Support Your Local Deputy: A Cotton Pickens Western by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone Page B

suspicious of road shows like mine. There’s a sentiment that we’re knaves and thieves, and that we’re not to be trusted. I’ve run into it time after time. So, if there’s doubt in your bosom, feel free to examine any of my wagons and their entire contents. Maybe that’ll put to rest whatever’s bothering you; whatever brought you here at dawn to look us over.”
    “Well, Rusty, he had a look already, so you just get on the road now. I got a mess of new troubles, including an orphan sale this morning.”
    Zimmer smiled. “I’ll sell you a bottle of tonic for fifty cents, sheriff.”
    “Naw, my ma always said, don’t use crutches if you can walk upright.”
    Zimmer nodded, clambered up to the high seat, cracked the lines over the croups of the draft horses, and the wagons slowly rumbled away. I watched them go, itchy and unhappy, wanting to finish business that lay hanging over me. It put me in a bad mood, and when I thought of those little hooligans I had to go back to the jail and feed, I got myself into an even badder mood. Them two, unless King Glad could square them up, was headed for a hanging, and likely their own.
    The brats were awake and rattling the cage. When they saw me, one reached for the slop bucket, and I knew what he had in mind.
    “Toss that at me, boy, and I’ll put a bullet between your eyes.”
    That was a slight exaggeration, but it stopped him. Some people, force is the only language they understand. He edged away from the bucket, which stank from the night’s accumulation.
    “You want some chow, do you?”
    “Nah, we don’t need nothing,” Big Finn said.
    “When do we get outta here?”
    “When I feel like it,” I said. “You have to get on the good side of me to get what you want.”
    “There ain’t a good side to you,” Mickey said.
    “You got that right, boy.”
    Rusty, he came in with two bowls of oatmeal from Barney’s Beanery, eyed the prisoners, smiled, and looked over the logbook.
    “Hey, we want the feed,” Mickey said.
    “You gotta work for it,” I said.
    “Doing what?”
    “Talk,” I said. “Tell me all about yourselves and you’ll get your chow.”
    “Talk?”
    “You bet. Start yakking away. Talking’s hard work. Who are you? Where’d you grow up? Who are your folks? Who are your grandparents? What do you want from life? You got any dreams? You talk, work hard at it, you eat. You slack off, you don’t eat.”
    Mickey and Big Finn stared at each other.
    “I got nothing to say,” Big Finn said.
    “Tell me everything that’s happened to you.”
    That met with silence. Rusty, he was enjoying this.
    Neither boy talked. The clock ticked. The boys eyed the cold gruel malevolently. I finally relented, handed them their gruel and spoons, and they wolfed it down.
    “You want to talk now?” I asked.
    “We ain’t worth it,” Mickey said.
    “You’re worth it. I want to know all about you.”
    “Yeah, so you can throw the book at us.”
    “Think whatever you want. Mostly I want to know who you are. I like me, but you don’t like you, is that it?”
    I wasn’t making any headway with the boneheads, but pretty quick I was rescued by King Glad. He had indenture papers in hand, had made the legal arrangements with the McCoys and the Children’s Aid Society, and had come to collect.
    “They’re in there. You got some help? You’ll need it,” I said.
    “Big Nose George and Spitting Sam are right outside.”
    “Yours, then,” I said. I unlocked the cell, while the brats watched, ready to bolt, but King Glad and I, we collared the pair and marched them to the door. Out there, Big Nose and Spitting Sam were waiting with two empty saddle horses.
    “Who’s this? What’s he want?” Big Finn asked me.
    “This is King Glad. He’s got a big ranch near here. He’s indentured you both.”
    “Indentured? What’s that?”
    King Glad replied, “I get to stuff food into you until age sixteen, and you get to work for me and learn a trade until age