Welcome to the peaceful little town of Doubtful, Wyoming, which has more than its fair share of kill-crazy gunslicks, back-shooters, and flat-out dirty desperadoes. It also has a sheriff named Cotton Pickens, who tries his best to keep law and order without getting his head blown off before breakfast.
DOUBTFUL’S GOT A NEW DEPUTY . . . FOR THE MOMENT
Cotton Pickens got where he is by virtue of a quick draw and slow wit. He knows the difference between lawbreakers you have to lock up . . . and the kind you might as well just let go. Deputy Rusty Irons, though, ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Someone kidnapped his mail-order brides. They were probably doing him a favor, but a deputy in love is blind.
As for the various carny barkers, medicine show con artists, and revival-meeting fly-by-nighters who pass through Doubtful, Cotton just tries to keep the peace and keep the traveling hucksters moving on.
But in one terrible moment, it all goes straight to hell as the town explodes in a frenzy of killing and bloodshed. That’s when a lawman like Cotton earns his pay, saves his soul, or loses his life by looking evil straight in the eye. Of course, there’s also the matter of keeping his new deputy alive and in one piece.
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL DEPUTY
A Cotton Pickens Western
by William W. Johnstone
with J. A. Johnstone
A Cotton Pickens Western
by William W. Johnstone
with J. A. Johnstone
Coming in March 2013
wherever Pinnacle Books are sold.
wherever Pinnacle Books are sold.
Chapter One
My deputy, Rusty Irons, was as itchy as a man ever gets. We were at the Laramie and Overland stage station waiting for the maroon enameled Concord stage to roll in. He couldn’t come up with proper bouquets, not in the barely settled cow town of Doubtful, Wyoming, but he managed some daisies and sagebrush he’d collected out on the range.
Rusty was waiting for his mail order brides. That’s right, Siamese twins from the Ukraine, joined at the hip. He’d ordered just one, but they sent him the pair. He’d gotten the hundred-fifty-dollar reward offered for Huckster Bob, wanted dead or alive. Rusty got him alive, collected his reward, and applied the money to getting himself a wife.
So there we were, waiting for the stage to roll in. It was an hour late, maybe more.
Well, my ma always said there’s nothing worse than a sweating bridegroom, and Rusty filled the bill. He had sweat running down his sides. His armpits had turned into gushers.
“Well . . . you get to be best man,” Rusty sputtered.
“If I don’t arrest you first for bigamy,” I countered.
“I looked it up; there’s no law in Wyoming Territory against it.”
“Well, I’ll arrest you for something or other,” I said. “You found a preacher who’ll tie the knot?”
“No, but I’m going to argue that all he has to do is marry me to one of ’em.”
“What’ll you do with the other?”
“I can’t auction her off, so she gets to be the spectator.”
“They speak English?”
“Not a word. They’re from Lvov, Ukraine.”
“Well, that’s a good start. You won’t get into arguments.” I pointed out. “My ma always said the best part of her marriage was when my pa was snoring.”
Rusty grinned. “You’re the result.”
I wasn’t sure how to take that, but thought I’d let it pass without a fistfight. His armpits were leaking worse than ever and I didn’t want his sweat all over my sheriff suit and pants.
“You figure they’re joined facing the same way?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t marry them if one was facing backwards. Here.” He pulled out a tintype.
The image of two beautiful blondes leaped out at me. It looked like they were side by side, except they had a single dark skirt.
Rusty pointed to one of the women. “This one here’s Natasha, and the other is Anna.”
“You know which one you’ll hitch up with?”
“We’ll toss a coin. Or maybe they’ve got it worked out.”
“What if one wants you and the other doesn’t? Or you want one and not the other?”
Rusty, he just grinned. “Life sure is interesting.”
Word had gotten out, and a small crowd had collected at the wooden stage office on Main Street. Some of the women squinted at Rusty as if he was a criminal, which maybe he was. But mostly they were wondering what sort of twisted beast would want to marry Siamese twins. Fifty of the good citizens of Doubtful stood in clumps, whispering and pointing at Rusty as if he belonged in the bottom layer of hell.
Rusty, he just smiled. “I’m glad you got me that raise.”
“You’ll need it,” I replied.
I’d gone to the Puma County supervisors and talked them into raising Rusty’s wage by five dollars, because of his impending wedlock and his faithful service as my best and most useful deputy. That put him up just two dollars below my forty-seven a month sheriff salary, but I didn’t mind.
I saw Delphinium Sanders, the banker’s wife, glaring as hard as she could manage at both of us. And George Waller, the mayor, was studying us as if we belonged in a zoo—which maybe we did. I sure didn’t know how things would play out, or who’d marry whom, but it made a late spring day real entertaining in the cow town of Doubtful.
Hanging Judge Earwig was there too, and thought maybe he’d do the marrying if no one else would. Judge Earwig was broadminded, and didn’t mind it if people thought ill of him. He might even marry both the twins to Rusty, seeing as how there wasn’t any law against it. That’d come later, when the next legislature got moralistic. Or maybe Rusty could take his gals to Utah and find a Mormon cleric to fix him up, but I didn’t put much stock in it. Utah had outlawed that sort of entertainment.
That stagecoach sure was late. Dry road, too. The dry spring meant no potholes or mud puddles. The waiting was hard on Rusty.
“Hey, Rusty, you got a two-holer, or are they gonna take turns?” some brat yelled.
I went after the freckled punk, got an ear and twisted it. “Cut that out or I’ll throw you down a hole and you’ll stink for a week.”
“Aw, sheriff, this is the best thing to hit Doubtful in a long time.”
“You’re Willie Dickens, and your ma didn’t raise you right. I let go of your ear, you promise to respect people?”
“Anything you say.” Willie yanked loose, smirking.
I let him go. The whole thing was turning into an ordeal for my deputy sheriff, instead of a moment of joy. It wasn’t hard to tell what all them good folks of Doubtful were thinking. The marriage would have a threesome in the bedroom.
And still no coach.
Then, about the time I was ready to head back to the sheriff office and look over the mail, we spotted the coach rounding the hill south of Doubtful. It was coming along at a smart clip, maybe faster than usual because them drays looked pretty lathered.
“Well, Rusty, here it comes,” I said.
Jonas Quill, the jehu, pulled back the lines slightly, and the sweated horses gladly quit on him, while the coach rocked gently. He yelled down at me. “We got held up, man.”
“Held up?”
“Four armed men, masked.”
By then, the maroon door of the coach had swung open. Six passengers emerged; four rumpled males, mostly whiskey drummers, and two frightened women in bonnets, both gray-haired.
No Ukrainian Siamese identical female twins.
Rusty seemed to leak gas.
“Clear away from here,” I yelled at the mob. “We got trouble.”
“Where are they?” Rusty asked.
“Don’t know, but we got business. Sheriff business.” I looked at the six who had just gotten off the stagecoach. “You passengers, stick close here. I’ll want statements from all of you.”
One woman looked annoyed and started off.
“You, too, Mrs. Throckmorton.”
“I surrender to my fate,” she said, and kept on going.
Rusty looked shell-shocked, so it was up to me. “Quill, tell me. What happened and what got took?”
“Nothing got took. Just the twins.”
“My mind isn’t quite biting this cookie, Quill.”
“Three masked men on saddle horses, another in a chariot.”
“A what?”
“A two-wheel chariot hung on two trotters. Man driving it was masked, too.”
“A chariot like them gladiators used?”
“A two-wheel stand-up cart, with a lot of gold gilt and enameled red on it. They stop my coach, one has a scattergun aimed at me. They open the door, point it at the twins, and say “ladies get out,” but the twins, they don’t speak a word of English, so the masked men prod the ladies out with their revolvers. That takes some doing, four legs, one skirt, but they get the Siamese twins out, get them into the chariot, and the man with the whip smacks the butts of those trotters and away they go, the three of them standing in that chariot.”
“That’s it?”
“The others want the twins’ luggage, and they load it on a packhorse.”
“And you didn’t fight it?”
“They made us drop our weapons,” one of the drummers said.
“What else did they take? The mail? Anything in the lockbox?”
“Nope,” said Quill. “The foreign women and their bags, is all.”
“Did they give any reasons?”
“They said not to shoot ’cause we’d hit the women, and that was true. They headed due west, over some off-road route.”
“Good, we’ll have some tracks to follow,” I said.
“Them were my brides,” Rusty complained.
“Real purty, they were. But sure hobbled up.” Quill frowned. “I can see the direction your steamy little brain’s taking, Irons.”
It was getting a little out of hand.
“Rusty, you interview the male passengers, and I’ll interview these women. Meanwhile, you people, clear out of here.” I waved my arms to shoo them out.
But no one moved. Half the town, it seemed, had flooded in.
Rusty and I got what we could from the passengers. Nothing was taken except the Ukrainians. No one was forced to empty pockets. No valuables ended up in bandit pockets. The kidnappers were young, well masked, rode easily, wore wide-brimmed hats and jeans and dirty boots. They were polite with no apparent accents and offered no reasons. Treated courteously by the bandits, the Ukrainian twins went peaceably, not understanding a bit. They were even smiling.
“Were they hostages? Will they be returned for a reward?” Rusty asked the drummers.
“Nope, no sign of it,” said one in a black bowler.
“Who’d want female Siamese twins?” Rusty asked.
“They were real lookers,” another salesman ventured.
Rusty whipped out his tintype. “These the ones?”
They studied the black and white a while. “Not sure, but seems so,” one said.
“Did these women seem in distress?”
“Nope, they thought it was all pretty merry.”
The passengers had been detained long enough, so me and Rusty cut them loose, cut the jehu loose, and headed for Turk’s Livery Barn. We had some hard riding in front of us.
Chapter Two
Rusty, he wanted a posse. He was plumb irate. Them was his brides got stolen, and he was rooting around, looking for ways to hang the wife-rustlers at the nearest cottonwood tree.
“Hey, cool off,” I said. “Go saddle up and take some fixings. I’ll get Critter, and we’ll get this deal shut down in no time.”
“Who’ll run the office?’
“I’ll send Burtell,” I said, referring to a part-time deputy.
“I want a posse. That was Anna and Natasha got took. I want plenty of armed men.”
“This’ll be the easiest kidnapping we ever solved. Where can they hide? We got some dudes in a red and gold chariot, kidnapping beautiful Siamese twins in one skirt, and they speak Ukraine, whatever the tongue is. We got ’em cold, Rusty.”
He didn’t want to believe it, and I didn’t blame him. He got robbed out of two real pretty gals, and a lot of real fine nights once he got hitched to one or the other . . . or both.
But my ma, she used to say twins were double the trouble. She’d settle for twin cocker spaniels, but not any pair that would put her out some. In truth, if we got them joined-up twins back, I wasn’t sure Rusty could handle the deal.
He turned toward the office where he’d left his horse and I turned toward Turk’s Livery Barn, fixing to saddle up Critter the Second. The first got his throat slit, and I looked hard before I found the Second, who was meaner than the first, so it worked out all right. I don’t know what I’d do with a gentle horse. Horses are like women. If they don’t buck when you’re riding them, they’re no good.
Critter was out in the yard, which wasn’t good. He kicked down any stall he got put into, so Turk often put him outside. I got the bridle and went after him, and sure enough, he headed for a corner in the fence and waited for me, his rear hoofs itchy to land on me. I tried moving along one rail and he switched that way, so I tried the other rail, and he switched that way.
“Critter, dammit, we’re going to look for some women. Or one woman. I don’t have it straight. So shape up,” I yelled.
He turned and eyed me, and settled down. I bridled, and brushed, and saddled him without trouble. Critter was a philosopher.
“Dog food,” called Rusty as he led his horse toward the barn. “He needs to be turned into dog food.”
“I won’t argue with it,” I called back.
“Shouldn’t we have a buggy or a cart?” Rusty asked. He was thinking about how to transport the Ukrainian ladies. You can’t expect Siamese twins to climb up on a horse, but maybe a pair of horses would work if they crowded close.
He was armed to the teeth, with a saddle gun and a pair of mean-looking Peacemakers hanging from his skinny hips. He was gonna get his women back, even if he burned some powder. “You got any idea why them gals got took?”
“It sure is interesting,” I replied.
Turk spotted us. “You going after them stage robbers?”
Rusty nodded. “That’s my women they took.”
“Double the feedbags,” Turk pointed out. “You sure got odd tastes.”
That was my private opinion, but I wasn’t voicing it. Rusty was the best deputy I had, and I didn’t want to rile him up.
Word spread through town like melted butter, and they were all watching as we rode out. Mostly watching Rusty, not me. The women stood along Main Street with pursed lips, and I could read their every thought.
Soon we were trotting down the Laramie Road, heading for the ambush spot, so I could see what was to be seen, and we could see what the chariot wheels did to the turf. It should be easy enough to follow that cart, and with a little luck I’d have the bandits in manacles and heading for my lockup in a day or two.
Rusty, he sure was silent.
“What are you thinking, Rusty?”
“Maybe I won’t marry after all. They’ll be plumb ruined. I was marrying double virgins, and now look at it. It’s a mess.”
“You sure got big appetites, Rusty. Double everything—double marriage, double honeymoon, double household, double mouths to feed.”
“Yeah, that’s me,” he said, a little smirky. Somehow he was seeing that he was double the rest of us. He looked over at me. “What if they both expect babies at the same time, eh?”
I didn’t push it. Life sure was going to be interesting.
Critter loved to get out, and he was pretty near popping along. Rusty’s nag had to trot now and then to catch up. We were riding through empty country, nothing but hills and sagebrush, and not worth anything except to a coyote. But that was Wyoming for you. Ninety percent worthless, ten percent pretty fine.
It took us about three hours to reach the ambush place, well chosen to hide the ambushers behind a curve in the road. The jehu had given me a pretty good idea of it. There were signs around there, all right—some iron tire tracks, some hoofprints, some handkerchiefs, and plenty of boot-heel dimples in the dun clay.
And sure enough, the iron-tire tracks led straight west, off the road and over open prairie, so we followed them.
“We’ll nail ’em, Rusty. How can we lose? Look at them tracks, smooth and hard.”
But the tracks gradually turned and finally came entirely around and headed for the Laramie Road, maybe a mile south of where the ambush happened. And there they disappeared. Those clean iron-tire tracks vanished. We messed around there a while, widening out, looking for the tracks, but it was as if that chariot had taken off from the earth and rolled on up into heaven.
Rusty was having the same sweats as me. That just couldn’t be. Big red and gold chariots didn’t just vanish—unless through the Pearly Gates. I wondered about that for a while. Were them Ukrainian ladies taken on up?
The road had plenty of traffic showing on it, and we scouted it one way and then the other, checking hoof prints, poking at ruts, and kicking horse turds, but the fact was, the kidnappers had ridden off into the sky, and were rolling across cumulus, or maybe thunderheads, to some place or other.
“You got any fancy theories, Cotton?” Rusty sure looked gloomy. Like he had been deprived of a night with two of the prettiest gals ever born.
“We could ride on down to Laramie and see what’s what,” I said.
“Who’d want ’em?” Rusty asked.
“Some horny old rancher, I imagine.”
“Well, there’s no man on earth hornier then me.” It was dawning on Rusty that he’d lost his mail order bride—or brides, I never could get that straight—and he was sinking into a sort of darkness. I thought it was best to leave him alone. “I’ll get ahold of the sheriff, Milt Boggs, and tell him what’s missing, and for him to let us know if we got a red chariot and two hipshot blondes floating around southern Wyoming.”
“We catch them, what are you going to charge them with?” Rusty wanted to know.
“Now that’s an interesting question,” I said. “My ma used to say people confess if you give them the chance.”
“Well, she inherited all the brains in your family,” Rusty said, just to be mean.
Truth to tell, my mind was on what might happen when we got back to Doubtful without two hip-tied blondes and a red chariot and a mess of crooks trudging along in front of my shotgun. Townspeople’d be telling me to quit, or maybe trying to fire me again. Seems every time I didn’t catch the crook or stop the killer, they wanted to fire me. I’ve spent more time in front of the county supervisors trying to save my sheriff job than I’ve spent running my office.
About dusk, we got back in town, and all we raised were a few smirks. Like no one thought that kidnapping Siamese twins from the Ukraine was worth getting lathered up about. Especially when it was all Rusty’s problem. He’s the only one got shut out of some entertainment. So we rode in by our lonesome selves without a parade of bandits and bad men parading in front, and without those brides. People sort of smiled smartly, and planned to make some jokes, and maybe petition the supervisors to get rid of me, and that was that.
Me, I felt the same way. If Rusty hadn’t mail-ordered the most exotic womanhood this side of Morocco, it never would’ve happened.
Turk showed up out of the gloom soon as we rode into his livery barn. “Told you so.”
“Told us what?”
“That you’d botch another job again.”
I was feeling a little put out with him, and if there were any other livery barns in town, I would have moved Critter then and there. My horse chewed on any wood he could get his big buck teeth around, and sometimes Turk sent me a bill for repairs, but I could hardly blame Turk for that.
Rusty unsaddled, turned out his nag, and disappeared. He was feeling real blue, and I didn’t blame him.
“Hey,” Turk said, “while you gents were out the Laramie Road, chasing Ukrainian women, a medicine show came up the Cheyenne Road and set up outside of town.”
“Medicine show?”
“None other. Doctor Zoroaster Zimmer’s Three Way Tonic for digestion, thick hair, and virility. Three dollars the six-ounce bottle, thirty-five dollars a dozen. And you get to watch a juggler, belly dancer, an accordion player, and a dog and pony act, and then lay out cash for the medicine.”
“Zimmer? Seems to me he’s on a wanted dodger in my office. Whenever he hits town, jewelry and gold coins start vanishing, and dogs howl in the night. I think his tonic’s mostly opium, peppermint and creek water, but I’ll find out.”
“Yeah, Sheriff, and guess what? I wandered over there to have a gander. He’s driving a big red-enameled outfit with gold trim. But there’s no chariots or Ukrainian blondes in sight.”
Chapter Three
Doubtful, it had growed some, and was fixed in the middle of some of the best Wyoming ranch country around. So there were plenty of people in the Puma County seat, and also plenty more out herding cows and growing hogs and collecting eggs from chickens. There were even some horse breeders around town, most of them raising remounts for the cavalry.
The town was half civilized. I knew the rough times were over when some gal named Matilda opened up a hattery. I don’t know the proper name of a hat shop, but it don’t matter. Hattery is what she operated, and she did nothing but sell bonnets and straw hats full of fake fruit to the town’s ladies. And gossip, too. All the local gals went in there to gossip about the rest of us. Sometimes I got a little itchy about sheriffing in a halfway-civilized town and thought I should pack up and head for the tropics.
But my ma, she always said don’t shoot a gift horse between the eyes, and that’s how I looked at my job.
That eve, Rusty quit early on me, and headed off to his cabin to nurse his disappointment. He had his heart set on marrying the Ukrainian beauties, and never having to have a conversation with his women because he wouldn’t understand a word they said. I thought it was a fool’s dream, myself. What if they was saying mean things about him, in their own tongue, maybe even at night with the pair of them lying beside him?
The town was drawing everything from whiskey drummers to medicine shows these days, and I intended to get out to the east side to have a close look. Half the shows rolling through the country roads of the West were nothing but gyppo outfits, looking to con cash out of the local folks, while swiping everything that wasn’t nailed down tight. And if they could get a few girls in trouble while robbing citizens and peddling worthless stuff, they did that, too, and smiled all the way to the next berg.
I’d wander over there. But first I’d patrol Doubtful, as I did every evening—wearing my badge, walking from place to place, rattling doors to see if they were locked, and studying saloons closely to see if there was trouble. Sometimes there was, and the barkeeps would be glad I wandered in at a moment when some drunken cowboy, armed to the teeth, was picking a fight.
So I did my rounds, seeing that all was quiet at Maxwell’s Funeral Parlor, and no one was busting the doors at Hubert Sanders’ Merchant Bank. I peered into Barney’s Beanery, and saw that it was winding down for the eve, and peered into the dark confines of Leonard Silver’s Emporium. I checked the office of Lawyer Stokes, and saw no one rifling his file cabinets. McGivers’ Saloon was quiet, and so was the Last Chance, where I saw Sammy Upward yawning, his elbows on the bar, looking ready to close early.
There were a few posters promoting Dr. Zoroaster Zimmer’s show. The man had a string of initials behind his name, but I never could figure out what all they meant, but the PhD meant he was a doctor of philandery or something like that. The KGB puzzled me, but someone told me it was British and had to do with garters and bathtubs. You never know what gets into foreigners. At any rate, Professor Zimmer had them all, and they followed his name like a line of railroad cars.
I thought I’d like to meet the gent.
Denver Sally’s place, back behind saloon row, looked quiet, the evening breezes rocking the red lantern beside her door. Most of her business came on weekends. The Gates of Heaven, next door, looked as mean as ever. Who knows all the ways a feller wants to get rid of his cash?
Doubtful was peaceful enough, that spring evening. So it was time to drift out beyond saloon row, east of town and take a gander at this here medicine-man show. A mess of those shows were wandering through the whole country, setting up in dark corners of little towns, and running an act or two across a stage set up on a wagon. The medicine man would step out and peddle his stuff, and when he gauged he’d done all the selling he could, he’d pull up stakes and head for the next little town and do it all over again.
Sure enough, east of town on an alkali flat, a couple of torches were going.
I moseyed closer and saw two fancy red and gilt wagons—one with a lamplit stage—and a makeshift rope corral with some moth-eaten drays in it. Maybe twelve, fifteen suckers were watching a jet-haired woman in a grass skirt wiggle her butt and make her bosom heave. I’d never seen that, and it seemed entertaining, but I had sheriff business to do, namely, look for a red and gilt chariot, and two blond Ukrainian women joined at the hip.
It took a quick prowl around the rear of the place, and into the other wagon, to satisfy myself no one was hiding a chariot or Siamese twins, blond or any other color. Whoever kidnapped the ladies, it wasn’t that miserable outfit.
I spotted a gent smoking a cigar back there, and thought he might have some answers. He saw the glint of my badge even before we spoke. He sucked on his gummy cheroot, and knocked off the ash.
“You looking for something, Sheriff?”
“Just keeping an eye on things. How many people you got in this outfit?”
“Six and the professor.”
“Any women?”
He stared at me as if I were an idiot. “That’s Elvira Smoothpepper out there. And we got Elsie Sanchez, the Argentine firecracker.”
“No Ukrainian blondes?”
“You got eyes, don’tcha?”
“Who else’s in the show?”
“Sheriff, there ain’t anyone with a wanted poster on him. There’s me and another teamster. He’s the accordionist, and there’s a tap dancer named Fogarty, and the professor.”
“What does the professor sell? What’s his medicine?”
The gent smiled. “Try it sometime and come back and tell me.”
“Any chariots around here?”
“Any what?”
“Oh, never mind.”
“You all right, Sheriff? Want to lie down? That second wagon, it’s got bunks. Had a little too much?”
“Who’s the professor?”
“He’s whatever he is at any moment. Right now, he’s a medicine man, and he’s working the rubes for a few bucks.”
“Yeah, well I’ll go watch the show,” I said.
“It beats pissing on a fence post.”
Half of the crowd was cowboys, out from the saloons. I recognized a few, most of them that hung out at Mrs. Gladstone’s Sampling Room. They were tied up with the Admiral Ranch, other side of the county. But there were some locals too, including the mayor, George Waller, who looked embarrassed when he saw me.
“I just came to view the competition.” Waller was a merchant, and any outfit that sold anything was competition, as far as he was concerned. “Maybe you should arrest the whole lot.”
“What for?”
“They’re all crooks.”
“Well, that’s progress. You show me one act of crookery, and I’ll pinch the person straight off.”
Elvira Smoothpepper was making her belly roll and the grass skirts sway, and that was pretty entertaining. The accordionist got to wheezing away, and pretty soon the act creaked to a stop, and out came Professor Zoroaster Zimmer, in black silk top hat, tux and tails, and a grimy white vest that looked a little worse for wear.
I’d never seen the like.
He spotted me at once, and welcomed me. “Ladies and gents, here’s the sheriff of, ah, Puma County, Wyoming. Come to see our little show, and maybe endorse my product, namely, the Zimmer Miracle Tonic, guaranteed to cure piles, insomnia, gout, St. Vitus Dance, and all bowel troubles. Welcome, Mr. Sheriff.
“Now, esteemed friends, I want to tell you about a product that should need no introducing, since it sells itself. You need only ask your neighbor, who has the remedy on his shelf, ready to use, and you’ll see how effective is. Mr. Sheriff, please come up.”
“Me?”
“Of course, you. Step right up, my friend.”
“I haven’t got anything ailing me, Doc.”
“Oh, my friend, do you have restless nights? Toss and turn nights?”
“Naw, I sleep like a log.”
“Do you ache after a long day on your horse?”
“Now, you’re talking about Critter, the orneriest critter on four legs. Yes, I’ll allow that I ache some after a long ride on that beast.”
“Were you out on him today, Sheriff?”
“Pretty near the whole blasted day, Professor.”
“Then you must feel weary, right down to the bone.”
“Well, we were out looking for some blond Ukrainian women who are attached at the hip. They plain disappeared.”
The crowd got mostly dead silent, and a couple of snickers came from some of them cowboys.
“I think you are very weary, sir, after a day of searching for blond Ukrainian women. Are you a bit worn?”
“I am done in.”
“Well, perfect. I would truly like to have you sample Doctor Zimmer’s Tonic and report the results to all these fine folks.”
“My ma, she used to say, one drink is enough.”
“Oh, this is not drink, sir. This is an elixir to balm the soul, elevate mood, celebrate life, and rejoice in your own splendid body. Now how old are you?”
“I forget; past thirty, anyway.”
“Ah, the shady side of thirty. Let me tell you, my friend, that is when Doctor Zoroaster Zimmer’s Tonic works wonders the fastest. It works wonders at any age, sir, but especially after thirty.”
The maestro of this here event reached for a bottle of the stuff, which was sitting on a little shelf with a gold halo around it, so the bottle looked like a saint.
He sure was smiling. He grabbed that stuff, and pulled the cork, and poured a little into a tumbler, and handed it to me, while all them cowboys and Mayor George Waller watched.
I remembered what my ma used to say, no guts, no glory, and I downed the stuff in one gulp.
Well, it took a moment to work through me, like a glow of a lot of fireflies, and then I plumb keeled over. The accordionist caught me going down.