Sheriff Gregg & Madam Midnight

By Hank Florentine McLoskey

Deputy Dawson is a regular patron of Molly O'Neill's bawdy house - until Sheriff Gregg gets a letter from the mysterious 'Madam Midnight'...absurdist,'Wild West' short story, the fourth in the 'Sheriff Gregg' series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hank Florentine McLoskey
• Release date: Nov 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465934475

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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