“We ain’t open yet, Sheriff,” he said.
“I ain’t ordering a drink; I’m here for a visit.”
“Visits cost same as a drink. Fifteen cents.”
He hadn’t yet stirred, and was peerin’ up at me from atop the bar. That bar was sorta narrow, and he could fall off onto the brass rail in front, or off the back, where he usually worked, and where he had easy access to his sawed-off Greener.
“We’re gonna visit, and maybe some day I’ll buy one,” I said.
“Someone get shot?”
“Not recently.”
“I could arrange it if you get bored. If I say the word, someone usually gets shot in this here drinkin’ parlor.”
He peered up at me. He needed to trim the stubble on his chin, and maybe put on a new shirt, and maybe trade in that grimy bartender’s apron for something that looked halfway washed.
“Tell me again what you told the court,” I said.
“How many times we been through that, Sheriff? I’m tired of talking about it to people got wax in their ears.”
“All right, pour me one.”
“I knew you’d see it my way, Cotton.”
The keep slid off the bar, examined a glass in the dim light, decided it wasn’t no dirtier than the rest, and poured some red-eye in. The cheapskate poured about half a shot. I dug around in my britches for a dime and handed it to him.
“I owe you a nickel,” I said. “Start with King Bragg coming in that night.”
He didn’t mind, or pretended he didn’t.
“Oh, he come in here, and he was already loaded up. I could see by how he weaved when he walked.”
“Why’d you serve him?”
“I make my living by quarters and dimes and nickels, damn you, and I’d serve a stumbling drunk if he had the right change. Hell, I’d even serve you, Cotton, even if it made my belly crawl. Just lay the change down, and I’ll take it, and that’s the whole story.”
“You sure are touchy. How come?”
“I’ll be just as touchy as I feel like, and I’m tired of telling you the story over and over. I ain’t gonna tell it to you no more. You heard it, you’ve tried to pick it apart, and you can’t. Now finish up and get out. I don’t want you in this place. It’s bad for business.”
Upward was polishin’ the bar so hard it was pulling the varnish off.
But I wasn’t quitting. “What did King Bragg say to them T-Bar cowboys?”
“He said—oh, go to hell.”
“That what he said?”
“No, that’s what I’m telling you. I’m done yakking.”
“How many T-Bar cowboys was in here?”
“I don’t know. Just a few.”
“Was Crayfish with the boys?”
“I don’t remember. You want another drink? Fifteen cents on the barrelhead.”
The man I was talkin’ about owned the T-Bar, a few other ranches, and wanted Admiral Bragg’s outfit too, just so he could piss on any tree in the county and call it his. His name was Crayfish Ruble. I don’t know about that Crayfish part, but since I got Cotton hung on me, I don’t ask no one about their first names. Not Crayfish, not Admiral. Crayfish Ruble had a Southern name, but I’d heard he was from Wisconsin, and who knows how he got a name like that. He come West with some coin in his jeans and bought a little spread, and then began muscling out the small-time settlers and farmers, paying about ten cents on the dollar, and pretty soon he was the biggest outfit in Puma County, and the T-Bar kept Doubtful going. Without the T-Bar, Doubtful would be a ghost town, and no one would know Puma County from New York City.
I sorta liked Crayfish. He was honest in his crookedness. Ask Crayfish what he wanted from life, and he’d not mince any words. He wanted all of Puma County, as well as Sage County next door, and Bighorn County up above, and half the legislature of Wyoming, along with the judges and the tax assessor. I asked him, and that’s what he told me. I also asked him what else he wanted, and he said he wanted half a dozen wives, or a good cathouse would do in a pinch, and his own railroad car and a mountain lion for a house pet. He got no children, so there ain’t nothing he wants but land and cows and judges and women. You sorta had to like Catfish. He was a plain speaker, and he sure beat Admiral Bragg for entertainment. Catfish tried to buy out Admiral, but Admiral, he filed a claim on every water hole and creek in all the country, and that led to bad blood and they’ve been threatening to shoot the balls off each other ever since. There’s no tellin’ what gets into people, but I take it personal. I gotta keep order in this here Puma County, and I know from experience that when a few males got strange handles, like Admiral and Crayfish, or Cotton, there’s trouble a percolatin’ and no way of escaping it. The feller with the worst handle usually wins, and I’ve always figured Admiral is a worse name than Crayfish, and even worse than Cotton, though I’m not very happy with what got hung on me.
Well, I was gonna go talk to Crayfish again, for sure.
“Sammy, I think I asked you a question. Was Crayfish Ruble in here when the shooting started?”
Upward just polished the bar, like he didn’t hear me.
“Who pays your wages, Sammy?”
I knew who. It was Crayfish. He owned the Last Chance, but didn’t want no one to know it, so the name on the papers was Rosie, but she didn’t have a dime more than she could make on her back, and someone put up a wad to buy this place, and it was Crayfish.
“I get my pay from Rosie,” Sammy said.
I leaned across the bar and grabbed a handful of apron and pulled him tight. I seen his hands clawing for that Greener under the bar, so I just tugged him tighter.
“Don’t,” I said. “Who owns this joint?”
“Never did figure that out,” he replied.
“You’re a card, Upward. I think I’m going to look a lot closer at this here triple murder. Somebody shot three of Ruble’s hands, and maybe it was King Bragg, just like the court says it was, but maybe it was someone else, you know who, and ain’t saying. And I’m poking around a little more until I got a better handle on it. This ain’t makin’ me happy.”
Upward, he didn’t like that none.
FOUR
Sammy Upward, he polished that bar so hard he was scrapin’ varnish. I sure liked him even if I didn’t trust him none. He’s got a full deck in his head, more than I got, and he’s always trying to deal aces to himself. So I just stood there and waited for him to outsmart himself.
“Pickens, I never give anything away. You want something from me, you pay for it.”
I’d heard that before, so I just waited.
“Maybe trade. I’ll trade for things.”
I nodded.
“Like, you tell me something and I tell you something. You want news, you tell me news.”
I nodded. “Don’t call me Pickens,” I said. “It’s bad enough alone, but when you put Cotton in front, it’s good for a punch in the nose.”
“Well, do you think I like Upward? What am I, a choirboy?”
“What do you want to know, Sammy?”
He quit polishing. “This is a cold case. How come you’re opening it up?”
“I