J.A. Johnstone - The Loner - Crossfire

“Well, if you were to give me a raise, I’d be worth more,” I said. “Make her forty-five a month and you’d fool my pa and my ma.”

Lawyer Stokes peered at me sadly. Then he turned to the others. “See how the man answers my questions. See where his deprived brain has led him. We are naked here in Doubtful.”

Then it was Reggie Thimble’s turn. “How come you didn’t just draw iron and blast him? You chicken or something?”

“Well, I don’t guess it’d get much done, not with a bullet through my gizzard while I’m clearing leather.”

“We hired you for your speed with a shooting iron, Cotton Pickens, and we expect you to make use of your speed.”

“Well, you got a point there, Mr. Supervisor, but I just didn’t see that as anything that’d do anything but get me dead.”

“You could have been a hero, Pickens. You could’ve sent a varmint straight to hell, even as you croaked. We’d have put up a statue of you in front of the courthouse.”

“Well, you got a point there,” I said.

Then it was Ziggy Camp’s turn. “How come you didn’t know this yahoo?” he asked.

“It was pretty dark,” I said.

“You’re supposed to know every lowlife in Doubtful.”

“Well, I do, but this feller, he come out of the night.”

“You’s supposed to know them all by their voice. You mean to tell me you didn’t even recognize his voice?”

“Can’t say as I ever heard it before.”

“What kind of voice was it? High and squeaky? Low and mean? What if it was a woman robbing you?”

“I don’t rightly remember, Supervisor.”

“Well, what kind of sheriff are you, anyway? How tall was this crook?”

“Neither high nor low, sir.”

“What kind of answer’s that, Pickens?”

“There wasn’t much unusual about him, that’s all I can say. Just an ordinary bandit.”

Camp glanced at Thimble and sighed.

Then my friend the mayor, George Waller, came up to bat. He sort of smiled, to let me know that we’d still be friends after they fired me. “So what have you done about it, Cotton?”

He was using my first name, deliberately, too. He knew how I feel about that name that got hung on me by my ma and pa.

“I told every bartender in town to let me know if someone was on a drinking spree, spending like hell don’t have it. I told my friend Studs, over at the poker palace, to snitch on anyone spending big-time.”

“One dollar and six bits is big-time?”

“Is for me,” I said. “That’s why I want a raise.”

“You want a raise? Now?”

“It’s not every sheriff gets robbed and lives to tell about it.”

They stared at me like I was a leper. I don’t know what a leper is but I heard it’s real bad and fingers and toes melt off. I still have all of mine, last I counted, but I sometimes have trouble getting past eight or seven, but they were all there last I took my boots off.

Lawyer Stokes intervened, flashing his fish-oil smile. “Well, gentlemen, you’ve heard the case in the sheriff’s own colorful words. Right ‘out of the mouth of babes,’ as the saying goes. So we know where we stand. Doubtful, Wyoming, lies naked to the world. Our young maidens live in peril of being ravished. Our sturdy storekeeps shake with terror that they will be robbed. Our yeomen fear to be assailed in the night. Our wives and children are helpless against the malign forces of evil. Unless the town is swiftly protected by a competent man who knows how to ferret out crime and bring the world’s meanest dregs to justice, then we are all at grave risk. I, for one, shall not sleep soundly in my humble bed as long as I know that there is nothing betwixt and between me and the thugs who prowl our streets as soon as the sun has set. Where will it stop? Who will stop the crime wave? Is our bank next? Will our citizens lie dead in the streets?”

He paused suddenly, turned toward me, and jabbed an ancient, arthritic finger into my chest. “Fire him,” he said.

Then he quietly returned to his swivel chair, and swiveled clear around until he, too, was facing me, like the rest.

“You can take Doubtful and stuff it,” I said, fixing to walk out.

“Whoa up, Cotton,” Waller said. “We ain’t fired you yet.”

“Well, I’m quitting!” I yelled.

“We got no replacement yet,” Waller said. “So we can’t accept your resignation.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You can’t quit because we don’t accept it.”

Now that was mighty strange logic in my book, but who am I to say? My ma always said I was a little slow.

“You got a couple of deputies over there, Burtell and De Graff, but they ain’t sheriff material. They’re better at taking orders than giving them. If anything, they’re even less smart than you. They don’t have your native cunning. You were smart enough not to argue with that stickup man, except a little, but if it was De Graff, he’d be plumb dead.”

“Oh, George, you give Cotton Pickens too much credit,” Reggie Thimble said. “I think we should just let Pickens here saddle up and find someone else.”

“Like who?”

“Like Belle,” Thimble said.

“Boardinghouse Belle?” Waller was aghast.

“Purse snatchers would be too busy looking at Belle’s unforgettable chest to see her level her little revolver,” Thimble continued. “She’s got two aces and four kings.”

There wasn’t much anyone was saying about then. Me, I thought Belle might be a good sheriff, but there would be the little matter of persuading her to take the job. She had all she could manage running the boardinghouse for a dozen or so of us unattached males. She made good money, a lot more than she would hanging six-guns on her lush hips and patrolling Doubtful.

“Well, we could ask her,” Ziggy Camp said.

Again, Lawyer Stokes intervened. “We’re not going to hire that pneumatic female for our sheriff,” he said.

“Then all we got is Pickens here, at least for now.”

“We’ve been through this before,” Supervisor Thimble said. “We had sheriffs by the cartload and they all croaked. Doubtful was on the ropes until we got Pickens here. He may not be the smartest man in town, but he’s kept the lid on for some while. Fire him, and next thing you know, the Democrats will be taking over again.”

I got to remembering that all them county people were anything but Democrats.

“I think I know where to go on this,” said Lawyer Stokes. “It’s time for us to have a little talk with Cyrus Ralston.”

“Ah, there’s a thought.”

“Cyrus Ralston is a man of some sophistication. He’ll know where to go to find a new sheriff.”

“Why yes, my impression is that he’s well connected throughout the West, with ties reaching into the great cities of the East as well.”

“Ralston will give us the skinny,” Waller said.

Lawyer Stokes smiled. “We’re agreed then?” He turned to me. “We’re going to have Ralston find us a new man, Pickens. Until then, you’re still sheriff. “After that, you won’t be.”

“Well, I quit.”

“Sorry, Pickens, that’s quite impossible. We don’t accept it.”

I sure couldn’t figure that one out. If I quit, I quit, but they was saying I didn’t and can’t.

Cyrus Ralston, the man in black pinstriped suits and Homburg hats who was finishing up the new three-hundred-seat Opera House on the main drag of Doubtful, would decide my fate. Durned if I could figure that out.

“Ralston will know how to deal with this crime wave,” Lawyer Stokes said.

Chapter Two

So there I was, still sheriff until they could get another. That sure was a mess. I’d just as soon have pinned my badge on Lawyer Stokes and let him do the rounds every night, making sure Doubtful was locked up tight.