Rusty, he settled the duffel bags on a wooden chair.
There was a thunder mug under the cot, and I showed it to them. They stared away, not wanting to acknowledge it.
“Okay, ladies, this is your home for now. I’ll get my stuff out in the morning.”
Natasha, she was weeping again. I didn’t know what to make of it, but then she explained. “First room since Ukraine,” she said.
It was nothing to me, but a treasure for them. A long time since they’d had a room of their own
We left them there, Rusty and me. I’d spend my nights in the jail.
Chapter Twenty-five
I thought Doubtful, Wyoming, had finally got free of all those road shows, but I was wrong. In the dog days of August, what should roll in but Billy Bones’ Wild West. I didn’t know what that was all about, but I learned soon enough. It was about half rodeo, and half Buffalo Bill. There was a mess of stuff like trick shooting, and a couple of female sharpshooters, and some scenarios from the old Indian wars, but there was also a mess of rodeo competition. Bull riding, roping, bronc riding, and a final act involving catching a greased pig.
They set up shop over beyond Saloon Row—they sure knew where to get their cowboy audiences. That ground was pretty much trampled down by the previous shows, and the slightest rain turned it into a quagmire. But that didn’t slow them. In fact, I learned that when things were real muddy, they ran a mud wrestling contest with some women, and it was hard to say whether the ladies wore anything at all, beneath all that slippery mud.
I braced for trouble. Rodeo competition was a rough game, and cowboys got into brawls, and I knew my two jail cells were going to be jammed and overflowing real quick. But me and Rusty were up to it. Both of us had done our share of cowboying, and we knew how to deal with all that excess enthusiasm, namely, knock them all senseless.
This outfit soon had big bills plastered on every stray wall around town, and they all were promoting one thing: Miss Quick, trick-shot artist, the surest shot in the female universe. That didn’t seem like good advertising to me. Cowboys don’t want to get shot at by a female. And they don’t want to get beaten in shooting contests by a female. But there she was, in color, wearing fringed leather skirt, boots, a big creamy blouse, and a flat-brimmed hat. And she’s hefting a revolver in one hand, and a rifle in the other, and smiling away, like she knew what everyone was thinking.
“I think we’ve got trouble,” I said to Rusty.
He didn’t reply. He was busy courting the Siamese twins and couldn’t be bothered with law enforcement.
“I might see if I can outshoot her,” I said.
“If it was a thinking contest, you’d lose,” he replied. I don’t suppose I’ll ever get used to it.
That’s when Billy Bones himself walked in to the sheriff office. He was a skinny fellow, dressed in black. Black boots, black britches, black shirt, with cream embroidery on it. He was black-haired, too, and lantern-jawed, and I could see he would have a black beard if he didn’t shave, because there was a five o’clock shadow at nine in the morning.
“Sheriff? Bones here. That’s my outfit setting up.”
“Looks like you got a mess of cowboys out there.”
“Mostly jailbirds. I hire jailbirds straight out of the pen as roustabouts and livestock handlers. Once in a while, they turn into cowboys. Nobody ever bothers us.”
“That sure gives me peace of mind,” I said.
“Well, I always want to talk to the law when we come into a town. We like to open with a shooting contest.”
“And I’m the bull’s-eye?” I asked.
He smiled. “Sort of. Here’s the cookie. We challenge any sheriff or deputy to a sharpshooting contest with our Miss Quick. She’s quick, all right. She’ll shoot the hair off your balls.”
“I don’t think—”
“That’s what we heard. But you’re fast with a gun. But we’ll have a little sharpshooting contest, you against Miss Quick. Shotguns and clay pigeons, fast draws, trick shots, and action shots from horseback. If you win, you get a twenty-dollar prize. If we win, we get out of jail free.”
“What would put you in jail?”
“Jailbirds always have a yearning to return to their happy lives in the pen. I have an awful time keeping them out and free.”
“That sure is interesting.”
“Good. We open at four, and the sharpshooting contest is at four-thirty, while there’s plenty of light. Bring your own artillery.”
Rusty, he was smart-ass grinning.
“But I ain’t agreed to it.”
“Don’t be a sissy, Pickens. If you don’t show up, after we’ve promoted it, your name’s mud in Puma County. Likely you’ll get fired.”
“Well, I know all about that,” I said. “Once a week.”
Bones was gone as fast as he blew in. And I was in for a shooting contest. Not that Miss Quick had any chance against me. My ma, she always said I was good with my hands, which made up for being slow. I sure wondered what this Miss Quick looked like. I thought she might be a fake; women can’t shoot worth a damn. Put some little guy, a real sharpshooter, in skirts and powder his face, and who’d know the difference? That was it. These here shows, they didn’t mind stretching truth a little.
Well, they were good at publicity. Next I knew, Mayor George Waller dropped by with a word of encouragement.
“Hear you’re up against some female sharpshooter, Cotton. The honor of Puma County’s at stake, but you’ll whip her handily?” Funny how he ended that with a sort of question mark in his voice.
“I’ll whip her,” I said. “No woman shoots as good as me.”
Waller smiled. “Your job depends on it. We can’t have losers in the sheriff office.”
Before the afternoon was half done, Reggie Thimble had seconded that. The supervisors were unanimous: win or walk out of the job.
I wouldn’t let myself get overconfident. Just because she was billed as Miss Quick didn’t mean she was. I was the fastest draw in Wyoming, and a few people planted six feet down could attest to it. And I was real good on horseback. I could hit the ace of spades at a gallop.
I got out my revolver, cleaned it, worked the mechanism, and pulled it smoothly out of its holster a few times. I had the reputation for being fast with it, but in truth, I was careful. I figured one slower good shot was worth a bundle of worthless fast shots. Let people think I was fast: The only thing that mattered was accuracy.
“You’ll win,” Rusty said, as he eyed me putting my artillery into top shape.
“Of course, I’ll win.” I was testy. How could I not win? I didn’t need his encouragement.
I cleaned my rifle, and polished up my shotgun, and made sure I had plenty of shells and cartridges. They might cost a little, but I’d soon have twenty dollars and that would replace them with cash left over.
I don’t wear my holster much. Doubtful didn’t need some fool gunslick of a sheriff, making a public display of his weapons. I usually carried a billy club, and I could poleaxe people with that. But if all them cowboys wanted a show from me, and the city fathers, too, they’d get it.
Rusty, he kept smirking, and I’d show him a thing or two.
Then Miss Quick walked in. I knew who it was before she introduced herself.
“Howdy,” she said, and thrust a tiny white paw into my sun-baked one. “I’m Amanda Quick.”
“Howdy, yourself. You come to look me over, did you?”
“Oh, just to make your acquaintance. You sure are a big galoot.”
“And you’re a little one. Five feet?”
“Add an inch.”
“You’re real purty,” I said. I thought that might disarm her. If I told her she was real purty, out there on the firing line, she’d melt like wax in a candle.
She eyed me. “Big and strong and manly,” she said.
I sort of blushed. “My ma never called me that,” I said.
“You’ll want to prove that males can beat females.”
“Oh, no, I want to prove that sheriffs are better shots than theater people.”
She laughed. She sure was cute. She had little dimples on her cheeks when she smiled, and merry blue eyes, and was sort of strawberry blond, and was built with just the right curves. And she was dressed just like in the posters, with a fringed leather skirt, a loose blouse good for shooting, and a perky little western hat.
“If I win, you got to marry me,” I said.
I don’t know where that came. It just sort of bubbled up and erupted. It was like proposing in front of Old Faithful geyser.
“Well, usually they don’t ask for that,” she said. “They want all the benefits without the ring. And if I win, will you marry me?”
Holy cats, that caught me with my drawers around my ankles. “You bet,” I said, “but the twenty dollars, it sounds more like what I’m after.”
She laughed, a little twinkle in her eyes, and said, “I’ll see you on the field.”
She jounced away, leaving me lovestruck and bumble headed. I didn’t want to marry her, but now I was stuck. I’d win easily, and then what? Hanging Judge Earwig would be reciting the vows, and I’d be a cooked goose. I don’t know how I get into things like that.
Rusty, he was watching all this with a glint in his eye.
“Don’t you say nothing,” I said.
Time sure dragged. I was mad at Rusty, mad at Billy Bones and his show, mad at shooting contests, and mad at that perky little gal I didn’t like one tiny bit. She was so small I didn’t know how she could lift a rifle, or a shotgun. But according to all the publicity on them broadsheets pasted on every wall, she was a true marksman, and not just standing. Put her on a speeding horse and she was all the better.
It finally got late in the afternoon, so I strapped on my holster and revolver, collected my rifle and shotgun and a mess of shells and cartridges, and set out for the east side of Doubtful. People greeted me along the way, and it dawned on me they’d been waiting, lining the sidewalks, planning to cheer me along.
There were a few women, of course, wanted Miss Quick to whip me. I knew the type. They wore Amelia Bloomer’s pantaloons, and devoted themselves to making life difficult for men. But I ignored them. Most of those nice folks were cheering me. Mayor Waller was even waving a Wyoming flag, and Sammy Upward motioned me to stop in for a drink, but I shook my head. I could whip her with six drinks in me, but decided not to take the chance, just in case she got some lucky shots in, when I was not paying attention. Leonard Silver waved from the door of his Emporium, and my landlady, Belle, in a vast pink tent of a dress, twirled her parasol by way of saluting me. Alphonse Smythe, the postmaster, smiled from in front of his log post office, and even Maxwell, from the funeral parlor, gave me a pale wave of his waxen hand.
It sure was a victory parade, right down Wyoming Avenue, me with my two long guns and the short one. Lawyer Stokes sidled up and volunteered to carry my boxes of shells, so I let him, and he considered it a great honor, and carried them as if they were a wedding ring resting on a lavender pillow. Turk, he was watching, but he wasn’t properly worshipful, and was grinning like a hyena. I’d get even with him after I won my twenty dollars.
Well, by the time I got to the show grounds, there was a mess of people there, including most every cowboy that could escape the local ranches. Bones had set up a shooting area, and roped off the crowds, and there was Miss Quick, all dolled up and cute as a bug, waiting to sacrifice herself to me.
She smiled.
I tipped my hat. And then we were on.
Chapter Twenty-six
There sure was a nice crowd standing around the makeshift arena. Billy Bones, dressed in fringed and beaded buckskins, got the show on the road. With a wave, he ushered in a passel of riders, and a bugler and a flag-bearer, and these got into a smart trot, while the bugler bugled away, all sorts of stuff that sounded like the army—“Tattoo,” “Boots and Saddles,” “Charge,”—and the fellow with the flag broke into a trot, and ran the banner around the arena, while the cowboys cheered, except for the old Confederates, who stayed real silent.
But the noise of it all was real fine, and it got the show off to a bang-up start.
Then Billy Bones, on a white stallion, comes trotting to the center, and he lifts his megaphone, and begins bellowing at the mob.
“Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce Miss Amanda Quick, ace sharpshooter, trick-shot artist, and bull’s-eye champion.”
She came sailing out, wearing a soft fringed buckskin skirt, boots, a generous silky blouse, and a flat-crowned hat with a bright pink hatband. All them cowboys, they whistled and lusted and some got real silent.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, the local marksman and champion and lawman, the famous, the legendary, the invincible, Cotton Pickens!”
I guess that was me. So I trotted out there, lifted my old hat, bowed, and smiled. There was nothing to do but shake Miss Quick’s dainty little hand, so I pumped it a few times, and we both smiled. I was going to clean her clock, so I smiled a heap.
Some gun bearers brought our stuff out. They would do the reloading, and all of that, so we could concentrate on the contest.
This was going to be good. This here lady, she was so small she could hardly lift a long gun, so I had all the advantage.
Billy lifted his megaphone and bawled, “All right, you fine citizens of Puma County, watch this. Our first event will be trap shooting, ten clay pigeons, and may the best, ah, person win.”
Well, ladies first. Her man handed her a shiny little .410-gauge shotgun, a toy gun for a toy lady, and I smiled. That peashooter couldn’t pop a pigeon. The fellow at the traps, about fifty feet away, was all set, so she nodded. The clay bird whizzed along a flat trajectory, maybe fifteen feet up, and she shattered it easily. She handed the gun to her batman, and he gave her another, loaded and ready.
The cowboys whistled. Some of them had gotten beers from the saloons, and were sucking hard, soaking up enough suds to begin making smart observations.
Well, the way this was set up, she would tackle all ten birds, and then it’d be my chance to beat her. She sure was cute. She wasn’t paying attention to me, any, or the crowd, which was making antifemale remarks. She’d heard them all before, and they bounced off her back. Instead, she was all business. She blew away the second and third birds, took a corner out of the fourth, which counted as a kill, knocked the fifth to smithereens, almost missed the sixth from leading it too much, but nicked it and that counted as a kill. After each shot, she traded guns with her loader, one of the show’s roustabouts, and smiled. It sure didn’t take long to finish the job: She’d knocked down every bird, and with that toy gun, too.
She smiled sweetly, and I was thinking I wouldn’t mind marrying her, but only if I could shoot better than her. Who’d want to be married to a sharpshooting woman? It sure was something to ponder.
So, she waited quietly for the applause to wither away, and then it was my turn.
Rusty, he had a nice sheriff-office twelve-gauge ready for me, and I took it. I didn’t need anyone reloading, so I waved him away. I always do a job myself. I hefted the twelve-gauge, and nodded. They sent a bird sailing across the field, and I blew it to smithereens, with a good, satisfying boom. I stuffed another shell in, and blew the next one to bits. The boys watching all this, they started whistling and laughing. I sure was having a fine time. And Miss Quick, she forced a smile on her pretty lips, and clapped as I knocked each bird down. It was so easy I was almost feeling embarrassed. It didn’t take long before I had permanently ruined ten clay pigeons, and then the local crowd, they were huzzahing the local sheriff, and I was feeling just fine.
Billy Bones, he was yelling into his megaphone. “Excellent shooting, a tie, both contestants not missing a trick.”
I bowed to the crowd. Miss Quick, she just smiled.
“And now, we’ll have some handgun competition,” Billy Bones said. “Knock a hole through the ace of spades at twenty feet. Best of six attemp
ts.”
In other words, empty one loaded six-gun. Well, that would be a piece of cake.
They rigged up a pole with the ace of spades sticking out of it. I’d heard that in the show, Bones himself would hold the card in his fingers and let her blow the spade away. But not this fine August afternoon, with heat rising from the parched clay, and a mess of boozy cowboys watching. And Bones might trust Miss Quick not to shoot his fingers off, but he sure didn’t trust me.
She punctured the spade, a little high, and Billy Bones paraded the card around the perimeter, where everyone could see it. She had a way of lifting the revolver, sighting down its barrel, and shooting in one graceful movement. Her second shot was dead center; her third a little left, and her fourth and fifth right through the ace.
Not bad, I thought. I was beginning to respect her. She used a little .32-caliber revolver, and knew what she was doing. I would use my old .44, which was big and heavy, and put the bullet right where I intended. I punctured those aces of spades each time, and we were tied once again, and she was smiling, and I was waving my hat, and everyone was having a fine old time.
This sure was a fine old afternoon.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, a true test of marksmanship. A contest that separates the gifted from the brilliant. I give you, shooting clay birds out of the sky—with rifles. The contestants will take turns, five in all.”
The cowboys, they began clucking at that one. How could you shoot a clay disk sailing through space fifty feet away, with a single bullet? I confess, I didn’t like the odds on that one, but maybe it would be a tough act for little Miss Quick, too. If she could do it, she was some sort of genius.
The spectators knew it, too, and there was a sort of buzzing as they whispered about it. But Miss Quick, she was smiling to beat the band, and her man handed her a nice rifle, of a caliber I could only guess at, but not too large. She was still working with smaller, ladylike weapons. She seemed to enjoy herself, though. She must have blown a few cartons of bullets away, practicing this one.
Support Your Local Deputy: A Cotton Pickens Western Page 15
