs, all of it being loaded from the Last Chance and the neighboring saloons.
“Whatcha up to, Alphonso?”
“I’m buying enough contraband to last until those pricks in the courthouse repeal the dry law.”
“Ah, possession’s gonna be illegal, Alphonso.”
“Who says I’m gonna possess anything, eh?”
“Well, I might have to come looking.”
“You set one foot on my outfit and you’re likely to be mistaken for an elk, Pickens.”
“I’m sworn to uphold the law, whether I like her or not.”
Flynn paused. “Sure is a burden, ain’t it?”
“I do what I have to do.”
“Well, you come on out to the place and arrest me.”
I watched weary saloon swampers drag crates of redeye and rotgut out of the old saloons and stack them in the wagon. In a few days, everything in that heavy wagon would be illegal. I thought it was strange, how the stuff sitting there was okay one day, outlawed the next.
Flynn loomed over me, menace exuding from him. “Look, Sheriff, I know you’re just trying to do your duty, and I know you’re not to blame. The supervisors made the law. But listen close now. That law’s a dead letter. That law is dead on arrival. There’s no way the people of Puma County, especially us out on the ranches, are gonna pay it any attention. This here law’s generating hard feelings, Sheriff. Real hard feelings. This is not just fistfight trouble; it’s worse. There’ll be blood shed here unless you just back off. You want to keep the peace? You want to avoid blood? Then just step aside and let the law die. It’ll die in its crib if the supervisors see that it can’t be enforced. It’s up to you, Cotton Pickens. You can have war, and blood, and deep trouble, or not. You can keep the peace or not. You start enforcing a bad law, and you’ll have more trouble here than you’ve ever seen. You hear me?”
“I’m sworn, Flynn.”
Alphonso Flynn sighed, shook his head, and turned away.
That was some speech. I felt halfway like that myself. I sure didn’t want a blood-soaked whiskey war, and that was what I was getting. But I would either do what I had to do, according to my oath, or quit. I’d clear out the saloons on the first day of January, or turn in my badge.
I watched Flynn and two of his drovers climb up on the freight wagon and haw the draft horses. The big wagon lumbered through the rutted street slowly, spitting shards of snow off its big wheels, and turned east toward the Flynn place.
It wasn’t going to end New Year’s Day. Even if I got all the saloons in Doubtful shut down, there’d be new joints springing up all over the county, log cabin saloons in every rural gulch. I’d need more deputies to ride herd on all that.
I pushed into the headwind to get back to Courthouse Square and chose the courthouse itself to get out of the gale. I found Amos Grosbeak staring dourly at the drifts that were building up fast and threatening to shut down Doubtful.
“There isn’t anything you can tell me,” Grosbeak said. “I’ve heard every argument from you and all the rest. We’re going ahead with the law, period.”
“That’s not what I’m here about.”
Grosbeak peered upward, eyeing me over his wire-rimmed spectacles.
“I got to have me five or six more deputies.”
“Are you daft, Pickens?”
“If you want the new dry law enforced, that’s what I need.”
“I’m sure you can do a fine job without all those subordinates, Pickens.” He said it in a way that was loaded with doubt.
I recounted my encounter with Flynn and described the amount of booze that got loaded into a single freight wagon, and I didn’t forget to tell Grosbeak what Flynn was saying.
“You want to turn this county dry? You want to shut down every log cabin saloon that’s going to go into every gulch? You want to intercept nighttime shipments up from Laramie? You want to track down every beer party on every summer night in the county? You want to keep the booze out of a county the size of some eastern states, with just me and one deputy?”
Grosbeak eyed me levelly. “There’s not a dime to be had. We just increased our administrative salaries, and there’s nothing left over.” He leaned forward. “We’re putting our trust in you, Pickens. There’s something you should learn to do, because you’re not much good at it. You need to win the cooperation of the community. You need to organize watch and ward patrols, get informants, pay snitches. Get the women involved; get an earful of gossip and learn where the outlawed traffic is going, and then strike hard.”
“All right, sir. I’ll start with you. I want you and Mrs. Grosbeak to feed me anything you hear, every little rumor, and I’ll track her down.”
“We’re too busy for that, Pickens. You get informants from people who have nothing better to do than spy on their neighbors.”
“You going to give me a budget for that? For hiring snitches?”
“No, Pickens, you’ll get help from all those people who are eager to do their civic duty. You’ll get yourself in front of civic groups, like the chamber of commerce, and ask for their cooperation.”
“This sure is entertaining,” I said.
CHAPTER NINE
This sure was getting bigger by the hour. It was looking like war. At the stroke of midnight, New Year’s Eve, the population of Doubtful would be reduced by about eighty percent, especially of women with shotguns waded into it. It was going to keep the grave diggers real busy. It was a good thing it was winter, because it would take a month to get all those bodies planted. They could be safely frozen in the meantime.
But that was speculation. I spent the next day shoveling out the sheriff office, which was inundated by a new storm that seemed to unload snow until the town slowed to a crawl. I hoped it would blizzard New Year’s Eve and save the town from certain doom.
“You want to shovel for a while, Rusty?” I asked after putting in a good lick.
“I have a sore back, and the county’s not paying me for that,” Rusty said.
“We’ve got to keep the steps clear so we can get all the drunks into jail,” I sa
id. “We can’t have them breaking their bones around here.”
“They’re going to be too loaded to know the difference. You could bring the whole lot in on toboggans,” Rusty said.
I figured there’d be no one arriving in town that snowy day, but I was wrong. A company of men along with three or four big gold-gilded wagons came rolling in, snow-caked, cold, frostbitten, and steaming the air.
I stepped outside, trying to fathom what that was all about. There were about twenty of the toughest hombres I’d ever seen, men with big walrus mustaches, bright red noses, long dark coats, square-toed boots, and a variety of caps that were mostly made of animal pelts. The horses looked worn; they had dragged those wagons through some tough drifts. A few men were carrying long guns, but whatever the rest were carrying was hidden under those big black coats.
The odd thing was the four wagons, which looked like they came from a circus. In fact, they were circus wagons, gilded and gaudy. One was a sleeper wagon, and three were rolling cages with iron bars. These were empty. The only time I had seen wagons like that, there were lions and tigers in them. It was so cold and blowing that not even the gaudy parade drew a crowd. Mostly people stayed inside, huddled around their stoves. But here was a company of men and wagons that defied explanation. They weren’t doing anything illegal, and I figured I’d get the skinny of it pretty quick.
It didn’t take long until the whole outfit was parked outside the sheriff office on Courthouse Square, and that’s when one of the frostbit men finally detached himself, tipped a hat to me, and walked into the warm office.
“Goose Cannon here, out of Cheyenne,” he said. “You the sheriff?”
“I am. Cotton Pickens.”
“Good. We’re here to help out. I didn’t know if we’d make it in time, but we did. We got hired by the Women’s Temperance Union to help you shut down all them saloons at one minute after midnight.”
“Hired?”
“Yeah, they wired us for help. We’re willing to work for anyone, long as we’re well paid. We got us some of the best artillerists this side of Possum Creek. We butcher first and buy our hunting license later. The ladies said you’d deputize us, just to keep it all on the up and up. We’ll just bust in, right after midnight, and shoot out the lights.”
“Cannon, that’s not what we’ve got cooking here, but thanks for the help.”
“Don’t thank me, thank the women. It don’t matter whether you pin badges on us. At one minute after midnight, we’re going to shut down Doubtful like it’s never been shut down before.”
“You’re not going to do that, and you’ll keep those guns off your persons. That’s a city ordinance.”
“Well, friend, your city ordinance is going to get itself ignored for a while,” Cannon said. “See those circus wagons? We brought our own cozy little jails along. We heard you got just two dinky cells, which ain’t enough to keep a few old souses safe, much less most of the rannigans off the ranches. So we brought our own, and we’re going to fill ’em fast, and we’ll let them freeze their asses in the cold until they repent, and then maybe we’ll let them go.”
“Sorry, Cannon, that’s not how it’s going to work, and if you pull some deal like that, you’ll end up in those cages yourself.”
“Them women, they knew you’d be on the wrong side, so they just said ignore Pickens; the head lady, she’s married to the county supervisor, and that’s all we need. You stay outa trouble, boy.”
This sure was a pickle. I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere by arguing, not with twenty killers with more balls than a pawnshop, their hands not far from whatever lay on their waists under the buffalo coats and black slickers.
“Suit yourself. You can probably board those horses at Turk’s Livery Barn, and maybe he’ll let you sleep in the hayloft.”
Cannon smiled. “I knew you’d be sensible.” He turned to his bunch. “Follow the plan,” he said.
“What plan?”
“Oh, relax, Sheriff. We got it all worked out. These wagons are going over to Saloon Row right now and are gonna be parked real conspicuous near all those houses of perdition. People are going to ask about them, and they’re going to learn that the tiger and lion wagons are real good at caging drunks and rebels on New Year’s Eve. That’ll wet their britches for them. You’re going to have the most peaceable New Year’s Eve in the long, illustrious, shining history of Doubtful.”
The company of toughs immediately started the frosted horses toward Saloon Row, black shadows in swirling snow.
“Who’s got the key to them cages?” I asked.
“I do. I alone have the keys. I will play God on New Year’s Eve, choosing who I send to hell. We’re going to clean up this problem so fast it’ll run like crap through a duck. Pickens, you got nothing to worry about. Them cowboys are no match for this outfit. A few minutes after midnight, the drunks will be caged, the booze in every bar poured out or shot out, the saloons locked tight, the new law enforced, and you can go to your little trundle bed and snore away the rest of the night.” Cannon smiled. “Don’t say we never did anything for you. We’ve solved every problem that’s been eating out your gizzard.”
“You heeled?”
“We’re all heeled. You open our coats and you see a regular hardware store.”
“I guess you better come with me, Cannon. We’ll go over to my office.”
“What for?”
I beckoned and Cannon followed, curious about what was up. The heat struck us as we entered, which was good. I liked that. I wanted heat. I took off my coat. Cannon stayed buttoned up.
“We’ll pack them cells, boyo,” Cannon said.
Cannon headed that way, through the jail door, and studied the cells. “They’ll do,” he said.
“We’ve got a law here. No guns inside of the town limits. You going to comply? You and your outfit?”
“That’d be like going naked in freezing weather, Pickens.”
“There’s pegs on the wall there. Good place for you and your outfit to hang up the guns. When you leave town, you can pick them up.”
“Pickens, we come to help out. What’s in your head except bone?”
“I got a law that needs some attention. Tell you what, Cannon. You and me, we’ll go out and tell those gents with you to bring in the hardware. That’s what the rule is. It’ll be safe here.”
I picked up a scattergun I had lying behind my desk.
Cannon saw how it was. His greatcoat hung heavily over his own artillery. “I never forget,” he said.
“Good. I guess you’ll need to undo that coat one button at a time, while I stand behind you, and I guess you’ll unbuckle your gun belt, and I guess you’ll slowly let her drop, and turn around slowly with your hands high so I can see what else you’ve got. Then you’ll head for one of them cells, you get your pick, and I’ll write out a ticket, and maybe you can talk to Lawyer Stokes—he’s the only one we got here—into defending you.”
“You want to know what’s gonna happen, Pickens? Those dudes out there, when they get wind of where I’m parked, they’ll tear this jailhouse to bits, and maybe you’ll be lucky to get your ass into the woods before they do.”
“Sounds like a threat to me, Cannon. My finger’s itchy.”
“Hell, Sheriff, my fists are itchier. Tell you what, Sheriff. If I give you my word that I’ll bring the boys in, and we’ll hang our hardware there until needed, would that do?”
“No. That ‘until needed’ part don’t fly, Cannon. Until you’re fixing to leave town. Then you get it back.”
“Fine way to treat friends, Pickens.”
“You gonna give me your word? And you gonna keep your outfit legal?”
“Wait until them Temperance women hear about this! Pickens, there’s no worse terror walking the earth than a Temperance woman. They scare the hell out of me, and they’ll turn you into beeswax if they choose.”
“You gonna give me your word?”
That room sure turned quiet. The bore of my pum
p shotgun never wavered.
“I can’t speak for them others,” Cannon said. “There’s some that got born sucking on a gun barrel. There’s some that consider their hardware their real, true private parts.”
“You’ll bring ’em in here and see to it that they hang their hardware on those pegs, and you see to it that they don’t go out and buy more, and you see to it that you keep your word. If I need armed men on New Year’s Eve, I’ll decide. Maybe I’ll ask you to arm. Maybe I’ll even swear you as a posse. But that’s my decision, not yours. If I let you walk out of here, do you agree to it?”
“You got me between a rock and a hard place, Pickens. Them women . . . they’re expecting us to do our job. We don’t get paid until we do it.”
I shrugged. “Well, go pick yourself a cell, Cannon.”
“I want to think about it.”
“This is double-aught buckshot, Cannon. That greatcoat won’t stop it.”
Cannon sighed, stared, and finally whined a little. “I thought we’d be tight as ticks. We came to help out, and now this.”
I waggled the shotgun.
“Oh, all right, dammit. I’ll agree.”
“You go write that down in the daybook. Put a date to it, December 29, and you agree to leave your arms here in the jailhouse and you’re going to make all the rest of your outfit bring theirs in right now. And sign it.”
Goose Cannon twitched and headed for the daybook, where there was a nib pen and ink bottle awaiting him. “You mind if I just put an X in there?” he asked.
“Why an X?”
“I can’t think of all them letters and how to push them into a line.”
“You’re a man I understand,” I said. “I got to shape them all up myself. But no, an X won’t do. You’ll write the thing down. Or we can wait until my deputy, Rusty, comes in, and he’ll do it and witness your signature.”
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