Chapter 6 - I Become the Deputy of Broken Hearts, Wyoming
After a hearty breakfast of cornbread, sausages and a big pot of black coffee, I went on over to the Sheriff’s Office, which I knew was going to my office too. Abe was just taking a pot of coffee off the wood stove and handed me a cup which I politely refused. He gave me a rundown of what to expect in town.
There were a lot of fights over at Joe’s Bar, especially on Friday nights. Most of the fights involved the Confederate Deserters who wanted to be accepted in the town but couldn’t quite hide their Southern attitudes. They still regarded blacks as inferiors and that didn’t bode well with the fifty or so who lived in or around town. Blacks were just as welcome in Joe’s as the whites and if the southerner wasn’t fighting with a black, he was fighting with a white whose friend was a black man.
Another thing that Abe said would keep me busy was watching out for travelling salesmen who tried to sell their tonic water claiming it would cure all kinds of sicknesses. The citizens of Broken Hearts had been fleeced many times by those people and they and the Sheriff all agreed that they were not welcome in town. The Sheriff and the Mayor had come up with an easy plan to persuade them to leave. It was simple. The salesman was allowed to ply his trade as long as he purchased a license from the town office. It cost $2 and was good for 24 hours. Such a ludicrous price! The word spread amongst the salesmen that the license had to be bought or else if caught, the salesman would find himself behind bars for seven days. Despite this, one of them would come into town every now and again.
Abe asked me what kind of gun I would like. I showed him the 45 colt that I recovered in Sam’s Saloon. He looked it over and seemed to be satisfied with it. I had to admit I had never fired it. In fact, I really didn’t know much about guns. I carried one on the cattle ranch back home but things were always quiet there and I never had to use it. The only firearm I ever used was a shotgun to scare away the crows from the small cornfield we owned.
We spent an hour drawing our guns against each other. We were careful that our guns were not loaded. It didn’t make much sense to me for either one of us to shoot the other when we were supposed to be on the same side. After a week I was able to outdraw Abe almost half the time.