Chapter Four
I think the professor was a little surprised, but he took advantage of it.
“There, you see. Sublime happiness! Look at the sheriff smile! Not an ache in his carcass! Step right up, folks, only two dollars the bottle, and if you buy five, you get one free.”
All them cowboys were staring at me, sitting there on the stage, looking like some drunk, but eventually I got myself up, teetered around, and gazed happily at the whole universe.
“There, you see? Sheriff, will you testify? Will you tell these fine folks what a marvel the Zimmer Tonic is, and what joy awaits them?”
I wasn’t at all sure I could manage that, seeing as how my tongue wasn’t operating right, but I sort of nodded, and lifted my old hat, and that did it. Them cowboys lined up and forked out payday cash for a bottle or two of the stuff, and wandered off, enjoying the young night, sipping as they went.
Me, I didn’t know whether to go back to Belle’s Boarding House, or arrest the man. So I just stood there, while the outfit shut down for the night.
“Whatcha got in them bottles, Zimmer?” I asked.
“It’s a proprietary secret, my friend, but I’ll confide in you, the lawman. There’s tincture of opium, wintergreen oil, creek water, and a secret substance I shall never divulge, even on my deathbed, because it holds the secret of eternal bliss. Now, I’m going to sell you a bottle for half price, one dollar cash, for you to take back to your bed. Dr. Zimmer’s Tonic is an improvement on love, women, alcohol, tobacco, and religion.”
“Oh, all right,” I said. “If it’s an improvement on religion, I’ll buy it. My ma used to say that religion’s all right except when you need it, and then it quits you.”
“A wise woman, your ma, and she raised a bright boy.”
“Well, she always said I was a little slow, but I’m quick with a gun, which adds up to exactly what’s needed in a sheriff.”
“Ah, I see, my good man. Now here’s the bottle of my elixir, and you just dig into your britches for a greenback, and we’ll call it even. I like doing favors for lawmen; we’re brothers under the skin, trying to make the world safer and happier.”
“We are?” I asked. Zimmer sure had some strange ideas.
The crowd had vanished into the mild night. There was only Zimmer’s crew, stowing away the show stuff.
“Say, professor, I got a few questions. Do you know anything about a couple of blonde Ukrainian twins, joined at the hip? They got took off a coach and loaded onto a red-and-gold chariot, same colors as you got here.”
The maestro lifted his silk hat and settled it, his gaze keen upon me. “Let me check you for fever,” he said, running a hand along my forehead. “No, no fever. I think you’re the sort who responds to a good tonic with more enthusiasm than usual. My learned advice is, go to your bunk and sleep it off. You’ll feel better in the morning. And don’t indulge in my elixir while you’re on duty.”
“Just thought I’d ask,” I said, feeling grouchy. Chasing down Rusty’s missing brides wasn’t my notion of a picnic. “You keep things clean around here, and I won’t trouble you. Minute I hear of trouble, I’ll come down on this outfit like a swarm of red ants.”
“I knew you’d see it my way,” he said, a mysterious smile on his ruddy face. The crew was dousing the oil-fed torches, and suddenly it was plenty dark in there.
I floated along to town, scarcely knowing how I got to Belle’s Boarding House, where I had lived ever since arriving in Doubtful. I had that bottle in hand, and thought to pitch it down the two-holer I would use before heading for my room, but then I thought better of it. That stuff might come in handy someday.
I slept the sleep of the innocent, and awakened with only a mild headache. The elixir didn’t last until dawn.
When I finally dragged into the sheriff office, Rusty wasn’t there. But a note on my desk explained that. “I’m going out to look for my mail-order women,” he wrote. “And if you don’t like it, fire me.”
I didn’t like it, but I wasn’t the one marrying Ukrainian blondes connected at the hip, both big, bosomy dolls. I didn’t know how I’d explain all this to the county supervisors, especially Reggie Thimble, who was a natural-born skeptic. If Professor Zimmer didn’t buy it, no one would.
So I patrolled. I knew enough about road shows to know that anything not bolted down would vanish when a road show came through. While they were entertaining the suckers, their thieves were pocketing anything they could finger. So I started at the west end, and worked east, telling merchants to watch out, and take inventory, and tell me when anything didn’t add up.
I stopped in at the Mercantile, and found Leonard Silver unloading jars of pickles.
“Hey, Leonard, we got a medicine show camped here, and they’re born pickpockets. I’d say, keep a sharp eye on your goods, and if you see anything, let me know. Anyone with itchy fingers, get me fast.”
“I’ve been worrying my way along,” Silver said. “I’m waiting on any stranger personally, and I’ve got Willard watching the door. I suppose you could always raid their wagons and find whatever got took.”
“They’re usually too smart for that,” I said. “They cache the stuff and pick it up later, when they’re pulling out.”
“Well, thanks for the word, sheriff.”
I made a point of stopping at the smithy, where One-Eyed Jack shoed horses and hammered iron.
“Hal, them outfits, they like nothing better than to filch horseshoes and nails. They’re on the road, and they need to keep their draft animals shod, and they don’t want to pay for any of it if they can help it.”
“I allus keep a red-hot poker ready for business,” Hal said, grinning.
“Yeah, but that’s daytime.”
“Maybe I’ll just hang around here at night,” Hal said. “Or have The Sampling Room send me a few boilermakers and wait for the medicine show to come. I’ll tack shoes on their bare feet.”
Hal would take care of himself, all right. He had piles of horseshoes, mule shoes, and even ox-shoes for whoever needed them.
I got the whole business bunch alerted that day, but that didn’t mean the homes around Doubtful were safe. I didn’t know where Rusty had got to, but he was making himself scarce, and I needed him. I thought of deputizing a few citizens just to be on the safe side, but I knew the county supervisors wouldn’t shell out a nickel for them. So I was on my own.
But Rusty did finally drift in, and found me doing rounds on Wyoming Street.
“Thanks for all your hard work,” I said.
Rusty, he just smiled. “What did your ma tell you about people who don’t show up for work?”
That sure got me. I’d have to ask her sometime. My ma, she knows just about everything there is to know.
“They git fired,” I said. “Sheriff doesn’t like no-account help.”
“I got some good stuff. I rode way out the Laramie Road, to the Douglas turnoff, and found a few freight outfits, and asked the teamsters if they’d seen some real purty Ukrainian blondes joined at the hip, in a red-and-gold chariot.”
“What’d they say?”
“They said, fella, we don’t have a drop left, but Doubtful’s got some fine saloons, and you’ll do fine over there. So I told them I was engaged, and would be marrying one, if not both, depending on whether the justice of the peace was in a fine mood.”
“Yeah, well, we got a medicine show in town. Professor Zoroaster Zimmer is pushing his elixir. And you know what that means. Nothing’s safe around here.”
“Maybe I’ll like the tonic,” Rusty said. “He got some samples?”
“Two dollars a bottle.”
“That’s too rich for me, Cotton. But I found out something today. There’s a carny show moving through the area. They didn’t know the name of it, but it’s a big show, with a dozen heavy wagons, lions, tigers, freaks, fat women, two-headed goat, boa constrictors, hootchy-kootchy girls, and stuff like that.”
“I hope they don’t show up in Doubtful. By the time Zimmer pulls out, the town’s gonna be a lot poorer.”
“Well, I need to find that show. A pair of real pretty Ukrainian women joined at the hip, why that’s worth two bits a peek.”
Rusty was right. That probably was where his brides ended up, and since they couldn’t talk English, the carnival felt safe abducting them. I’d send out information to all the counties around Wyoming, and maybe we could get Rusty’s mail-order brides back.
“Rusty, you get some chow, and we’ll go on out to the medicine show. After that, we’d better start patrolling.”
“Sure, Cotton,” he said.
The evening was going to be much like the last one, except there were more cowboys in town. I saw a mess of horses at the hitch rails, especially in front of the Last Chance. They’d get boozed up and head out for the free entertainment east of town, and there’d be a lot of hooting and hollering. The brands were mostly Admiral Ranch, which was all right; there were worse outfits out in Puma County, some of them just looking for any trouble they could get into.
Doubtful depended on the cowboys and ranches. There were a couple of mines at the far edge of the county, but mostly it was a cow town, and most of the businesses in Doubtful supplied the ranches.
Rusty showed up at the sheriff office and jail, and went for a shotgun, but I told him no; that’s just asking for trouble. This was a billy club deal, a nightstick deal. A lawman good with a billy club got more respect than one armed to the teeth.
“I don’t know what all they’ve got on stage; an accordionist, a fiddler, some female in a big grass skirt who does a hootchy-kootchy, and the professor himself, pitching his joy juice at two dollars a bottle,” I said.
“That’s a lot of money. Them cowboys earn forty a month.”
“When you taste what’s in them bottles, Rusty, two dollars is cheap.”
But even before we got to the show, there came Zimmer himself, silk hat, tux and tails, gold walking stick, orange chin-whiskers. He sure was looking agitated.
“Sheriff, I’m glad I found you. Grief. Pain. Misery. Someone in your fine city of Doubtful is a thief. My strongbox is busted, and I’ve lost every cent I possess.”