Chapter Thirty-nine
I’d never seen anything like it. The whole town was getting heated up about it. At the Last Chance Saloon, that was all they talked about along the bar. The town swiftly divided into two camps. Some were supporting the stranger, Elmer Skruggs, and his horse Jones. That sorrel, they said, had all the mysterious powers of a great horse, and the lope around the track proved it. They were going to lay money on Jones, and walk away with plenty, because Jones was the underdog and he’d go off at high odds.
But the rest of the town, including all the fellers who thought they knew horseflesh, they were ready to lay cash on Jefferson Davis. The oracle for that crowd was Turk himself, the liveryman with a lot of experience in gauging horses. Turk was opining that Limp’s classy bay would run several lengths ahead when the finish line loomed up, and that only suckers and innocents saw anything to like in Jones.
I don’t know what set off the debates. Skruggs wasn’t even a hometown boy, coming from the next county, but he was a good substitute for one, and a lot of people in Doubtful wanted Jones to whip that Confederate horse being put up by that slick operator named Limp, who probably was a man with a checkered past, though no one could prove it, and I couldn’t find any wanted dodgers on him. I did look through the pile, wondering if he was a crook, but he seemed clean as a whistle. He seemed square enough, if you didn’t look real close.
I made a bar tour that eve, stopping at the Lizard Lounge and McGivers’ Saloon and Mrs. Gladstone’s Sampling Room, and I swear that’s all I heard. There were arguments along every bar rail. The savvy ones, the ones who claimed to know horseflesh, they were solidly for Jefferson Davis, but the others, the local boys who thought the territory produced the best horseflesh in the country, they were all for Jones, the mystery horse out of Medicine Bow.
It was sort of turning into the experts against the sentimental, the fellers who knew nags against the wishful thinkers. It was as if the reputation of Puma County was really at stake. No outside nag was going to walk away with the stakes if they could help it.
Well, all this struck me as odd, since no one could point to a record by either horse, and no one could say they’d seen either horse in a race. The best anyone could say was that he’d watched a workout, some easy loping, a brief gallop, intended to keep the nags in shape. So there they were, arguing feverishly about nags whose racing records they didn’t know, and who had never viewed the nags running flat out, even against a stopwatch. It sure got me to scratching my head some.
Turk, he was the kingpin of the Jefferson Davis crowd, and people listened because he knew more about horseflesh than any twenty other citizens of Doubtful. That crowd was going to lay cash on Limp’s thoroughbred, a lot of cash if I was hearing right. That horse was the favorite, and probably wouldn’t pay well, but it was a sure thing, and a feller could lay down two dollars and get a sure two-fifty out of it a few minutes later, or a feller could put a hundred on Jeff Davis and collect a hundred twenty-five in minutes. And people who laid money on Jones, liking the high payout, well, they were suckers, born and bred.
That’s how the evening went in the smoky saloons. Elmer Skruggs showed up briefly in the Last Chance, said he wouldn’t discuss it, just drink his pilsner, and leave. Lots of people tried to get him to open up, but he just stood at the rail, light falling from him, and smiled and sipped and kept silent, and walked out. Limp didn’t show up at all, but the bookie did, quietly taking bets as the evening wore on.
The bookie, Boston Bill, acted like he didn’t much care who won; it was all mathematical science for him. But he’d get his thirty percent cut no matter which horse won. He didn’t even announce his presence, but he took bets, and wrote out chits, and I got to wondering how much cash that feller was taking in, and where it went. The way things were going, he’d stand to make a lot of money, the way the whole town was laying bets on him. I wasn’t quite sure how his game worked, but I knew he would calculate the odds in a way that gave him thirty percent of the take, no matter what, and it looked now like Boston Bill would get thirty percent of ten or twenty thousand dollars of wagering. A lot of money, at least to me, in my forty-seven-a-month sheriff job.
Rusty wasn’t paying attention. He was keeping his two Ukrainian Siamese twins happy, and his boy, Riley, in socks and shirts, so it was all the same to him. He was happy to sit in the jailhouse and feed prisoners and swamp out the floors.
Hubert Sanders showed up in the saloons, and said he’d open the bank at eight, instead of ten, since so many people wanted to get some cash. It was looking like this match race would have about half the loose cash in Doubtful riding on it, and no one could tell me why, since no one could say for sure what horse was a good runner. It finally dawned on me that the reason everyone was so heated was that no one knew the horses. You could settle an argument pretty quick if you could pull out a record, and say this or that horse won seven races, ran in so much time, and so on. That would settle it. But no one knew these here nags, and the guesses of the experts were just as good as the guesses of the rest of us.
Boston Bill had come into town with Limp, but always hovered a little out of the way, just acting like he barely knew Limp and was along to make a few greenbacks if he could. I wondered some about Boston Bill, but I could find nothing about him in the wanted dodgers. He was dapper, wearing a black bowler and a collarless shirt, and a spray of lilies of the valley tucked into his lapel. Maybe that was his mark, lilies in the lapel. He was easy to find, even if he seemed to keep a little distance from the crowd.
He was staying at the High Plains Hotel, over near the Sporting District, which was a favorite of whiskey drummers and barbed-wire salesmen. It was next door to the Laramie Overland stage stop, which is how it got a lot of its trade. I happened to notice Boston Bill in the lobby, and wondered where Algernon Limp was hanging his stovepipe hat. The kid, Elmer Skruggs, was camping out at the race course, with his horse on a picket line and a bedroll for a place to spend the night. Limp was probably the sort who’d stay at the Wyoming Hotel, which catered to people with a few dollars in their britches.
Well, I went to bed at Belle’s boardinghouse—I’d gotten my room back now that the Ukrainians were bedded down at Rusty’s cabin—and slept fitfully, knowing I’d have a tough time of it the next day if a riot started. This here match race might end up killing a few people if I didn’t keep the peace.
By dawn I was up and prowling. When a town like Doubtful gets heated up, full of cowboys, and brimming with people in from every neighboring town, I get itchy. I ate at Barney’s Beanery and headed for the sheriff office to feed the drunks, and found Rusty asleep in a cell. He smiled and bobbed up when I growled at him.
“I’m wore out,” he said. “Two wives is one too many.”
“That’s what drunks say,” I replied.
“I’m gonna hide in here for a while,” he said. “I’m half ruined.”
“You could divorce one,” I said.
He smiled.
By the time I reached the streets for my morning rounds, a crowd had gathered at the Merchant Bank. Hubert Sanders opened the door, and the mob flooded in, forming a line at the one open wicket.
Sanders slipped over to me. “They’re all taking out cash to bet on the race,” he said.
“You got enough?”
“I hope so. Maybe I’ll have to borrow from Boston Bill. It’s all going into his pocket.”
“And the morning’s hardly begun. It’s a long time until the race,” I said.
Sanders looked a little frayed. “I don’t like it, sheriff. This deal bothers me.”
“I’ve been wondering about a crooked race,” I said. “Them jockeys could throw it, make some money that way.”
Sanders stared, pondering it. “I just don’t like it,” he said.
I watched the line move through the bank, with all sorts of strangers withdrawing cash, or changing twenties and fifties into fives and ones. I’d never seen the like.
I headed over to Turk, who was holding court in his livery barn. “You got a minute?” I asked. Turk looked annoyed. He was telling a dozen drovers why the Confederate nag would clean up.
But he followed me into his cubbyhole office.
“You got any way of seeing whether this race gets throwed?” I asked.
Turk looked at me as if I was in first grade. “If that’s your worry, forget it. I’ll be watching. I know every game, from hamstringing to putting a burr under the saddle. You worrying about that? I’ll be there, and I’ll guarantee you a clean race. If I see some hanky-panky, you’ll be the first to know it.”
“Well, that’s mighty fine, mighty fine,” I said. “I’m gonna ask you to keep this race square.”
“It’s that cowboy, Skruggs, worries me,” he said. “He’s a little too smiley. I’ll be studying on him. Nothing gets by me. There isn’t a trick I haven’t seen.”
That made me feel better, and I let him go back to lecturing all the dudes on why Jefferson Davis was the nag to beat.
I found Algernon Limp eating grits and cornbread in the little dining room of the hotel. He sure looked dapper, dressed up for race day with a red paisley cravat, fresh-ironed shirt with a new collar, newly brushed black suit, and patent-leather shoes, wiped clean for the great day.
“Well, Algernon, who’s going to win?” I asked.
“Funny that you should ask, sheriff. When I first saw that rube and his red nag, I thought it’s a joke. But now I’m thinking it’ll be a tight race. Just instinct, you know. I can’t say. But I’m guessing it’ll be my horse by a neck.”
“What changed your mind, sir?”
“That boy, he’s a horse whisperer. He senses what’s going on in a horse’s walnut-sized brain, and he tells that horse to run, and the horse takes orders.”
“Horses got a walnut-sized brain?”
“If that. Half as smart as a mule, you know.”
“That’s what they say about me,” I said. “That’s why I’m sheriff. You got the judges lined out?”
“Same as before, and I’m putting observers at the far flags, so no one cuts a corner.”
“Sounds dandy, Mr. Limp. What’ll you do after this one?”
“Pack up and go to the next town, my jockey and me.”
“You travel with Boston Bill?”
“Oh, no, he just shows up wherever he thinks he can run a game.”
“He’s taking heavy bets this morning.”
“I’m sure he is. I’ve never seen a match race that generated so much interest as this one. It’s one for the record books, wouldn’t you say?”
“Beats me,” I said.
He returned to his grits, spreading butter over them, and I drifted out to the street, watching the crowds that were already milling around Doubtful. Given the amount of cash changing hands, I thought maybe I’d better head out to the racetrack and keep an eye on Boston Bill. The man needed protecting.