Wyoming Slaughter

Book 5: Cotton Pickens

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

The Greatest Western Writer Of The 21st Century Cotton Pickens is the most unlikely sheriff on the frontier. And when the town of Doubtful, Wyoming, explodes, Cotton will lay down the law. . .if the law doesn't lay him down first. No Whiskey? No Women? No Peace. . . It was a law Cotton Pickens never asked for and never wanted to enforce. But due to the vigilance of the Women's Temperance Society, and the timidity of their businessmen husbands, the town of Doubtful, Wyoming, is going dry. As of January 1st. No exceptions. No turning back. Doubtful's hell-raisers will not take this lying down, and Sheriff Pickens is fighting bootleggers and vigilantes when the next boot drops. The righteous women push through an even worse law bound to spark an outright insurrection. The world's oldest profession and Doubtful's favorite pastime--dallying with ladies of the evening--is the next vice to be outlawed. With all hell breaking loose, and the National Guard on the way, Sheriff Pickens has enemies everywhere he turns. And for a lawman under siege, survival means fast thinking, straight shooting--and breaking a law or two himself. . .

Release date: October 24, 2011

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 417

Sample

Oh, the coming new year harbored no joy in Doubtful, Wyoming. In fact, it evoked dyspepsia in more than half the businessmen in town and sickened the rest. A certain element was rejoicing as that fateful day approached, but the rest were plunged into a gloom so heavy it seemed to suffocate the whole town. There was anger, too. Talk of rebellion, talk of insurrection, talk of hanging a few earnest citizens, and most shocking of all, talk of lynching a dozen or more of the most respectable ladies in town, including a minister’s wife and a midwife and the spouses of some of the most prominent businessmen in Puma County, Wyoming.

Still, the fateful hour of midnight, December 31, or rather 12:01, of the following year drew closer and closer, and with it, talk of revolution. A thundercloud hung over Puma County, threatening to turn into war, death, and mayhem. Ranchers were threatening to leave the county. Cowboys were threatening to quit and find work elsewhere. Certain businesses in town were threatening to shoot me, the sheriff, if I set foot on their property any time after one minute beyond midnight, January 1.

It was a mess, all right, and one that I hadn’t the faintest notion how to solve. In fact I knew it couldn’t be solved. The county was likely to engage in civil war and wouldn’t stop the bloodletting until all sides were massacred. What’s more, I had no help. Most of my own deputies had quit on this occasion. They said they’d sooner take a hike, or hand in their badge, than support me. So I would be entirely on my own, with no allies, and only one thing in my favor. I had sworn to uphold the law, and I’d do my blasted best to uphold it. I was sorry I’d croak so young, but that couldn’t be helped. I was doomed, and they’d mutter a few words over me and plant me in the Doubtful Cemetery, where it was said the fate of those who rested there was plain doubtful, and Puma County would select another sheriff to be led to the slaughter.

But I’m stubborn, and that’ll see a man through when nothing else works; so I did nothing. There was absolutely nothing I could do except sweat it out, as the clock ticked closer to the start of the new year. I didn’t hunt up allies, or mark my enemies, or try to get the new law repealed. Nope, that wouldn’t work this time. This problem was beyond the reach of law enforcement. It sort of hung there during the Christmas season, just dangled there making people irritable and pessimistic. Some store owners had giant sales, unloading everything they could push out the door before the start of the year. But other store owners thought things would be wonderful; they’d get much more trade in the new year than they had before.

One of the things everyone in town feared was a giant raid from the ranches, like it was the Rebs marching into Lawrence, Kansas, and killing most everyone in sight, as during the recent war. Most of the cowboys were Rebs anyway, and the idea of burning Doubtful to the ground and killing everyone in it was juicy, and good to think about during winter nights in their bunkhouses.

I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. It would be me against lots of men from the surrounding ranches. I was willing to accept some tough odds, but that was too tough, even for the only sheriff the county had hired who had lasted more than a few months. But that probably wouldn’t happen. I’d be shot in the back long before the invading army from the ranches rode in with nooses and revolvers. If I was alive that midnight, I’d stand my ground as best I could, and do what the law required me to do, which was to shut down every saloon in Doubtful, seventeen in all, right then and there, and forever.

One minute after midnight, the first of the year, Puma County would go dry. Dry!

It was awful to think about.

I didn’t favor the law itself, but there it was, and my sworn duty was to enforce it.

Seventeen saloons would shut down. Six cathouses with bars in them would have to scale back. Six restaurants that served spiritous drinks would be in trouble. The Hotel Doubtful, home to whiskey drummers and barbed-wire salesmen, would fold. The ranch trade that Doubtful depended on would head for other county seats. This was serious stuff. They might as well just shut down Doubtful and let the dried leaves whirl through what was once a thriving little city.

It all began when Wyoming gave women the right to vote. That was the worst mistake Wyoming ever made, but few males understood all of it. Women had another trick or two in mind, which was Temperance, and drying out the wettest state in the nation. It was all so quiet that no red-blooded male knew a thing about it. First thing those ladies did was form themselves into the Women’s Temperance Union. They were marching around with signs that said, “Lips that touch liquor will never touch mine.” Given the way some of them looked, that was a pretty good proposition, but a man couldn’t say that very loud.

Next anyone knew, the Temperance gals had set to work on their husbands and recruited them into the cause, on pain of marital troubles that no man wants to get into. So pretty quick there were all sorts of respectable businessmen who were being supported by the Women’s Temperance Union, and running for any office that was open to them. And that’s how three Puma County supervisors got themselves elected, and no one quite saw it coming. But there they were, put into office that November by their Temperance wives, and everything went downhill from there.

These new supervisors had hardly gotten themselves into office when they voted to go dry. That’s how it would be. Beginning January 1, the sale or possession of spiritous drink, including wine, beer, and harder stuff, would be prohibited. And every place purveying illicit goods was to be shut down. And I, Sheriff Cotton Pickens, the law in Puma County, was to do the job.

It sure wasn’t a job that I wanted. But that’s what letting women vote had come to.

Puma County would be dry as the Sahara.

Of course all that stirred a lot of hot debate and hotter talk. Some businessmen approved. Every cent the cowboys didn’t spend in saloons would be spent in their clothing stores or hardware stores or livery barns or restaurants or gunsmith shops. But a larger contingent of Doubtful businessmen figured that if the cowboys didn’t show up with their pay at all, nothing would get sold. The cowboys would be spending their pocket change over in Medicine County or Sweetwater County, and Doubtful would turn to dust pretty quick. Nor was that the end of it. The saloon owners vowed to fight to the death. The ranchers vowed to overrun the town and install their own wet supervisors and string up the dry biddies. And the barbed-wire salesmen threatened just to skip Doubtful.

And that is how it all landed in my lap.

It hung over me like a guillotine blade. I thought about resigning, but decided I was too bullheaded to do that. So I made the rounds, trying to find some way out. The supervisor who had pushed hardest for prohibition, one Amos W. Grosbeak, offered no quarter.

“It’s the law, boy. You’re going to enforce it to the hilt, just as you’re sworn to do. We’re going dry. Not just dry, but parched. We’re going to be Wyoming desert. That’s the West for you. Someone wants to fuddle his head with spirits, let him go to wild Nebraska or someplace like that. It’ll be a better world. No more drunken brawls in Doubtful. No more vice. Just peace and prosperity. Your jail will be empty. Once them nasty saloons are shuttered, you can sit back and play a harmonica and sing gospel songs and enjoy the fishing. You’re going to do it. Shut seventeen saloons for starters, January one, and the rest of it, the bordellos and restaurants, the next day. The saloons must be padlocked. The bars in the other places locked. Or just close down the restaurants. No one should eat out anyway. We should all dine at our own tables in our own cottages.”

Grosbeak was young and respectable, and clipped the abundant black hair in his nostrils, and waxed his mustache, and kept his fingernails clean. Doubtful had hardly known anyone with clean fingernails until Amos W. Grosbeak and his wife, Eve, showed up. She was the president of the Women’s Temperance Union, and even her toenails were clean. At least most of Doubtful believed that was so. You just couldn’t have a president of the WTU with dirty toenails.

“Well, sir, I don’t have a kitchen table to eat at,” I said.

“Well, you can remedy that by buying one,” Grosbeak said. He owned the town’s furniture store and was always alert to possibilities.

Having gotten my marching orders from the supervisors of Puma County, I passed them along to my last remaining deputy. “Rusty, you and me, we’re going to shut down the saloons starting at midnight the first,” I said.

“It ain’t gonna be ‘we,’ Sheriff. It’s gonna be you alone. I’m resigning at eleven fifty-nine the evening of December thirty-first, and that’s not negotiable unless the dry law’s repealed. I aim to live, and I’m just bullet fodder if I keep the badge.”

That didn’t bode well. The only good thing about it is that I wouldn’t have to listen to Rusty practice bugle calls in the jail cell half the night. Bugling was his new hobby.

But if things were bad in the courthouse and the sheriff office, they were worse down on Saloon Row, where most of the thirst parlors catered to the ranching crowd.

I still patrolled there each evening, but the hostility was palpable. I usually stopped to say hello to my old friend, Sammy Upward, who owned the Last Chance Saloon. But now Upward was all frost.

“How’s it going, Sammy?” I asked.

All I got back was a glower.

“Ain’t so good, I suppose. You got plans after you close?”

Upward leaned forward. “Sheriff, why don’t you just get out of here?”

“Seems to me a feller could set up shop across the county line, hire a few wagons to take the bar to a place where it’s wet.”

“Didn’t I tell you to get out of here?”

“Well, my ma used to say a person shouldn’t be asked more than once,” I said.

I eyed the surly crowd, rank now with smoldering hatred for the man who would enforce the dry law in a few days.

Sammy softened a little. “Cotton, don’t try to enforce that law. You could get hurt.” The barkeep swabbed down his bar furiously.

“I know that. A feller’s got no choice. I got a duty to do, and I won’t cut and run.”

“Just resign, Cotton. Just quit.”

“You know something I don’t?”

Upward stared a long while. “Yes,” he said. “Just quit. That’s all I’m going to tell you. If you don’t, you’ll wish you had. And I’ll wish you had.”

That was pretty plain.

“Something cooking for New Year’s Eve, Sammy?”

The barkeep rubbed his hands on his grimy apron. The saloon had turned real quiet. There were a dozen cowboys from various ranches listening and waiting. It was like all the music stopped, but there wasn’t any music.

Sammy leaned over the bar, wanting to say it real low so all those spectators wouldn’t hear a word of it. “Cotton, this bar ain’t closing. None of the other places are closing. None of the eateries is quitting. None of the ladies in the sporting houses is gonna quit pouring for their customers. That’s the way it’s going to be, law or no law, next year, the year after, ten years after that.” He eyed me. “And not even the state militia will change a thing. You hear me?”

“No, Sammy, I kinda didn’t hear it, and I didn’t hear nothing coming out of your mouth.”

The barkeep laughed suddenly. “Have one on the house, Cotton.”

That was a safe bet. I didn’t touch a drop on the job.

“Guess I’ll be on my way, Sammy.”

December was cold in Doubtful, and dark, too. The little county seat lay quietly, shivering in the relentless winds, a few lamps in windows supplying the only light. I thought a little bit about Christmas, but the holiday had been forgotten this time around. None of those fellers in that saloon were thinking about it, and not in any other saloon, either.

Up ahead, on Courthouse Square, was the courthouse, and on the square, the sheriff office. A lamp burned in that window. Rusty would be in there, at least for a few more days. It would be a temptation to hang up my hat and unpin the badge. That would be the safe way. And it’d leave Doubtful unprotected. Good people in their homes and shops needed someone to watch over them, and if I quit and played it safe, the whole town would be naked. There were some bad ones in those saloons, the sort who’d see all the troubles on New Year’s Eve as a big chance to loot a store or rob a bank or steal anything they could.

“Ma, you always told me I was a little thick between the ears,” I said to no one in particular. “I guess I’d better stick her out.”

Well, it sure was a head-scratcher. All those buzzards in the saloons was simply gonna say no to going dry and defy anyone to do anything about it. I got through fifth-grade arithmetic, and knew that one sheriff going against thirty or forty angry men in every saloon wasn’t very good odds. And I had seventeen saloons and a mess of other joints to deal with. It sure didn’t look like it would be a happy New Year’s Eve.

And I didn’t have a notion of how to deal with it. I thought maybe I could ride out to the ranches and talk the foremen into keeping their men out of Doubtful that night. But to think it was to dismiss it. There wasn’t a ranch owner or boss in Puma County that would do that, and there wasn’t one in favor of going dry, either.

Maybe I could deal with it with a little sweetener. Those barkeeps that shut down proper as the new year rolled in, they could keep their spirits and wagon them off somewhere else the next day or two, but them that tried to stay open after the law shut them down at midnight, they’d have every bottle blowed away and every cask and barrel punctured and drained. Only trouble was, I didn’t know how I’d break every bottle in Doubtful. Puma County was plain awesome when it came to drinking. It took half the distilleries in the country to keep Puma County properly lubricated and cheerful. It’d take more bullets than I had in my sheriff office to clean out all that booze. But maybe shotguns would do it. Even bird shot would wipe a swath through every backbar in town. A feller could dry up a saloon with a dozen shotgun blasts and a few six-gun shots into the kegs.

It sure was a mournful thought. But that seemed the best deal. Shotguns at the ready, a few solid citizens could dry up Doubtful real quick. But there’d be some men getting hurt, and I didn’t much care for that, even if all them barflies deserved a little pain. A few loads of bird shot and Sammy Upward’s Last Chance Saloon would be soaked in booze and its sawdust floors would be loaded with busted glass. It sure was a pity, all that waste. My ma used to tell me that booze wasn’t for everyone, but just for those who didn’t need it. That had me scratching my head a while, but I finally got the hang of it.

Twenty men with shotguns. That’d dry up Doubtful, Wyoming, faster than a trip to a fifty-cent cathouse. But before it was over, there’d be a few bodies, too, and that wasn’t very enticing for a man sworn to keep the peace. It didn’t matter who was at fault: saloon men vowing to defy the law, or the cabal of supervisors and their prissy wives who thought to force their notions on everyone else.

I scratched my head some more, but nothing else came to mind. I’d lived twenty-four years, but this was the first time I’d dealt with anything like this. There were scores of men in the saloons who were simply gonna say no to the law, and take the consequences. And when it was over, there’d sure be a mess of men who’d be mad at me, maybe fight-to-death mad, and that was something to consider, too. I’d sure like to live another twenty-four years, and then some.

Times sure were changing. The frontier was vanishing and settlers were settling.

I sure couldn’t think of anything that might work. So the next step was to get myself a good posse. I thought I’d start with Supervisor Amos W. Grosbeak, get the names of them fellers who supported the Big Dry, as everyone was calling it, and line them up for the New Year’s Eve fandango.

I trudged through a wintry afternoon, with the air mean and northerly, and entered the courthouse, which was almost as cold as outside. That’s how justice was: cold and mean. A warm courthouse would upset everyone’s notion of how the world worked.

Sure enough, there was Grosbeak in his warren, plenty warm from a cast-iron coal stove.

“Yes? What do you want?” Grosbeak asked, plainly annoyed.

“Need to talk about going dry.”

“Well be quick about it. I’ve got to hang this mistletoe.” He eyed me. “Here I was, full of Christmas and you walked in. I guess I’ll put up the mistletoe later.”

“I ain’t very kissable,” I said.

That was the wrong thing to say. “You have ten seconds,” Grosbeak said.

“I’m making a posse for New Year’s Eve. That’s the only way I’m gonna shut down the town and turn out the lights. My last deputy is quitting on me at midnight, and I can’t do it alone.”

“Posse? Why a posse?”

“Because no one’s got any intention of shutting down, law or no law. They’re gonna keep right on a-going, and they’ve told me if I mess with them, they’ll bury me.”

Amos W. Grosbeak frowned. “I really should hang the mistletoe,” he said. “It’s time to sing carols and crank up the holidays, and pour some wassail punch.”

“What’s that?”

“Why, ah, a little beverage flavored with spices, good health, and good cheer.”

“Sounds like good booze to me,” I said.

It was the wrong thing to say.

“Well, I expect you to do the job,” the supervisor said.

“I need a posse. I need the names of all those fellers who feel real strong about us going dry around here. All them businessmen who wanted it. I’ll deputize them for the posse. Thought I’d start with you. I found it in the books. I can make a posseman out of anyone I want, no matter whether they want it. Thought I’d swear you in.”

“Me? I’m a public servant. I’m exempt from everything.”

“You read me where you’re exempt, all right?”

“Forget it, Sheriff. You can remove my name from your list. You can recruit plenty of men for the task, but I will be in my snug home, enjoying a quiet and prayerful welcoming of the new year.”

“I’ll need about twenty men with shotguns and a lot of bird shot,” I said. “I’ll give them barkeeps a little leeway and let them shut down for an hour into the new year. It don’t make sense to shut down all them places on the stroke of midnight. Some of them barkeeps, they’ll just lock up and start shipping their stock out of town the next day, but some’ll want to defy the law and test me, and that’s who I’m going after.”

“You’re not going to give any saloon any leeway, Sheriff. You’re going to enforce the law to the hilt. At the stroke of midnight, Puma County will be freed from its prison of misery and crime.”

Grosbeak was staring, a sprig of mistletoe in hand waiting to be attached to the kerosene lamp chandelier.

“Give me the names of ten good men I can deputize, men who believe the way you do, then. No, make it twenty able-bodied men.”

“I’m not going to rat on anyone, Sheriff. I’m a public servant, and don’t forget it.”

This was going nowhere fast.

“All right, I’ll just pick twenty of the town’s top people and swear them in, and if they won’t swear in, they’ll get themselves a trip to my iron-barred parlor.”

“Ah, Sheriff, those men won’t be suited to the task. You want twenty good, law-abiding, God-fearing, prayerful cowboys for the task.”

“That don’t make a bit of sense. There ain’t any, Mr. Grosbeak.”

Grosbeak scratched his chin foliage a little and eyed the overcast skies, then examined the mistletoe hanging from his chandelier.

“You’re a competent young man,” he said, “and I have every confidence you’ll enforce the law to a fare-thee-well.”

“You got me there, sir. I never read nothing about a frothy well.”

“Oh, forget it, Pickens.”

“I keep trying to get myself educated, so I’d sure like to know about these frothy wells.”

“A fare-thee-well is perfection. You are going to enforce county law perfectly.”

“Learn something every day,” I said.

There was no sense hanging around the courthouse palavering with supervisors, so I headed across Courthouse Square to the chambers of Lawyer Stokes, the town’s one and only attorney. No one ever called him by his full name, Tim-maeus Pharoah Stokes, but just Lawyer Stokes. I had always sort of liked the feller and had wanted to call him Timmy, but my ma used to warn me about being overly familiar.

Lawyer Stokes had no receptionist and could usually be found reading law books or the King James Version, and that is how I discovered him. I removed my beaver Stetson and bowed and scraped a little.

“What is it, Pickens?”

“I got me the right to swear in a posse, if I want, and even if them folks don’t want to be sworn, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, I’ll be doing it then. I need me a posse New Year’s Eve to shut down the saloons. There ain’t one barkeep in town is gonna close up and toss the key away. They’re telling me they ain’t gonna obey the law and tough luck to anyone that tries to stop them.”

“I see. Yes, that would keep the court dockets busy, I imagine. And since I’m the county attorney, I’d be pretty busy.”

“Well, I’m sworn to uphold the law, and I’m gonna do her,” I said. “I’m going to get me a posse, and it’ll all be them fellers that pushed this law through, the dry law, so I’ll swear them all in and we’ll get her done. I guess I’ll start with you, Lawyer Stokes. I’m hereby swearing you in and telling you to report at eleven, New Year’s Eve, and bring your shotgun and plenty of bird shot that’ll clean off backbars real fine.”

Lawyer Stokes stared, aghast.

“I’m the county attorney, Sheriff. You can’t swear me in. I’m immune.”

“Show me where it says that; read me the chapter and verse, Lawyer Stokes.”

“Why, there are abundant precedents, young man. There’s no need. I’ll tell you flatly I’m exempt, won’t show up, and not even a court order will budge me.”

“Lawyer Stokes, you lift your right hand and swear that you’ll uphold the law and follow the directions of the head of the posse, namely me.”

Stokes removed his spectacles, polished them, and restored them to their resting place just above the vast foliage of his beard. “You’re a fine fellow, Sheriff, but a tad young and inexperienced. If you had a little more schooling, and a little more sophistication, you’d see that this is a bad idea. You are a peace officer. Your primary task is to keep the peace, prevent bloodshed, prevent violence.”

“I thought it was to uphold the law without favor.”

“That, too, young man, but the law has a little give in it, and you need to be judicious in the ways you apply it.”

“Well, you’re stuck. I’m swearing you into my posse, and you’ll be there at my office ahead of midnight.”

“Hell will freeze over first, Pickens.”

That was pretty entertaining. I thought maybe I’d recruit the mayor of Doubtful, George Waller. He’d be a good man to have on the midnight posse. Waller ran a dry goods store and built caskets on the side, so I headed for the woodworking shop. Sure enough, there was the mayor, screwing brass hinges into the lid of a fancy rosewood coffin.

“I don’t know why you’re here, Pickens, but you’re up to no good and the answer is no.”

“Merry Christmas, George,” I replied. “You building that for somebody?”

“Let’s hope it’s not you,” the mayor replied, screwing down the lid.

“I reckon I got me a mess New Year’s Eve.”

“Your mess, not my mess.”

“You in favor of going dry in Puma County?”

“Don’t pin me down, Sheriff. I refuse to be pinned down. There’s virtues in it, and there’s vices in it. The town might lose some business, but the town might gain some peace.”

“That’s all I need. I’m swearing you in for my posse. It’ll take about twenty good men armed with shotguns and bird shot to close down all them thirst parlors. They’re getting a little hot about it and saying they won’t close, so we’re just going to go ahead and enforce the new law. Now, George, lift that. . .