SHERIFF GREGG & MADAM MIDNIGHT
By Hank Florentine McLoskey
Copyright 2011 Hank Florentine McLoskey
Smashwords edition
Back when I first moved to Butterfield, I got myself a mongrel called Geronimo. That mutt was as brave as he was stupid. Every evening I used to sit out on my back porch. You couldn’t see nothing then only open prairie. Well one evening Geronimo spotted a coyote hanging out in the brush and went running out after it. I think he just wanted to play, ‘cos the two of them darted round one another a while, the coyote leading him further and further away from the house all the time.
You think I hollered? Course I did, till I was damn near hoarse - for all the good it done. The two of them vanished into the brush then I hear a big ruckus and minutes later poor old Geronimo comes running back yowling with his ass all bit up. A bunch of that coyote’s friends had been lurking out of sight expressly to pounce on him. You ask me, he was real lucky he got out of that scrape alive!
Them wounds healed, but I don’t think Geronimo’s pride ever did. Any time he heard a coyote howl, he’d put his snout down between his paws and grumble away to hisself. He wanted to go out after that coyote, but hard-won experience had taught him this might not be such a good idea.
So how come I’m going on about my dog? Well, any time I looked out my store window and saw Deputy Dawson slouched against the doorway of Sheriff Gregg’s office, muttering away to hisself and fingering his pistols, I thought of Geronimo, even though that dog is dead ten year and more.
Deputy Dawson wasn’t always that way, see. Once upon a time he thought hisself the most popular man in Butterfield. Finding out this wasn’t so dang near broke him. He rarely left that porch afterwards and when he did, it was only to trot along behind Sheriff Gregg, same as Geronimo followed me everywhere for weeks after getting his ass bit.
Back at the start, Skip Dawson was Sheriff Gregg’s eyes and ears in the town and he was a regular sight, swaggering down its streets in his white Stetson and his blue swaller-tailed coat. People doffed their hats to him, and he responded likewise. Skip was a Texan and I think he saw himself as a fine, up-standing example of the breed and reckoned other people thought so too. Why else did he always wear the same stupid grin on his face?
But nobody cared for him much, even then. Sober, he could be real pompous, always lecturing away about this and that. A few drinks and he’d turn nasty. But I guess people hated Skip mainly on account of how he was such a cheapskate. That guy wouldn’t buy an apple without haggling over the price. The girls down in Molly O’Neill’s bawdy house even used to call him ‘Skimp’ Dawson ‘cos of how he always rounded whatever he owed them down to the nearest dollar.
A bawdy house I hear you ask. So Sheriff Gregg’s beliefs were not entirely without substance then? Well, I guess every town has a few whores in it, and Butterfield was no exception.
That was how Skip Dawson differed from the rest of that crowd. Sheriff Gregg hated whores with a fiery passion. Charlene Bartlett wanted them run out of town or quarantined or some such nonsense. Skip had nothing against whores per se. He just felt they over-charged for their services and that their services were generally not up to standard. He was that way about most things.
The bawdy house in question was run by a fat Irish red-head called Molly O’Neill whose freckled face always seemed to be set in the same crafty frown. Chances are, she’d have given Dawson the run of the place for free on account of who he was, ‘cept Dawson insisted on paying - sure, he’d haggle over the price until it was hardly worth the whore’s time servicing him, but he’d still pay her. Paying her meant he was entitled to complain, and boy did Skip Dawson like to complain! Like how this whore didn’t holler loud enough, or that whore not at all. Or how this one wouldn’t do as he asked – sure, what he wanted was kinda unusual, but wasn’t he a paying customer and wasn’t the customer always right? And so on and so forth.
It wasn’t just the whores. There were woman in that town with mouths to feed, glad of any money Skip Dawson might throw their way, and boy, did he know it! He had his favorites. And there were those who had fallen out of favor. Skip was very exacting about what he wanted. Thing was, once you cut a deal with Skip you never heard the end of it. As far as he was concerned, you must be a whore for sleeping with him in the first place, and once a whore, always a whore.
He, Sheriff Gregg and Charlene were all of a kind in one respect. Sheriff Gregg was in love with Delilah ‘cos no real woman could ever match up to his exacting standards. Charlene had similarly high expectations for her three boys. And from time to time Skip did talk about settlin’ down, but he never meant to do any such thing I reckon. He was the sort of fella who always has to have the upper hand. Why else use his money to lord it over the impoverished women of Butterfield?
I will say one thing for that boy: he loved his mommy. If I were to glance out my bedroom window of a Wednesday evening, I’d see Deputy Dawson huddled over the little round table in the Sheriff’s parlor, face pressed against the paper as he wrote his weekly letter to Ma Dawson by the light of a single flickering candle. It took him all of three hours. I wonder what he told her: nothing about his whoring ways, I can be sure.
Funnily enough it was a letter that brought the good times to an end for Deputy Skip Dawson.
I was giving my winders a wash when Sheriff Gregg comes storming out of his office. Deputy Dawson was in his usual position – that is to say, slouched against the door – and he had get out of the way real quick.
It was plain to anybody who knew him that Sheriff Gregg was riled about something. “Listen to this, Skip!” he says. Then he starts pacing up and down the porch, one thumb tucked into his waistcoat pocket, reading out loud from the letter he’s holding in his other hand. “My Dear Sir, Remember that you have but ONE deputy under you, while I have an ARMY at my command, even if they be but whores. DESIST your ill-advised campaign against them or you will bring terrible CALAMITY down upon your head. Yours respectfully, MADAM MIDNIGHT.”
Sheriff Gregg stopped and glanced over at Deputy Dawson. “Well? What do you make o’ that?”
Dawson shrugged. “Guess we rubbed somebody up the wrong way.”
“Somebody?” Sheriff Gregg’s black eyes flashed. “Somebody?” He shook his head. “I always suspected it, Skip – that there was some Queen Bee managing all them whores and taking a little cut for herself, no doubt. Now I got proof.”
I could see Dawson’s jaw drop. Of course he knew Gregg was crazy, but he’d never known just how crazy. Not until that moment. “We just got some whore riled, Sheriff –”
“You think a whore wrote this?” Gregg holds up that letter like Moses holding up some stone tablet. “This was written by an edjicated woman!”
Deputy Dawson sighed. “What does Delilah reckon?”
“She thinks I’m crazy.” Gregg tucked the letter into his pocket, then rested his small, beautiful hands on that wooden balcony, staring out across the street – more or less at my store, only he was a million miles away, eyes dark and brooding.
“Maybe Delilah has a point, Sheriff – ”
“Nonsense!” Gregg barked. “Madam Midnight is as real as you or I. I know it. I just knows it. And right now she’s plotting and planning how to get the better of me. You just wait and see.” He scowled. “Well she’s gone and made a big mistake, threatenin’ me like that! Keep your eyes and ears peeled from now on, Skip.”
Sheriff Gregg still had his back to Deputy Dawson. Otherwise Dawson would never have dared roll his eyes as he did. “And what am I looking for Sheriff? Some whore bigger and meaner than all the rest?”
Sheriff Gregg didn’t even look around. Just shook his head the tiniest fraction. “Oh no. Madam Midnight may be a whore at heart, Skip. Deception may be second nature to her, but my guess is she won’t be dressing up like no whore. No sir. She’ll be as prim and quiet as a preacher’s wife. That’s the sort of woman you got to keep your eyes peeled for.”
Once the Sheriff’s office was locked up, Deputy Dawson set off across town and within half an hour he was outside Molly O’Neill’s bawdy house. He thumped on the door and after a second Molly herself let him in. “Where is he?” was all Deputy Dawson said.
“Who?” Molly asked.
“That darn poet! Who else?”
The poet was a recent arrival in Butterfield. We knew damn all about him, mainly on account of how he’d taken up residence in Molly’s place - only that he was nursing a broken heart or some such nonsense, and had come to Butterfield to make amends with his beloved. Only if this were true, how come he never set foot outside Molly’s? Whether he was a poet or not was a matter of some debate, but he sure knew how to turn a phrase, which explains how Deputy Dawson came to suspect him of sending that letter, especially on account of how the poet was always going on about how hard done by the town’s whores were and how Sheriff Gregg was monster and all that.
Deputy Dawson found him with his head resting on one of the green baize tables over in the far corner – for the poet was also a drunk and spent most of his time either drinking whiskey or sleeping it off. He looked like the sort of man who might have been handsome until the liquor got hold of him – a big, blond-haired feller in a grubby white suit. Dawson rapped hard on the table. “Guthrie!” he snapped.
The poet lifted his head and stared up at the deputy with bloodshot eyes. “My dear Skip, could I impose upon you for the lend of – shall we say – five dollars?”
“I’m guessing you sent that letter to Sheriff Gregg, signing yourself off as Madam Midnight?”
“I did indeed, sir. The man is a tyrant. A deshpicable – desspicibibble –”
Dawson thumped the table with his fist, his blue eyes afire – and who could blame him? He was a man very partial to whores and if Sheriff Gregg started sniffing around all on account of that letter, then Molly’s place might be shut down – and where would Deputy Dawson be then? Sure he had a few woman here and there in the town that were under his thumb, but a fellah with his appetites needed a proper whorehouse to cater to his needs! “Damn you for a fool, Guthrie! You better hope Sheriff Gregg forgets about that letter real soon! Otherwise I’m going to give you a licking, then I’m going to have you run out of town. Understood?”
“As clear sir, as a shrping day. Or I should say a – a” The poet’s head dropped a little closer to the table with each word he spoke and by the time he said that last ‘a’ it was already resting on the green baize once more. A second later he was snoring softly.
Well Dawson went storming out of that bawdy house, the same way he went into it – in a thundering fury – giving no thought for how there might be people round to see him. That was his big mistake. Of course he’d visited Molly’s a hundred times before but always after dark and this was only six in the evening. So no wonder he ended up bumping into Letitia Crane.
“Deputy Dawson!” Letitia Crane’s face creased into a frown of disapproval. “Perhaps you might care to tell me what a representative of the law is doing, leaving a house of ill repute?”
Dawson didn’t care for Letitia Crane but he was frightened of her too, so he said - “conducting an investigation ma’am, what else?”
“I do hope you’re telling the truth, Deputy.” Letitia was studying Dawson over her spectacles with those fishy brown eyes of hers and making him feel more and more uncomfortable by the minute. What if Letitia went off to Sheriff Gregg’s and started asking questions? What if she mentioned Molly’s place? Deputy Dawson took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. Boy, life sure could get complicated – and all because a feller wanted a good time without any interfering busybodies spoiling it for him!
“’Course I’m telling the truth, Miss Crane!” he said as jovially as he could.
“I have not been paying this establishment as close attention as I might, Deputy. However I think I will subject it to considerably greater scrutiny in the near future. Do I make myself clear?”
“You do indeed, Miss Crane,” Deputy Dawson said quickly.
“In other words - spyin’ on the place, watching any comings and goings and keeping an especial eye out for yours truly,” he thought to himself. Which was exactly what Miss Crane meant.
Letitia Crane was a strange one. She was teacher at Butterfield Elementary and a lot of people said she and Sheriff Gregg were two sides of the same coin, something I never agreed with. Sheriff Gregg was just mean. Letitia Crane was a woman of principle. A chilly, stubborn self-righteous piece-of-work, but a woman of principle.
The one thing they did have in common was a concern for the town’s whores and fallen women generally, only whereas Gregg saw them women as a source of temptation to decent, law-abiding fellers, Letitia believed these women had been brought low by men in the first place - she could be very advanced in her opinions sometimes. In that respect she and the Sequestrian Society didn’t exactly see eye to eye. Maybe that’s why they spread rumors that she was secretly partial to dime fiction. You know the sort of thing – all for love of a fair face, the story of a wedding ring and similar nonsense.
Assuming this was true (and like I say, the Sequestrian Society and Letitia did not get on) I can’t say I blame her. She was a plain woman, plain and big-boned, who always had a pair of spectacles perched on the end of her long nose. Whenever she looked over them spectacles at you - just like she’d done to Deputy Dawson - you felt about two feet tall. She did this so often I’m not sure why she wore them in the first place, seeing as how she never actually looked through them or nothing.
Either way, I could understand why Letitia might seek solace in such novels – fact of the matter was that’s about as close as she was ever likely to get to any real romance.
Poor old Deputy Dawson! The poet had left him in a pretty pickle. He couldn’t go near that whorehouse on account of Letitia Crane keeping an eye on it. Not only that, he’d have to watch his step from then on, now she’d started taking an interest in him. And a feller has appetites. Naturally. When you’re hungry, you gotta eat – right? So a day or two later he dropped by Sadie’s laundry. Sadie and him had had a thing going way back. Some chinee had set up their own laundry and Sadie’s business had suffered as a result. Deputy Dawson had come to the rescue, giving her any money she might need to tide her over. Of course he’d expected certain favors in return and Sadie hadn’t minded too much obliging.
Things had changed since. Sadie had more than one boyfriend willing to help her out of a fix and the chinee’s laundry had mysteriously burnt down several months earlier. Them chinee had packed up and left town after that, and business had been good for Sadie ever since. She was a small, dark-haired woman, not much to look at it and none too bright, but with healthy appetites that made her very popular with Butterfield’s menfolk. No whore then – but no angel neither. So Deputy Dawson had a spring in his step when he called round to her.
Well the long and the short of it was – nothing doing. Business was good, Sadie didn’t need Deputy Dawson’s help and she didn’t want to sleep with him for old times sake either. Seemingly it was comical to watch poor old Deputy Dawson - who hadn’t been near a whore in almost a week on account of Letitia Crane’s watchful eyes - trying to reason with Sadie. Only when he pointed out she was no better than a whore and that as such she had an obligation to cater to a customer’s needs, she took up her mop and ran him out of her laundry.
And who do you think happened to be passing just as poor old Deputy Dawson was backing out that door, being beaten over the head with Sadie’s mop? Yup. None other than Letitia Crane herself.
“Sheriff, you are nursing a viper in your bosom.”
I knew she meant Deputy Dawson, just by how all the blood had drained from his face when he saw her coming across the street. Not that I knew the full story. Not back then.
Sheriff Gregg just kept rocking backwards and forwards, grinning away to hisself and studying Letitia Crane through hooded eyes. “And who might you be referring to?” he says, after what seemed like an age.
Letitia Crane flung out one long hand, one equally long finger pointing directly at Deputy Dawson. “Him,” she said.
“Skip?” Sheriff Gregg threw a glance at his lieutenant then went back to studying Letitia, that grin of his never wavering. “And why would you go and say a thing like that?”
Letitia Crane drew herself up to her full height. “Four nights ago I saw him leaving a bawdy house.”
Sheriff Gregg shrugged. “Those women are a constant source of temptation to decent, law-abiding men. That’s why I wants to get rid of ‘em.”
“Those unfortunate creatures are brought low by men such as your deputy here, Sheriff.”
Gregg was busy lighting one of his cigarillos. “Now Letitia,” he said between puffs, “we’ve had this conversation before and never come to any sort of agreement. You say men are responsible for women being whores. I beg to disagree.”
“Sheriff Gregg.” Letitia Crane drew closer to the good sheriff’s porch. “You have not heard the full story. The following day I caught him attempting to coerce a respectable young woman into satisfying his diabolical appetites.”
“A respectable young woman, you say?” Sheriff Gregg squinted thoughtfully at Letitia Crane through a fug of blue smoke. “And did this respectable young woman have a name?”
“Sadie Thompson.”
Sheriff Gregg doubled over with a fit of the giggles. He laughed so hard and so long that he got a fit of the coughs right after. “Well now I heard it all! Whatever Sadie might be, respectable she most certainly ain’t!”
“I see. So you intend to do nothing about your deputy’s behavior? Nothing at all?”
Sheriff Gregg had calmed down a bit by then, and now his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Fact of the matter is, Letitia, I’m kinda curious ‘bout your behavior.”
“What on earth are you talking about, Sheriff? My behavior has always been exemplary.”
Sheriff Gregg took a deep pull on his cigar, tilted back his rocking chair and stared up at the porch ceiling while he blew out a couple of smoke rings. “Still, you gotta admit it’s a pretty big coincidence, huh? You catching Deputy Dawson out two times in the same week. Two times! Why, anyone would think you was following him ‘round.”
“I? And why on earth would I want to do such a thing?”
“You tell me. Here’s the thing, Letitia –” Sheriff Gregg sat forward in his rocking chair, one hand resting on his knee, looking up from under the brim of his black hat straight into Letitia Crane’s heavy-lidded eyes, his face suddenly deadly serious. “I send the good deputy off to conduct an important investigation, and you keep popping up wherever he goes. Then you turn up here with some story, trying to discredit him. From where I’m sitting, that looks a mite suspicious.”
“Sheriff, I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.”
“No?” Sheriff Gregg’s black eyes glittered. “You sure about that, Letitia? Or should I say – Madam Midnight?”
Well Letitia Crane reared up like a frisky mare at those words. “Have you quite taken leave of your senses, Sheriff?”
“I want you on the next train out of here Letitia – or whatever you likes to call yourself.”
“On what grounds? That I drew attention to the immoral behavior of your deputy?”
“On account of how I think – how I knows – you’re Madam Midnight.”
Letitia Crane had her back to me, but I could just imagine the look on her face. Finally she said – “Deputy Dawson, I implore you as a gentlemen to disabuse the good Sheriff of this ridiculous notion.”
Deputy Dawson had been watching one then the other the whole time. Now he flushed guiltily.
“Deputy!” Letitia Crane’s eyes never left Sheriff Gregg’s, as if some awful battle of wills was taking place between them.
Dawson shifted from one foot to the other. “Sheriff – ”
“What is it, Skip? Don’t worry. I don’t think any the less of you for sleeping with some whore. You’re young and it’s real hard to avoid temptation, here more than most places. My problem is that there was a whore to sleep with you in the first instance. Don’t you worry. We get Miss Crane out of the picture, then the whole rotten organization is liable to fall like a house of cards.”
“Deputy Dawson, you must be aware of my many good works in this town. If your sheriff has his way, who will run the soup kitchen? Who will organize the sick and indigent storekeepers’ annual picnic? Look into your heart, Deputy Dawson. If nothing else, ask yourself what your mother would expect you to do!”
Well Deputy Dawson blushed bright red when Letitia said this. So the feller had some class of a conscience after all! I was never so surprised in all my life. He opened his mouth and I knew he meant to tell the Sheriff that Madam Midnight was just some drunken poet’s idle fancy. Then something made him hesitate. His mouth snapped shut and a crafty scowl crept across those bland features. And I knew exactly what he was thinking: that Letitia Crane would show him no gratitude for sticking up on her behalf. She would simply feel he had done his duty. Nor would she forget about him and Sadie.
Fact of the matter was that – as long as Letitia Crane was still in Butterfield – Deputy Dawson wouldn’t be able to sleep with a whore or bully some women into pandering to his needs without looking over his shoulder first. So no wonder he said – “it’s just like you say, Sheriff. I went to investigate that bawdy house after receiving an – an anonymous tip – and was intercepted by Miss Crane. As for that business with Sadie: she just made the whole thing up to get me into trouble. She wants to scupper this investigation, Sheriff, no two ways about it.”
Sheriff Gregg nodded. “Thought as much,” he said grimly. “Pack your bags, Miss Crane. You’re leaving town.”
I think every woman in Butterfield turned up to see Letitia Crane off at the station. She’d done all of them some class of favor or other, whore or otherwise. So much so that Sheriff Gregg could hardly be blamed for thinking all his suspicions had been vindicated and that this really was Madam Midnight he was putting on that train. Quite a few of those women threw dirty glances Deputy Dawson’s way and I reckon that was when he started to realize that getting rid Letitia Crane might not be the answer to all his problems.
Just as the train was abouts to pull out of the station, a big man in a shabby white suit fought his way through the crowd. Letitia Crane was waving adieu with her hanky and her mouth dropped open like a trapdoor when she saw him. “Guthrie!” was all she said.
“I heard you were leaving Butterfield, Letitia,” he blurted out between gasps. “And I beg that you let me accompany you.”
“I don’t understand Guthrie. Have you been living in Butterfield all this time without my knowing? But why? And – and how?”
“Because I love you, Letitia!” (there was plenty of cheering at them words let me tell you: women do so love a romantic scene, don’t they?) “I followed you here intending to declare my feelings for you, only to discover I lacked the courage of my convictions, so I took refuge in the one place where I knew you would never go until I felt brave enough to do so.”
“Guthrie! You don’t mean –”
The drunken poet nodded his big blond head. “Yes, my love. A bawdy house.”
“Oh Guthrie!”
Well the long and the short of it was that the drunken poet got on board too and next minute the pair of them was holding hands and Letitia Crane got the sort of send-off normally reserved for a newly-married couple. Sheriff Gregg wasn’t one bit pleased about that, I can tell you!
Things did not turn out so well for Deputy Dawson. A week after Letitia Crane had left town he went back to Molly O’Neill’s bawdy house, figuring that any bad feelings the girls might be harboring towards him were gone. Even before he reached its front door, he knew he was wasting his time. Most evenings you could hear the piano tinkling a hundred yards away and the whole place would be lit up like a Christmas tree. Not anymore. The bawdy house was shuttered and silent. He rapped on the door a few times but nobody answered. Molly had moved – whether to another part of town or clean out of Butterfield I do not know. Maybe she was worried Sheriff Gregg would give her grief, now he knew of her whereabouts.
Dawson didn’t give up hope entirely. True, Sadie had made it clear she was no longer interested in providing to his needs, but there were other women who were under one sort of obligation or another to him and he decided to try them instead.
That’s when he noticed something odd. Perhaps it had been the case on his way to Molly’s and he’d been so looking forward to sampling one of her whores he hadn’t noticed – but there was not a single woman on the streets of Butterfield. Not only that: every door was shut and every window likewise. He tried rapping on a few doors without any success. He called softly at first, then louder. He ended up thumping them doors and hollering his head off, but nobody ever came in answer to his call.
He was just turning to go when something hit him hard on the back of the neck. When he stooped down to pick it up out of the muck, he saw it was a bar of soap. “What in tarnation –” he muttered softly to hisself.
“Use it to wash out your lying mouth, Skip Dawson!” somebody called down to him from above. And with that a dozen windows opened and poor old Skip got pelted with all manner of things – scrubbing brushes and old shoes and rotten potatoes. He even pulled out his gun and fired a few rounds in the air, but those girls were so riled, they just didn’t care.
When somebody emptied a chamberpot over him he ran the whole way back to the Sheriff’s office. From that day forth he never set foot off that porch after dark. Why, he wouldn’t even walk those streets by daylight - unless it was three feet behind Sheriff Gregg.
I bet he curses that poet feller to this day!