Wyoming Slaughter (5 page)
Authors: William W. Johnstone
C
HAPTER
E
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HAPTER
E
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The day after Christmas was sunny and warmer, but Doubtful seemed to slumber under a thundercloud. The new law was only days away, and the town was split down the middle by it. I had no business. There was no one in the jail cells. The town drunks were behaving. There hadn't been a fistfight for a week. No one reported any robbery. Some prankster reported a stolen kiss, but it wasn't prosecuted under a mistletoe amnesty. If it weren't for the law that loomed just down the road, one might have thought Doubtful was at peace.
I spent my hours keeping the fire built up and germinating an idea, which I finally tried out on Rusty, who was sleeping in the jail cells for lack of anything better to do.
“I think I know how to do her,” I said.
“I hope you fail,” Rusty said. “A dry Doubtful, that's like moving back to Ohio. I come out here to get me some adventure.”
“Well, it'll be the law,” I said.
“Where have I heard that before?” Rusty asked.
“I think maybe timing is the way to do it. Not shut them down at the stroke of midnight. Let's let 'em rip until dawn. They'll be loaded and sleepy, and by dawn New Year's Day, they'll be pretty much snoring away and the saloons will be shut down.”
“I see where you're aiming,” Rusty said. “You're a rat. Striking when the whole town's hungover.”
“I'll hardly need help,” I said. “We'll just get us a good freight wagon, bust into them saloons, load up all the illegal booze, and haul it off. The town'll go dry when it's got hangovers and migraines galore, and then the job's done.”
“They'll want their booze back.”
“As of New Year's Day it's illegal booze, so they won't get it back, and if they try it'll make a good bonfire.”
Rusty stared. “You're the meanest bastard ever held office in Doubtful. I don't know why I work for you.”
“Neither do I,” I said.
“You sure know how to stab a guy through the heart,” Rusty said.
“Just you and me, starting about seven or eight in the morning, January one. We may have to bust into some places.”
“You sure that's legal?”
“I can maybe get some search warrants. Illegal booze.”
“What if one of them places has got drunken bodies lying on the pool table and everywheres?”
“They'll be too sore-brained to know what we're up to.”
“That's a lot of booze. How are you going to carry it off?”
“All them Temperance ladies. They volunteered. I'll give them the word, and they can get that glass off the backbars and into a wagon before anyone sobers up.”
“Somehow I think there's a hole or two in this plan, Cotton.”
“Trust me.”
“Trust you! I trusted you as far as fifth grade, and then you quit school.”
That afternoon, when me and Rusty were catnapping in the empty cells, a visitor did arrive, and was about to depart when I emerged from the jail. I knew the man. It was Brigham Higgins, the manager of a big spread out at the far west end of Puma County. It was a big Mormon cattle operation, with thirty or forty hands.
The odd thing was that Higgins was dressed in a blue constable uniform, like it was from a ready-made clothing factory. I stared at him.
“You been made a cop?” I asked.
“No, but I'd like to have a little chat with you about the prohibition law. We, of course, are for it. It would remove temptations from my Latter-Day Saints. We've managed to keep Utah mostly dry, to everyone's benefit, and now we see the chance to dry up Wyoming, starting with Puma County.”
Rusty appeared, rubbed his eyes, and stared at the uniform.
“You going to be a policeman somewheres?” he asked.
“We thought we could help you enforce the new law,” Higgins said. “I've a corps of thirty able men ready to serve as your deputies when the time comes. We've been drilling, and we can march as a company and load shotguns and fire them as a company. We're ready to help you rid Puma County of every last drop of spirits.”
“And every last ounce of coffee and tea,” Rusty growled.
“That, too,” said Higgins.
“Anything else you plan to get rid of?” I asked.
“We're at your service, Sheriff. At seven, New Year's morning, we'll march into Doubtful, thirty men on horse, all in blue, each with a shotgun in hand. It'll be the most impressive sight ever seen in Puma County. Call us the Mormon Battalion.”
“If anyone's awake to see it,” I said. “Tell you what. You leave your shotguns out on the ranch and come along with a few wagons, and you fellers can load up the bottles from each saloon and haul them out to the edge of town where we'll start a bonfire. I'm not gonna deputize you, so you won't be a posse, but you can help out all right.”
“Under the circumstances, Sheriff, our men prefer to be armed.”
“I'm not going to have a shotgun war around here, so just leave 'em home. But thanks for your help.”
“And don't bust into the mercantile and grab the coffee beans,” Rusty snarled.
“If coffee is legal in Doubtful, we'll leave it alone,” said Higgins.
“I suppose you want pay for all this. I ain't got a spare nickel in the sheriff budget.”
Higgins shook his head. “We don't want pay. We're glad to rid the county of vice. But if you want to do us a favor, in return, there's something you can do for us. After we clean out the booze, throw a ball. Have all the fine folks in Puma County bring their unattached daughters, and make sure all single women are invited. Two or three for each of us would be a start.”
“I knew there'd be a hitch,” Rusty said.
“I'm not much for dancing,” I said.
“All the better,” Higgins said. “You and your esteemed citizens can throw a fine party, maybe in one of those cleaned out saloons, with lots of sarsaparilla on hand.”
“I'm not making any promises,” I said.
Somehow I didn't like this deal, but it was the best thing I had going. And the whole heist would come while all the drunks were sleeping it off. By noon of New Year's Day, Doubtful would be cleaned out, the law would be in force, and it would all be done peaceably. All them cowboys would grumble and ride back to all the ranches that surrounded the town. Not a bad plan, I thought. It'd keep the peace in Puma County, at least until the other ranchers rode into the Mormons' ranch and hanged the whole lot and buried each one with a stake through the heart.
“I sure don't like waiting until the dawn,” I said. “That dry law starts at midnight, and I'm sworn to uphold it.”
“Cotton, you're an idiot,” Rusty said.
“That's what my ma always told me.”
I itched to escape Rusty, who was in a dour mood. So I clambered into my heavy coat, pulled a hat over my ears, and headed into the wintry town to do some patrolling. I'd freeze my butt, and frost my fingers, but Doubtful would get patrolled even on a peaceful winter's day.
There wasn't much happening. It was a time to huddle around the stoves, not a time to be galavanting. But when I got to Saloon Row, I found a freight wagon pulled by two frosted and ice-caked draft horses parked next to the Last Chance. I knew the wagon, all right. It belonged to Alphonso Flynn, who ran a big cow-calf operation east of town. Alphonso was a big, dark-haired bull-shaped man with pointy boots. Some whispered that he had Spanish blood mixed in with the Irish.
The wagon was being filled with cases of booze, twelve bottles to a carton, along with stout kegs, all of it being loaded from the Last Chance and the neighboring saloons.
“Whatcha up to, Alphonso?”
“I'm buying enough contraband to last until those pricks in the courthouse repeal the dry law.”
“Ah, possession's gonna be illegal, Alphonso.”
“Who says I'm gonna possess anything, eh?”
“Well, I might have to come looking.”
“You set one foot on my outfit and you're likely to be mistaken for an elk, Pickens.”
“I'm sworn to uphold the law, whether I like her or not.”
Flynn paused. “Sure is a burden, ain't it?”
“I do what I have to do.”
“Well, you come on out to the place and arrest me.”
I watched weary saloon swampers drag crates of redeye and rotgut out of the old saloons and stack them in the wagon. In a few days, everything in that heavy wagon would be illegal. I thought it was strange, how the stuff sitting there was okay one day, outlawed the next.
Flynn loomed over me, menace exuding from him. “Look, Sheriff, I know you're just trying to do your duty, and I know you're not to blame. The supervisors made the law. But listen close now. That law's a dead letter. That law is dead on arrival. There's no way the people of Puma County, especially us out on the ranches, are gonna pay it any attention. This here law's generating hard feelings, Sheriff. Real hard feelings. This is not just fistfight trouble; it's worse. There'll be blood shed here unless you just back off. You want to keep the peace? You want to avoid blood? Then just step aside and let the law die. It'll die in its crib if the supervisors see that it can't be enforced. It's up to you, Cotton Pickens. You can have war, and blood, and deep trouble, or not. You can keep the peace or not. You start enforcing a bad law, and you'll have more trouble here than you've ever seen. You hear me?”
“I'm sworn, Flynn.”
Alphonso Flynn sighed, shook his head, and turned away.
That was some speech. I felt halfway like that myself. I sure didn't want a blood-soaked whiskey war, and that was what I was getting. But I would either do what I had to do, according to my oath, or quit. I'd clear out the saloons on the first day of January, or turn in my badge.
I watched Flynn and two of his drovers climb up on the freight wagon and haw the draft horses. The big wagon lumbered through the rutted street slowly, spitting shards of snow off its big wheels, and turned east toward the Flynn place.
It wasn't going to end New Year's Day. Even if I got all the saloons in Doubtful shut down, there'd be new joints springing up all over the county, log cabin saloons in every rural gulch. I'd need more deputies to ride herd on all that.
I pushed into the headwind to get back to Courthouse Square and chose the courthouse itself to get out of the gale. I found Amos Grosbeak staring dourly at the drifts that were building up fast and threatening to shut down Doubtful.
“There isn't anything you can tell me,” Grosbeak said. “I've heard every argument from you and all the rest. We're going ahead with the law, period.”
“That's not what I'm here about.”
Grosbeak peered upward, eyeing me over his wire-rimmed spectacles.
“I got to have me five or six more deputies.”
“Are you daft, Pickens?”
“If you want the new dry law enforced, that's what I need.”
“I'm sure you can do a fine job without all those subordinates, Pickens.” He said it in a way that was loaded with doubt.
I recounted my encounter with Flynn and described the amount of booze that got loaded into a single freight wagon, and I didn't forget to tell Grosbeak what Flynn was saying.
“You want to turn this county dry? You want to shut down every log cabin saloon that's going to go into every gulch? You want to intercept nighttime shipments up from Laramie? You want to track down every beer party on every summer night in the county? You want to keep the booze out of a county the size of some eastern states, with just me and one deputy?”
Grosbeak eyed me levelly. “There's not a dime to be had. We just increased our administrative salaries, and there's nothing left over.” He leaned forward. “We're putting our trust in you, Pickens. There's something you should learn to do, because you're not much good at it. You need to win the cooperation of the community. You need to organize watch and ward patrols, get informants, pay snitches. Get the women involved; get an earful of gossip and learn where the outlawed traffic is going, and then strike hard.”
“All right, sir. I'll start with you. I want you and Mrs. Grosbeak to feed me anything you hear, every little rumor, and I'll track her down.”
“We're too busy for that, Pickens. You get informants from people who have nothing better to do than spy on their neighbors.”
“You going to give me a budget for that? For hiring snitches?”
“No, Pickens, you'll get help from all those people who are eager to do their civic duty. You'll get yourself in front of civic groups, like the chamber of commerce, and ask for their cooperation.”
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