Support Your Local Deputy: A Cotton Pickens Western (11 page)

Rusty, he was so busted up that I tried to rally him some.

“Rusty, my ma always said, sometimes opportunity’s staring you in the face and you’re not seeing it.”

“I’m tired of you and your ma,” he said. “Leave me alone.”

We were hiking along the midway, watching the last of the visitors as the evening wore on. If Doubtful wasn’t earning much, the carnival would soon pull up stakes and head for the next town. Doubtful wasn’t much of a place, and I wondered if the carny show would stay more than two or three days.

“While this outfit’s here, you got a fine chance to woo the blonde twins,” I said. “You got a real good chance to change their minds. You fetch Riley, and you go back to their wagon, and tell them that you want to be a family, and live right here.”

Rusty sure was quiet.

“You’re on your own,” I said. “I’m looking into this outfit. Some of the things Heliotrope Pike said, they don’t add up. Like buying the blonde bombshell act from a booking agent in the Ukraine, and then showing us a letter from the gals’ ma that was supposed to be a contract. Like taking them gals off the stage at gunpoint, when they could have just as easy left the stagecoach at any stop and joined the show. There’s something not fitting together here, and I’m going to be finding out what it is. I’ll do that tomorrow, and you go visit the ladies, and get to know them.”

Rusty grinned suddenly. “Sure, sheriff,” he said.

He’d never called me that before. I sure was wondering what was cooking in his noggin.

He picked up Riley from Belle, who wakened the boy, and wrapped him in a blanket, and sent him into the evening. Me, I should have climbed up the stairs, but I was restless.

There was a show in town, and a lot of folks in Doubtful who depended on me for their safety. Shows could make me itchy; this one did. I hiked over to courthouse square, and the jail, collected a sawed-off scattergun, and headed into Wyoming Street, if only to rattle doors and make sure folks were locked up tight for the night. The carnival had quit, too, and was real quiet and dark down on the creek.

There was no one on duty at nights. The Puma County supervisors told me there was no money to give me a night man. So anyone who wanted the law, they had to come fetch me at Belle’s. Late at night, that was burglar time; evenings, that was bar brawl time. Days, a little of anything. I started patrolling the business places, rattling doors, peering through windows, but it was real quiet. I thought of all them people safe in their beds, pretty certain nothing real bad would visit them in the night. I was all there was that stood between them and trouble. That’s what I was paid to do, and what I was sworn to do. Upholding the law was mostly keeping folks safe and keeping their property safe.

It sure was quiet around town. I drifted over to Saloon Row, but most of the joints had folded up. They didn’t like shows coming in; they wanted the cowboys and ranchers to unload their pay right there, at their big bars. The ladies of the night felt the same way. Road shows were competition. Outfits with a Little Egypt rolling her belly, well, the cowboys could get all that locally, and didn’t have to shell out dimes to see it on a midway.

But most of those places were sleeping, too. One place, Denver Sally’s, still had a red lantern bobbing on the breeze. That’s how it was. Cowboys, they got tired, and didn’t get laid after midnight. The girls got tired, too, all that hard work, and wanted their beauty sleep.

I didn’t see anyone busting windows or prying open doors, so I figured it was pretty peaceful over in the sporting precincts. But I still felt itchy, like something was bound to happen. My ma, she always said that the biggest things happened behind closed doors, and no one ever knew about them. Like a marriage that was outwardly real nice, and the folks seemed happy, might really be a brawl, or cruel, or rotten, behind closed doors, and no one would ever know how two people were doing their best to wreck each other.

Me, I didn’t have enough of a life to put behind closed doors. The only time I ever closed a door entire, was the outhouse. When I was doing my business, and studying the Monkey Ward catalogue before tearing off a page for use, that wasn’t public. The rest of me, I didn’t care one way or other. I thought to give one last look at the carny. Truth was, those folks were under my protection, too. They might be strangers, maybe crooks themselves, but I was sworn to look after the safety and property of anyone in my county, and that included every person in the carnival, and everything the carnival owned. If someone stole a horse from the carnival, it was my job to find that horse and throw the rustler in the pokey.

The carny people were asleep. Most of their wagons had roll-up canvas sides, and some slept in those, some slept outside. It sure was quiet. I worked along the midway, until a couple of big dogs circled me and growled. Carny dogs. They stopped a few feet away and waited. They seemed to be sending me a message: steer clear of the camp. They’d either set up a racket, or come at me with a lot of big white teeth shining in the moonlight. I eased away, and they let me go. They were the sentries, and that’s all the carny folk needed to keep an eye on things. They didn’t need some country boy like me keeping an eye on them, or the camp.

Tough people, carny folk.

I itched to go on in there, wake up Heliotrope Pike, and get some answers about them Siamese twins from the Ukraine. His story didn’t make sense. But tomorrow was another day, so I eased back from the camp, turned toward the creek, and wandered into their herd, which was artfully contained in a rope corral that employed wagons where there weren’t trees to hold up the rope. Not that a rope would hold anything, but these mules and horses weren’t going anywhere. They eyed me, ears up, as I drifted in. It was quiet there, too. All I heard was the purl of Doubtful Creek. The animals stirred slightly, and began a gentle rotation. They looked pretty thin; Pike used them hard. But at least they got vacations between each haul.

Some were eyeing me, and some were staring down the creek some, and that always is a sign. So I watched, too. A quarter moon didn’t shed much light, and the bottoms were blurred and bleak, but finally I saw what them horses did. Something was moving along the creek. That’s about all I could make out. Maybe it was a critter, like a catamount or a coyote, or maybe not so big. But I just stood in the quiet and studied on it, letting nature take its course.

Whatever it was, it edged forward slowly, half afraid. I studied on it, not making sense of what I saw until it was closer, and then I realized it was a person, and he was carrying a bindle stick, and he was a bindle stiff. A tramp. A small tramp, this time. Them hoboes, they put all their possessions into a bandanna or sometimes a piece of canvas, and tied it up and hung it from a pole, or stick, and carried the stick over their shoulder. That was a hobo suitcase: a stick over the shoulder with a bag hanging from it. It was the easiest way to carry a few things. And the cheapest.

This here puny hobo, he seemed a little itchy, sort of walking ahead some, quitting to look around, and then walking some more. He got to the rope corral, edged under the rope, but kept to the creek bank, as if all them mules and broncs weren’t there, and he simply headed up the creek.

That’s about when I got the oddest feeling. I knew that walk. That was a boy’s walk, both cocky and scared at the same time. I’d seen that walk.

“Going somewhere?” I asked.

The boy, he turned, stared hard, knew I could catch him, and seemed to deflate there.

“Nice night for a hike, Riley. Mind if I walk along?”

“Leave me alone,” he said.

“Heading out, are you?”

“I don’t like it here.”

“I’ll walk with you, boy. We’ll go where you’re going.”

“You’d let me?”

“Unless you want to go sit on that cottonwood log yonder.”

The boy headed for the log, propped his bindle stick on it, and sat. “You gonna take me back?”

“I don’t know. You want to quit us?”

“Yeah. I don’t have anyone.”

“You got a little food?”

“Cookies.”

“Guess I’ll have to rustle up more than that. You got some extra shoes?”

Riley shook his head.

“Peaceful night,” I said. “Summer’s always fine, except when it rains. Trees are all leafed out, there’s berries on the bushes, at least in July and August, and lots of hills and valleys to look at. Wild animals, too. Used to be buffalo through here, but they got shot away. Now it’s mostly ranches, lots of steers, and a few horses.”

“It was better wild,” Riley said.

“Some ways, yes, but it took a good shot to keep one’s belly full.”

“No, it was nicer when there wasn’t anyone. That’s what I think.”

“Lot of people think that, too. I don’t. I like a place where I’m safe and I can earn a living.”

“You gonna let me go now?”

“How’d you get that name, Riley?”

“My pa, he was a sergeant.”

“But the name. Where did it come from?”

“At Fort Riley. But he quit my ma, and I never seen him. Then she went East, and couldn’t take care of me, and I got put on the orphan train.”

“You named after a soldier post? I like that.”

“It’s a bad name. No one else is named Riley.”

“That’s what’s good about it. Gives you the edge in life.”

“Can I go now?”

“You unhappy with Rusty and Belle and me?”

“I don’t belong to anyone.”

“Maybe you got it backwards, Riley. Do we belong to you?”

The boy was puzzled. “Why should you belong to me?”

“You got to want us, Riley. All along, we’ve been hoping you’d adopt us. But you ain’t done it yet, and we’re pretty blue.”

“Adopt you?”

“Yeah, Belle, she’s just hoping you’ll adopt her; Rusty, he’d like nothing better than to be adopted. Me, I’ll be an uncle if you’ll adopt me.”

He sat quietly on that log, and I let him. Me, I don’t know nothing about boys, not having been one in years, but I figured if he sat there on the log long enough, he might adopt all three of us. And I wasn’t far off the mark.

I pulled out my jackknife and started whittling a stick.

“I’m tired, Cotton,” he said. He picked up his bindle stick and started home.

The next morning I headed over to the Pike Brothers Carnival to see the boss. I was tired of pussyfooting around, and this time Heliotrope Pike would give me some answers or face the music. My music.

I wondered what carny people do in mornings, and soon found out. They had plenty to do. Horses to feed and water and doctor, clothing to mend, games of chance to polish up, and food to cook. On a nice summer’s day, it was easy, but I could see how some tough weather could make things real bad. But this was a sunny, lazy June day.

The Ukrainian twins were sitting in a specially made wide chair, sunning themselves. If Rusty had brains, he’d do something about it instead of whining about being robbed of his wife, or wives, or whatever. I never could get it straight whether he was marrying one or two.

The show wouldn’t get going until noon or so; then people could buy a lunch, play the games of chance, see the hootchy-kootchy girls, and disapprove of everything while shelling out their dimes. If nothing else, the show offered something new to people off the ranches of Puma County.

Sure enough, Pike was breakfasting with his raven-haired sweetie Little Egypt when I got there. He had his own wagon with a roll-out canvas shade, which made an outdoor arbor. They were sipping some sort of black coffee made in a brass pot when I barged in. She was in a silky red kimono, with nothing else, and he was in his underdrawers and that was all.

“Well, if it isn’t the sheriff,” he said. “Want some java?”

“No, but I want some answers,” I said. I wasn’t going to drown myself in a social call.

“At your service, sheriff.”

Pike’s tone had changed to coolness. Little Egypt decided to vamoose, and rose, revealing a lot of creped flesh. She wasn’t as young as she looked in the lantern light at night. I chose to remain standing.

“We got a problem, and it’s not solved, and it’s gonna be,” I said. “You got these Ukrainian twins in your show, the same as got taken off a stagecoach in my county, at gunpoint, stuffed into a red-and-gold chariot, and hauled away. There were a few laws got broke, and we’re going to find out right now what happened, and why.”

“What a bizarre story,” Pike said, blandly.

“Yeah, well, there’s a mess of witnesses, including passengers and the jehu, and if we don’t get some answers, this show’s not going anywhere until we do.”

That sure perked him up some. “You have no right to stop the show from going anywhere.”

“Just try me,” I said. “We got abducted women in your outfit, and that’s all I need.”

“Who says they were abducted?”

“The people that saw them removed at gunpoint and stuffed into the chariot, which was the only way to move Siamese twins away fast.”

“Fantasy,” Pike said. “People have vivid imaginations.”

“Yeah, and so do I. You go ahead and think about the twenty carny people, stuck in Doubtful, Wyoming, because no one’s talking about how those ladies got took off the stage, and why, and who done it.”

“You wouldn’t hold innocent people, would you?”

“All you got to do is tell the story.”

Pike eyed me levelly. “I haven’t the faintest idea who abducted the women.”

“You bought the act, you say. You got the women. So, talk. Where’d you get them?”

“On the road somewhere.”

“Who sold them to you?”

“Sold the act, sir; we’re not talking about slavery.”

“Well, maybe I’m talking about slavery. Men with guns took them off the stage.”

Pike looked annoyed. “So Pike Brothers is to blame for this?”

“You got brothers?”

“No, I own the carnival alone. The name suggests a larger show. Pike Brothers sounds like a big outfit.”

“So someone in a circus chariot, seems like, made off with the Ukrainian women. And tried to cover the tracks. My deputy and me, we had to hunt hard to pick them up.”

“Look, sheriff, that has nothing to do with us.”

“I’m thinking maybe you got wind of the Siamese twins and wanted them in your outfit and kidnapped them. Somehow or other, they went from the stagecoach into your outfit, and until we get some answers, you ain’t going anywhere.”

Pike eyed me, carefully. “We’ll post bail. This is rather commonplace. Pick on the carny show. How much? Twenty-five dollars? Forfeit the bail?”

He wasn’t fooling me none. “If there’s bail, it’s set by Hanging Judge Earwig,” I said.

Pike paused, looking perplexed.

“I’ll check through my records and see if I can find the names of the people who offered me the act,” he said. “You don’t seem to grasp the business. Everything is a handshake deal.”

“You better come squeaky clean,” I said. “Or you’ll be hanging around Doubtful for a long time.”

Well, he didn’t like that none. His next step was to try to sneak out, no doubt at night, and hope I’d forget about going after them. But he would be a little surprised. I had a few plans of my own, including tying up his livestock.

“And don’t try sneaking out,” I said. “Not by night, not by day. Not on a Sunday, and not on your mother’s birthday. Your outfit’s no match for a posse of Puma County cowboys.”

He plainly agreed, even if he didn’t say a word.

I had a hunch he’d come around. Carny box office in my little burg wasn’t going to last long. My guess was that he’d come clean, and probably lose the act, if that’s what staring at Siamese twins amounted to.

I headed down the empty midway. For some reason, no one goes to carny shows in the morning. Sin doesn’t start until afternoon, and carny shows were all sin. My ma, she always used to say wedlock’s no good mornings when the breakfast dishes need scrubbing; it only heats up at night, in the dark. Well, that’s true of show business, too.

I headed for the Ukrainian sisters, who were camped behind their show tent, and in their chair enjoying the good Wyoming sunshine. And sure enough, Rusty had gotten smart and had settled in across from them, and had even taken his sweaty Stetson off and was rotating it in his hands while admiring his ladies. They were all sipping something that looked white.

“Slivovitz,” said Rusty.

“What’s that?”

“It’s almost as good as marriage.”

I smelled his glass and pretty near passed out. “You’re on duty,” I said.

“Cotton, you’re a peckerhead sometimes.”

“You could always quit,” I said, “and drink slivovitz the rest of your life.”

“This here’s Anna, and this here’s Natasha,” he said.

“Is real damn nice, good piss water,” Natasha said. Not bad English, I thought.

“I told them I wanted to marry, and they laughed, and then said which? I said, either way, I’d flip a coin. So we flipped a coin. Heads, Natasha, tails, Anna. Natasha won, so I proposed. I said, Natasha, let’s get married, and then Anna got mad. Anna said that’s not right, I’ve got to marry her, or both. I said I can’t marry both, and they said go to hell, skunk head, and I said maybe I’ll marry both. And now they’re both mad at me.”

“I gotta talk to them. Help me,” I said.

I turned to Natasha. “You were coming here on the stagecoach and some men stopped the coach and made you get out, right?”

She dimpled up. “What a wedding invitation,” she said.

But Anna elbowed her. “Every day, crossing the sea, people look at us. On the boat, on the railroad, people look at us. We’re used to it. Some days, men give us cards. One man said he wanted to put us in a show; we’d be happy. But Natasha, she always said no; she’s getting married. Me, no one asks.”

“So you got to Laramie and caught the Laramie and Overland coach here? Then what?”

“They are watching us. We get into the coach, and then we start to come here, yes? And then they stop the coach, out on the grasses, and make us get out. Three men, wearing masks, waving guns. And there is this cart, stand-up room. And there’s a driver, also masked, and we get carried away, and go to some place I don’t know, and we are told we are in a carnival, and that’s better than one getting married and one not. We both get paid, yes?”

“Did the masked men who took you off the coach meet your boss here, Pike?”

Anna shrugged.

“They gave us this wagon,” Natasha said.

“Didn’t you protest?’

Natasha giggled. “We got a house!”

“Did anyone call it an act? Were you an act?”

Anna giggled.

“Did you sign a contract for an act? A show performance?”

They both looked puzzled.

“They like it because they’re taken care of,” Rusty said. “They can’t care for themselves, so they like this carnival. They get fed.”

Both the ladies were smiling at me.

“This sure makes Pike look like the one who planned this little deal. Is there a two-wheel cart around?”

“You mean the gold-and-red chariot?” Rusty asked.

“I mean any cart. A coat of paint, that makes a difference. Witnesses, they see a red chariot. My ma, she always used to say a little war paint on a woman hides the real McCoy. So I want to see if this outfit’s got a two-wheel cart, and maybe, any color.”

“You and your ma,” Rusty said.

The women, they followed little of that.

“You got put here in the carnival? Did you say no to Pike?”

Natasha, she figured out that one. “I wanted to get married; this is my lover boy. Anna, she don’t want that. So she’s stuck. And I’m stuck. She won. She got us here. Me, I’d like to go to bed with Rusty. Wooee! Hot pajamas! Anna, she don’t care.”

This here was getting more and more tangled up, I thought. But one thing was clear: Pike abducted the twins and stuffed them into his show, one way or another. And I was going to get the facts, and figure what laws got busted, and no one was leaving Doubtful until justice got done.

“Make your deputy leave,” Anna said. “He comes in here like he owns us.”

“Make him stay,” Natasha said. “He’s my man.”

“He’s not my man,” Anna said. “Make him go away; we got a good wagon, and a good act.”

“Rusty, you wanna marry me, like in the letters?” Natasha asked.

“Maybe I could marry you both,” Rusty said.

“You get her, not me,” Anna said. “Go to hell.”

“You’re robbing me,” Natasha said. “You’re keeping bride from groom.”

“I ought to kill you,” Anna said. “And maybe someday I will.”

Me, I stared at them two, stuck together for life, and felt real sad. When Rusty got loose, I planned to tell him to forget it. He was torturing them two ladies in ways we couldn’t even imagine.

But Rusty, he just sat there and kept on wooing.