Massacre Mountain by William W. Johnstone & J. A. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone & J. A. Johnstone [Johnstone, William W. & Johnstone, J. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western
Goodreads: 9998706
Publisher: Pinnacle
Published: 2011-10-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

Iceberg and Luke the Butcher herded us all into a single cell. It was going to be a lot tighter in there than anyone cared for. And with nothing but a single slop pail for us all, men and women.

“I’d like some water please,” one of the showgirls said.

“Morning,” Iceberg replied and locked the door with a clang. It was dark; a single lamp burned in the distant jail office.

“What’s the fine?” someone asked the man with the badge.

“Two dollars for being an inmate; ten for running a disorderly house.”

“What if we don’t have it?”

“Tough luck,” the lawman said.

“When do we go to court?”

“When I feel like taking you.”

“Where can we get bail?”

“I’m fresh out,” Iceberg said.

“Hey, sheriff,” Sammy Upward said. “I’ll bail everyone out from my till.”

Iceberg smiled. “You donated everything in it to the Puma County Retirement Fund.”

“Then you won’t ever see any of it,” Upward said.

“Will we get out in time for the matinee?” someone asked.

“I hope not,” Iceberg said.

“It’s cold; can we have blankets?”

“You sure didn’t catch cold up on that stage with nothing on.”

I thought that was kind of clever of Iceberg, but I wasn’t going to laugh any.

He slammed the jailhouse door and disappeared. And we started to get ourselves comfortable. It didn’t look like there would be enough space for us to get settled on the bare concrete, but we worked it out, sitting down real tight. I sort of wondered how long that would last. Pretty quick, someone would need to take a leak.

I caught a glint of red hair, and worked my way down to sit beside Ambrosia, who was looking pretty grumpy.

“Would you marry me?” I asked.

“You from Doubtful?”

“Sort of.”

“You bust me out of here in the next ten minutes and get me a thousand miles from Doubtful and I’ll marry you if you’re nice.”

She accepted! I was a happy man, and began dreaming about our honeymoon.

“I’d sure like a lot of babies,” I said.

“I’ve been in enough jails,” she replied.

The odor of all them unwashed men sure took over, and it got pretty rank in there. Pretty soon one of the fellers who’d been sitting at the bar began groping around for the bucket, and cut loose. It didn’t bother no one. The showgirls, they didn’t care. But it bothered me. Iceberg, he should have put the women in one cell and the men in the other. But I’m just a fool when it comes to things like that. It helps to think that others have a little dignity.

Keeping a disorderly house, or being an inmate in a disorderly house, were common infractions in western towns. They were sort of a catch-all that could be applied to anyone or anything. Most often, when the city was broke, it rounded up madams and their girls and fined them using that sort of law. I used it a couple of times on a bar-keep in the Sampling Room who allowed his customers to brawl with broken beer bottles. He finally

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