“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: ‘Drink 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.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I sure didn’t want to go to that monthly Puma County supervisors meeting, but I had no choice. The head man, Amos Grosbeak, told me to come. The supervisors would hold the final hearing on the new ordinance and then vote.
So that February afternoon I made my reluctant way toward the courtroom in the Puma County courthouse, where the awful deed would take place. It was cold out, and the windows would be shut tight, and that would only make it worse.
The bill was entitled An Abatement of Public Nuisances. I could hardly figure it out, and Rusty wasn’t much better, but the county attorney, Lawyer Stokes, would read and discuss the bill, and I hoped to garner some idea of how it worked. I knew it prohibited “immoral commerce” and closed down all them nice old parlor houses along Sporting Row, back when the saloons still existed. Saloon Row was now a forlorn stretch of abandoned and ruined buildings waiting to burn down. Vandals had swiftly removed anything of value from them, and the weather had done the rest.
But the parlor houses had soldiered on, their welcoming lamps swinging in the winter winds, at least until now. Somehow, Doubtful wasn’t the same, and now it would seem even more strange, if this thing was enacted. I knew it would be. Each of those supervisors had him a dragon for a wife, and they all belonged to the Women’s Temperance Union. Those gents were greatly put upon and also scared to be voted out of office, now that women had the vote, at least for all Wyoming state offices. Things sure were changing fast.
I ascended the creaking courthouse stairs, and at the top I hit a wall of perfume. The air was thick with it. There were enough lilacs and roses and marigolds and jasmine, and all that to floor a man. I had no choice but to breathe it for a while, so I made my way into the courtroom. And wasn’t surprised to see the spectator benches all filled up, row upon row, of Women’s Temperance Union members. They were all gussied up, too, most of them in subdued suits buttoned right up to the neck, or brown suits, or tan suits. A few had blouses and jabots. I didn’t know the name of them at first; there was a mess of fabric collected at the throat, like some giant cravat, as if women were envious of neckties and had to have one ten times larger. The perfume emanating from that quarter was beyond description and made my poor throat raw. I yearned for fresh winter air, pine forests, lakeside panoramas. But there would be none of those, and not even an open window. The potbellied stove was burning away, turning all that perfume into darts that laced my nostrils. It sure was something. And every one of those gals wore a hat, too. They looked like a flower garden. Not a one of them wore a bonnet, in the old way.
There was one other gal standing there, and she was austerely dressed in funereal black, with tiny satin buttons running clear up to her neck. She wore no necklace, no ring, and no hat, unlike all the rest of that bunch. And there was no seat for her among the spectators, so she stood patiently. She was Mrs. Goodrich of the Gates of Heaven Parlor House, and I was secretly glad to see her.
Pretty soon the three supervisors, Grosbeak and Twining and Thimble, emerged from the chambers and settled themselves along the dais. Lawyer Stokes also emerged from the chambers, carrying some documents. The officials arrayed themselves like hangmen, and then Grosbeak rapped his gavel and the game got under way.
Soon enough, Grosbeak announced that this would be the final reading of the proposed ordinance of abatement; there would be a time for comment, followed by a vote. Old lawyer Stokes, his voice as raspy as a hand lathe, took to reading the ordinance, which sure seemed a few thousand words longer than necessary. The ladies fanned themselves, some with their hats, and blotted up all this stuff. It was too full of big words for me to get the measure of it, but the first section described a wide variety of felonies and misdemeanors, buying and selling this or that, running a disorderly house and stuff, while the second section described all the penalties, fines and jail terms and confiscations of property, for offenders. I thought that the county was going to get rich, even if the city of Doubtful went broke because it would lose all its license fees, which had been the larger part of city income.
The ladies fanned away, eyed me, while I smiled and suffered, and thought that I would prefer a room full of farts. When the county attorney wound up, Grosbeak invited comment. At first no one spoke up. The Temperance Women sat smugly. It would have been unladylike for them to comment about things beyond mention, so they just smiled and waved their makeshift fans.
Mrs. Goodrich firmly raised a hand, and Amos Grosbeak affected not to see it. So Mrs. Goodrich took to waving her arm, while the three supervisors studied the window and the ceiling chandelier and the American flag.
But Mrs. Goodrich was not to be denied, and after Lawyer Stokes whispered a thing or two, Grosbeak discovered her presence.
“Madam, you wish to speak?”
“I do.”
“Will it offend public sensibility?”
“It might.”
“We
ll, I will gavel you to a stop if you do. Seat yourself there in the witness chair, if you wish, and be on with it.”
“I am Elaine Goodrich, also known as Mexican Marie, the owner and proprietor of the Gates of Heaven Resort on Sporting Row, also known as a whorehouse.”
That brought a rap of the gavel and a twitter of delight among the Women’s Temperance Union ladies.
“I wish to make several points. The first is that if men don’t get regularly laid, they tend to go bad. It’s like a steam boiler without a pressure valve on it, and eventually deprived males simply blow up.”
“Madam, your language is out of bounds. This is a proper public place.”
She nodded. “I’ll watch my tongue for these broads. Now, then, it is unfortunate but true that most men can find little pleasure in wedded life and soon need to stray. That old boiler is building up a head of steam. I am present to accommodate them, and the results are immediately visible. Family life becomes serene. Children are better treated. Wives are respected and honored. There is less likely to be a harsh hand lifted against a man’s own flesh and blood. In short, a parlor house acts to produce tranquility and good order.”
“Ah, are you quite finished?”
“Nope, I’m just starting to rip.”
“Well, we’ll take your views under advisement. Is there any other comment?”
“I’m not half done yet. You going to let me speak my piece?”
“Well . . . be brief.”
“Over half the income available to the unincorporated city of Doubtful is derived from licensing fees for the houses and for each lady within each house, and these are renewed quarterly. Close us down and the City of Doubtful will need to levy property or other taxes upon all of you. The city has already lost its saloon licensing income, which totaled four thousand seven hundred dollars before the recent calamity. It lost another five hundred from licensing gambling tables.
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