to ferret out crime and bring the world’s meanest dregs to justice, then we are all at grave risk. I, for one, shall not sleep soundly in my humble bed as long as I know that there is nothing betwixt and between me and the thugs who prowl our streets as soon as the sun has set. Where will it stop? Who will stop the crime wave? Is our bank next? Will our citizens lie dead in the streets?”
He paused suddenly, turned toward me, and jabbed an ancient, arthritic finger into my chest. “Fire him,” he said.
Then he quietly returned to his swivel chair, and swiveled clear around until he, too, was facing me, like the rest.
“You can take Doubtful and stuff it,” I said, fixing to walk out.
“Whoa up, Cotton,” Waller said. “We ain’t fired you yet.”
“Well, I’m quitting!” I yelled.
“We got no replacement yet,” Waller said. “So we can’t accept your resignation.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You can’t quit because we don’t accept it.”
Now that was mighty strange logic in my book, but who am I to say? My ma always said I was a little slow.
“You got a couple of deputies over there, Burtell and De Graff, but they ain’t sheriff material. They’re better at taking orders than giving them. If anything, they’re even less smart than you. They don’t have your native cunning. You were smart enough not to argue with that stickup man, except a little, but if it was De Graff, he’d be plumb dead.”
“Oh, George, you give Cotton Pickens too much credit,” Reggie Thimble said. “I think we should just let Pickens here saddle up and find someone else.”
“Like who?”
“Like Belle,” Thimble said.
“Boardinghouse Belle?” Waller was aghast.
“Purse snatchers would be too busy looking at Belle’s unforgettable chest to see her level her little revolver,” Thimble continued. “She’s got two aces and four kings.”
There wasn’t much anyone was saying about then. Me, I thought Belle might be a good sheriff, but there would be the little matter of persuading her to take the job. She had all she could manage running the boardinghouse for a dozen or so of us unattached males. She made good money, a lot more than she would hanging six-guns on her lush hips and patrolling Doubtful.
“Well, we could ask her,” Ziggy Camp said.
Again, Lawyer Stokes intervened. “We’re not going to hire that pneumatic female for our sheriff,” he said.
“Then all we got is Pickens here, at least for now.”
“We’ve been through this before,” Supervisor Thimble said. “We had sheriffs by the cartload and they all croaked. Doubtful was on the ropes until we got Pickens here. He may not be the smartest man in town, but he’s kept the lid on for some while. Fire him, and next thing you know, the Democrats will be taking over again.”
I got to remembering that all them county people were anything but Democrats.
“I think I know where to go on this,” said Lawyer Stokes. “It’s time for us to have a little talk with Cyrus Ralston.”
“Ah, there’s a thought.”
“Cyrus Ralston is a man of some sophistication. He’ll know where to go to find a new sheriff.”
“Why yes, my impression is that he’s well connected throughout the West, with ties reaching into the great cities of the East as well.”
“Ralston will give us the skinny,” Waller said.
Lawyer Stokes smiled. “We’re agreed then?” He turned to me. “We’re going to have Ralston find us a new man, Pickens. Until then, you’re still sheriff. “After that, you won’t be.”
“Well, I quit.”
“Sorry, Pickens, that’s quite impossible. We don’t accept it.”
I sure couldn’t figure that one out. If I quit, I quit, but they was saying I didn’t and can’t.
Cyrus Ralston, the man in black pinstriped suits and Homburg hats who was finishing up the new three- hundred-seat Opera House on the main drag of Doubtful, would decide my fate. Durned if I could figure that out.
“Ralston will know how to deal with this crime wave,” Lawyer Stokes said.
Chapter Two
So there I was, still sheriff until they could get another. That sure was a mess. I’d just as soon have pinned my badge on Lawyer Stokes and let him do the rounds every night, making sure Doubtful was locked up tight.
I didn’t quite know how to spend my last days as sheriff, but I’d think of something. That whole business gave me a good excuse to visit the new opera house. That’s what they were calling the place, but it looked like a theater to me. It had been going up pretty fast, three or four months, with a swarm of carpenters banging it together.
The front of the place was pretty fancy, with fieldstone facing the street, but the rest was just another frame structure. The stage was pretty small, but it’d do in a little town like Doubtful. They’d gotten a wine-red velvet curtain hung up, and the carpenters were bolting down a mess of seats that came in on the freight wagons. I’d never been inside a theater before, so I was taking a real gander at the whole outfit. Now, take the way the floor rose so that people sitting in the back were higher than people in front, and everyone could see real fine. That sure was a marvel.
Sure enough, there was Cyrus Ralston overseeing the whole deal, wandering around in a black pinstripe suit. I’d never seen one before, and it sort of reminded me of a barber pole.
“Ah, it’s you, Sheriff,” Ralston said.
“Just poking around,” I said. “This place is as foreign to me as California.”
“Well, glad to have you. We’re close now. I’ve booked the first show for next week.”
“Going to be an opera, is it?”
“Opera? An opera? Oh, no, not at all. It’s a variety show. This is an opera house but that’s a figure of speech.”
“I’ve never seen a show, opera or other,” I said. “What’s the deal?”
“Lots of different shows around. Some come with music. Singers like Jenny Lind. Or Lotta Crabtree. Or dancers like Lola Montez.”
“I never heard of any of them.”
“Actresses, dancers, some of them quite, ah, bold.”
“I’d sure come and look,” I said.
“We’ll have some fine entertainers coming, Sheriff. They’re on the circuit.”
“What’s that?”
“Troupes go from one town to another, more or less prearranged by booking companies. That way they’ve got work ahead, and know where they’re going.”
“They’ll start rolling in, will they?”
“I’m working on it. Nothing’s easy, Sheriff. You’ve got to persuade the booking companies that they can make some money coming here.”
“Mess of fellers roll in and put on a show, is that it?”
“Gals, too, Sheriff.”
“Where do they stay?”
“Well, that’s a question. Some companies got their own little travel wagons with bunks. Most just book rooms in the town.”
“We hardly got any rooms here in Doubtful.”
“Yes, I’m working on that. It’s hard to book a show here because of it. I’ve told Belle to put a wing on her boardinghouse.”
I talked some with this Ralston, who seemed a lot smarter than anyone else in Doubtful, maybe because he
