Chapter Twenty-five
I thought Doubtful, Wyoming, had finally got free of all those road shows, but I was wrong. In the dog days of August, what should roll in but Billy Bones’ Wild West. I didn’t know what that was all about, but I learned soon enough. It was about half rodeo, and half Buffalo Bill. There was a mess of stuff like trick shooting, and a couple of female sharpshooters, and some scenarios from the old Indian wars, but there was also a mess of rodeo competition. Bull riding, roping, bronc riding, and a final act involving catching a greased pig.
They set up shop over beyond Saloon Row—they sure knew where to get their cowboy audiences. That ground was pretty much trampled down by the previous shows, and the slightest rain turned it into a quagmire. But that didn’t slow them. In fact, I learned that when things were real muddy, they ran a mud wrestling contest with some women, and it was hard to say whether the ladies wore anything at all, beneath all that slippery mud.
I braced for trouble. Rodeo competition was a rough game, and cowboys got into brawls, and I knew my two jail cells were going to be jammed and overflowing real quick. But me and Rusty were up to it. Both of us had done our share of cowboying, and we knew how to deal with all that excess enthusiasm, namely, knock them all senseless.
This outfit soon had big bills plastered on every stray wall around town, and they all were promoting one thing: Miss Quick, trick-shot artist, the surest shot in the female universe. That didn’t seem like good advertising to me. Cowboys don’t want to get shot at by a female. And they don’t want to get beaten in shooting contests by a female. But there she was, in color, wearing fringed leather skirt, boots, a big creamy blouse, and a flat-brimmed hat. And she’s hefting a revolver in one hand, and a rifle in the other, and smiling away, like she knew what everyone was thinking.
“I think we’ve got trouble,” I said to Rusty.
He didn’t reply. He was busy courting the Siamese twins and couldn’t be bothered with law enforcement.
“I might see if I can outshoot her,” I said.
“If it was a thinking contest, you’d lose,” he replied. I don’t suppose I’ll ever get used to it.
That’s when Billy Bones himself walked in to the sheriff office. He was a skinny fellow, dressed in black. Black boots, black britches, black shirt, with cream embroidery on it. He was black-haired, too, and lantern-jawed, and I could see he would have a black beard if he didn’t shave, because there was a five o’clock shadow at nine in the morning.
“Sheriff? Bones here. That’s my outfit setting up.”
“Looks like you got a mess of cowboys out there.”
“Mostly jailbirds. I hire jailbirds straight out of the pen as roustabouts and livestock handlers. Once in a while, they turn into cowboys. Nobody ever bothers us.”
“That sure gives me peace of mind,” I said.
“Well, I always want to talk to the law when we come into a town. We like to open with a shooting contest.”
“And I’m the bull’s-eye?” I asked.
He smiled. “Sort of. Here’s the cookie. We challenge any sheriff or deputy to a sharpshooting contest with our Miss Quick. She’s quick, all right. She’ll shoot the hair off your balls.”
“I don’t think—”
“That’s what we heard. But you’re fast with a gun. But we’ll have a little sharpshooting contest, you against Miss Quick. Shotguns and clay pigeons, fast draws, trick shots, and action shots from horseback. If you win, you get a twenty-dollar prize. If we win, we get out of jail free.”
“What would put you in jail?”
“Jailbirds always have a yearning to return to their happy lives in the pen. I have an awful time keeping them out and free.”
“That sure is interesting.”
“Good. We open at four, and the sharpshooting contest is at four-thirty, while there’s plenty of light. Bring your own artillery.”
Rusty, he was smart-ass grinning.
“But I ain’t agreed to it.”
“Don’t be a sissy, Pickens. If you don’t show up, after we’ve promoted it, your name’s mud in Puma County. Likely you’ll get fired.”
“Well, I know all about that,” I said. “Once a week.”
Bones was gone as fast as he blew in. And I was in for a shooting contest. Not that Miss Quick had any chance against me. My ma, she always said I was good with my hands, which made up for being slow. I sure wondered what this Miss Quick looked like. I thought she might be a fake; women can’t shoot worth a damn. Put some little guy, a real sharpshooter, in skirts and powder his face, and who’d know the difference? That was it. These here shows, they didn’t mind stretching truth a little.
Well, they were good at publicity. Next I knew, Mayor George Waller dropped by with a word of encouragement.
“Hear you’re up against some female sharpshooter, Cotton. The honor of Puma County’s at stake, but you’ll whip her handily?” Funny how he ended that with a sort of question mark in his voice.
“I’ll whip her,” I said. “No woman shoots as good as me.”
Waller smiled. “Your job depends on it. We can’t have losers in the sheriff office.”
Before the afternoon was half done, Reggie Thimble had seconded that. The supervisors were unanimous: win or walk out of the job.
I wouldn’t let myself get overconfident. Just because she was billed as Miss Quick didn’t mean she was. I was the fastest draw in Wyoming, and a few people planted six feet down could attest to it. And I was real good on horseback. I could hit the ace of spades at a gallop.
I got out my revolver, cleaned it, worked the mechanism, and pulled it smoothly out of its holster a few times. I had the reputation for being fast with it, but in truth, I was careful. I figured one slower good shot was worth a bundle of worthless fast shots. Let people think I was fast: The only thing that mattered was accuracy.
“You’ll win,” Rusty said, as he eyed me putting my artillery into top shape.
“Of course, I’ll win.” I was testy. How could I not win? I didn’t need his encouragement.
I cleaned my rifle, and polished up my shotgun, and made sure I had plenty of shells and cartridges. They might cost a little, but I’d soon have twenty dollars and that would replace them with cash left over.
I don’t wear my holster much. Doubtful didn’t need some fool gunslick of a sheriff, making a public display of his weapons. I usually carried a billy club, and I could poleaxe people with that. But if all them cowboys wanted a show from me, and the city fathers, too, they’d get it.
Rusty, he kept smirking, and I’d show him a thing or two.
Then Miss Quick walked in. I knew who it was before she introduced herself.
“Howdy,” she said, and thrust a tiny white paw into my sun-baked one. “I’m Amanda Quick.”
“Howdy, yourself. You come to look me over, did you?”
“Oh, just to make your acquaintance. You sure are a big galoot.”
“And you’re a little one. Five feet?”
“Add an inch.”
“You’re real purty,” I said. I thought that might disarm her. If I told her she was real purty, out there on the firing line, she’d melt like wax in a candle.
She eyed me. “Big and strong and manly,” she said.
I sort of blushed. “My ma never called me that,” I said.
“You’ll want to prove that males can beat females.”
“Oh, no, I want to prove that sheriffs are better shots than theater people.”
She laughed. She sure was cute. She had little dimples on her cheeks when she smiled, and merry blue eyes, and was sort of strawberry blond, and was built with just the right curves. And she was dressed just like in the posters, with a fringed leather skirt, a loose blouse good for shooting, and a perky little western hat.
“If I win, you got to marry me,” I said.
I don’t know where that came. It just sort of bubbled up and erupted. It was like proposing in front of Old Faithful geyser.
“Well, usually they don’t ask for that,” she said. “They want all the benefits without the ring. And if I win, will you marry me?”
Holy cats, that caught me with my drawers around my ankles. “You bet,” I said, “but the twenty dollars, it sounds more like what I’m after.”
She laughed, a little twinkle in her eyes, and said, “I’ll see you on the field.”
She jounced away, leaving me lovestruck and bumble headed. I didn’t want to marry her, but now I was stuck. I’d win easily, and then what? Hanging Judge Earwig would be reciting the vows, and I’d be a cooked goose. I don’t know how I get into things like that.
Rusty, he was watching all this with a glint in his eye.
“Don’t you say nothing,” I said.
Time sure dragged. I was mad at Rusty, mad at Billy Bones and his show, mad at shooting contests, and mad at that perky little gal I didn’t like one tiny bit. She was so small I didn’t know how she could lift a rifle, or a shotgun. But according to all the publicity on them broadsheets pasted on every wall, she was a true marksman, and not just standing. Put her on a speeding horse and she was all the better.
It finally got late in the afternoon, so I strapped on my holster and revolver, collected my rifle and shotgun and a mess of shells and cartridges, and set out for the east side of Doubtful. People greeted me along the way, and it dawned on me they’d been waiting, lining the sidewalks, planning to cheer me along.
There were a few women, of course, wanted Miss Quick to whip me. I knew the type. They wore Amelia Bloomer’s pantaloons, and devoted themselves to making life difficult for men. But I ignored them. Most of those nice folks were cheering me. Mayor Waller was even waving a Wyoming flag, and Sammy Upward motioned me to stop in for a drink, but I shook my head. I could whip her with six drinks in me, but decided not to take the chance, just in case she got some lucky shots in, when I was not paying attention. Leonard Silver waved from the door of his Emporium, and my landlady, Belle, in a vast pink tent of a dress, twirled her parasol by way of saluting me. Alphonse Smythe, the postmaster, smiled from in front of his log post office, and even Maxwell, from the funeral parlor, gave me a pale wave of his waxen hand.
It sure was a victory parade, right down Wyoming Avenue, me with my two long guns and the short one. Lawyer Stokes sidled up and volunteered to carry my boxes of shells, so I let him, and he considered it a great honor, and carried them as if they were a wedding ring resting on a lavender pillow. Turk, he was watching, but he wasn’t properly worshipful, and was grinning like a hyena. I’d get even with him after I won my twenty dollars.
Well, by the time I got to the show grounds, there was a mess of people there, including most every cowboy that could escape the local ranches. Bones had set up a shooting area, and roped off the crowds, and there was Miss Quick, all dolled up and cute as a bug, waiting to sacrifice herself to me.
She smiled.
I tipped my hat. And then we were on.