Chapter Twelve
Well, my ma, she always said there’s no better way to win an argument than to poke a twelve-gauge shotgun at some offender’s mouth. It stops all conversation. And that went double this time, with one of them scatterguns aimed at me, and one at Rusty.
The main thing to do is keep your trap shut, so me, I just went real silent and wondered if this was the last sight I’d see.
But the professor didn’t see it that way. He seemed actually melancholic about it.
“This poses a sad dilemma, with no good way out,” he said.
“We’re going the way of the carrier pigeons,” I said. The last of those little buggers got shot away years before. They once sold by the wagon load for pig feed.
“No, not quite. If we were to feed you to the magpies and crows, my friends, the Zimmer Medicine Show would come to an immediate halt, and every person here would flee for his life. For there would be no doubt about who to pursue, and every lawman in several states would do so, with great zest. So, you see, I would face not only the departure of these friends, and my show, but also my way of life, which I cherish.”
This feller was sure talking like someone in some college somewhere.
“On the other hand, if we let you go, we face tribulations, and another set of sorrows that would doom the show, and maybe remove our liberty from us. We all cherish our liberty, sheriff. We wouldn’t belong to a traveling road show if we were content not to roam, and live within the bleak confines of some dreary city.”
This sure was getting long-winded. I wished he’d just wind it up.
“Well, friend sheriff, what are we going to do? I am awash in sadness.”
“Pass around some of your joy juice, the real McCoy.”
“Ah, sheriff, your humor excels, but your practicality is wanting.”
“You got any ideas?” I asked.
“Perhaps a trade-off?”
“What for what?”
“Well, suppose we return the goods that someone accidentally left in our wagon, and suppose we pay fifty dollars to the customers who bought our elixir after the tincture of opium ran out, and suppose we pay a twenty-dollar fine for disorderly conduct, and then you go on your way and we go on our way.”
“I got to uphold the law. Feller does something wrong, I got to haul him in so he will face the music.”
“Ah, but we are remedying the wrong, you see?”
Rusty, he was tired of staring into the bore of a twelve-gauge, and was getting itchy. “I’m tired of this. I’m getting on my nag and heading back to Doubtful, and if you’re gonna shoot me, then do it.”
“Hold up, deputy. Drop your gun belt, and you can go. Adam, take the rifle from the sheath.”
I wondered if Rusty had something in mind, but he was playing his cards close to his vest, so I didn’t even get a look at his face. He got onto the livery stable nag, and eased out of camp.
“And you, sheriff?”
“Me, I’m sworn to uphold the law, so I’m stuck here until I uphold her. Professor, this here Mexican roulette ain’t gonna change. Either you kill me or I take you in. Your choice.”
Zimmer, he sure did look sad. But finally he caved in. “Adam, saddle a horse. I’ll take my medicine.”
That sure was something. I collected Critter, and Zimmer cleaned out his cache of money, and climbed onto a horse that a teamster saddled for him. They gave me Rusty’s artillery to take to him, and two burlap sacks full of purloined items from the Mercantile. But the shotgun on me never wavered.
“I’ll be back whenever Fate decrees it,” Zimmer told them. “Enjoy the night.”
We rode under a starry sky, making swift time back to Doubtful, and pulled in around nine or ten. Rusty wasn’t far ahead of me, and was rounding up a posse when we got in. George Waller was pleased to get his stuff back. Or most of it. What came back didn’t quite match what got took. There were some ladies’ items that had gone missing, but I wasn’t inclined to ride out there and check what was on the southern parts of the grass skirt woman cooking dinner out there.
I pitched the medicine man into a cell, which he eyed dolefully, and sat down with a pencil to draw up some charges, while Rusty went to find Hanging Judge Earwig, and get him to open up court.
There wasn’t any attorney around to prosecute, but maybe it wouldn’t matter if Zimmer pleaded guilty and coughed up a fine.
Old Earwig, with his gray muttonchops and bald head, he even looked like a judge most of the time, when he was sober. He grumbled and whined, and didn’t like being dragooned from his evening toddy, but I got real serious about it and said if he didn’t show up fast, the county might have the expense of trying about seven members of the troupe, and feeding them, until it all was settled. So he finally hiked over to the courthouse in his bedroom slippers, lit up some lamps, and waited for me to bring in the current prize locked up in one of the two iron cells.
Zimmer, he looked even more doleful than Earwig. He was wearing his travel clothing, not his show outfit, and looked like a little dumpling rather than some fancy impresario. The courtroom filled up real quick; Doubtful can’t hold a secret five minutes, and word sure got around, and pretty quick half the cowboys in the bars filled the room, and most of ’em had tonic bottles they wanted to exchange for some greenbacks.
By midnight we got the show on the road. Earwig banged his gavel.
“Will the culprit rise?”
I prodded Zimmer, and he stood up.
“You fixing to make restitution and pay a little fine?”
“If Your Honor so declares,” Zimmer said, woefully.
“You gonna declare yourself guilty as hell?”
Zimmer sighed and groaned and passed a little gas, and nodded.
“You got to say it,” the judge said.
“Guilty as hell, your lordship.”
“All right, now we can divide the spoils,” Earwig said. “Now what are you guilty of?”
“Watering the tonic, your lordship.”
“How many bottles?”
“I got one,” yelled a cowboy.
In all, there were twenty-three cowboys in there wanting their money back.
“That’s forty-six simoleons,” Earwig said.
“But your lordship, they bought these for less than list price.”
“Don’t matter. It’s two dollars a bottle they’ll be getting. Now what else are you confessing to?”
“I confess to nothing, sir. But I am willing to make whole any injured party, within reason, of course, even if I am entirely innocent of all wrongdoing.”
Hanging Judge Earwig turned to me. “What are the rest of his sins, sheriff?”
“George Waller’s store lost some merchandise, most of which was recovered when I raided the medicine show this evening. But he’s still missing some, ah, ladies’ unmentionables, mostly because of the difficulty of making a proper search for the items.”
“What say you, Zimmer?”
“Well, your lordship, I am bereft of knowledge of all that, but believe she may have been making repairs to her grass skirts. When we are short of grass, on the road, my animals feed on her grass skirts, and modesty requires that she have something else on. So my surmise, sir, is that she was simply attempting to protect her womanly modesty.”
“She ain’t all that modest on the stage, Your Honor,” I said. “Fact is, these here unmentionables got took from the Mercantile, and still abide somewhere north of Doubtful, on the south side of the woman in question.”
Hanging Judge Earwig discovered the merchant in the crowd. “Waller, what are they worth?”
“A dollar and ninety-eight cents, sir.”
“All right, I’ll fine this feller two dollars for the undies, and he can pay you when we’re done, or spend thirty days contemplating the error of his ways, guest of Sheriff Pickens. That suit you, Cotton?”
“Your Honor, I’ve always disliked the name Cotton, but Pickens is all right. That was my ma’s joke, calling me Cotton Pickens, but it’s been an anvil around my neck all my days.”
Hanging Judge Earwig banged his gavel. “You’re out of order, sheriff. This court refuses to listen to tales of woe. We’re after justice and money here, not tales of misery.”
I must have really ticked him off. He hardly ever assails me, but once he banged his gavel on my head when I got cranked up in the witness chair.
“Sheriff, has the culprit agreed to be fined?”
“Yes, sir, and I propose twenty-five dollars for the whole lot. I could run up a list of offenses, but as long as Zimmer here is agreeable, it’d save Puma County a mess of work and bookkeeping if he just paid up.”
Hanging Judge Earwig leaned over the bench. “You good for twenty-five more?”
“Your lordship, that would be hard indeed on my loyal staff, who would not be paid if I am forced to squander such a sum as this. They have toiled and the toilers deserve their reward. But if you would lower the bar, so to speak, to seven dollars and a half, I could see my way clear to satisfy all the demands of justice in Puma County, Wyoming.”
“That suit you, sheriff?”
“Well, my ma used to say, don’t niggle the details.”
“Done. This culprit is nailed for seven and four bits, and will trade twenty-six bottles for two dollars each, and will pay George Waller two dollars for some vanishing undies. Does that do it?”
“Your lordship,” said Zimmer, “this has been a pleasant and momentous occasion, and upon the conclusion of these transactions, I wish to treat you to a libation at the Last Chance Saloon, and will stand a drink for the rest of the gents here, in this progressive and noble city, blossoming in Wyoming.”
“Zimmer, if you’ve got a bottle of the real McCoy on you, I’ll buy it as a parting gesture.”
“I just happen to have one, your lordship.”
Well, quick as greased lightning, the cowboys turned in bottles and got two bucks, and Waller got his two, and the county got its fine, and we headed to the east end of town, where the Last Chance Saloon stood, and Sammy Upward was soon pouring the staff of life, and pocketing all the loose change that was floating around.
Zimmer and Hanging Judge Earwig, they got themselves a fine corner table and set about toasting each other, and swearing eternal friendship, and talking about future business partnerships. Me and Rusty, we went back to Belle’s to pick up Riley, who was asleep on the couch, with Belle waiting and watching in her stuffed chair, an odd smile on her weary face.