by Ami Snow
He was thirsty after all the walking. A horse would’ve been nice to have, but how do you find someone to care for it while you’re in bear form? So Chico had accepted his fate a long time ago. Until the curse was lifted, he would travel the world alone. At least it couldn’t be passed on to children: he was barren.
He noticed her while passing the sheriff’s office. It was small and wooden, just like a thousand frontier law offices he’d seen before. Chico stopped for a minute to look at the law man standing on the porch. He was tall, about six feet and hefty, not someone he’d want to engage even in his other shape. Then Chico looked again: the sheriff was a woman. He stopped dead in his tracks.
“You have a problem stranger?” the sheriff asked in a definite female voice. She stood there in her canvas pants and cowboy boots looking at him. She wore a gun belt and carried a shot gun. Her shirt was cut for a man, but the badge was almost obscured by her cleavage. She took off her hat and a rain of brown curls fell out.
“I think,” Chico said, “this is the first time I’ve ever seen a woman as a sheriff.”
“Keep moving or it will be your last,” she snapped at him. “I don’t need problems with drifters. You have a reason to be in this town?”
“No, ma’am, I am just passing through. I was headed over to the saloon to get a drink. I will be on my way as soon as my thirst has been satisfied.”
“I’ll expect you out of town by sundown,” she told him.
“I will comply. But if you are in need of some help around the jail I would be more than happy to…”
“Just keep moving.”
Chico was in heaven and had no way to show it. Countless possibilities played through his head as he walked to the saloon. All of them involved the sheriff and himself. In most of them she kept the boots on. The jail cell featured prominently, with leg irons provided.
The saloon had seen better days, much like the town itself. Chico walked through the swinging doors and looked at the inside. The roulette wheel might’ve seen some use in the past year, but he doubted it. There was a piano, but no one to play it. The stairs leading to the second floor were falling apart and there was a lack of women in the place anyway. Other than the cowboys playing cards by themselves at the table near the front, no patrons were evident at all. He looked again and saw a man polishing glasses behind the bar, but there weren’t too many bottles to pour from. Another glance showed three men in suits at the far end of the bar, but they weren’t drinking.
Chic walked up to the bar, his boots clumping loudly on the floor and echoing all over the empty saloon. The bartender, excited for a customer quit polishing the glasses and put his hands on the counter. Chic walked up to him and tossed his poncho back.
“What will you have, mister?” the bartender asked.
“Beer,” Chico responded. “I just want to take the dust out of my throat. I’ve been on the trail for too many days.”
The bartender filled a mug and handed it to him.
“House specialty. Until it all runs out and I have to close the place.”
“Business bad?” Chico asked.
“Terrible. Ever since the gold ran out. The prospectors never did find all that much. I’m about ready to close this place down and move on. You want to buy it?”
“Sorry,” Chico apologized. “I was never much of a businessman myself. Thanks for the offer.”
He tipped the mug back and enjoyed the sensation of the warm beer as it rinsed his throat.
Just then he over heard a commotion at the table where the cowboys were sitting. An argument had broken out over someone’s war record. Given the veterans from both sides of the Late Unpleasantness roaming the west, it was bound to happen. Chico had tried to avoid any discussion of his record. He’d been in plenty of battles, but sooner or later someone would start to wonder how he’d survived so many engagements. He’d already had to deal with a former officer who accused him of desertion. How do you explain to your commander you had to leave because the moon had turned full?
The cowboy was absolutely certain the union army had turned tail and ran at Chickamauga Creek. He was convinced the only reason the southern army hadn’t obliterated the union was confederate general Longstreet’s compassion in allowing the union army to retreat to Chattanooga.
“There I was,” he bragged. “I was telling General Longstreet the yankees were on the run and we could finish them off. But he said not to and waits till another day. We shoulda taken them all out when we had a chance.”
The other cowboys murmured an approval and sipped their drinks.
“You wouldn’t have had a chance with our Spencer rifles,” Chico said. He’d materialized out of nowhere near the table and was standing right next to the cowboys. “We would have ripped your Johnny Reb guts right of your shirts and mailed them to Jeff Davis.”
The cowboy swerved around and glared at Chico. He looked a lot more mature at a distance. From up close, Chico could see he wasn’t older than eighteen.
“Are you calling me a liar, yank?” the cowboy said as he started to rise up from the table. His friends had ceased drinking and were slowly moving their hands in a downward motion.
“No, I am not,” Chico said. “To be a liar you would have had to have been there. The war ended ten years ago, cowpoke. The only war you were fighting was in your pants.”
The cowboy jumped up from the table and whipped out his pistol. Before he could scream his rebel yell, Chico had shot the pistol out of his hand. Then Chico pointed both of his revolvers in the direction of the cowboy’s friends.
“I think you all have had enough excitement for one night, amigos. Just get your friend and get out of here.”
Grumbling, the cowboys grabbed their loud-mothed buddy, still holding his bleeding hand, and backed out the door. They yelled a few threats at him, but did nothing. Chico waited until he heard the sound of their horses leaving town before returning to the bar.
The bartender was staring in disbelief at Chico and holding a fresh mug.
“On the house,” he said. “I was fixing to call the sheriff about that bunch.”
Chico laughed and tossed back the second beer. He handed the bartender a stack of silver dollars.
“Here. Maybe you’ll have better luck when you open your next place.”
Chico started to walk out the door when he heard a voice behind him.
“You looking for a job, mister?”
He turned around to find himself facing the three well-dressed men who were at the end of the bar when he’d came in the door. They looked to be about fifty years old apiece and as wealthy as the local economy would allow. He’d encountered their types before: men with just enough cash to feel rich in a crappy town.
“I might,” Chico replied. “Did you have something in mind?”
“Why don’t we sit down at the table the cowpokes were using and talk about it?” one of the men said to him.
They walked over to the table as a group, pulled out the chairs and sat down.
“So what do you gentleman want to talk about?” Chico asked.
“Let us all introduce,” a man with a white mustache began. “I’m Shane Michaels, the mayor around here.
“I’m Tom Wetzer, I own the only bank in town,” said a man in a vest and suspenders.
“Dave,” the final man introduced. “Dave Winters. I run what’s left of the general store.”
“Chico. Just call me Chico; it’s all you need to know. Now let’s get down to business. I assume this has something to do with the way I handled those fakes?”
“It was some mighty fine shooting!” the mayor exclaimed. “I’m always glad to see a man who knows how to use a gun.”
“I know my way around one,” Chico answered. “Did you have need of my services?”
“Well…” Tom Wetzer started to say, “We do and we don’t. We still have s sheriff in town.”
The three men across from Chico broke out in laughter.
“What’s so funny?�
�� Chico asked. “I saw your sheriff as I came into town and she strikes me a woman with a lot to love, if you understand what I mean.”
This provoked more laughter from across the table.
“Oh, Mary Ann is a right fine lady,” Dave Winters tried to say with a straight face. “And I think she takes her job a little too seriously.”
“The problem is,” the mayor began, “there isn’t a lot left in this town to justify keeping a sheriff. She’s always on the lookout for troublemakers, but they’ve all moved elsewhere. We probably would never have replaced the last sheriff, God rest his soul, but she was sure she could find the man who killed him.”
“Her father was the last sheriff,” Winters explained. “He was a good man; just made somebody upset and was shot one night locking up his office. She came back from the east and swore to find the man who did it. We couldn’t think of anything else to do, so we made her sheriff.”
“You still haven’t told me what you want,” Chico stated.
Tom Wetzer became serious and looked around to make sure the bartender wasn’t listening.
“I’m fixing to move the money in the bank out of town in a few weeks,” he told Chico. “There’s no reason to keep it around here in this dying town. I’m going to be opening up a new bank in a city with a future.”
“You want to hire me as a bank guard?”
“No,” he continued. “I want you to prevent something. I’ve had word the Brownington boys are headed this way; they might be here in the next few weeks.”
The Brownington gang was a band of thieves who had been robbing banks all over the southwest for the past two years. Consisting of war veterans, there were three of them and they all knew how to use guns. The Texas Rangers were supposedly closing in on the gang, but no one knew where they might strike next.
“We need you to stop them before they get to town,” the mayor told him. “If Tom can move his gold in the bank out of town, it won’t be a problem. They’ll show up and find an empty bank. But we can’t risk them getting their hands on the bank deposits. We’re all investors in the bank and will lose everything we have if they show up before it’s moved.”
“What about the sheriff?”
More laughter at the table.
“I see,” Chico said. “You want me as insurance to make sure you don’t get robbed. You don’t trust one woman against those desperados.”
“Not the kinds of odds I would bet on,” the mayor answered.
“But,” the mayor continued. “We would like you to help the sheriff.”
‘Yes, that would be a good idea,” said Tom.
“Help, how?” asked Chico.
“We’re the town council and we’ve just officially hired you as her deputy,” Dave informed him.
He tossed Chico a star and wad of cash.
“Here are all the credentials you will need. And advance payment.”
“Oh, one more thing,” the mayor said.
Here it comes, Chico thought. The real reason.
“Should something happen to the sheriff if those bandits show up,” the mayor told him, “we would understand.”
“Bullets fly, people get hurt,” Dave noted.
“We might even increase you pay rate at the end of the contract,” Tom stated. “Unofficially, you understand.”
“How much are we talking?” Chico asked.
The mayor tossed out a sum.
“Double it and half in advance,” Chico told them.
The trio looked at each other and fished some cash out of their pockets. Chico counted the money.
“Always a pleasure doing business with such outstanding citizens,” he said to them. “Now why don’t you go and introduce me to the sheriff?”
“I need a what?” Sheriff Mary Ann yelled at the town council when they presented Chico. “I thought you were threatening to cut my budget last month!”
“We’ve reconsidered, sheriff,” the mayor told her. “You were right; those cowboys can cause a lot of trouble when they hit the saloon. We think you might need some help.”
“Are you trying to tell me I can’t do the job?” She snapped at them from across her desk. “Do you recall last month when I forced the Baxters to hand over the loot from the stage coach?”
“Yes we do, ma’am,” Tom Wexler told her. “And we remember what almost happened.”
“I had the cuffs on all of them when their pap showed up,” she slammed her fist down on the table. “He didn’t last five minutes when I pulled him off the horse.”
“I could last a good twenty,” Chico said to her, smiling.
“Watch your mouth, butternut,” she snapped at him.
“And you mean to tell me you went all the way to Tucson for this ‘deputy’?” she thundered at the town council. “I saw him walk into town. Without a horse! How did he get here on foot so quickly?”
“You’d be surprised just how fast I can be,” Chico smirked again.
“One more time, mister and you will be cleaning out the pig sty,” she said, her face in his.
“Now sheriff, please try to get along with the new man,” the mayor said to her. “We’ll leave and let the two of you get better acquainted.”
The town council adjourned and left the office.
“The best thing you can do,” the sheriff told Chico, “is to stay out of my way.”
“You want me to polish you boots, ma’am?” Chico asked her, trying to hide the smirk on his face.
“I’m going to tell you this one time and one time only,” she said backing him up to the wall, “do not piss me off.”
Sheriff Mary Ann towered over Chico a good five inches in her boots. Chico didn’t care. The breasts aimed at him were taller than that if when she was lying down. But right now all he could see was a silver star on a shirt shoved into his face. Lord, where did they make women this big? He had to go find out and order one just for him!
“Whatever you want me to do, ma’am,” he said. “I am just an honest sojourner hired to keep the peace in this town. You tell me what to do and I will do it.”
“Sit down,” the sheriff told him and pointed to a chair. Chico did as instructed. The sheriff took the one across the office by her desk.
“I don’t know who you are and it would take me too long to find out,” she began. “Since the town council hired you, there isn’t much I can do. I suspect they hired you to keep an eye on me. I don’t really care, so long as you don’t get in the way. But get one thing straight: you work for me.”
“I offered to polish your boots.”
“Enough with the jokes!”
“I wasn’t joking.”
The sheriff had a thought.
“You got pistol, pilgrim?”
Chico withdrew his revolver and showed it to her. He also tossed the poncho away from his gun belt so she could see the bullets. It was made of tooled leather and he’d picked it up in old Mexico.
“Alright,” she said. “Time for a little target practice. We’re going out back on the range and see if you can shoot straight.”
“The pistol?” Chico asked. “Oh yeah it shoots straight too. I’ve got something else under my belt that shoots….”
Chico found himself propelled across the room by the sheriff’s slap. He landed back in the same chair he’d been using. He coughed, the wind having been knocked out of him. This was a hard woman not to love. He wondered if he would ever be able to leave this town.
He looked up to see the sheriff holding a revolver of her own and pointing it straight at him.
“All I have to do is say you met with an accident while training, understand?”
Chico picked himself up off the floor and followed the sheriff outside the wooden office and combination jail she occupied. The town ended behind it and there were a few targets, bottles and cans sprawled around on the ground. It was getting late, but they still had some sun light.
“I’m going to call out something and you’re going to shoot it, alright?” she said to
him.
“With my gun? If not I’ll need get my pants down.”
Slap! Hard against the face. She has one big ring finger Chico thought.
“You see that can off the side of the lot, smart ass?”
“Yes, ma’am.” His face was still hurting.
“Put a hole in it and stop calling me ma’am.”
Before she could say another word the can was flying through the air and Chico was holding a smoking gun.
“I do good, Ma- I mean sheriff?” he asked.
The sheriff was stunned. She hadn’t seen this idiot even pull the gun out of his holster. Maybe he was just lucky.
“The jar on the fence.”
It exploded into a cloud of crystal before the words had left her mouth.
“The shoe right in front.”
It went sailing through the air.
She cocked her head. Maybe this fool had some skills after all.
“Okay,” she continued. “I’m going to show you what I can do, let’s see you do better.”
She tossed a handful of coins up in the air and hit three of them directly as they fell to the ground. Then she tossed five nickel up into the sky.
“Now!” she yelled.
All five went spiraling through the air from a single shot each on their way down.
“Did you want to see anything else Sheriff?” Chico asked. “I can show you some more but I would have to have the city reimburse me for the ammunition.”
“No,” she said, “let’s go back inside.”
