SHERIFF GREGG
&
THE BUTTERFIELD
SEQUESTRIAN SOCIETY
By Hank Florentine McLoskey
Copyright 2011 Hank Florentine McLoskey.
Smashwords Edition
This happened back in the bad old days, before Sheriff Gregg got his comeuppance. Sheriff Gregg rarely left his front porch except to go to service, but every Sunday after lunch the three of them – Sheriff Gregg, Deputy Dawson and Candy – would set off for Reverend Bartlett’s house, all still wearing their Sunday best, Sheriff Gregg swaggering slowly along in that cocky way of his, puffing on his cigarillo, Deputy “Don’t Call Me Stupid” Dawson clumping along behind him and Candy taking up the rear like a ship in full sail.
See, Reverend Bartlett’s houses was where the Butterfield Sequestrian Society held its weekly meeting – this society being mostly the wives of the town’s more upstanding citizens, and a bigger bunch of sour-pusses you never met. Every Sunday afternoon they’d assemble in Reverend Bartlett’s parlor to sing some hymns, sip some iced tea and discuss what Charlene Bartlett delicately referred to as “the whore problem”. Charlene Bartlett had founded the society and its stated aim was – “to ensure ladies of easy virtue be sequestered in such a way as not to cause offence to decent, law-abiding people.”
Nobody was quite sure what Charlene meant by “sequestered”. I don’t think she knew herself. Sometimes it sounded like she wanted all those supposed whores run out of town. Sometimes it seemed like she wanted them all put in a reservation, same as the injuns. The mayor was having none of it. He knew she was as crazy as Sheriff Gregg and that if either of them had their way, the only people left behind would be them and their cronies.
Those meetings were always the same. Some new names would crop up and after some yakking it would be decided that such-and-such a woman must be a whore. “Well that’s one young lady who won’t be gettin’ invited round to dinner!” Candy would say with a smirk. “Ain’t that so, Sheriff?”
And Sheriff Gregg would nod gravely. “Candy, you never said a truer word. That young woman will not be gracing our table any time in the near future, I think.”
Which was the biggest pile of bull crap as nobody had ever been invited round for dinner at the Sheriff’s far as I know – not even Charlene Bartlett.
The Bartletts had come all the way from San Francisco and Charlene Bartlett was always telling anybody who’d listen how unhappy she was to end up in such a dump, and how the place was a den of iniquity and so on and so forth. Needless to say the others gathered in that musty little parlor felt the exact same. They were only there on account of their husbands’ jobs with the banks or the railroad or whatnot. Still, I reckon they could have moved if they wanted to. Living in our little one-horse town gave those girls a chance to feel real superior and they liked that.
That said, I always reckoned there was another reason why Charlene chose to stay in Butterfield: the over-abundance of women folk. This was just ten years after the war, remember. Many a good and brave man had died during that conflict and the only ones left behind were either old, already married or little more than boys. There were a lot of young widows and women with mouths to feed. This might go some way towards explaining why women often propositioned Sheriff Gregg despite knowing what a chilly reception they’d get. And it sure goes some way towards explaining why Charlene Bartlett stayed here.
Charlene Bartlett was more or less what you’d expect – a tall, imposing beanpole of a woman with a nose and chin like a nutcracker and angry little eyes. She was no looker, that’s for sure. As for her sons – I already said how I reckoned God left Deputy Dawson short when he was handing out brains. Well I guess you could say he’d done the same with the Bartlett boys, only he’d short-changed them in the looks department instead. I never saw three such plain men – bow-legged, cross-eyed fellers, each with the same gingery brown hair. One was tall, one was middling-sized and one was no bigger than Sheriff Gregg hisself. That was the only way you could tell ‘em apart.
Don’t get me wrong. They weren’t bad fellers – if under their mammy’s thumb – but I’d have reckoned the chances of any one of the three finding hisself a wife back in San Fran as somewhere between slim and nothing. Out here, they could have had the pick of any woman they wanted. Which was why Charlene Bartlett chose to stay in Butterfield. Only that woman was her own worst enemy. Every day she went marching through the town with her three sons walking in single file behind her. And woe and betide the woman who even looked sideways at one of Charlene Bartlett’s boys! Charlene Bartlett would swing round and press her sharp nose right into that woman’s face and hiss – “whore!”
That’s why she and Sheriff Gregg were such good friends: on account of the fact that they believed the whole town was full to bursting with whores. When Charlene Bartlett decided to organize a march, placards and all, she knew she could rely on Sheriff Gregg coming along to make sure there was no unpleasantness and also that none of them so-called whores got uppity. And even if Charlene Bartlett was better educated than Sheriff Gregg and better spoken, she had the highest regard for his abilities in this respect. “That man has a nose for a whore and criminal types generally,” she’d say. “Why I reckon he can smell one a mile off.”
The only difference between the two was that Charlene Bartlett reckoned there were good, respectable girls somewhere in our town only it was impossible to pick them out on account of all the whores. Truth of the matter was that Charlene wanted to marry off her boys – and she didn’t. No woman was ever going to be good enough for her sons, because, for all her talk about finding nice respectable girls for them to marry, in her heart of hearts Ma Bartlett didn’t want her boys ever leaving her side.
Yep. Charlene Bartlett and Sheriff Gregg were the best of friends back then. And this particular story is about how that friendship came to an end. I never set foot in that parlor myself, but Abigail Crabworth runs a drapery store three doors down from me and she used to play piano for the society. We all knew it was Charlene Bartlett’s considered opinion that Abigail was not as good a Christian as she might be, but pianists as good as Abigail are hard to come by.
Maybe Charlene had a point. Abigail is a terrible gossip. She’d often drop by my store the Monday after one of them meetings to tell me all the goings on – which is how I got to hear most of this story. The rest I figured out myself.
I already told you how Sheriff Gregg would have nothing to do with single women – all single women were whores in his opinion – and how we all reckoned that he must have a thing for married women as a result. A feller gotta get his kicks somewhere, right? But that was mostly just talk. I’m of the opinion that there was only ever one woman in Sheriff Gregg’s life and that woman was Delilah Langtry. Not that this relationship didn’t have its drawbacks, mostly on account of Delilah being nothing more than a figment of Sheriff Gregg’s imagination. But being so meant that Delilah could be as beautiful and as chaste as Sheriff Gregg wanted her to be. Also – real or not – that girl was smart. If Sheriff Gregg had listened to her – well, then things might have turned out a whole heap differently for him.
Then all of a sudden Delilah found out she had a rival. I’d often hear Sheriff Gregg and her arguing about it out on the porch of a Summer evening. Well I could only ever hear Sheriff Gregg. Still I heard enough to know Delilah was one very angry young lady, and who could blame her?
Her rival was Alicia Debenham’s daughter, Clarice. If Charlene Bartlett headed up the Sequestrian Society, then Alicia Debenham was her second-in-command. Not that the two always got on. They were both strong personalities, see. Alicia Debenham was a flinty-eyed blonde ‘round forty who’d kicked her husband out of the marital bed many a long year ago – or so local gossip went – but not before he’d given her a daughter. Clarice was nothing like her mother, and all the better for it. She was a warm, friendly kind of a gal. Of course she had to attend the society meetings too, whether she wanted to or not, on account of her mother – though she didn’t hold with her mother’s beliefs at all.
So you can imagine my surprise when Abigail told me that Clarice had suddenly started showing an interest in Sheriff Gregg. “And what do you mean by that?”
Abigail was a tiny woman the wrong side of sixty with big hair and bright, sharp eyes like a squirrel’s. “Why, playin’ with her curls, batting her eyelashes and so on,” she said.
“Sounds like you’re imaginin’ stuff to me,” I scoffed.
“Don’t be foolish, Charles. A lady knows when another lady is making a play for a gentleman.”
“And Sheriff Gregg? How’s he taking it?”
“I don’t think it ever happened to him before – a girl like Clarice making it plain she’s an interest in him. She’s got him wrapped around her little finger. I reckon the only reason he hasn’t asked her out is that he’s scared of what Delilah might think.”
Not a week later, Abigail came into my store. I never seen her so excited. “You won’t believe what’s happened!” she said.
“And what is that?” I asked.
“The oldest Bartlett boy has only gone and got hisself a girlfriend.”
Well I was up on top a ladder, stacking some tinned goods, and it was all I could do not to fall off. And when I clambered back down, my legs were shaking. “Don’t go playing those sort of pranks on a man of my advanced years, Abigail,” I said. “You’re liable to give him a heart attack.”
“It’s the God’s honest truth.”
“What? That the Bartlett Boy went off and got hisself a girlfriend? Without getting his mammy’s say-so beforehand? That’s crazy talk.”
“It’s true Charles. He even bought her to the society meeting and introduced her to everybody.”
“Well, well,” I said. “What’s she like then?”
“Well she’s from Chicago, a judge’s daughter no less, been studying in some finishing school these last four years and ever so pretty.”
“A judge’s daughter? That should keep Charlene happy anyway.”
“You know what Charlene’s like. I think she’d prefer if Sheriff Gregg asked the girl a few questions only our good sheriff was too busy making eyes at Clarice to pay any attention.”
Well we both had a good laugh about that.
I saw the Bartlett boy out walking with his belle a few times afterwards. She was every bit as pretty as Abigail said, and ever so demure. She wore her black hair tied back real simple and dark, plain clothes and she never looked up from the ground as she walked by Jedd Bartlett’s side. ‘Cept you don’t get to my age without being able to pick out a wrong ‘un, and this new girlfriend of Jedd’s was bad news. I knew that the second I clapped eyes on her.
You reckon I should have gone off and warned Sheriff Gregg and Charlene Bartlett? Would you? Didn’t think so. No sir. I felt a warm glow in my belly like I hadn’t felt since I were a little kid. That girl spelled trouble, only she didn’t spell trouble for me but for people who had it coming. Besides, as far as I was concerned, who Jed went out with was his own business, bad ‘un or not.
Next thing I hear, Jed brings his belle to a society meeting and announces they’re getting engaged. Abigail said Charlene Bartlett nearly had a heart attack. She’d sent a telegram off to Chicago trying to find out as much as she could about her new daughter-in-law but she hadn’t got back a reply as of yet. Abigail saw her having a quick word in Sheriff Gregg’s ear only just as Sheriff Gregg was making his way over to give the bride-to-be a proper grilling, Clarice stopped him and asked if he’d be interested in going for a promenade the following afternoon. By the time the two of them had come to an arrangement, Jed and his girlfriend were long gone.
I was bagging some flour when I heard Sheriff Gregg and Delilah arguing across the road. When I peeked out the window I could see Sheriff Gregg looking even sharper than usual. He had a white carnation in his buttonhole and his boots had been polished until they shone. Only he was stomping up and down that porch, shaking his head and muttering away to himself, his face like a thundercloud. I’d got real good at telling where Delilah was standing and what she was doing just by watching Sheriff Gregg’s carry-on. Right now I knew she must be standing at the far end of the porch with her arms folded, making the same point again and again, if only ‘cos Sheriff Gregg never looked in that direction.
‘We got a telegram the day before yesterday, Delilah,” he was saying. “The girl’s story is true. Every damn word of it. So don’t tell me I’m not doing my job.”
Delilah must have answered him back, because I saw him swing round and stare down the end of that porch with his black eyes ablaze. He’d taken his hat off on account of the heat and I saw he’d greased back his hair too. That man had been bitten by the love bug, and bitten bad. Then he walked right up to her – I could almost see that slim pale, form in her white dress, her beautiful auburn hair tied up with a blue ribbon – shrink back when she saw the rage in his eyes. “I don’t take instructions from no woman,’ he said at last in a low voice, but still loud enough for me to hear him from the other side of the street. “Especially – especially – an imaginary one.”
And with this he stuck his hat back on and went stumping down them steps and out onto the street. A second later, him and Clarice went strolling off, arm-in-arm.
About an hour later Charlene Bartlett came running up to the Sheriff’s office. She banged on that door and when nobody answered it, she sat down on those steps and started bawling and hollering fit to beat the band.
She was still there when Sheriff Gregg got back, even though it was dark by then. Of course it was too late. Jed and his new belle had saddled up two horses and headed off for God-knows-where. Charlene had caught them filling a bag with jewelry from her dresser and done her best to stop them but to no avail. Then she’d come running down to Sheriff Gregg’s office only of course the sheriff hadn’t been around.
Needless to say, Clarice had been in on the whole thing from the start, having been friends with the Bartlett boys since she was little more than a girl. She sure had led Sheriff Gregg a merry dance!
Remember Shotgun Sally, the train-robber? How many trains was it she robbed that year? Five? Six? Nobody knew much about her on account of how she always covered her face with scarf: just that she seemed young and real well-spoken. What most people remember is how she disappeared for a bit then came back, only the second time she’d gone and got herself an accomplice and a whole new career.
The two of them must have robbed every bank between here and Missouri. That boy was a holy terror. They say he was blind as a bat and that if you saw him and Shotgun Sally come into your bank you threw yourself down on the floor quick as you could for fear of getting killed, even if it was only by accident.
In the end they fled across the border with a posse hot on their heels. There must have been deputies and marshals from five different states in that posse, only they never caught Shotgun Sally or the Preacher boy, as he was commonly called. And that was the last anybody heard of them. Nobody ever figured out who they really were, although some people came real close – like that Pinkerton feller who came to our town not two days after Jed and his fiancé ran off, asking all sorts of awkward questions.
Well I figured out who they were. And I reckon Charlene Bartlett did too. Why else did she disband the society and take to her bed like that? Not to mention drinking herself into an early grave? It must have cut real deep, seeing how her eldest and dearest son had turned out.
One thing is sure. She never stopped blaming Sheriff Gregg about the two of them running off like that. Right up to her dying day.
Sheriff Gregg took it real hard – I mean how Clarice had been trifling with his affections. I knew ‘cos I saw women pass to and fro right in front of his porch for at least a week afterwards and he didn’t call any of them whores. Not a single one.
He didn’t seem much inclined to go indoors either, and after a while I got kinda used to the sound of that rocking chair creaking backwards and forwards all hours of the day and night. So much so that when it stopped, I was real surprised. Enough to take a quick peek out my bedroom window.
It was well after dark, but the sheriff had hung an oil lamp from the porch roof. His eyes were in shadow but he was staring across the street like a feller whose dog has just died. Then after a second he reached up like he was abouts to touch his own shoulder, but I knew he was touching a woman’s hand – ‘cos I could just picture Delilah putting her arms around him then stooping down to kiss the top of his hat, same as I could guess what she must be saying to him. And just in case I wasn’t sure, Sheriff Gregg cleared his throat and said: “same as I’ll always be yours, Delilah. You’re the only woman worth a damn in this place, real or not.”
He’d learnt his lesson, see. And now him and Delilah were sweethearts again. That meant no good for the folks living in our town, but you know what? For once I felt kind of glad on his account.