Read Online William W. Johnstone by Massacre Mountain - Free Book Online Page B

among women but an occasional womanish male gets them.”
    “I haven’t got any vapors.”
    “That’s three dollars. I usually charge two, but you’re special.”
    “Send it to the county supervisors. I didn’t ask you to come.”
    “Belle thought you were goldbricking. She thought you should be out on the street keeping us safe. You discovered a body last night and now you have the vapors.”
    “Doc, I’m going to sleep,” I said, and turned my back on him.
    “You should get out of bed and stop cheating the taxpayers,” he said.
    He stuffed his shiny instruments into his black Gladstone and eased out the door. He was a pretty good doc, except when he wanted to be.
    He made me mad. I wondered what the next insult walking through my door would be. I pushed myself out of my deathbed and uncovered the chamber pot, and sat, getting settled just in time. That was just about as satisfying as a chamber pot session can be, and I was congratulating myself when Mrs. Gildersleeve and Harry Frost walked in.
    “Take your time, Sheriff,” she said, and settled on my bed, waiting for me to finish up.
    That’s show people for you. They are a breed apart.
    This was getting to be a predicament, so I just sat tight and hoped the smell would drive them out. But they just sat there.
    “What do you want?” I asked, refusing to budge an inch.
    “Death threats,” said Frost.
    “Not a bad idea,” I said.
    He dug into his suit coat and pulled out several papers and handed them to me.
    I don’t read real good, but I got the gist of them. They were saying to get out of town before sundown or the Gildersleeve Variety Company would soon be shorthanded.
    “What are you going to do about it?” Frost said.
    “Where’d these come from?”
    “They got pushed under the door of our hotel room. Ralston found one pushed under the door of the opera house. And another ended up with the ladies of our cast.”
    “Who doesn’t want you here?” I asked, still not budging. The smell was getting real ripe now, so I figured they’d be escaping in a minute or two.
    “Ralston thinks the banker and his friends are behind it.”
    “Sanders? That’s possible. He wanted me to arrest your whole show even before it opened.”
    I looked at the notes. They were printed in block letters even I could read. Not that script stuff.
    “Maybe you should write one of your own and stick it under the bank door,” I said. “You don’t need the law for this.”
    “Sheriff, these are death threats. ‘Get out or end up shorthanded.’” Frost said.
    “This is just some Doubtful prank or other,” I said.
    “You should get off the pot and help us,” Mrs. Gildersleeve said. “Mr. Ralston said you’d help us, and what have we got? A sheriff stuck on a pot.”
    I sighed, and reached for the Sears Roebuck catalog lying there, brought by Belle along with the chamber pot.
    “I’m off the pot,” I said. “I’ll go talk to Sanders. If he did it I’ll deal with him.”
    I ripped a page of farm implements from the Sears catalog and stood.
    “God almighty,” Frost said. “You’ve sprung a leak.” He steered Mrs. Gildersleeve through my door and into the hall while I repaired myself. I didn’t much feel like getting up and confronting Sanders, but if my vapors allowed it, I’d go over there.
    It took a long time to get myself repaired. And I forgot to cover the pot, so the room wasn’t improving. But I finally got dressed, and sat down to study them death notices they handed me. They was all hand-printed with a pencil. Someone sure didn’t like the variety company.
    They all were signed, in small type at the bottom: “Doubtful Mothers for Modesty.”
    Well, there were two or three of those in town, probably all friends of Mrs. Sanders.
    I stood, and got dizzy. If I had the vapors, they sure were plenty powerful vapors. Maybe I’d start with Hubert Sanders himself, since he was the one who wanted me to shut down the show even before it arrived. Or