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.