Wyoming Slaughter Read online

  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.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-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 inju
stice 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.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-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.