Chapter Twenty-three
Me and Rusty, we done the job. That old carny show was roaring away on the midway; everyone in the show was over there, gulling the last dimes out of cowboys and suckers. The camp area, it was plenty dark, and no one was around except once when one of the old gals in the outfit came back to smoke her corncob pipe a while.
Finding the breast collars and unbuckling them and carting them out was a big job. Those things were hard to separate from all the rest of the harness. The breast collars run across the chest of the horse or mule, below the neck and windpipe, and are wider than most of the rest of the stuff. But neither Rusty or me was as good as Turk when it came to harness, so it took some doing.
There were fourteen wagons, each drawn by a pair of draft horses or big mules, and that meant finding twenty-eight collars. It was no ten-minute job, in the dark. But bit by bit, both of us collected what we could, stocked it away from camp, and went back for the rest, always keeping an eye out. The company was pretty well packed up. All the loose stuff was stowed away, and the outfit was going to roll out of Doubtful, maybe around midnight, when the rest of us were deep asleep. They planned to be far down one of the roads; they didn’t let us know where they were going next. But they’d come up from Laramie, and I was guessing they would be heading for Douglas.
After we got all the collars we could find, unbuckled and in a heap, we carted them two at a time over to the jail, and stuffed them all in a cell. That was heavy going, too, all those trips hauling forty or fifty pounds of leather and buckles. But about the time the carny show was winding down, and people were quitting, we got them collars all locked up in a cell, and got the jail all locked up, so there wasn’t going to be any busting in or out.
Rusty, he just grinned. “I get to visit my Ukrainians for a while more, seems like,” he said.
I figured that was good for Rusty, but not for the Siamese twins, who were in a big spat over him and his designs. It sure must be hell to be locked into the same body as your twin, especially if one of you got favored, and not the other. But that was the way things were, and they’d have to figure out living, because no one could help them.
“We gonna sit here with scatterguns and guard the fort, or are we going to bed?” Rusty asked.
“Go to bed. You go look after Riley. Me, I’m going to Belle’s. If they come knocking, I’ll just let ’em hammer on doors.”
I watched him go to his cabin, which was not far away, and near Doubtful Creek, where all them draft horses were, and I drifted toward Belle’s Boarding House, where I’d roomed ever since I came to town. It was a quiet night, with a soft breeze, and not much of a moon so it was plenty dark, and I stumbled my way up the stairs and into my room. My guess was I wouldn’t get through the night before all hell busted loose.
Well, I was right, but it wasn’t an hour into the night before there was a racket in the hall, and then some thundering on my door.
I yawned, lit a lamp, and padded to the door. I sleep buck-ass naked in the summer, and thought maybe I’d better get into something, so I hiked up my britches, and then opened up. Sure enough, there was Heliotrope Pike, beet red, breathing fumes, and looking ready to kill. A man behind him held a kerosene lamp.
“Where is it?” he asked.
“You got some trouble?”
“The harness. You’ve got it.”
“The harness?”
“Cut the crap, Pickens. Where is it?”
“Locked up tight, and it stays there until I cut it loose.”
Pike was backed by a pair of bruisers, roustabouts for his show, maybe the very men I was looking for. They were big, and they all simply pushed into my room.
“You’ll unlock, or we’ll unlock,” Pike said. “Your choice.”
“You threatening a law officer?” I asked.
“You going to unlock or not?”
“You owe me the names of four abductors, and whoever cranked up that abduction. Did you do it?”
“The keys, Pickens.”
“You do it, Pike? You put these roustabouts on horses, and got a cart to carry the twins, and went and grabbed them for your show, knowing you could get away with it?”
“The keys. Or do we have to force the issue?”
I heard a commotion in the hall, and pretty soon Belle was floating up the stairs in her robe, a light in hand.
“You’re disturbing my boarders,” she said. “You git.”
They ignored her.
I thought I saw some opportunity in it. With a little luck, I’d put these three in the other cell, but it’d take some doing.
“It’s all right, Belle. This here’s Mr. Pike, and he says someone’s made off with his harness. So I’ll get dressed and we’ll see.”
“You in trouble, Cotton?” she asked. I knew she sometimes carried her little .32-caliber five-shot lady revolver in her robe pocket, and I didn’t want her messing with these bruisers.
“These here are nice carny folks, Belle. They’re fixing to leave town, and mislaid some harness somewheres. I’m going to get my shirt and boots, and we’ll go see what needs doing. Someone doesn’t want them pulling out.”
She eyed me skeptically. “Horse pucky,” she said, but didn’t pull her peashooter out.
Pike, he just glared. He sure was looking pouty. He was up a tree. He got caught trying to duck out at midnight, and probably didn’t suppose I could tell a breast collar from a surcingle. Or that I’d go after his harness at all. Most people, they want to immobilize an outfit, they go after the livestock.
I got busy yanking pants up and stabbing toes in boots, all the while finding out what I could.
“When did you fellers come up missing?” I asked.
Pike just stared. “Pickens, cut the baloney,” he said. “You got it and you’re going to deliver it.”
“Well, I’ll trade it for the names of them fellers broke the law around here.”
I collected my ancient Stetson and started to collect my scattergun, but Pike, he just shakes his head slowly. “I think not,” he said.
Both of them roustabouts had their hands hidden, and I didn’t want to mess with that.
So we rattled down the wooden stairs, waking up boarders, and Belle let us pass. Pretty quick we were in a quiet night, and walking toward the jail. I was surprised to find Rusty waiting at the door. He sure had a sense of trouble, and was quietly waiting for trouble to come, mainly in the form of Pike and two big roustabouts.
Rusty, he didn’t say a thing, and I knew what we were about to do, and so did he. He opened the office door, and we pushed in, and he headed for a kerosene lamp, scratched a lucifer, and lit the place.
“Now, Pike, what is it you’re looking for?” Rusty asked.
There was no harness visible in there. The dark, barred jail door loomed, and behind it two cells, and the farther one had the goods in it. There were a couple of shotguns and rifles in a wall rack, and a mess of papers, and some dodgers, and a few chairs, and my battered desk, all in shifting shadow as the flame wavered.
“You satisfied, Pike?” I asked.
It became a moment of calculation. Rusty was armed. The roustabouts no doubt had some weapons. Pike, he wore his midway clothing, a suit, collarless shirt, and bowler. His hands were not in his pockets. He eyed the room, all its shadowy corners, eyed the barred jail door, and eyed the blackness beyond, knowing where the collars were, but also knowing there would be big trouble if he pushed. Someone had to open the jail door, and open the cell door, and not get trapped in there. And Pike didn’t want to shoot a sheriff and deputy if he could help it. Or get shot by me and Rusty.
I watched the gas leak from him.
“We bought that act from a medicine show in Laramie,” he said. “I wish I had a receipt but I don’t. It’s all handshake in the business. That was the Zimmer outfit, that came through ahead of us. These gals, they were pleased to join a real carny, not a medicine show. Those are hard shows. They wear people out and go broke. So we got two grateful women for our freak show tent.”
I said nothing. He knew how to get his harness back.
“This company. We stick together,” he said. “It’s a hard life, being a carny, always on the road, no home to go to, and all we’ve got is each other. It’s us against the world, sometimes. These fellows behind me, they’d give their life for me if I asked them. I’d do the same for them. So whatever we do, we’re all together. You can’t just throw a few of us in the jail; we’re in on everything. You want that? Collect every one of us and put us in those cells, and maybe you’d have what you want. There’s no such thing as a few of us taking the rap.”
Me, I said nothing. I didn’t budge. I wanted the masked men who’d abducted them Ukrainian twins, and that’s how it was going to end.
He eyed me and knew that, without my saying a word. Silence sometimes says ten times more than a lot of talk. His carny show was coming to an end, right then and there. He had no choice. It was doomed if he admitted he had abducted them Siamese twins to put into his show and it was doomed if I refused to give him his harness. I wasn’t budging.
He stared glumly into the lamp that was throwing wavering light into the sheriff office.
“Wake up the judge,” he said. “I want my harness back. You’ve stolen my property.”
He was on to something. Earwig was the only man in Puma County who might get his harness returned to him—if he was lucky.
“His name is Hanging Judge Earwig,” I said, “and he usually cranks up his justice court at ten in the morning, after everyone’s sobered up proper.”
“I want him now.”
“He’s likely to dismiss your complaint if you pester him. He sure likes his shut-eye.”
“Now,” Pike said. He plainly thought he had found a lever to pull. “In spite of his name,” he added.
“His name ain’t got anything to do with his behavior. He got that because of his equipment. He’s got low-hanging fruit.”
“Now,” said Pike, and I nodded.