I have a solo skit I'm working on where I need to be able to trigger my own short sound clips and have them automatically stop at the end of each clip and be ready to play the next one right after that. I'm thinking it will be similar to having drum kit pieces assigned to notes on a midi keyboard only the sound clips/wav files are various lengths.
What can I use for this?
The clips are very short 1 to 6 seconds each. I won't be able hit stop once a clip starts playing and it will be very awkward if I have to change something on a midi controller or computer keyboard in order to play the next clip. I'll need to be able to hit Play on the keyboard or hit a note on the midi controller to play and then automatically stop.
Best I have for now is using my DAW Reaper and having the clips/items lined up with markers so I can hit space bar/play, space bar/stop then hit the numbers at the top of the keyboard to jump to the marker I need and hit play and stop again. But, like I said, I need my hands and feet free once I play/trigger any one of the samples/wav files. Reaper doesn't have a keyboard shortcut/Action for play then autostop without going back to my cursor position, as far as I can tell.
Maybe a stand alone sampler I can load my own files into? I tried SampleTank3 but it seems either my files are too long or some other issue. It only plays the very first wav file on each midi controller note in the group of 4 trial wav files I tested with although each wav file starts with a different note name.
Anyone here got any cleaver ideas?

Depends on how many short sounds you need.

You could make a soundfont and use a small keyboard to trigger from the laptop. Then you can assign any sample to any MIDI note.

Most sample players would allow this.

Or you could use a real keyboard/synth. Many allow loading wave files via USB and creating patches (like drums) that assign different samples to different notes.

Or maybe even set your system to use a certain software as default for sounding wave files and create a bunch of keyboard shortcuts to open given wave files.
This last one would likely have a delay before sounding though.

I've never used sound fonts. Can a sound font be 6 seconds long? Do you know of a sound font player that is capable assigning a midi note or keyboard short cut to a single 6 second font and have it play the font once only then be ready to play the next font via midi note or keyboard short cut?

Pretty much all of them, if I follow you.
A sound font is a collection of samples arranged in patches/MIDI note assignments.
How they behave is determined by the sound font setup.
Drum patch sound fonts play a different sample for every MIDI note, so seems like this would likely work well in this situation.

Tracktion DAW built in sampler would work but you would have to hit different keys on a keyboard. There's a setting so that it's a one-shot, not a looped playback.

Another option is a footswitch enabled app to play back songs. Your songs will be REALLY short.

Try googling the footswitch option. I think you can probably even set up media player to work this way with a play list and a transcriptionist's USB foot pedal.

Thanks for the suggestions but I finally got it to work in Reaper.
ReaSamploMatic5000 does it for me. Using info from only the first half of Kenny Gioia's video "Trigger a Drum Sample using ReaGate". I set up 4 tracks with ReaSamploMatic5000 as a plug in on each track. Imported individual .wav files (Actually used "import item from arrangement" to each instance/track plug in of ReaSamploMatic5000 . Set the midi start note and end note to be the same notes, Start C-3 and End C-3 for my first sample/track. Start D-3 and End D-3 for my second sample/track, and so on...
As the video describes I set each track input to MIDI: All Midi. Input Monitoring = On. Record button = On "red".
Now the 4 lowest keys on my iRigKeys37 act as my midi triggers for each sound clip. I hit C-3, D-3, E-3 or F-3 and and my samples are triggered individually from beginning to end then stop. The longest sample is 7.1 seconds and no problem.
Note; the playback transport is not used. But, just in case I bump the space bar I have all other tracks in this project muted. I'm not sure if I can delete the actual recordings or not so I'm just leaving them there.
I have closed and reopened the project and everything loads up and works upon reopening.
So my little IRigKeys37 will be connected to my laptop for the skit.