Support Your Local Deputy: A Cotton Pickens Western Read Free

asked.
    “Some horny old rancher, I imagine,” I said.
    “Well, there’s no man on earth hornier than me,” Rusty said.
    It was dawning on him 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 to let us know if we got a red chariot and two hipshot blondes floating around southern Wyoming,” I said.
    “We catch them, what are you going to charge them with?” Rusty asked.
    “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. They’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.
    Well, about dusk, we got back in, 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 passel 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,” he said.
    “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. Critter 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.
    And 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