Chapter Twenty-eight
When I saw Big Nose George barreling in to my office, I knew there was trouble afoot. And I pretty well guessed what it was about.
“The hooligans have busted loose,” he said. “Big Finn and Mickey, from the orphan train.”
“Where’d they go?”
“They vanished. On two of our fastest broncs, with two more they took for their joyride.”
“What’s the deal?”
“They stole a hoof rasp. And bit by bit, they filed away at their irons, but not the chain. They worked on the irons around their calves under their pants where no one could see.”
“I don’t know how you can cut iron with a hoof rasp.”
“Well, they done it, and got the irons off somehow. Maybe they had a few other tools. They got clear of the place at night, and were missing this morning.”
“Armed?”
“Hell, yes. There’s no lack of weapons around the Admiral Ranch.”
“With what?”
“We’re still sorting that out. But they have side arms and long guns and boxes of shells.”
“Any food?”
“We don’t know. They sure been planning it, so probably they do. Maybe both spare horses carry packs.”
“They make any threats? Talk about going somewhere?”
“They kept to themselves, real quiet.”
“What were they doing, mostly?”
“Ranch gardens. The Glads grow a lot of what we eat.”
“You spot any trail?”
“In August? Bone-dry, hard clay?”
“Well, you got trackers, and they’ll find green apples.”
“They stayed on main trails; lots of apples, plenty still green.”
“You got any hunch?”
Big Nose scratched his head, pondering it. “Those two were so sour, I think they’re more interested in evening up some scores than leaving the country. They never made friends with anyone around there. It was them against the world.”
“That’s good. We’ll start there,” I said. “But you put your ranch hands out, and see if you can find a trail. You fellers hunt them out of town. I’ll start around here. Evening up the score means me, Rusty, Earwig, mostly. Thanks, Big Nose. We’ll be watching our backs.”
“You gonna get up a posse?”
“You’re the posse. I’m deputizing you. Raise your hand.”
We went through that, and I handed him a badge. George stared. “No damned good. Horse theft, saddles and tack, pack frames, weapons and shells, food, and who knows what?”
“Also escaping a sentence,” I added. “Earwig sentenced them to a year in the chains.”
“Yeah, that, too.”
“All right. These orphans are armed and dangerous, have made threats, and probably plan to do them all. Watch your backs.”
Big Nose left. He would leave his sweated horse at Turk’s and borrow another. I buckled my revolver on, checked the loads, collected a short-barreled scattergun, and headed out. Rusty was off, spending time with Riley. That was one good orphan. Hanging Judge Earwig needed to be told, and protected. If I could guess at the motives of two bitter hooligans, who hated their chains, I’d say they’d go straight for the judge, get him first, and finish him off. Boys, even smart boys, might prefer revenge to escape.
At least that’s how I figured it. Not that I’m right very much. But a lawman’s got to start somewhere, and that’s where I went with it. I left a note for Rusty to watch out, and line up some help if we needed it, then I angled across the square to the courthouse, but Hanging Judge Earwig wasn’t around, which made me uneasy. Well, he often lunched at Barney’s Beanery, so I went over there, and didn’t find him. Next I headed for Earwig’s house on the north side, where all the fancier people lived.
The house looked quiet, but the front door was open, and things didn’t seem right. I studied the windows, looking for faces or the glint of weapons, but I saw nothing at all. I yelled, and got only silence coming back. Mabel should have replied. I edged behind the big cottonwood, removed my old hat, waved it, but no one shot at it. I checked neighboring buildings. The hooligans were smart enough to set up a trap and watch me walk in. But there wasn’t any real places close by; not revolver close. Rifle close. I couldn’t see inside of them, but the windows were closed, and nothing was poking out of any of them.
The Earwigs had a buggy, and it was still in the carriage barn back of the main house. They used a Turk Livery Barn nag when they wanted one.
Time to go in. I pulled my revolver, raced straight for the open front door, and threw myself sideways when I reached the porch. Nothing happened. I stood on the porch, beside the door, waved my hat, but no one shot it. I got down on all fours, peered low through the door, but no one put a bullet between my eyes.
“All right, Mickey, Big Finn, hands up, come on out; alive or dead, your choice.”
No response.
The hooligans probably weren’t there, but maybe a couple of bodies were.
I worked around the house, avoiding windows, darting up to look inside, and lowering my head. Nothing. What I dreaded was something like two dead people lying in one of those rooms.
I burst through the rear door, mostly used to reach the outhouse in back, and found no one in the kitchen or parlor or pantry. It sure was quiet in there. I had my .44 in hand, ready to use it, but it was a worthless piece of iron just then. There was a bedroom downstairs, empty, and an attic room, empty. I saw no sign of violence or trouble, except the open door, but I could nearly sniff it. This house had been invaded; Judge and Mabel Earwig had been hurried away, and I didn’t have a clue where to find them. It made me sick to think about all that.
I stood there on that porch, trying to fathom where the hooligans went and what they had in mind. My ma, she always said it was hard to get inside someone else’s head and know what’s what. But I had to now. There was no time to waste. The Earwigs would soon be dead, if they weren’t already dead.
The only thing that came to mind was that the little punks would choose some grandiose gesture; the itch to show off would trump the need to flee. They could have shot the Earwigs in their house and raced away, but they didn’t. They were prodding the Earwigs to some destination, and my instinct was that the place would be plenty public, and what a couple of dreaming hooligans wanted most was to do something very public and very bad. They wouldn’t take the Earwigs off to the woods and shoot them miles from anyone; they would do whatever they had in mind in front of as many people as they could, and then race away, laughing. That meant Doubtful, not some obscure corner of Puma County.
A distant shot yanked me from my guesswork. Then another. From down near the creek. And that meant the Hanging Tree, a big cottonwood with a stout horizontal limb near the creek bank, where the population of Doubtful had been reduced from time to time.
I didn’t like the sound of all that. I raced in that direction, a handgun in one hand, my sawed-off scattergun in the other. A couple of men were racing that way, too. A few others were heading the opposite direction, getting out of harm’s way.
Two more shots, rifle fire if I gauged it right, shattered the morning. I had no idea what was happening, but I intended to stop it. I got past the mercantile and cut through an alley, and then past a row of houses whose rear yards ended up in the creek bottoms, and there it all came clear, even as a rifle cracked and the bullet ripped through the branch of a cottonwood near me.
I ducked, studied the scene, and didn’t like what was right there in front of my eyes.
The hooligans were there, all right. On the ground, under the tree, sat Judge and Mabel Earwig, their hands bound behind them. Mickey was the one using the rifle, and he was holding off half a dozen townspeople, none of whom were armed, unless someone had a revolver. Mickey had plenty of shells, seems like, and didn’t hesitate to shoot anything that moved, even a hundred yards out. No way we could rush them, and none of us had a long gun.
They had strung lariats around the necks of the Earwigs, thrown the lines over the trees, and Big Finn was tying the first of these lines to the saddle horn of one of their stolen horses. I saw a big carriage whip leaning against the cottonwood, and I knew what would happen the moment he got both lines tied to both saddle horns. The horses would bolt under the whip, the lines would yank the Earwigs up, up, and up, and probably pull their heads off. There’s no good way to die, but this would be the worst.
“You, Finn, drop that line. Now!” I yelled.
Mickey replied with a shot that burned through my hat and knocked it off. I settled lower, hugging dirt. I had some quick decisions to make. Everyone else was scared off. Mickey was pumping lead at anything within a hundred yards. I was closer than that, maybe two hundred feet. My sawed-off shotgun wasn’t worth spit.
“Let them go,” I yelled. “Right now.”
I edged left. Another shot burned close.
I could shoot the horses or shoot twelve-year-old Finn. Shooting the horses wouldn’t work. It took only a whip crack to hang the Earwigs, whether or not the horses had a revolver bullet in them.
The boy, then, and there was no time to feel bad about it. I lay prone, leveled up my .44 as best I could, and targeted Finn. He’d finished tying the lines to the saddle horns, and was reaching for his whip.
I shot. Finn toppled. Blood bloomed on his chest. I felt like hell. The horses skittered, yanking the Earwigs to their feet. Mickey screamed, pumped three shots at me, and ran to fetch the whip. Finn writhed a few times and then lay still. I shot Mickey, who howled, a bullet in his arm. The horses skittered around again, yanking the Earwigs to and fro, but not lifting them up. It was as tough a deal as I’d ever seen.
I yelled at the townspeople. Waved them away. I had to get to those horses and keep them from bolting. Anything could do it, including the smell of blood. If they bolted, the Earwigs would die after all. Shaking, I circled clear around until I could approach them from the front. Mickey was holding his arm and howling.
I began talking gentle to those skittery nags, just trying to whoa up their instincts, and they let me come in. I got ahold of the bridles of both, and backed them up until the Earwigs were no longer on their tiptoes, and could stand, and then sit. Mabel was weeping. The Hanging Judge was looking mighty stern. He’d sentenced a few to their fate at this very tree.
There was still danger, but the town folks, George Waller leading the race, slipped in and began loosening the lariats around the Earwigs’ necks, and then cut their hands loose. I held them horses tight until it was over.
Big Finn was dead, looking quiet and innocent on the clay, not a line in his face, as peaceful as some altar boy. Mickey, he howled and held his arm, and I found a handkerchief and tied off the wound that had torn a lot of flesh. He’d live if he didn’t bleed to death.
The boys’ horses were tied nearby, packed and ready to go. Revenge and run. But it hadn’t worked out like that. One orphan boy was dead; the other might die, and faced a life pounding rock and enjoying the hospitality of the Territory of Wyoming.
Earwig, he just sat on the ground and stared, too shaken to talk. But then he looked up and offered me two words.
“Thank you,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Doc Harrison saved the boy. The Admiral Ranch proudly claimed Big Finn, and put him in the Glad family plot out there. Having a notorious outlaw and the youngest criminal ever to be shot by a Wyoming lawman would help make the ranch a legend, so King Glad retrieved the corpse.
All that I got out of it was big trouble. Reggie Thimble led the parade. “What kind of sheriff have we got, shoots boys? Why don’t you quit, Pickens? Or pick on someone your own age.”
That sort of took me back a little, seeing as how the boy was a few seconds away from hanging two good citizens, and was then intent on escaping justice. But people didn’t see it that way. Only a few days before, I had been soundly whipped by a little sharpshooter, and now they figured I was picking on boys, and no matter that he was a rotten little hooligan.
It sort of got me down. But there was a side of it no one was confessing to, namely, a mess of people would have been delighted to see Hanging Judge Earwig strung up and left to dangle for a week. As for Mabel, she was guilty simply by marriage to him. Earwig wasn’t the most beloved critter in Doubtful. Sammy Upward, who ran the Last Chance Saloon, wanted to have a near-hanging celebration, and send the bill to Earwig, but I talked him out of it.
“Cotton, there’s a joke going around the saloons. What does it take to put Sheriff Pickens out of office? Two boys and a girl! Just thought I’d let you know.”
That sure steamed me up. The boys were about to kill two people, and the girl blew away clay pigeons with a load of sand. But that didn’t matter. The damage was done. And the town was fixing to make me hand in my badge.
I sure didn’t like shooting that boy, and I didn’t like putting lead into Mickey, too. I kept chewing on it in my mind, and didn’t see anything else I could have done. I asked a few people, like George Waller, what else I could have done, but all I got was a shrug. Anything but shoot a boy, is what they seemed to be telling me.
Reggie Thimble had me right where he wanted me, in the crosshairs, and I knew he was going to talk it over with the other Puma County supervisors and start looking for a new sheriff. At least the other boy, Mickey, was showing signs of recovering, but his left arm would always be useless. The bullet had severed some muscle, so he’d not only be in jail, he’d be about half fit to do anything. It was a bad ending for a kid who came out on the orphan train, an outfit that tried to give abandoned children a better life.
Rusty became my eyes and ears, since no one was talking to me. Rusty patrolled the town, stopped in at all the saloons, and visited with bankers and blacksmiths.
“You’re in a bad way, Cotton. They think they have a joke for a sheriff.”
Well, some things can’t be changed. But then I remembered something my ma used to say, which was, you make your own luck. Maybe I should make my own luck. But how?
“Rusty,” I said, “if I got me a rematch with Miss Quick, have we some way of keeping her from blowing away pigeons with sand?”
Rusty stared at me. He’d been so busy wooing the Siamese twins he had forgotten all about my troubles. “I’ll think on it. We’ve either got to have her shoot some other rifle with real shells or we’ve got to have a target that sand won’t even dent.”
“Maybe I call a rematch with someone else calling the shots? So she doesn’t use them cartridges of hers she’s got loaded with sand?”
“I’d like to see her blast away with the sand, and nothing happens,” Rusty said. “Make her crazy.”
“Maybe she’ll marry me,” I said.
Rusty eyed me like I was some walrus. “You’ll do better at Denver Sally’s,” he said.
“My ma, she always says, marry someone you can live with. I could spend the rest of my days side by side, shooting with Miss Quick.”
“Can you afford the powder and ball?”
“Nope. I can’t afford her, but faint heart never won fair woman. That’s what they say.”
“Tin cans,” said Rusty. “Shoot at tin cans, and only ones with a hole in them count.”
“I’ve been thinking, Rusty. That sand doesn’t carry far. It’s no good beyond fifty feet. So I’ll challenge her to a match at fifty yards. Clay birds at a hundred fifty feet.”
Rusty, he just grinned.
“I’ll make a big deal out of it, too. Pick off moving targets with a rifle at a little distance. And I’ll talk it up first. That way, she can’t back out.”
“Sand or no sand, she’s a dandy shot, Cotton.”
“We’ll see,” I said.
I started with Reggie Thimble, since he was the supervisor most interested in axing me.
I found him closeted in the outhouse behind the courthouse.
“Reggie, that you in there?”
“What do you want?”
“I want to preserve the honor of Puma County. I’m gonna challenge the little lady to a shoot meet, clay birds with rifles at a hundred fifty feet.”
There was nothing but silence in there, so I left him to his business. There’s nothing more important in life than tending to one’s business. It beats everything, including women. If I could get through my entire life without one day of constipation, I’d count it a life well lived. But I could tell that Reggie was having a bad time of it.
I headed for George Waller, over in his store. The mayor should be informed.
“Hey, George, don’t fire me just yet,” I said. “I’m going to challenge the little lady to a real match, not some close-up shooting. Clay birds at a hundred fifty feet—with rifles.”
“I hope you lose,” Waller said. “We don’t need an excuse to fire you anymore, but it would help matters along.”
I tried Turk at his livery barn next. Turk just grinned. “You should challenge her to a Critter contest. Whoever doesn’t get killed by Critter, wins the prize.”
“Not a bad idea, Turk.”
Pretty quickly, I let word out all over Doubtful. I was gonna take on Miss Amanda Quick and maybe show her a thing or two.
I hated to think what would happen if I lost. But my ma, she always said take one thing at a time, so I did.
I headed out to the show grounds beyond Saloon Row, and found Billy Bones easily enough.
“Hey, Billy, I’ve told all the good folks in town, I’m ready for a rematch, and what’s more, I’ll make it tougher: clay pigeons with rifles at fifty yards. We’re all raring to go.”
Bones, for once, frowned. “You told them that, did you?”
“You bet. If that little shooter of yours can’t beat the sheriff this time, why, ain’t nobody gonna show up for the next show.”
Billy Bones shook his head. “Any rematch has to be exactly like the one before.”
“Oh, ho! Scared of some real shooting, is she?”
“I’ll ask her, but she’ll say no, sheriff.”
“That’s fine. That puts Puma County back on the map.”
Bones, he just stared. I was whistling. I never whistle. It’s what idiots do. But now I was trilling like a meadowlark. I headed for town, but Bones caught up with me.
“Wait!” he yelled. “I’ll work something out with her.”
“Nah, Billy, we’ll do the match this afternoon, at the start of the show, or you might as well pack up and go.”
He sure didn’t like that.
The upshot was, I was at the show grounds promptly at two, and there sure were a mess of people come out to see it, and Bones was looking mighty bleak.
“She’d be pleased to match you at fifty feet, Pickens. Otherwise, she’ll retire from the contest.”
“You just tell this here crowd that I’m shooting alone; and it’s at a hundred fifty.”
Rusty was just so pleased he could hardly stand it.
Bones, he gave in, and started the show.
“Ladies and gents, we’ll begin this afternoon performance with a special exhibition of marksmanship by your sheriff, Cotton Pickens. The sheriff, assisted by his deputy, will attempt the impossible: shooting clay pigeons out of the sky at a hundred fifty feet with a rifle. My good friends in Doubtful, Wyoming, I welcome Sheriff Pickens.”
Well, I took my bows, and Rusty set up the spring-loaded trap, and away we went.
Sad to say, I missed the first one, and that started some hooting. There wasn’t a large crowd on hand; most of the cowboys were hard at work on the ranches. But plenty of folks had heard about the rematch, and were studying me.
The second bird sailed high, and I led it slightly, squeezed, and blew it to bits.
I saw Miss Quick eyeing me from her wagon, but mostly staying out of sight. Well, fine, I’d show her a thing or two.
I knocked the next bird right out of the sky, and nicked the next one. It counted as a hit. I was doing what I do best, boring in on the target swinging along with it and then firing at just the right moment. I was born to it.
Of the ten birds, I missed one more and knocked eight to smithereens. That sure pleased the crowd, but not Bones, and I suspected he’d pull up stakes the next day. His star shooter was sulking in her wagon, and everyone noticed.
I saw Reggie Thimble staring at me. His plans to shove me out the door had suddenly gone awry, and he was looking sour. He should have stayed in his outhouse and read the Monkey Ward catalogue in there.
Bones began the rest of the show, with cowboys roping calves, riding broncs and bulls, and all the rest. Then Miss Quick came out to do her sharpshooting stuff, but she wasn’t all flouncy and perky this time. She looked a little down at the mouth. I watched, real interested, and was quick to note she didn’t do any rifle stuff at all. Just trick shots from horseback, and blowing holes through the ace of spades with her revolver, stuff like that. It sure was an admission that she was no match for me with a rifle. And the crowd caught it, too. Still, she was one fine shot, and a dandy performer, and anyone who knew anything about shooting had to admire her.
After she was done, I headed her way, as she and her batman were picking up all her stuff, and I lifted my old sweat-stained hat off my head.
“That sure was pretty shooting, Miss Quick,” I said. “Makes a man think of marriage.”
She eyed me, the strangest look on her face, and then laughed.
“Me, I’d love a wife who’s a shooter almost as good as me,” I said.
“Sheriff, you’re a card,” she said, and walked off. That sort of bothered me some. I was real earnest about it, but she just dismissed me in a wink of an eye.
“Cotton, you’ve done it again,” Rusty said.