could manage, the way he was fixed. I think about women all the time, and I’m not fixed. A year or so ago, I’d met a real sweet one named Pepper Baker, with big blue eyes. But her pa sent her off to finishing school back East, mostly to finish me. Still, me and Pepper weren’t done, and when she came back we’d see about a few things. So I was in the same mood as Critter, only more so.
We loped up the valley a mile or so, and I was just thinkin’ about turning back, when up ahead, coming over the brow of a hill, was a mess of horsemen, like an army of beetles. Twenty, thirty, maybe even more, and they wasn’t in a hurry, just walking quietly toward me. Now that made me real curious, so I just reined in Critter, and let that bunch approach me. By the time they got within shouting distance, I knew what that crowd was. It was the whole damned Anchor Ranch, on the move.
It sure smelled like trouble.
Sure enough, there was Admiral Bragg on that blooded horse of his leading the bunch, and next to him that Queen, riding astride shamelessly. And first thing I noticed was that every manjack of them was armed to the teeth. Admiral, he had a matched pair of sidearms. Behind him came an army, including Big Nose George, wearing a sidearm and carrying a longer one. Next to him was Alvin Ream, with a bandolier over his shoulder and a pair of irons hanging from his hips. And sure enough, there was Smiley Thistlethwaite, and his pal Spitting Sam, the pair of them looking like they was ready for trouble. There was a bunch more behind them, mostly riders for the brand, some of them well outfitted with one or two irons.
I didn’t know what to make of this march upon Doubtful, but I knew who I was and what I am. I’m a peace officer. And this bunch looked like an army.
I sat Critter, who laid back his ears and waited to bite and kick all them animals coming his way. I might have enjoyed that. Most of them were blooded horses, because Admiral Bragg liked good horseflesh. Me, I like whatever thrives, and I don’t much care how the beast looks.
So I sat there and waited, and before long Bragg pulled up, and Queen beside him.
“Afternoon, Sheriff,” he said.
“You wouldn’t be heading for Doubtful, would you?”
“Free country,” he said.
“We’re not going to have any fights in Doubtful,” I said.
“We’ve come to say good-bye to my boy,” Bragg said, pretty solemn.
“You’re welcome to do that, but not with weapons. There’s gonna be no weapons on anyone day after tomorrow.”
“Is there a law against it?”
“Disturbing the peace,” I said.
“Peace! You call the day when they break my boy’s neck the peace?”
I felt a little sorry for the man; I didn’t want to do what I had to do, and he didn’t want me to do it. But things were in motion that I couldn’t change, and we’d just have to live with it because that’s how it was.
I saw how Queen was sort of hiding her hands in all them hiked up skirts she was wearing, for a change. I thought she’d shoot a sheriff if it came to that.
“Miss Queen, you’ll want to put your hands in plain sight,” I said. “I get plumb itchy.”
She didn’t move a muscle, and it wasn’t hard to figure where that muzzle under there was pointing.
“Miss Queen, you just smile now, and I’ll smile back.”
She didn’t smile none.
I decided to make up some rules as I went along. “There’s gonna be no weapons at the hanging. Neither you nor any of Crayfish Ruble’s bunch neither. We’ll see to it. You’re going to leave all your arms at the Sampling Room, and the T-Bar men are going to leave all theirs at the Last Chance Saloon. That’s what you can expect. We’re going to see to it that justice is done proper by the Territory of Wyoming.”
I got me a snicker from Spitting Sam, and a few smirks from some of the others.
“All right,” I said. “Anyone wearing arms, both sides, that day is gonna get tossed into my pen. And you’ll stay there for a while.”
“You done, Sheriff?” asked Admiral Bragg.
“For the moment,” I said.
All them riders whirled by me, with little glances my way, and a few little gestures, and a few smirks. And then me and Critter were standing in the lonely road, watching that army head for Doubtful.
TWENTY-FIVE
It sure was tempting to run ahead of that bunch and try to stop the bloodbath when they rode into Doubtful. There’d be two gangs, one in favor of the hanging and one against it, and ready to kill one another, and maybe half the town in the process. It sure looked like real bad business.
But then I sort of took stock. They weren’t there to fight each other. The Braggs, they were there in sorrow and grief. The T-Bar bunch was there to see justice done. They would probably settle down for the long wait, while the sands of time ran out for the Bragg boy, and then they’d just pack up and leave. I hoped so anyway.
There was something else on my mind. Now that both outfits were going to be in town, I had the whole countryside pretty much to myself. I had a little business out there, on Crayfish Ruble’s range. Queen had shown me some graves in a side gully of a nameless gulch, and it was time to find out what that was about. But that ranch was a long piece away.
“Critter,” I said, “are you good for a run?”
