SHERIFF GREGG AND THE PAINTED LADY
By Hank Florentine McLoskey
Copyright 2011 Hank Florentine McLoskey
Smashwords edition
My store stood right across the street from the Sheriff’s office. Most days when I looked out my window they’d all be sitting there – Sheriff Gregg lounging back in his battered old rocking chair, his boots up on the wooden balcony, a smoking cheroot sticking out of the corner of his mouth, Deputy Dawson leaning against the door right behind him and cracking his knuckles, Candy peeping out the window while she got the dinner ready, the three of them keeping an eye on all the comings and goings.
I guess to a lot of people it seemed like they’d always been there. Leastways, it never seemed to occur to anybody that Sheriff Gregg had never even been properly elected. He’d just turned up one day with his gang, stuck a silver star on his chest and made hisself sheriff. We were an easy-going bunch of people and I guess most of us thought: why not?
How wrong we were.
Any time I looked up, I could see Candy’s mouth working away. That woman was the size of a house. She always had something sweet in her mouth and she was always chewing away at it. It was a real pity, ‘cos I reckon she’d been quite the looker in her day, though I guess those mean little eyes probably put off many a beau.
Deputy Dawson was a big, bull-necked feller of five-and-twenty. He fancied himself something of a dandy but the opinion in these parts is that when God was giving out brains, he forgot to leave out any for Deputy Dawson. That boy was as dumb as a coal bucket. That big, stupid face of his was always set in the same stubborn scowl and he was always muttering away to himself and shaking his head. It was always the same old stuff too, along the lines of – ‘I ain’t THREATENING anyone mind, I’m just saying you better be careful. REAL careful, ‘cos I heard stories - stories like you wouldn’t believe - ‘bout what happens to people when they stop being CAREFUL. Oh yes indeedee.’ And then he’d finger his pistols in that menacing fashion of his and try to catch the eye of some passer-by, though most people knew better and kept their heads down. Then he’d shut up for a bit. Then he’d start all over again.
And he used to keep that up all day long, believe it or not.
Sheriff Gregg paid him no heed. Sheriff Gregg just sat in that rocking chair smoking his cigarillos and watching everything with sleepy black eyes. Looking back on it, it’s amazing he had so many people frightened of him. Sheriff Gregg was no bigger than a twelve-year-old boy (and had a pecker to match, so rumor had it, which explains a great deal) but he dressed himself real fancy, always in the same black three-piece suit, with a hat to match and a silver fob watch dangling across his waistcoat.
Sheriff Gregg claimed to be of Italian extraction. When he had a few drinks, he’d say he was part-Navajo. Rumor had it his parents were a Chinee couple who’d helped build the railway line some thirty or so years earlier. Because it was plain to everybody - apart from Sheriff Gregg himself I should say – that he was some class of oriental. How a Chinee feller like him came across a name like Gregg I do not know and never will. I certainly would not have relied on the good Sheriff himself for that information. Sheriff Gregg told so many lies it was impossible to know what to believe: like how he’d rode with Quantrill or made a fortune after the war dealing in military curios or studied in Oxford, England and other such nonsense.
Every so often he’d look up at the empty space to his left and smile. It was the only time I ever saw his face look any way tender. “What you think, Delilah?” he’d ask. Then he’d cock his head to one side and laugh – a high, thin laugh like a hyena’s.
In that respect he was even crazier than Deputy Dawson – a whole heap crazier in fact, as will become evident by the time I finish telling you my story.
Delilah Langtry. That was her name. And even though she was no more than a figment of Sheriff Gregg’s imagination, I watched him talk to her so often it was almost like she was real. I pictured her as being ever so slender and pretty in her white frock, with her long auburn hair. She didn’t really talk that much. Not Delilah. If she talked at all. I got the impression that whenever Sheriff Gregg consulted her – as he would do when cross-examining the women folk of the town – that she did little more than just agree with him.
“Is this woman a whore or not?” he’d ask Delilah. And in my mind’s eye, I could just see Delilah roll her eyes and shake her head as if to say – why you asking me? Of course she’s a whore!
See that was where Sheriff Gregg was pure, plumb crazy. That man had a thing about whores like you wouldn’t believe. I don’t mean he was partial to them. Far from it. Sheriff Gregg hated whores with a fiery passion. Seemingly he’d got the clap from one many a long year ago and from then on made it his business to only ever sleep with married women - which made the husbands of our fair town none too happy, I can tell you.
Yep. A married woman was a class act as far as Sheriff Gregg was concerned. Firstly, they were bound to be free of disease on account of them being so respectable. Which just goes to show how much he knew: I can think of many a so-called ‘respectable’ woman in our town whose carry-on would have made the most hard-bitten old whore blush. Secondly, some man had wanted to marry that woman in the first place. That put a value on her in Sheriff Greg’s eyes.
By extension a woman who lived with her partner but wasn’t married to him had to be a whore. Crazy, but that was how he thought.
It didn’t help that sometimes women would come up to where he sat in his rocking chair like King Tut and make it clear they were his for the asking. We were a poor town and I guess they needed the money. I don’t know why they kept coming - desperation maybe – ‘cos they always got the same reception. Sheriff Gregg would suddenly sit forward in his rocking chair, black eyes flashing. “You think I’d sleep with some whore?” he’d ask. And then they’d shake their heads and say no, of course not and be on their way, because most people were real scared of Sheriff Gregg back then.
Sometimes when he was in a real mean humor, he’d say – “you think I’d want to sleep with an ugly old whore like you?” He said that to Mary-Anne Brewster even though she was not yet thirty and real easy on the eye.
Don’t get me wrong. Those women should have never gone near him in the first place. What I didn’t care for much was how he treated all the unmarried women in the town the same way. “You married that boyfriend of yours yet?” he’d shout at some passing girl. And as she shook her head and hurried on, he’d shout after her – “you know what that means, doncha? You ain’t nothing more than a common whore!”
None of the men folk ever stood up for their woman folk on account of the two pearl-handled shooters Sheriff Gregg always wore – and more shame them, I say. Sure, there were all sorts of stories about how he was lightning-quick on the draw, but I never saw him pull a gun the whole time he was in our little burgh. He probably spread those selfsame rumors hisself.
So that’s how it was: Sheriff Gregg and his little entourage running our town and nobody willing to say boo them. Then one day everything changed.
A train runs alongside the town. Mostly it just delivers lumbar and animal feed, or collects cattle. Only one day it delivered something new.
I was out sweeping the front of the shop. First hint I got of her was the whiff of perfume being carried on the warm, afternoon breeze. Not the sort of fancy, low-key stuff the mayor’s wife wore. No sir. This was so strong it would fair knock your head off. Then a second later she sauntered into view.
She was a big, big girl. Don’t get me wrong. She was handsome after her fashion – a big, brassy blonde – but with shoulders like a blacksmith. And she was wearing enough purple bustles and ribbons and skirts to dress three woman, a hat the same hue tilted at a jaunty angle on top of all those golden curls with a long electric-green feather sticking out the top of it. Not to mention enough rings and bracelets and necklaces to fill a jewelry store window.
If you think this stuff made her look classy, think again. That finery told any man who clapped eyes on her one thing: that this woman was a whore - a high-class whore maybe, but a whore for all that. In one hand she was twirling a parasol, but in the other she was holding a grubby old carpetbag: it’s the accessories that always distinguish the pretend version from the real thing, or so I’ve always reckoned. That wasn’t allowing for how she had her skirts parted at the front so you could see her two black-stockinged legs, legs so big and strong a wrestler would have been proud of them.
And that was just it. I stopped my sweeping and stared at her open-mouthed and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have my wicked way with her or run for my life. And the whole time she just kept sashaying on up that street towards me, twirling her parasol, always with the same wicked glint in her green eyes, her red lips twisted in the same mocking smile.
You should have seen Sheriff Gregg. He couldn’t believe his eyes at first. Then a slow flush darkened his yellow cheeks and his black eyebrows beetled down into a frown. You can imagine how affronted a man with a detestation for whores might be by such a vision. But I could see fear there too. His hand dropped to his guns for a moment before he thought the better of it. It wouldn’t do to go killing an unarmed women in the middle of a street in front of witnesses. Then I could see him get a grip of hisself. He cleared his throat and said – “you married, young lady?”
Well that whore glanced over at him like she’d only just noticed him. Then she sashayed over to that balcony. She was so tall that she could lean on that balustrade and look him straight in the eye, for all that there was a flight of steps leading up onto that porch.
“What do you think?” she said pleasantly enough.
To this day I reckon Sheriff Gregg already knew it was a real bad idea to ask this particular woman the same question he threw at most passing women in that town every day, but the habits of a life-time are hard to break. A light dew of sweat covered his feathery black moustache, and his black eyes were fixed on those green ones, and he was afraid, but it was clear he couldn’t help himself. “I think you aint’ nothing more than a common whore,” he said after one long minute, only he said it in a whisper, which will give you some idea of how scared he was.
Well that whore didn’t say a word. She just grabbed Sheriff Gregg by the scruff of his neck and yanked him clean over the balcony with one hand. I could see all the muscles bunching up under her dress as she did so – that woman was as strong as an ox – and a second later poor old Sheriff Gregg was getting the most unmerciful beating of his life. That whore beat him with her parasol while he cowered in front of her like a mangy dog. He kept scrabbling to get to his feet only then she’d hit him again and he’d end up face down in the dust, legs akimbo. That beautiful black suit of his got ruined. He got dust on his moustache and in his eyes and she kicked his hat so hard it went sailing over a rooftop.
Soon I could see blood mixed in with the dust. He tried to reach for his guns a few times but then she yanked off his belt and started to beat him with that as well.
You may wonder what Deputy Dawson was doing throughout all this. Precious little, that’s what. The big galoot just stood and stared, fingering his pistols and wondering – quite rightly, I reckon – if it was his place to protect a man from a women, even if the woman in question was twice the size of the man.
Pretty soon half the town had gathered round to watch, and people were laughing and joking amongst themselves like it was the Fourth of July. And I think – as he scrambled to his feet and tried to adjust his clothes, and stared around at all those grinning faces - I think that was when Sheriff Gregg finally realized his power over the good people of that town had come to an end.
That very same night all three of them – Candy, Dawson and Sheriff Gregg – were marched out of the town limits. I never saw them again. We kept Sheriff Gregg’s pistols, so I never worried overly much about him coming back, whatever about the other two. They were nothing without him anyways.
The whore stayed around for another week or so. She was from up north somewhere, and boy could she drink. She spent nearly every night in the saloon and I’d say she left town considerably wealthier than when she arrived. That she was feted as the woman who’d got the better of Sheriff Gregg mattered not one red cent to her. She just couldn’t understand why we were scared of the little rat in the first place.
And you know something? Looking back on it, neither can I.