Support Your Local Deputy: A Cotton Pickens Western (3 page)

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.”

Me, I’d rather face a gunslick wanting to put me in my grave than to track down a burglar. Catching a thief is a skill I never got born with. It takes a lot of figuring to track down a thief. You’ve got to see what got took, and figure out who took it, and that’s harder than it sounds, especially for someone born a little slow, as my ma used to say. So I always gave the thief business to Rusty, or one of my part-time deputies. But Rusty, he’s been swooning over his lost Ukrainian mail-order women, so I got stuck with it.

“All right,” I said to Professor Zimmer, “let’s have a look.”

He took me over to the second wagon. The show was rolling in front of the first wagon, and a mess of townspeople and cowboys were watching in the torchlight that spring eve.

He led me inside the second one, dark as pitch, but he lit a lamp. It was mostly hammock bunks in there. Them show people sure lived poor and crowded. But Zimmer had a corner to himself, and on the floor was a strongbox, bolted down tight. But the cover was opened, and there was a sawed-up padlock on the floor. The burglar had gone to work with a hacksaw while the show was running, cut through, scooped up the loot, and beat it.

“I know to the penny,” Zimmer said. “That scoundrel, that swine, lightened my purse by two hundred seventy-nine dollars and forty cents.”

That was a heap of money. But he had payroll and all the costs of manufacturing his tonic, and his transportation to pay for, so maybe it wasn’t so much.

“Now I’ll have to buy a padlock. I don’t suppose there’s one available in Doubtful. Nothing’s safe. I’m near broke!”

“Ah, professor, you mind telling me when this happened?”

“How should I know? You think I’m a witness? You think I have eyes in the back of my head?”

“Well, when was the last time you checked?”

“Why, this is our dressing room. This is where I don my costumes. Everything was perfectly proper at the start of the evening.”

“So it happened just now?”

“I admire your powers of deduction, sheriff.”

“You get a look at this crook?”

“He’s probably standing out front right now, mixing right in. You might arrest the whole lot and frisk them.”

“I need a little more to go on, professor.”

“All right. Whoever buys a lot of bottles, arrest him. My tonic is so much in demand that people buy it by the case, the carton. There’s nothing like Zoroaster Zimmer’s Tonic to cure the ills of all creation.”

“You sure it wasn’t one of your own people sawed this padlock?”

“Do you think my people run around with hacksaws?”

“Well, it’s a handy little tool, Your Honor.”

“Ah, finally some respect from you, sheriff. How did you know I once was a judge?”

“You look sort of judgey, if you ask me.”

“Well, I was a Supreme Court Justice of the state of West Virginia, second circuit, three terms, before I answered a higher calling, which was to make the world a happier place, and to offer the suffering some relief at just two dollars the bottle.”

An accordion act was winding up on the other wagon, and there was a scatter of applause.

“I’ve got to go make the pitch, tell the world about miracles and blessings,” Zimmer said, and hastened into the darkness.

The lamp on the wagon cast an eerie glow. It was hard to imagine how a company of six managed to live in such tiny quarters. I studied the padlock, which had been expertly sawed apart. The cashbox, tiny like everything else here, lay empty. I didn’t even know what sort of bills and coins had been in it; probably pretty small ones. There wasn’t anyone around Doubtful that could pull a twenty out, or even make change for a twenty.

It sure was not anything I was going to solve very soon, but I’d give her a wrestle. If someone had cash, then someone would probably spend it pretty quick. That’s how it went in Doubtful. Them cowboys came to town on paydays, and spent every last dime before riding out. So I figured I’d just start asking around a little. Some unseen crook, big or little, was probably going to push some bills across the bar tops.

I watched Zimmer pitch his tonic to the grinning crowd. He wasn’t making much headway until he switched to new ground. The cowboys looked like they were ready to head back to the welcoming saloons along Saloon Row, and I spotted a yawn here and there. The chill night air was eddying through the small crowd, reminding them that summer was yet a month off.

“Now, friends, listen close, because this may affect your happiness more than anything you’ve ever come across,” Zimmer was saying. He was leaning forward, almost falling off the wagon into his audience, the lamplight throwing light and shadow over his craggy red face.

“I also have compounded, from my own secret and priceless recipes, a special Manhood Improver and Conditioner. Now, this precious liquid, well, you’ll find yourselves transported to heavenly bliss, beyond your wildest imaginings, and your romantic partners will thank you and bless you and shout hurrahs to you. Now, this is absolutely guaranteed. Ask anyone who’s tried it. If I only had some tiny bottles I’d give each of you a free sample, knowing that you’d soon be flocking back to buy out every bottle in stock. But alas, gents, I have no samples. But I do have countless testimonials, which are written in this brochure, here, for you to read.

“Now if you are looking for a true manhood expander and gateway to the highest peaks of human experience, then you’ll want Doctor Zimmer’s Private Stock Manhood Improver. It will take you to places you’ve only dreamed of. Now, it’s not cheap. It costs four dollars the bottle, but it lasts and lasts, and improves with age. Why, year-old Manhood Improver is even more powerful than day-old Manhood Improver. This is absolutely guaranteed. On each bottle is a return address. Send the bottle back, if it fails you in any manner, and you will soon receive a gift certificate from Doctor Zimmer for any of his products.”

That sure was entertaining, and them cowboys, they sure were listening hard. They didn’t have much opportunity to make good use of Zimmer’s Manhood Improver, since they lived in bunkhouses on ranches around Puma County, but that wouldn’t make any difference to them. A cowboy’s a cowboy, even if he’s fifty miles from the nearest female.

Sure enough, about then one of them performers, the big lady in the grass skirts, she carries out a carton of the Manhood Improver, and those cowboys, they’re already digging into their jeans for loose cash, while Zimmer kept on yakking on stage. I squinted at that bunch, looking for a big spender, but they were having trouble coming up with the bucks, and some were going fifty-fifty on a bottle.

I sure had to hand it to Zimmer. Broke one moment, coining profits the next.

That reminded me I had to start hunting down a thief, which for me was like eating sour apples. Zimmer’s show was going to wind down pretty soon, so I drifted back to Doubtful, past the cottonwoods along the creek, useful for a good hanging, and began with the Last Chance Saloon, because Sammy Upward was my friend, and he often helped me out.

The place was mostly empty because Zimmer’s show had drawn the usual saloon crowd. But that was fine; it gave me a chance to talk quietly with Sammy, who was washing glasses behind the bar.

“Sammy, I’m looking for big spenders,” I said.

“Someone’s got something to spend?”

“A lot to spend, and it ain’t his.”

Sammy grinned. He was a redhead, with a good freckle-faced grin. “Gotcha,” he said.

I did the same at the Lizard Lounge, Mrs. Gladstone’s Sampling Room, and McGivers’ Saloon. The barkeeps listened to me skeptically and nodded. They weren’t going to squeal on a paying customer setting up drinks for the crowd, not if they could help it, but they also knew I’d come after them if I found out they were going along with a thief.

“Something got stole?” asked George Roman, who ran Lizard Lounge.

“If you’re smart, you’ll keep cash in the bank, and not around here,” I said.

Roman eyed me, a faint smile building. “Maybe the town needs new blood in office,” he said. He was referring to me.

When I got back to the sheriff office, there was Rusty, lying in a cell, staring at the ceiling and leaking tears.

“You found your missing twins?”

“They’re gone forever. Happiness is gone forever. My life is ruint.”

“There’s a lot more Ukrainian blondes there. Just order a new one.”

“But they ain’t joined at the hip, Cotton. Two fer one; best bargain I ever come acrost.”

“Well, dry your tears. We got a crime to solve. Zimmer, he’s been robbed of pretty near three hundred smackeroos.”

That got Rusty’s attention. That was almost a year’s deputy salary. “What happened?”

“He’s got a lockbox in the wagon, and someone sawed through a padlock while the show was rolling, and made off with the profits.”

“Yeah, sure,” Rusty said.

“You saying it ain’t so?”

“I’m saying maybe Zimmer robbed himself.”

“You got no faith in human nature, Rusty. The loss of your blondes has made you downright cynical.”

But Rusty, he just grinned. “Watch and see, Cotton. We’ll find out who got robbed of what, and why.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re feeling mighty blue, Rusty.”

“You want me to solve it? Tomorrow I will.”

Rusty was sure acting strange, like he was disgusted with me or something.

“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen next. There’s going to be robberies and thefts all over Doubtful.”

“You mean that burglar that cleaned out Zimmer’s not done?”

“He’s just getting started, Cotton. And he’s going to be hard to catch, even if I know who he is right now.”

“So who is he?”

But Rusty only laughed at me. He sure was being ornery, but that’s what lost love does to people.