Chapter Thirty-three
Billy Bones told me his Wild West would pull out the next morning. That was a good sign. It wouldn’t be sneaking out at night, leaving unpaid debts around Doubtful. That meant I wouldn’t have to yank Rusty from his honeymoon and put him to work.
The Wild West had drawn good crowds off the ranches. The drovers liked the rodeo stuff and the town liked the shooting exhibits and western stuff.
“There’ll be a farewell party at the Last Chance Saloon after the show, sheriff. Come join us,” Bones said.
That sounded fine to me. The Last Chance, and its barkeep, Sammy Upward, was my favorite saloon. It was big and generous with its drinks, and Sammy kept good order with a billy club and sawed-off shotgun. He’d never had to use the scattergun, but it had a way of subduing trouble fast.
It sure was a pleasant August evening. The crickets were chirping, and bugs committing suicide in the kerosene lamps, and the town dogs were peeing on every post. Bones had told me he did fairly well, for a small town like Doubtful, and he was leaving a few bucks ahead. Some places, he said, he was lucky to get out with the show intact. The outfit was heading for Casper next, and he was worried because Casper had the reputation of being the roughest town in Wyoming, full of rural hooligans. Not that the show couldn’t defend itself. Bones had some roustabouts who were really soldiers, ready to spring into action any time. Rinkydink was one of those.
Well, it was a dandy show. Word got out that this would be the last performance, so all the town came out to the grounds to enjoy the sights. There was no grandstand seating. People just came and stood, or threw a blanket on the ground and sat. Belle was there with Riley. She was caring for Riley while Rusty was making whoopee with his Siamese twins.
Miss Quick, she did just fine, knocking clay birds out of the sky. She went on first, while the light was good. By the end of the show, light was fading, and they did their grand march just in time, finishing up at dusk. People had a fine old time, and then they drifted into Doubtful, full of inspiration. That final drum and bugle parade was just right.
I watched Bones’s crew dismantle things, and they did it so fast I could hardly believe that for a few days, they had conducted a big Wild West show there. In the morning, they’d hitch up their teams and ride away.
It sure gave me a good feeling. I drifted over to Sammy Upward’s saloon, and it was already filling up. There were a mess of cowboys from the Admiral Ranch, and I spotted Big Nose George and Spitting Sam, belly to the bar, sipping the first red-eye of the evening. There were boys from all the ranches in there, sucking beer, laying out coin for a shot of rye, or a glass of sarsaparilla if they weren’t the drinking sort. Plug Parsons and Carter Bell were in from the T Bar, along with Rudy Beaver. That outfit was far out, and they’d come a piece to see the show and rub shoulders with the crowd. Those cowboys were slicked up, in high-heeled boots and bandannas, and some had even washed up for the occasion. But there wasn’t a sidearm among them, and I liked that, because sometimes one of them got a little frisky and began perforating the ceiling. But this here was a social occasion, wall-to-wall smiles, and that would make for a fine evening.
The Wild West boys began drifting in, looked around, and settled on a corner table. They were mostly drinking rye whiskey. Maybe that was the preferred booze for the outfit. They were a muscular bunch. Cowboys were mostly thin and wiry and short; these show people were muscled up. Cowboys mostly sat on a horse; these show people were wrestling teams and tents and furniture and livestock all the time, and were all bruisers. The cowboys were more colorful, all spangled up in bright colors and gold and silver, while the roustabouts were wearing brown britches, old boots, and tight, knit shirts. I saw Rinkydink among them, and wondered what Miss Quick saw in him. Maybe it was none of my business, I thought. He was no bigger than the other roustabouts, but his shoulders were axe-handle wide, and he had hands the size of hams.
Everyone was sure having a fine time, and Sammy Upward was dishing out the booze faster than I’d ever seen him, coining money as he went along. It got crowded in there, and Sammy lit a couple more kerosene lamps in the wagon wheel chandelier, so there was good light even in the far corners. The T Bar boys and Admiral Ranch boys were old enemies, so they stayed at opposite sides of the place, and mostly sat there in the heat, looking dreamy. It sure was a fine August evening, even if the place needed a little more air.
Amanda Quick and Billy Bones showed up, still in their show outfits, she in her fringed buckskins, he in a giant sombrero topping a black suit of clothes. They sure looked fine. I waved, and they both saluted me from across the room, and next I knew, someone had lifted her to the bar, and she stood up on it, and was lifting a glass with something green in it.
“Here’s to Doubtful, Wyoming,” she said, and all the good folks in there cheered.
“And here’s to Sheriff Cotton Pickens,” she said.
That evoked a hoot and a holler, and Smiley Thistlethwaite emptied a beer mug over me, and then Rinkydink beaned Smiley with a whiskey bottle, and then Plug Parsons kicked Big Nose George in the crotch, and then Sammy Upward yanked out his shotgun and fired at the ceiling, which was an awful racket, and then no one paid the slightest attention to Sammy. A mighty howl rose up and swamped the Last Chance Saloon, and drinking was forgotten for the moment because everyone had some new entertainments to keep him busy.
I felt a crack on my shoulder, and I saw Carter Bell’s fist whiz by my nose. I thought that this could be an enjoyable evening, but I had a duty to maintain the peace, and also preserve the Last Chance Saloon before it was torn to pieces. So I leapt over the bar, looking for Sammy’s billy club, grabbed it, and climbed up on the bar, planning to rap hard for attention.
Well, my ma used to say that good intentions aren’t enough. Miss Amanda Quick kneed me where it hurt, and as I folded over, Spitting Sam shoved me off the bar and into Sammy Upward’s prone carcass. Big Nose George had knocked him cockeyed, and he was nursing himself under the beer spouts.
I heard wild laughter, whoops, howls, and a rumble of anger in there, too, as all them rowdies began to get serious about the whole business. A bottle of booze landed on my head, but my hat softened the blow.
“You all right?” I asked Sammy.
“You’re an idiot,” he replied.
“You got any bright ideas?” I asked.
“Arrest them all,” he said.
“I’ll give her a try.” I clambered up, dodged a tumbler that shattered on the back bar, and yelled, “Stop! You’re all under arrest!”
A beer bottle conked me on the forehead. A fist caromed off my shoulder. That hurt.
“I’m ruined,” Sammy said.
“This place is about to burn. One spilled lamp, and it’s all over,” I said.
Some roustabout leaned over the bar and puked on my boot.
By then things were beyond human restraint. I heard the roar and squeal, the shatter of glass, the cackles, the thump of fist on flesh, the snap of glass underfoot, the whoosh of air exploding from a gut, and shadows danced on the walls as the chandeliers careened this way and that. There was less laughter now and more rage. I heard glass shatter. Something busted the mirror of the back bar, and shards of glass landed on Sammy and me.
“You want the revolver?” Sammy asked. “Shoot out the lights?”
“And burn down the town,” I said. “I’m gonna haul the bodies out.”
I edged around the bar, worked my way outside, saw that Amanda Quick and Billy Bones had escaped, and saw a crowd collecting there.
“We’ll haul out the bodies,” I said.
A reveler came flying through the door, dripping red. He had been rolling around in shattered glass. He sat on some horse manure, laughing.
I edged in and dodged a flying chair, spotted a bloody cowboy who was being stepped on, got him by the ankles, and dragged him out. He howled as he scraped over glass, but in a moment he was lying on the street, leaking blood.
“Fix him,” I yelled, and plunged back in. A beer mug hit me on the head, and I started after the roustabout, but thought better of it. I found another cowboy slumped against a wall, out cold, his mouth pulverized and leaking blood. I lifted him up, dragged him by his belt, and dropped him next to the rest in the manure outside.
“Hey, sheriff, why don’t you just let them kill each other?” George Waller asked.
“Help me. We got people getting killed in there,” I said.
Waller laughed.
I ducked a flying fist—this time it was Rinkydink’s ham hand—and got ahold of Spitting Sam, who had been no match for the roustabouts, and lolled stupidly against the bar.
“Come on, Sam,” I said.
I got an arm around him, and was about to get him out, when someone shoved me from behind, and I tumbled into the glass, taking Sam with me. All that glass cut me up, but I got up and hauled Sam outside. A bandaging crew was at work out there.
The brawl was winding down, and it quit as suddenly as it started. Some were laughing, and some were sobbing. Sammy Upward was surveying his saloon, or what was left of it, moaning and groaning.
The townspeople outside suddenly got brave, and helped me drag the casualties out to the clay road, stanch the blood, and line them all up like corpses.
One roustabout sat there laughing. He was unharmed. The cowboys got the worst of it. Show people did hard work every day; cowboys only occasionally, and now it showed. There were twice as many cowboys on the injured list.
“All right, I’m taking you all in,” I said.
“But we’re leaving at dawn,” Billy Bones said.
“After Hanging Judge Earwig has his say,” I replied.
“What are you charging them with?”
“Well, let’s see. Disturbing the peace, assault and battery, destroying the saloon—I’ll need to look that up—you name it, I’ll include it.”
“Hey, suppose I just donate a hundred dollars and you let them go.”
“I don’t take gifts,” I said.
Waller stepped in. “Just get them outta town, Pickens. Tell them to vamoose.”
“Nope, I’ve got twelve roustabouts and twenty cowboys moaning and groaning around here, and they’re going to stand before the judge.”
“I don’t know how you ever got appointed,” Waller said.
“You shouldn’t have appointed me,” I replied. “Now help me move these galoots.”
But the jail was a long way off, and we’d have to drag about twenty of these wrecks.
“I’ll help you,” Sammy said. “I want my saloon paid for.”
But it was Bones himself who came to the rescue with a two-horse freight wagon. We piled in the bodies, moaning and groaning, and I took the first load over, and locked them in Cell One. Then we loaded up the wagon again, and herded those who could walk, and we filled up Cell Two. By the middle of the night, I had over thirty revelers crammed into two cells, thanked Billy for the wagon, and told him I’d get the judge up early so the show could be on the road.
“They ain’t fit to travel, sheriff. So there’s no rush,” Bones said. “You can treat me to breakfast.”
Miss Quick eyed the sorry humanity in the cells. “I’m glad I’m not a man,” she said.