At last, Doubtful slipped into peace and prosperity. Those cowboys who still wanted a nip could and did join the Elks or the Moose, and belly up to the bar as they did before, and sometimes they played penny-ante poker there. The drovers were full of pranks, some of them pretty mean, but they didn’t wear sidearms into town. And now and then they could be seen bidding on some gal’s box lunch at church socials, which made me mad because I was too cheap to bid on the best box lunches, being a penny-pincher from the get-go. I knew what gals had made the box lunch, but I was afraid I’d get a lousy sandwich for my dollar, or a decaying apple, so I always quit bidding so I wouldn’t be rooked. So my old rivals out on the ranches were sparking all the girls. But at least I wasn’t prowling town with two six-guns hanging from my hips, and mostly I did my rounds with nothing more than a billy club. I was very good with a billy club and could make a bratty boy quit pestering stray dogs just by waving that club.
The count and countess turned out to be fine supervisors, and there was money enough so that Puma County could fix the potholes in the roads and build some shipping pens outside of town where the brand inspectors could look over the brands and okay the herds for travel.
All this happiness in Doubtful did not go unnoticed in the great State of Wyoming, and one day Governor William Hale showed up for a little ceremony in the courthouse. I knew nothing of it until I was suddenly roped in. There, on a fine October day, a whole gaggle of officials had collected. I saw the supervisors and Judge Nippers, and a fellow I recognized as the governor. And then for some reason they invited me to step forward, and I couldn’t figure out what all those people with their beaming faces were doing, but I was put there next to the governor, and the man began talking away. I didn’t quite get it all, but it was all about acting beyond the call of duty, or rescuing a county from a foreign invasion, of preserving the peace, of courage and honor and integrity.
“And therefore, Cotton Pickens, I am making you a lieutenant colonel in the Wyoming militia,” said Governor Hale. “Congratulations, boy.”
I sure shook a lot of hands that day.
But it wasn’t over. There was a box lunch social on the courthouse lawn that eve, and sure enough, every stray drover in the county was on hand ready to bid on those lunches. A fiddler played, and then the count announced that the bidding would begin. For some mysterious reason, the countess Sally had insisted that I bid on a box with a green ribbon on it, and to keep on bidding for whatever reason, to bid even if I spent my last dime on it. There sure were a lot of people in town, and the bidding went high, but I for once cut loose and laid out one bid after another on the box with the green ribbon, even when the price went to seven dollars and twelve cents. “Seven and a quarter,” I bid, and that settled it.
“Now go collect that box,” Sally said. “That lady over there made the lunch.”
I went over to get the box from the stranger, who looked sort of familiar, but somehow different, all fancy in a pleated white skirt and white blouse and shining hair all done up fine. And then I stopped, poleaxed, and my knees gave way. It was Pepper Baker, the gal I’d loved once, who got sent away to finishing school by her pa. And there she was, smiling at me, her eyes big.
“I’m glad you bid, Cotton,” she said.
“So am I, Pepper. My ma, she always said to take a chance if you want anything good to happen.”
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Copyright © 2012 William W. Johnstone
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Following the death of William W. Johnstone, the Johnstone family is working with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Mr. Johnstone’s outlines and many unfinished manuscripts to create additional novels in all of his series like The Last Gunfighter, Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. This novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.
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ISBN: 978-0-7860-3038-5
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