The Alpha’s Love
Chico found the woman for him the day he came to town. She had plenty of meat on her bones and a big heart to match. He didn’t even have to assume his bear form to find the love she had to offer.
He’d made the trip alone every year. The men of his clan once migrated with the Grizzly Bears into the hills of the Rocky Mountains. They had followed the big creatures, no one knew how long they had been doing it, and no one cared. It was their way. The bears supplied them with food and pelts. They admired the huge animals.
To earn a place as a man, he’d killed a bear with a spear, all the young man had to do it and not show fear. Chico had tracked the beast across the forest where he battled it to the death. But, in its dying eyes, Chico saw something: he saw the man who the bear had been. And he was cursed by the bear as it died to take his place. During the light of the full moon he would become a bear and hunt as one. If he died, he would die as a bear. It had been this way for centuries.
But he couldn’t die unless he found someone to take his place. Chico had never found someone to curse with his condition. It didn’t matter how bad the person might be in real life. It had to be someone who would slay him while Chico was in bear form. Few people wanted to go anywhere near him as a bear. And so he waited until the time was right.
He prowled around the town of Grizzly Gulch the final night of his bear form. The hunting was good and no one would go near him. A few hunters had stalked him, but Chico had avoided them. They weren’t the kind of people who needed to have his affliction. So he waited until it was time for the moon to shift.
He woke to find himself naked in a grove of trees. Good, he had re-transformed back to a human with no interference. Chico had learned where were the best places to do this and would leave his human clothes hidden away. He stood up and walked over to the rock cavity where he’d stashed his clothes and money. In a few minutes he had his poncho and hat on, the boots he slipped on a few minutes later. The pistol was still in good shape. He’d taken it off a confederate officer ten years ago at the first battle of Mesilla. The officer hadn’t needed it anymore.
His boots crunching the ground, Chico walked into the main street of the former mining town. Grizzly Gulch had been a big town when the gold was plentiful, but it had run out. Most of the miners had moved on, looking for new fields to prospect. All that remained were a few hold outs and plenty of boarded up wooden store fronts. There was still the saloon and sheriff’s office, but most the other business were getting out.
It resembled any number of other places he’d visited on his travels over the past hundred years. Men with no luck trying to find the one strike which would pay for a lifetime of disappointment. The Europeans had driven his tribe out of the valleys, but he remained. He was feared by his former tribe and the new settlers left him alone. There was always another war which needed guns, men didn’t ask too many questions when they needed bodies to toss against the enemy. He couldn’t be killed by conventional means and few people knew it took a silver bullet. There was always the problem of how to explain his absence during the full moon, but during the heat of battle anything could happen.
He was thirsty after all the walking. A horse would’ve been nice to have, but how do you find someone to care for it while you’re in bear form? So Chico had accepted his fate a long time ago. Until the curse was lifted, he would travel the world alone. At least it couldn’t be passed on to children: he was barren.
He noticed her while passing the sheriff’s office. It was small and wooden, just like a thousand frontier law offices he’d seen before. Chico stopped for a minute to look at the law man standing on the porch. He was tall, about six feet and hefty, not someone he’d want to engage even in his other shape. Then Chico looked again: the sheriff was a woman. He stopped dead in his tracks.
“You have a problem stranger?” the sheriff asked in a definite female voice. She stood there in her canvas pants and cowboy boots looking at him. She wore a gun belt and carried a shot gun. Her shirt was cut for a man, but the badge was almost obscured by her cleavage. She took off her hat and a rain of brown curls fell out.
“I think,” Chico said, “this is the first time I’ve ever seen a woman as a sheriff.”
“Keep moving or it will be your last,” she snapped at him. “I don’t need problems with drifters. You have a reason to be in this town?”
“No, ma’am, I am just passing through. I was headed over to the saloon to get a drink. I will be on my way as soon as my thirst has been satisfied.”
“I’ll expect you out of town by sundown,” she told him.
“I will comply. But if you are in need of some help around the jail I would be more than happy to…”
“Just keep moving.”
Chico was in heaven and had no way to show it. Countless possibilities played through his head as he walked to the saloon. All of them involved the sheriff and himself. In most of them she kept the boots on. The jail cell featured prominently, with leg irons provided.
The saloon had seen better days, much like the town itself. Chico walked through the swinging doors and looked at the inside. The roulette wheel might’ve seen some use in the past year, but he doubted it. There was a piano, but no one to play it. The stairs leading to the second floor were falling apart and there was a lack of women in the place anyway. Other than the cowboys playing cards by themselves at the table near the front, no patrons were evident at all. He looked again and saw a man polishing glasses behind the bar, but there weren’t too many bottles to pour from. Another glance showed three men in suits at the far end of the bar, but they weren’t drinking.
Chic walked up to the bar, his boots clumping loudly on the floor and echoing all over the empty saloon. The bartender, excited for a customer quit polishing the glasses and put his hands on the counter. Chic walked up to him and tossed his poncho back.
“What will you have, mister?” the bartender asked.
“Beer,” Chico responded. “I just want to take the dust out of my throat. I’ve been on the trail for too many days.”
The bartender filled a mug and handed it to him.
“House specialty. Until it all runs out and I have to close the place.”
“Business bad?” Chico asked.
“Terrible. Ever since the gold ran out. The prospectors never did find all that much. I’m about ready to close this place down and move on. You want to buy it?”
“Sorry,” Chico apologized. “I was never much of a businessman myself. Thanks for the offer.”
He tipped the mug back and enjoyed the sensation of the warm beer as it rinsed his throat.
Just then he over heard a commotion at the table where the cowboys were sitting. An argument had broken out over someone’s war record. Given the veterans from both sides of the Late Unpleasantness roaming the west, it was bound to happen. Chico had tried to avoid any discussion of his record. He’d been in plenty of battles, but sooner or later someone would start to wonder how he’d survived so many engagements. He’d already had to deal with a former officer who accused him of desertion. How do you explain to your commander you had to leave because the moon had turned full?
The cowboy was absolutely certain the union army had turned tail and ran at Chickamauga Creek. He was convinced the only reason the southern army hadn’t obliterated the union was confederate general Longstreet’s compassion in allowing the union army to retreat to Chattanooga.
“There I was,” he bragged. “I was telling General Longstreet the yankees were on the run and we could finish them off. But he said not to and waits till another day. We shoulda taken them all out when we had a chance.”
The other cowboys murmured an approval and sipped their drinks.
“You wouldn’t have had a chance with our Spencer rifles,” Chico said. He’d materialized out of nowhere near the table and was standing right next to the cowboys. “We would have ripped your Johnny Reb guts right of your shirts and mailed them to Jeff Davis.”
The cowboy swerved around and glared at Chico. He looked a lot more mature at a distance. From up close, Chico could see he wasn’t older than eighteen.
“Are you calling me a liar, yank?” the cowboy said as he started to rise up from the table. His friends had ceased drinking and were slowly moving their hands in a downward motion.
“No, I am not,” Chico said. “To be a liar you would have had to have been there. The war ended ten years ago, cowpoke. The only war you were fighting was in your pants.”
The cowboy jumped up from the table and whipped out his pistol. Before he could scream his rebel yell, Chico had shot the pistol out of his hand. Then Chico pointed both of his revolvers in the direction of the cowboy’s friends.
“I think you all have had enough excitement for one night, amigos. Just get your friend and get out of here.”
Grumbling, the cowboys grabbed their loud-mothed buddy, still holding his bleeding hand, and backed out the door. They yelled a few threats at him, but did nothing. Chico waited until he heard the sound of their horses leaving town before returning to the bar.
The bartender was staring in disbelief at Chico and holding a fresh mug.
“On the house,” he said. “I was fixing to call the sheriff about that bunch.”
Chico laughed and tossed back the second beer. He handed the bartender a stack of silver dollars.
“Here. Maybe you’ll have better luck when you open your next place.”
Chico started to walk out the door when he heard a voice behind him.
“You looking for a job, mister?”
He turned around to find himself facing the three well-dressed men who were at the end of the bar when he’d came in the door. They looked to be about fifty years old apiece and as wealthy as the local economy would allow. He’d encountered their types before: men with just enough cash to feel rich in a crappy town.
“I might,” Chico replied. “Did you have something in mind?”
“Why don’t we sit down at the table the cowpokes were using and talk about it?” one of the men said to him.
They walked over to the table as a group, pulled out the chairs and sat down.
“So what do you gentleman want to talk about?” Chico asked.
“Let us all introduce,” a man with a white mustache began. “I’m Shane Michaels, the mayor around here.
“I’m Tom Wetzer, I own the only bank in town,” said a man in a vest and suspenders.
“Dave,” the final man introduced. “Dave Winters. I run what’s left of the general store.”
“Chico. Just call me Chico; it’s all you need to know. Now let’s get down to business. I assume this has something to do with the way I handled those fakes?”
“It was some mighty fine shooting!” the mayor exclaimed. “I’m always glad to see a man who knows how to use a gun.”
“I know my way around one,” Chico answered. “Did you have need of my services?”
“Well…” Tom Wetzer started to say, “We do and we don’t. We still have s sheriff in town.”
The three men across from Chico broke out in laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Chico asked. “I saw your sheriff as I came into town and she strikes me a woman with a lot to love, if you understand what I mean.”
This provoked more laughter from across the table.
“Oh, Mary Ann is a right fine lady,” Dave Winters tried to say with a straight face. “And I think she takes her job a little too seriously.”
“The problem is,” the mayor began, “there isn’t a lot left in this town to justify keeping a sheriff. She’s always on the lookout for troublemakers, but they’ve all moved elsewhere. We probably would never have replaced the last sheriff, God rest his soul, but she was sure she could find the man who killed him.”
“Her father was the last sheriff,” Winters explained. “He was a good man; just made somebody upset and was shot one night locking up his office. She came back from the east and swore to find the man who did it. We couldn’t think of anything else to do, so we made her sheriff.”
“You still haven’t told me what you want,” Chico stated.
Tom Wetzer became serious and looked around to make sure the bartender wasn’t listening.
“I’m fixing to move the money in the bank out of town in a few weeks,” he told Chico. “There’s no reason to keep it around here in this dying town. I’m going to be opening up a new bank in a city with a future.”
“You want to hire me as a bank guard?”
“No,” he continued. “I want you to prevent something. I’ve had word the Brownington boys are headed this way; they might be here in the next few weeks.”
The Brownington gang was a band of thieves who had been robbing banks all over the southwest for the past two years. Consisting of war veterans, there were three of them and they all knew how to use guns. The Texas Rangers were supposedly closing in on the gang, but no one knew where they might strike next.
“We need you to stop them before they get to town,” the mayor told him. “If Tom can move his gold in the bank out of town, it won’t be a problem. They’ll show up and find an empty bank. But we can’t risk them getting their hands on the bank deposits. We’re all investors in the bank and will lose everything we have if they show up before it’s moved.”
“What about the sheriff?”
More laughter at the table.
“I see,” Chico said. “You want me as insurance to make sure you don’t get robbed. You don’t trust one woman against those desperados.”
“Not the kinds of odds I would bet on,” the mayor answered.
“But,” the mayor continued. “We would like you to help the sheriff.”
‘Yes, that would be a good idea,” said Tom.
“Help, how?” asked Chico.
“We’re the town council and we’ve just officially hired you as her deputy,” Dave informed him.
He tossed Chico a star and wad of cash.
“Here are all the credentials you will need. And advance payment.”
“Oh, one more thing,” the mayor said.
Here it comes, Chico thought. The real reason.
“Should something happen to the sheriff if those bandits show up,” the mayor told him, “we would understand.”
“Bullets fly, people get hurt,” Dave noted.
“We might even increase you pay rate at the end of the contract,” Tom stated. “Unofficially, you understand.”
“How much are we talking?” Chico asked.
The mayor tossed out a sum.
“Double it and half in advance,” Chico told them.
The trio looked at each other and fished some cash out of their pockets. Chico counted the money.
“Always a pleasure doing business with such outstanding citizens,” he said to them. “Now why don’t you go and introduce me to the sheriff?”
“I need a what?” Sheriff Mary Ann yelled at the town council when they presented Chico. “I thought you were threatening to cut my budget last month!”
“We’ve reconsidered, sheriff,” the mayor told her. “You were right; those cowboys can cause a lot of trouble when they hit the saloon. We think you might need some help.”
“Are you trying to tell me I can’t do the job?” She snapped at them from across her desk. “Do you recall last month when I forced the Baxters to hand over the loot from the stage coach?”
“Yes we do, ma’am,” Tom Wexler told her. “And we remember what almost happened.”
“I had the cuffs on all of them when their pap showed up,” she slammed her fist down on the table. “He didn’t last five minutes when I pulled him off the horse.”
“I could last a good twenty,” Chico said to her, smiling.
“Watch your mouth, butternut,” she snapped at him.
“And you mean to tell me you went all the way to Tucson for this ‘deputy’?” she thundered at the town council. “I saw him walk into town. Without a horse! How did he get here on foot so quickly?”
“You’d be surprised just how fast I can be,” Chico smirked again.
“One more time, mister and you will be cleaning out the pig sty,” she said, her face in his.
“Now sheriff, please try to get along with the new man,” the mayor said to her. “We’ll leave and let the two of you get better acquainted.”
The town council adjourned and left the office.
“The best thing you can do,” the sheriff told Chico, “is to stay out of my way.”
“You want me to polish you boots, ma’am?” Chico asked her, trying to hide the smirk on his face.
“I’m going to tell you this one time and one time only,” she said backing him up to the wall, “do not piss me off.”
Sheriff Mary Ann towered over Chico a good five inches in her boots. Chico didn’t care. The breasts aimed at him were taller than that if when she was lying down. But right now all he could see was a silver star on a shirt shoved into his face. Lord, where did they make women this big? He had to go find out and order one just for him!
“Whatever you want me to do, ma’am,” he said. “I am just an honest sojourner hired to keep the peace in this town. You tell me what to do and I will do it.”
“Sit down,” the sheriff told him and pointed to a chair. Chico did as instructed. The sheriff took the one across the office by her desk.
“I don’t know who you are and it would take me too long to find out,” she began. “Since the town council hired you, there isn’t much I can do. I suspect they hired you to keep an eye on me. I don’t really care, so long as you don’t get in the way. But get one thing straight: you work for me.”
“I offered to polish your boots.”
“Enough with the jokes!”
“I wasn’t joking.”
The sheriff had a thought.
“You got pistol, pilgrim?”
Chico withdrew his revolver and showed it to her. He also tossed the poncho away from his gun belt so she could see the bullets. It was made of tooled leather and he’d picked it up in old Mexico.
“Alright,” she said. “Time for a little target practice. We’re going out back on the range and see if you can shoot straight.”
“The pistol?” Chico asked. “Oh yeah it shoots straight too. I’ve got something else under my belt that shoots….”
Chico found himself propelled across the room by the sheriff’s slap. He landed back in the same chair he’d been using. He coughed, the wind having been knocked out of him. This was a hard woman not to love. He wondered if he would ever be able to leave this town.
He looked up to see the sheriff holding a revolver of her own and pointing it straight at him.
“All I have to do is say you met with an accident while training, understand?”
Chico picked himself up off the floor and followed the sheriff outside the wooden office and combination jail she occupied. The town ended behind it and there were a few targets, bottles and cans sprawled around on the ground. It was getting late, but they still had some sun light.
“I’m going to call out something and you’re going to shoot it, alright?” she said to him.
“With my gun? If not I’ll need get my pants down.”
Slap! Hard against the face. She has one big ring finger Chico thought.
“You see that can off the side of the lot, smart ass?”
“Yes, ma’am.” His face was still hurting.
“Put a hole in it and stop calling me ma’am.”
Before she could say another word the can was flying through the air and Chico was holding a smoking gun.
“I do good, Ma- I mean sheriff?” he asked.
The sheriff was stunned. She hadn’t seen this idiot even pull the gun out of his holster. Maybe he was just lucky.
“The jar on the fence.”
It exploded into a cloud of crystal before the words had left her mouth.
“The shoe right in front.”
It went sailing through the air.
She cocked her head. Maybe this fool had some skills after all.
“Okay,” she continued. “I’m going to show you what I can do, let’s see you do better.”
She tossed a handful of coins up in the air and hit three of them directly as they fell to the ground. Then she tossed five nickel up into the sky.
“Now!” she yelled.
All five went spiraling through the air from a single shot each on their way down.
“Did you want to see anything else Sheriff?” Chico asked. “I can show you some more but I would have to have the city reimburse me for the ammunition.”
“No,” she said, “let’s go back inside.”
They returned to the office and sat down. The sheriff reached into her desk and pulled out a bottle. She took out two shot glasses. With the bottle she poured herself a drink.
“You want one?” she asked.
“As long as you’re offering,” he answered.
She poured him one too and passed the glass to Chico.
“To law and order,” she said raising the glass.
“Law and order,” Chico repeated as they both drank their whisky in one gulp.
“I didn’t catch your name, deputy,” she said to him.
“Chico,” he responded. “Everyone calls me Chico.”
Or at least they had for the past hundred years.
“Well, Deputy Chico,” she said, “that was some mighty fine shooting. I haven’t seen anyone handle a gun like that since my own father, God rest his soul, was sheriff.”
Chico tried not to smile. She was comparing him to her own father whom it was plain to see she respected. It all made his job so much easier. He mentally calculated how fast it would take him to get her boots off, but he had plenty of time to work on it. He’d made his interest in her at the start, so have to go slow. He hadn’t slept on a bed in a long time and pondered if one came with the job. He’d need a nice long one for the both of them.
“I understand your father was the sheriff of this metropolis before you took over,” Chico stated.
“He kept the place from going to hell and paid for it with his life!” the sheriff said, slamming the glass down. The drink had hit her hard. “And that town council knows more than they are telling!”
Nothing to argue about there, Chico thought.
“I just can’t prove it,” she went on, “but I’m getting close and when I do….”
The sheriff became quiet, thinking and staring out the window. Chico saw her jaw set and a look of pure hatred come into her eye as something very horrible was being replayed in her mind. Best not to talk to her at the exact moment. Let her work it out on her own.
And then she came back to earth. The sheriff turned to Chico.
“Do you have a place to sleep tonight?”
Was she making an offer already?
“No I just got into town. I thought about seeing if the saloon would rent me a spot. Doesn’t seem like they have much business over there.”
“You can sleep in one of the empty cells,” she told him. “It gives me an excuse for going home and I don’t have to worry about being waked in the middle of the night over some stupid cow poke getting in a fight.”
“I’ll leave you the keys to the cell and gun rack,” she told him. “I probably shouldn’t be doing it so early, but the council hired you and if something goes wrong it will be their damn fault not mine.”
Chico glanced out the window and noticed very few people wondering about.
“Doesn’t seem like you have much to worry about.”
“We don’t,” she said. “Which is just the problem; almost everyone with any sense has left this town. Once the mines went bust all the prospectors left. Then all the people who supplied the prospectors. All we have left are the local ranchers and they don’t come into town enough to keep the streets dirty.”
Chico thought the situation over. Why would the town council want him to eliminate the sheriff if the town was falling off the map? He understood why they wanted the gang taken out who might be after the gold, but why were they so bothered by the sheriff? Especially if they thought she was a big joke?
“There is still the bank,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve had your share of robbery attempts.”
“We did until the crooks figured out there was nothing in it to steal,” she laughed. “Tom Wetzer has been talking about starting another bank someplace else. Can’t say I blame the old chiseler.”
Nothing to steal? It wasn’t what the bank president had told him earlier. He was worried the gold in the bank would go missing before he moved it.
“The only problems we ever have are from drunk cowboys riding into town to drink their earnings away,” she told him. “You get some fire water into those boys and all hell breaks loose. As a matter of fact I just saw some of them flying out of town before you came in here with the council. I heard a gunshot before that, so I would normally head over to the saloon and see if there was a problem.”
“But,” she concluded, “seeing as how you and them just came from the saloon, there couldn’t have been trouble or someone would’ve said something. Was there any trouble?”
“No, none to worry about,” he answered. Which was the gospel truth.
The next few weeks saw Chico backing up the sheriff the few times he was needed. Mostly it was to provide assistance in breaking up fights between cowboys at the declining saloon. They would let them sleep off the drink in the cell and boot them out of town the next morning. So far Chico had been able to sleep in an empty cell each night. The jail had been constructed with four holding cells and no more than two were ever occupied.
Trying to find a way into the sheriff’s grace was another problem. Chico still had the stigma of being hired by the council in her eyes which meant he couldn’t be trusted. The council had not contacted him since offering him the job and no outlaws had appeared trying to rob the gold assets the bank wasn’t supposed to have. After the hand slap, Chico decided on a less direct approach. The moon wouldn’t be hitting the full moon cycle for another two weeks and he still had some time. If nothing happened when he transitioned into bear, Chico would have to move on. Too many questions to answer if he returned to this town within the next few years.
One day, a week into the job, he was cleaning out some old files for the sheriff. There was a stack of outdated wanted posters she wanted him to take out and burn since they were taking up space in the corner of the office. Some had been left over from when her father was sheriff. Chico was in the process of dumping them in a hole he’d dug out by the firing range when one of the posters caught his eye. He fished it out of the pile and looked at it.
It was for a notorious bank robber called Blue Bush and listed the description of the bandit. The reward was considerable and the offer was dead or alive. The man had killed quite a few people in his drive to loot ten banks in the territory. It was dated ten years back and decorated with a crude drawing at the top.
A drawing which resembled Tom Wetzer the bank president. Chico looked at the poster again and scratched off the mustache from the drawing. The resemblance was too close. Either Wetzer had a brother who robbed banks or the bank president had been making unscheduled withdrawals of rival banks years ago.
He burned it with the others.
The following day Chico decided to make a quick visit to the saloon. He hadn’t been in except for official calls since the first night he’d visited the place. Wearing his bright deputy badge over his poncho, Chick strolled into the saloon and went up to the bartender. After ordering the beer, he made sure the town council was in their usual location at the end of the bar.
“Is that your only set of clothes?” the bartender asked him. “I don’t seem to recall you wearing anything else since you’ve been in town.”
“It gets washed every week,” Chico informed him. “And yes it is all I have until the town decides to increase my salary.”
He knocked back the beer and looked back at where the town council was meeting every day. This time the council had decided to relocate their venue to his end of the bar.
“How are you getting along with the sheriff?” the bank president asked him. “She giving you any trouble?”
“None I can’t handle,” Chico answered.
“Good,” the mayor said next. “We have word from outside the town that the gang we were telling you about might be here very soon. Just thought you’d want to know.”
“The sheriff doesn’t trust me,” Chico explained. “They think I’m your man.”
Dave Winters, the store owner, looked at the bartender who was getting too close with his cleaning rag.
“Don’t you have something else to do?” he asked the bartender.
The bartender took the hint and wandered out back.
“I just can’t understand,” Chico said as he finished his beer. “Why the gang would be interested in a bank which doesn’t have much money in it.”
“It’s none of your concern how much is in my bank,” Tom Wetzer growled a few inches from Chico’s face. “Just you make sure no one interferes with it.”
“As for the sheriff,” the mayor said. “We’ve made some other arrangements. Don’t be concerned about her.”
“What are you talking about?” Chico said, slamming the mug down.
“We think you’re getting a little too close to her,” the bank president commented. “So we don’t want you forgetting about our other offer.”
“She’s going to run into some problems tomorrow,” the mayor told him. “You just look the other way, understand? When it’s all over, you’ll have the sheriff job too.”
“I understand,” Chico said. “How are you planning to do it?”
“Not your problem,” the mayor told him. “We’ve taken care of it. Alright?”
“I understand,” Chico said wiping his mouth. “I get to be the sheriff after it happens.”
“Correct.”
He thanked them and left the saloon. As Chico walked out he noticed the bartender glaring at him from the side of the saloon. Maybe they all weren’t crooks in this town, Chico thought, but no one was going to stand up to that town council.
The next day Chico woke early and unlocked the office. Right on schedule the sheriff rode in and tied her horse to the post in front of the office. She walked in and took off her hat, her hair falling over her shoulders. She went to her desk while braiding her hair back and looked at Chico.
“Any trouble last night, deputy?” she asked him.
“None at all, sheriff,” he replied. None he could do anything about at the present. But there was going to be some trouble real soon.
The morning passed without any incidents. The mail was dropped off and the rider took off for the next destination. Sheriff Mary Jane sorted through the letters, putting the ones she wanted to read on her desk. Chico polished his revolver and waited.
Toward the afternoon there came a loud sound outside the office in the direction of the town center. The sheriff grumbled something about another useless cowboy and tossed the door open. Chico said nothing and followed her.
In the center of town a stage coach had broken a wheel from colliding with a cart belonging to a local farmer. The coachman and the farmer were yelling at each other, trying to blame somebody. It was starting to draw a crowd of the few people still living in Grizzly Gulch. The sheriff started walking to the scene of the accident, resigning herself to calming the two drivers down. Chico followed three steps behind her, glancing around the street and at the second floor windows. It was too convenient.
The rider came thundering out of a side street right in the direction of the sheriff. Chico saw him just in time. He had a handkerchief pulled over his face and his hat slouched down to cover his eyes. He was headed out of the sun where the sheriff wouldn’t be able to see him in time. The whole incident had been carefully planned. Chico pondered over how many people were involved when he pulled out his revolver.
Both the rider and Chico fired at the same time. Chico’s bullet struck the rider between the eyes and the rider’s shot hit the sheriff in the left arm. Chico could see the blood flow from her bicep as the rider flew off the back of the horse. The crowd turned from the accident and ran to the source of the gunshots.
As Chico worked to stop the bleeding, several people went to the dead rider and turned him over. They looked at the body and shook their heads.
“Who would want to hurt the sheriff?” somebody finally said.
“Does anyone know who he is?” the sheriff yelled through the pain of her wound.
No one had ever seen the rider before. He was a complete stranger. They all walked away. Someone said the undertaker should be called.
Chico looked in the direction of the saloon as he helped the sheriff back to her office. The town council was glaring at him from the under the eaves with pure hatred. The bartender was smiling from one of the second floor windows.
Chico managed to get the sheriff back to her house. He put her on her horse, after locking the office and walked her to the edge of town where the house her parents had lived in for many years was located. He had enough training from the wars on taking care of wounds and knew how to clean one out and dress it. While the sheriff swore, he tied her arm down the kitchen table and dug out the bullet. Next he poured enough whisky down her throat and over the wound to take care of the pain and infection. He ripped up her shirt and used it to keep the bleeding under control. She fought him every step of the way, but Chico had more strength than he let on. At one point she reared back to strike him while he cut the bullet out and Chico grabbed her fist, putting it down slowly.
A few townspeople came by and checked on her. By then Chico had put her to bed and let everyone see she was in good shape. He informed them the office would be closed for the next few days. When one older lady asked what to do if there was any trouble in town, he told her to talk to the mayor.
The town council was absent through the sheriff’s recovery. Chico watched over her through the night, making sure she would be fine. By the next morning the sheriff was moving around and her arm was healing. Chico didn’t tell her he knew of a few herbs to generate quick recovery. A few more things he’d learned over the years while traveling. Two days later the sheriff was looking at the arm and commenting how quickly the wound had closed.
Chico was looking at the sky that evening. In a few days it would be the full moon and he had to make plans.
The next day Chico told the sheriff she should allow him to clean her up. The sheriff had been wearing a night gown since he brought her home and not her usually riding clothes. Chico finally got her to agree when he told her it would help speed up the healing. He didn’t tell her that she was almost healed already.
Chico filled he bath tub with hot water he boiled in a washtub over a fire behind the sheriff’s house. He told her when it was ready and went to a different part of the house to allow her to get into the tub. She might be the sheriff but she was still modest.
He came into the kitchen where the tub had been arranged after allowing her a few minutes to get comfortable. Chico carried with him a bowl, washes rag, towels and a bar of lye soap he had found in the cupboard.
The sheriff was still wearing her night gown in the tub.
“How am I going to wash you if you are clothed?” he asked.
“You want to see me without my clothes?” she demanded.
“I really don’t see any other way to clean you.”
She pulled off the nightgown, now wet and tossed it at him. Chico grabbed it and put it on the kitchen table to dry. Then he returned to the sheriff.
Chico rolled up his shirt sleeves, noticing how she tried to hide herself by covering her breasts. He made his best effort not to smile and began soaping up the rag with water from the bowel. Getting on his knees to her level, Chico began to slowly wash her back. She needed it after being out sick from the bullet wound. Feeling her relax he worked on her neck and arms, being careful to avoid the area where the bullet had entered. It was almost healed, but no reason to push his luck.
She stood up in the tub and let him clean each leg, and then he worked on her feet. She sat down and held each one up, letting him work it as best as he could. He even washed her long hair. By the end, she was very relaxed. Chico put a towel around her as she stood up again and led her to the bedroom. He had put clean sheets on the bed for her and, after he had dried her off, let the sheriff lay down.
She pulled the sheet over her body and looked up at Chico.
“Are you feeling better, sheriff?” he asked her.
“I am feeling lonely, deputy,” she responded. “Now why don’t you get your clothes off and make the sheriff happy?”
Chico nearly tripped over his boots getting them off. He’d prepared for this possibility by getting a bath earlier in the day while she was asleep. The sheriff propped herself up on her good arm while Chico pulled off his pants and slid under the sheets with her.
He began rubbing her back and waited for the sheriff to move his hands over her breasts. Taking care to avoid her wounded area, he pulled her mouth to his and began kissing the sheriff all over her face. She reached down with her good arm and grabbed him.
“I see this gun is loaded,” she giggled.
He stayed on his side and maneuvered the sheriff so he could enter her from the back. She was soaking wet when he thrust inside her and heard her let out a cry of joy as he went in deep. She was a big woman with a lot to love. Chico wished she’d kept her boots on, but it wasn’t practical. He’d also wanted to be under her when the time came to make love, but the bullet wound made it impossible. He growled as his bear side manifested itself in his rough lovemaking.
The sheriff loved it. She begged for him not to stop and he could feel the oncoming rush of her climax. When it hit she gushed all over him. Chico was surprised; he hadn’t had a woman do that to him in a long time. He finished soon after and pulled out, moving his head to the side of hers. They laid together in silence for a long time.
“I was afraid you’d be a virgin, sheriff,” he told her. She wasn’t.
‘Had my share of loving back east,” she told him. “And quit calling me ‘sheriff’. Any man who has been inside me can use my name.”
‘I’ve wanted to be with you the first moment I saw you, Sheriff Mary Jane,” he called her. “I’m going to have to leave soon, but I want to come back to you next month.”
She put her arm around Chico and kissed him.
“All you cowboys are alike,” she said. “Ride your cowgirl and move on to the next one.”
“I’m not like that.”
She snorted. And Chico remembered it was time to prove it.
“The town council wants you dead,” he told her.
“What?” she said, turning to him.
And he told her everything. About them conspiring to get rid of her. Telling him how they were going to handle things. And how the rider had to be part of the plot.
“But why?” she said moving him to her chest, “Why would they? Unless they think I’ve found a way to prove they were involved in my father’s death.”
“The bank president. I think he’s some kind of former outlaw. If he is the other members of the town council may also be crooks.” He told her about finding the poster.
“That would figure,” she said while hugging him, “an entire town council made of former outlaws. And it would explain the bank’s deposits being higher than they should be.”
“Correct,” Chico said, “Wetzer doesn’t want it known he has too much money in the bank. People will start to question how he came by it. And then they’ll start putting things together.”
“Don’t know what to do,” she sighed. “The whole town seems in their pocket. It’s just you and me. Oh, honey, you’ll need to stop that or we won’t get any sleep.”
They did it a few more times before dozing off. As he drifted into the land of night, Chico had a plan.
“So these are supposed to be the Brownington gang?” the sheriff asked Chico as she looked through the spy glass at the group of men camped on the trail into town.
“It’s what we’re meant to think,” Chico corrected her. “Why don’t you have a look at them closer?”
The sheriff adjusted the spy glass and had another look.
“I see some hard men who have been riding the trail all…hey! Those are badges they’re wearing!”
“Right. They’re Texas Rangers. We were supposed to think they were outlaws.”
“But why?”
“So the bank manager and his buddies can leave town with the all the gold he stole over the years that is stashed in his bank vault. With you out of the way, they’d have me believe the rangers were a gang trying to rob the bank instead of lawmen getting back his stolen loot.”
“Those bastards,” she growled. “The same reason they had my father killed.”
“Why Sheriff Mary Jane,” Chico exclaimed, “such words coming out of your mouth!”
They were over the ridge looking at the party which had camped out on the road into town. The sheriff had her horse, but Chico was traveling on foot as usual.
They embraced each other and kissed. He was glad no one was around to see them. What he had to do was hard enough without having the sheriff to be reminded daily of her lover who had skipped town.
“I have to go now,” he whispered into her ear. “I’ll be back in a few months’ time, but I don’t expect you to wait for me.”
She pushed him away.
“Just like every other man,” she said, turning away so he couldn’t see her tears.
“I know this is hard for you,” Chico said, “but you are the only one who can do what needs to be done. The crooks who are trying to leave town with their stolen money will be ready to go. I’ve checked. They started loading up the minute I shot the assassin they hired. By now they’ll be ready to leave. I can’t go stop them. You’ll have to go down and tell the rangers what is going on.”
She still wouldn’t turn around and look at him.
Chico went up to her and tried to put his arms around her from behind. She knocked them away.
“Mary Jane,” he said, “you may not believe this right now and I wouldn’t hold it against you if you didn’t.”
“I love you,” he whispered into her ear. He could feel her starting to cry.
“You have to be strong for us both. I’m going to hold those thieves off on the other side of town. Don’t ask me how, but I will. You have to come up the rear with the rangers.”
Chico kissed her on the cheek and walked away into the bush. He could hear her trying to stop the tears as he left. He hated himself, but there was no time to explain what would happen when the moon went up in a few hours.
When the sheriff and the rangers collared the fleeing town council the next day, they were amazed at how little resistance they put up. The rangers had expected a full blown gun battle with the gang, but the outlaws were actually glad to see them show up. When the sheriff and rangers came over the hill they found the wagons used for hauling the gold in a circle with the former town council inside it, guns ready. They tossed out the guns the moment the law arrived and begged for mercy.
“Thank God you are here!” the former mayor cried out. “I thought we were dead for sure!”
The sheriff looked at them with puzzlement.
“Why are you still here?” she asked. “I was certain you’d be all the way to Reno by now.”
“The bear!” cried the former bank president. “It’s out there! It came at us last night! You’ve got to help us, nothing can stop the bear!”
“Bear?” one of the rangers said. “What bear? I don’t see any bear around.”
“He’s out there!” screamed the former store owner. “He wouldn’t let us go last night. I emptied my entire pistol into him point blank! You’ve got to stop him!”
No bear was ever found by the rangers, although they did see some scratches on trees indicating something very large had been near the wagons. The town council was hauled off to the territorial prison where they spent the next ten years raving about a supernatural bear.
The sheriff returned to town where she served the honest citizens the rest of her life, although she never married. However, it was rumored she entertained a gentleman caller once a month who had been her deputy.
THE END