Support Your Local Deputy: A Cotton Pickens Western (6 page)

This here time when a lot of desperate and lonely little tykes was about to be adopted sort of got me riled up. That’s because some of those people circling around the children wasn’t interested in giving the children a home; they was looking for slave labor that’d cost nothing but food and clothing.

It was real quiet there on the courthouse steps. Adults, they were staring at the children, and the children, they were fidgeting and looking like they wanted to be somewhere else. The first to take the plunge was Reuben Cork, who had a mule-raising outfit on the west edge of Puma County. He was a skinny old bachelor, fifty maybe, graying, with cruel eyes and a good eye for horseflesh. He had two ex-jailbirds working for him, mostly to stay out of sight from the rest of the world. I knew him only because he drove his wagon to town to load up now and then, and he brought in mules to sell or ship out.

He was eyeing a skinny kid named Thomas, who looked about as bitter as Reuben, and wasn’t enjoying being poked and prodded.

“You like animals, boy?” he asked.

Thomas shrugged.

“You ever seen a mule before?”

Thomas didn’t answer. There was no need.

“I’ll take him,” Reuben said to the McCoys. “Indenture him. He’s what, nine? I get him for seven years, do I?”

Seven years of hell, I thought. If the kid didn’t run away first. Kit Carson, he was indentured and he ran away and stayed in the mountains, and they never did catch him. The kid, he didn’t move, and looked defeated. He was not the master of his fate. He was a minor. If it wasn’t Reuben Cork, it might have been a fine fate for a city kid, getting out into the healthy fresh air a lot. But Reuben, he was as likely to use a buggy whip on the boy as he was on a mule.

There wasn’t any law against it, and all I could do was watch the transaction, as Cork laid out a few dollars, put his X on some papers because he couldn’t read or write, and motion the boy to climb onto a saddle mule and that was that.

People were watching, and not with gladness as far as I could see.

Next a girl named Sally got plucked up by Alphonse Smythe, the postmaster, and his wife, Mabel. They poked and prodded, and checked teeth, and then anted up the ten dollars, and signed some papers.

“Well, Sally, welcome to our house. We’ve always wanted a daughter, and now we have you, my dear. I think you’ll find your life with us a happy one, if you’re not lazy or contrary,” Mabel said.

Sally clutched the few rags she owned, and quietly followed the Smythes up the street. They lived a few blocks away. People watched them, mostly wondering privately how it’d work out, and whether anyone would be happy with the adoption. At least Sally got adopted. That was a good sign.

A couple of boys got indentured to Puma County ranchers. That looked fair enough to me. Most ranchers were bachelors, and they had a bunkhouse full of drovers, and were always short of help. It wasn’t home, and those boys wouldn’t see much of any mother around, but they’d be sheltered and fed and probably come out fine at age sixteen.

The number of orphans was dwindling some, but there were plenty remaining, and they looked more and more miserable. Then the town’s banker, Hubert Sanders, and his wife, Delphinium, showed up and immediately closed in on a frightened girl in pigtails, who wore a blue shift and ancient shoes that didn’t fit her little feet.

“We’ve been looking at you, my dear,” Delphinium said. “What would you think about joining our family?”

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

“We have high standards, my dear. You would need to meet them and live respectably, and strive for a well-rounded nature.”

The girl stared.

“What’s your name, my dear?”

The girl glanced at the McCoys, but said nothing.

“She’s Minerva,” Mrs. McCoy said. “We found her wandering free along the Hudson River, half-starved. She said her name is Minny, and that’s all we know.”

“How old are you, Minny?” Mrs. Sanders asked.

The girl shrugged.

“We think about eight, and that’s what we put in the Children’s Aid Society form.”

“Are you respectable?” Mrs. Sanders asked.

The girl shrugged.

“We’re looking for a good little worker, who can do scullery tasks, and soon can cook and clean. Would you like to do that?”

Minerva shrugged.

“Who was your mother, dear?”

“Big and fat,” the girl said.

“What happened to her?”

“She . . . The coppers took her away.”

Mrs. Sanders pursed her lips. “You have much to overcome. Would you like to overcome these things?”

The girl shrugged again.

The Sanders retreated a way, and I watched them engage in a lot of whispered talk, and then they returned to the courthouse steps.

“We’ll adopt her, and hope for the best,” Delphinium said. “I do need a maid.”

Soon Hubert had filled out the adoption forms, a copy to go into the courthouse, and a copy for themselves, and a copy for the society.

“You want to come with us now, Minny? We’ll have you set a nice table, and serve us a nice lunch, and then you’ll have your first meal with your new parents. You’ll call me Mrs. Sanders, and call him Mr. Sanders. Never ‘Mother’ or ‘Father.’ We won’t allow that.”

Minny shrugged, but let Mrs. Sanders catch her hand, and I watched them walk toward the north side, where the town’s biggest homes and richest folks seemed to collect. I sure didn’t know whether I’d like to be adopted by people like that. I guess mostly I’d just want a ma and a pa smiling at me.

An hour or so dragged by, and no more children got took. The rest of them, they were doomed to go on, shuffling from place to place until someone adopted them. Maybe the ones that got taken were the lucky ones, even though they faced a hard life, and not much more caring than when they were orphaned or found running the streets.

The McCoys were looking about ready to pack up and leave. McCoy was talking to Turk, our liveryman, about buying one wagon and team, since they didn’t need three outfits anymore.

That’s when I noticed the kid, standing in misery, tears leaking down his face. He was freckled, with cauliflower ears, auburn haired, and miserable.

“Hey, kid, what’s wrong?” I asked, knowing what was wrong.

“I just want a mom,” he said.

“Well, maybe next town, you’ll find just the right mom.”

He shook his head. “Three towns already. No one wants me.”

“What’s your name, sonny?”

“Riley.”

“How’d you get that name?”

“My ma.”

“Somebody’s gonna want a Riley. That’s a good name for a boy. I wish I was a Riley.”

“You gonna arrest me?”

“For what?”

“For crying. They always say stop that.”

“Feller can cry all he wants, in my book. My ma always used to say, a boy without a good ma is a boy who’ll never grow up.”

“I’m slow,” Riley said. “That’s why.”

“Boy, join the club. My ma, she always called me slow.”

“How’d you get to be sheriff?”

“I’m fast with, ah, my hands.”

“Like shooting?”

“That’s what got me my job. But I don’t shoot people if I can help it. I just try to keep people safe here.”

“I wish you could find a ma for me,” Riley said.

I spotted Rusty, and just then an idea popped into my head.

“Hey, Riley, would you settle for a pa?”

He looked alarmed. “I never had one.”

“Pa’s are as fine as ma’s are, and can teach you a trade when you get old enough.”

“They can?”

“You bet. Now I’m going to go talk to that feller over there for a minute, but I’ll be back, hear me?”

I got aholt of Rusty, who was looking over the orphans and the crowd.

“Hey, seeing as how you didn’t get any Ukrainian brides, how about a kid?”

Rusty, he was as shocked as if I had fired him on the spot, almost as shocked as if I had just given him a two-dollar raise.

“Who wants a kid?”

“Well, you were fixing to start a family, weren’t you? Siamese twins? You were even going to rebuild the outhouse for them, so they could sit together. Seems to me, Rusty, if you’re willing to rebuild your outhouse, you could adopt a boy. That there boy, Riley, he’s just aching to belong to someone, and that someone’s gonna be you.”

“What did I do to earn this?”

“I’m just trying to console you, Rusty, because you lost your two Ukrainian twins.”

“I’m not fit for fathering.”

“Then try mothering.”

“How’m I gonna raise a kid? I got to be on duty.”

“The whole sheriff outfit, we’ll pitch in. We’ll get the kid raised. We’ll make Riley a deputy soon as he can handle a gun.”

“Well, don’t this beat all,” Rusty said. “I been snookered.”

That was Rusty’s way of saying yes, so we headed back to Riley, who was still leaking tears.

“Boy, here’s a pa—if you want him?”

Riley, he stared upward, looked deep into Rusty’s face, and then ran to Rusty and threw his arms around my deputy and hung on hard as he could.

Rusty, it was all he could do to hide what was crawling over his face.

Twenty minutes later, the Puma County sheriff’s office had a new little deputy, with a star on his chest and two or three daddies.

No sooner had the orphan train pulled out, with a lot of tears flowing, than a mess of cowboys landed in my office. They were all waving bottles of Dr. Zimmer’s Miracle Healing Tonic, and they weren’t happy.

“This stuff, it don’t work,” one said. “I get more mule kick out of a one-bit shot of red-eye. I tried a little dose, and a big dose, and it ain’t worth the glass it came in.”

“Yeah, that’s right! This stuff, it’s creek water, and maybe a little flavoring. And to think I paid good money for it. I got suckered,” yelled another.

Rusty chimed in. “I tried a swallow or two, and I sure didn’t get any trip to heaven out of it. Looks to me like I got stuck with nothing.”

That was the verdict of eight cowboys and Rusty. Me, I had that sip when the show rolled in and it flattened me, and started the world spinning round and round and round. They carried me home.

“It sure kicked me in the butt,” I said. “But I was up there, on that little stage, before he really got to peddling the stuff. Looks like there’s more than one version of the tonic.”

“Looks to me like we got took,” Rusty said. “Anyone who bought the stuff late in the game, we all got suckered.”

I sampled one of the bottles, and sure enough, it was creek water, pure as the mountain snow, with maybe a dash of wintergreen flavor in it. It sure didn’t start any tincture of opium buzzing in my innards.

“You want to do something about it?” I asked Rusty.

“You bet I do,” he said. “I’m sorely put out. He seemed like a nice fellow, polite and cheerful, all the while he was cheating us.”

“We can catch up and squeeze some cash out of him,” I said. “I want a hundred, and I’ll refund it to anyone that’s got a complaint.”

“You gonna bring him in and charge him?”

“Hell, no. The sooner he’s out of here, the better off we are. Puma County’s gonna see the last of him. But we’ll collect enough to make good on everything.”

“So what do we do with our new deputy here?” Rusty asked.

Sure enough, there was Riley, about one hour into being Rusty’s boy, staring real sad at us.

“Saddle up, Rusty. And bring a spare rifle as well as your side arms. I’ll meet you at Turk’s in a bit.”

I knew exactly what I was going to do with Riley. “Come along, boy. We’re going to meet my landlady, Belle.”

I was soon hammering on her apartment door. She had about half of the first floor of her boardinghouse, and rented out the rest. She opened, eyed Riley, and started to shut the door.

“Sheriff, I’m not in the orphan racket.”

“I ain’t selling orphans, Belle. You get to be a mama for a few hours if you lay down a straight flush.”

“This is Rusty’s kid. I’ve heard about it about six times now.”

“This is Riley. Hey, kid, meet your ma. At least, she’ll be working at it. She’s never been a ma in her life and she’s itching to try.”

Belle eyed him. “Hey, kid, you got cauliflower ears and slope shoulders.”

Riley, he started to cloud up some.

“That’s how I like ’em,” Belle bawled. “Handsome man shows up at my door, I kick ass. Come on in, kid, and face the music.”

Riley edged into the warm apartment.

“Hey, Riley, see that white jug with the orange butterflies on it? Go over there and lift the cover and take two. That’s the cookie jar.”

Fearfully, Riley did as he was told, extracted two sugary cookies, and waited.

“Eat, dammit,” Belle said.

Riley ate. Then he started crying.

“Hey, kid, come here,” Belle bawled.

She took Riley into her ample arms, and held him quietly until the storm had passed.

“We got to go, Belle. I’ll pick him up in a few hours,” I said.

I headed for Turk’s Livery Barn, where I kept the most recent version of Critter in a box stall. Rusty was waiting, saddled up and ready to go. Turk watched malevolently.

“You always show up when I’m getting Critter saddled up to get on board,” I said.

Turk grinned. “I’m one of them types likes to watch a good hanging, especially after the drop, when the neck’s busted and life’s leaking out.”

That was Turk for you.

I began by talking to Critter, but not opening the stall door.

“Critter, we’re going for a nice little trip. You get bored in here, dontcha? Well, we’re going to see some country, and you’ll see some nice spring grass coming up.”

Critter cut loose with a rear hoof. It hit the door so squarely the whole barn shuddered.

“I see you’re feeling just fine, Critter,” I said, opening the door a crack.

Both rear hooves smacked the door, driving it all the way open.

I used the moment to slide in beside him, and slip a bridle over his snout. He let me do it before the Big Squeeze. That was always his second maneuver. He began to push me into the side of the stall, harder and harder, intending to reduce me to bag of broken bones.

I kneed him in his gut, which didn’t do much; he just increased the pressure, until my ribs hurt and my pelvis, it was ready to crack in two. So I grabbed both his ears and twisted until he quit. He bucked, but the door was open and he had nothing to kick, so he settled for a big old fart, and I knew I’d caught him once again.

“That’s my day’s entertainment,” Turk said. “It’s downhill from here.”

Critter, he let me brush him, throw on a blanket, tighten a saddle over his quivering back, and lead him out into the aisle. We were ready to roll.

“He’s getting tame,” Rusty said.

“You could sell him to the French,” Turk said.

“Now what’s that supposed to mean?”

“French like horse meat.”

That’s how it went at Turk’s barn.

It was already well along so we trotted north on the trail to Douglas, hoping to catch up with the medicine show at its first camp, nine or ten miles out of Doubtful. It sure was a fine spring day, with all the dandelions blooming and all.

Critter got into the spirit of things, and I had to hold him down to a jog. Critter is notional. He wanted to get into a race with Rusty’s old plug, but I resisted. He got so fractious I finally reined him into a tight circle until he got the message, and then we made good time. The soil was soft and there were ruts where the medicine wagons had passed through.

We raised the medicine camp late in the day. The outfit was parked at a spring with a few cottonwoods around it, a place that had been much used as a stop. They watched us ride in, and I saw a couple of teamsters slip toward their wagon, where a couple of scatterguns lay.

They were cooking dinner in a tin stove.

“They know how to live, Rusty. My ma always used to say, you want to eat soon, don’t cook over an open fire. That takes forever to cook up something.”

“You ma had the smarts in the family,” Rusty said.

I didn’t take that kindly, but I was too busy keeping an eye on that bunch to make any objections. My ma, she always said I was slow but made up for it. I’m real quick with my hands, especially when it comes to hefting a revolver.

Zimmer, he had good vision, and he saw who was coming, and raised one of his white hands. We rode in, saw the meal cooking, and saw the bunch eyeing us warily. This wasn’t gonna be easy.

“Why, sheriff, I imagine you have good news for us. You’ve recovered the stolen funds.”

“Well, no, professor, that ain’t it. Truth to tell, we got lots of complaints. This stuff you’re peddling, it don’t do nothing.”

“Why, every bottle is bonded and certified, sir.”

“Rusty, gimme that bottle. Professor, you uncork this and sip for a little. In fact, you drink her down, entire.”

“Why, I couldn’t do that, sir. I’ve taken the Temperance Oath. Lips that touch whiskey will never touch mine. Now, as it happens, the tonic is ten percent spirits, so I mustn’t touch the bottle you generously offer me.”

“Drink her up.”

“That would offend my person, sir. We must never violate another’s person.”

“Drink her up.”

Zimmer stared upward at me. Critter was getting restless. He prefers to kill anything in his way rather than stand still.

“We got about fifty people, they say there’s nothing but creek water and wintergreen flavoring in these here bottles, so I said I’d fetch a refund. You willing to pay up, or do I have to haul you back to Doubtful?”

“Now, don’t be hasty. There might have been a few bottles that were accidentally filled without the usual certified quality check, sheriff. What I’ll do is send you back with ten bottles of simon-pure, double-checked, certified tonic, guaranteed to produce instant joy and sublime peace in the partaker.”

“Nope, Zimmer, it’s cash on the barrelhead, or I take you back and charge the whole outfit, and let the judge decide what to do with you.”

I was keeping an eye on them two teamsters, who doubled as musicians in the show. They were hovering around one wagon, ready to reach for their persuaders.

“You fellers, you come over here,” I said.

They dallied a moment, and then did, and I felt like Rusty and me, we were in a little more control. Rusty, he hung back, his hands not far from his artillery.

“I’m taking a hundred dollars back, to cover any claim against you. Someone brings me a bottle of worthless creek water, he gets two dollars. If there’s cash left over, it’ll be kept for you when you come back.”

“This is certainly arbitrary and hasty,”

“That’s what my ma always said,” I told him. “Call me Hasty Pickens.”

“I will give you fifty. We sold most of those at a discount, one dollar for two bottles.”

That was true. “All right, you give me fifty,” I said.

I got down off Critter, who eyed the bunch with laid-back ears and clacked his teeth. Critter was worth about two deputies in a deal like this.

Zimmer looked forlorn. Like surrendering greenbacks was the same as an attack of gout, or getting a cold enema.

We entered the dark confines of the bunk-wagon and he headed for the strongbox, which had a fresh padlock on it.

“You got you a new padlock,” I said.

“Oh, it’s one I remembered I had.”

He unlocked the padlock, and lifted the hinged top. There were greenbacks galore in there, and something else, the sawed-off padlock.

“Whatcha keeping that, for?” I asked.

“Oh, it might be repaired.”

He swiftly counted out fifty dollars in gummy greenbacks, and I stuffed them into my britches.

“I want a receipt,” he said.

That stumped me. I could manage it, but it would take some doing to print it out and put my X on it.

“Hey, Rusty, come on in,” I yelled.

Rusty, he didn’t like it, leaving that outfit to do whatever it wanted. But I thought it’d be all right. I had the cash to repay the gypped cowboys.

Rusty, he looks around in there, and sees things I didn’t.

“Cotton that’s the stuff that vanished from George Waller’s Mercantile,” he said.

But by then it was too late. Just outside, there were them teamsters, each with a scattergun aiming our way. Zimmer had somehow slid away, so it was bird hunters against two partridges.