SHERIFF OF CHEYENNE
White clouds streaked against the blue sky. From this elevation, I could see the whole valley sweeping below and to the ridge-line beyond.
It was the edge of dark when I finally rode into the fairgrounds on the outskirts of Cheyenne.
I recalled how this place was nothin’ but one street with a hotel and a saloon and occasional gunfire. Now we got us a church, a store and a place to bury people properly. Even the ladies in the saloon are darn good at singin’ them songs they know and I swore to fight anyone I had to so to keep it good.
My body ached as I climbed the rail to watch as a horse finished up bucking in a tight circle in front of the catch pen. Old age is a cruel thing. It lays waste to body and mind and I damn well felt it after riding all day.
The whistle blew, so the rider grabbed his rein with his free hand and looked for the pickup men. Just another day at the office, I guess, or so I thought.
I heard a shot ring out in the crowd. The horse was still bucking his ass off in a circle. The pickup men were having trouble riding in to get him.
I looked around as I jumped off the rail and ran over to where Old Waco Thompson, one of my deputies who served mostly as the jailer, stood slouching. He was one of those men, born with nothing, who had spent his life proving he could be less than that. He was in his work clothes, a denim shirt and denim pants that were hitched low and a corral-stained western hat cocked on his head. He was in his late thirties, pushing six feet tall. He was tough and stubborn, but not very ambitious, a combination that could make you someone’s lackey or, at the very least, dead. The Wyoming wind and a few well-placed fists had hardened his face. His nose was slanted from an old break .
He was studying the cartridges in his hand before he inserted them in the loops in his belt.
He looked up at me and stood, fingering out a cigarette and lighting it with a kitchen match.
“Didn’t you hear that?” I shouted.
“Yep, sure did, Sheriff.”
“You know what happened here?”
“The son of a bitch was shot,” he said, pointing to a small patch of gravel and grass, and a body stained and coated with what I knew wasn’t rust.
“Who is he?”
“Don’t know, Sheriff; don’t think I never seen him before.”
I walked up and turned the body over. It was Juan Guitterez.
“Do you know who shot him?”
“Kid over there. Killed ‘cause he draw’d down on him, so’s he said, Sheriff. Here’s the gun that did it.”
He handed over the gun and I sniffed the chamber and sighted down the barrel for burned powder. It had been fired. I looked at the young man sitting on a bale of hay. I could see his face was written on by the wind and sun and he had a body shaped by working in the outdoors. The boy definitely belonged in the open.
“This gun’s in bad shape, Waco. Looks like it was used hard at one time.”
“I guess, but it still shoots purty good. Just look at ol’ Tex-Mex over there.”
“He’s dead all right. What was he doing?”
“He and another one was breakin’ in that trailer over there and running out with a bunch of stuff and throwing it on their burros. When that boy told ‘em to stop. Guess they didn’t, so he dropped ‘im.
“Where’s the other one?”
“Got away, I guess. He rode off on one of the damn burros with a bunch of the boy’s stuff. The boy said he woulda got him too if that damn old Colt hadn’t a misfired. One thing I would bet on. He ain’t dead, damn your eyes. The boy said he climbed that ridge,” nodding his head in the direction of the Grand Tetons far off in the distance. Wish’d I’d had my horse. I woulda got ‘im, that’s for sure.”
His eyes were streaked with red and his face was swollen, most likely from crying.
I did feel sorry for him.
“What’s your name son?”
“Ryan, Ryan Jackson, from Meeteetse”
“Long way from home, ain’t you. Can you tell me what happened?”
“I was down watchin’ the boys work the horses when I noticed some goin’ ons up here that just din’t look natural. So I mosied on over and caught this beaner and one of his friends stealin’ my stuff outta my trailer here. I dropped that son of a bitch, but his compadre got away with all my belongings. Now I ain’t got nuthin’ but what’s on me. Took what little money I had too. Damn, wisht I woulda plugged the other one too.”
“Aha, that so?”
“Yep, good thing I had that ol’ Colt with me or I’d a be lying where that beaner is lying now.”
“Waco?”
“Yes, boss?”
“Cuff this boy and take him to the jail and book him for murder?”
“What?”
“You heard me. I’ll be along shortly.”
The boy stared at me with hate filled eyes and said, “The hell you will,” and reached behind his back and brought out a small revolver, pointing it at my face.
Damn Waco, I thought, he should have made sure this boy was disarmed.
“Now listen to me, Ryan Jackson from Meeteetse, put that gun down before someone gets hurt.”
“It’s gonna be you, Sheriff,” he said cocking back the hammer.
My hand went down to my sidearm and I was clearing leather before young Ryan could blink. My .44 caliber round pierced his neck and he dropped to the ground, bleeding out next to Juan.
“Why’d you have to go and do that, Sheriff?” Waco asked.
“Waco, if you’d a been a little more alert, you’d a known that Juan is blind. Has been all his life. No way he could have drawed down on that boy. That little burro of his carried his entire life possessions and lead him around Cheyenne like a seeing eye dog. I have known Juan his whole life and he was the nicest young man I knew and he wouldn’t steal from anybody. I’d stake my life on it.”
“But what about the other beaner?”
“There wasn’t another beaner, Waco. Ryan said he took off in the direction I had just ridden in from. If there was someone heading out that way, I would have passed him. I was the only soul on that ridge today.”