Tin Badge

by Len Levinson

  “We thought you could use one—take some of the work off your shoulders. Captain Stone here’s a good man. He’ll be a real help to you.”

  “Seem to me I should have some say in who’s hired to be my deputy.”

  “We didn’t think you’d have any objection to Captain Stone giving you a hand,” Mayor Randlett said. “After what he did today, the town council and I thought he’d be ideal. Surely you don’t object to having Captain Stone as your deputy?”

  “What the hell’s all this captain stuff? What’s he a captain of?”

  “He was a captain of cavalry for the Confederacy during the war.”

  “The war’s been over a long time.”

  “But we don’t forget, do we, Sheriff? You were a sergeant in the Confederate infantry, so you and Captain Stone were comrades in arms. That’ll give you something in common. If you don’t have any objection to Captain Stone becoming your deputy, Reverend Scobie will swear him in right now.”

  “Do what you want,” Sheriff Rawlins said gruffly.

  “Captain Stone, will you step over here please?”

  Stone stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray and sauntered across the room to where Mayor Randlett and the Reverend Scobie were standing.

  “Place your left hand on the Bible, please, and raise your right hand in the air.”

  Stone did as he was told, and the Reverend Scobie opened his mouth. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he intoned gravely: “Do you, John Stone, swear to uphold the laws of the town of Petie, to the best of your ability, so help you God?”

  “I do,” said Stone.

  Now it was Mayor Randlett’s turn to speak. “Pursuant to the authority vested in me by the charter of the town of Petie, I hereby appoint you deputy sheriff of the town of Petie, for an indeterminate period, beginning today.”

  Mayor Randlett smiled, and the Reverend Scobie tucked the Bible underneath his arm. He looked more like an undertaker than a minister of God.

  “Congratulations,” said Mayor Randlett. “I’m sure you’ll do a good job.”

  “I’ll try my best,” Stone replied.

  “That’s all we can ask.” Mayor Randlett pulled a tin badge out of his vest pocket and pinned it on Stone’s shirt. “Just had this made up at the blacksmith’s place. It’s a little rough around the edges, but it’ll do. Good luck to you.”

  The Reverend Scobie shook his hand and wished him well. Pritchard remained rooted to his chair, writing with his pen as if nothing unusual was taking place, and Sheriff Rawlins shuffled through papers on his desk, also showing a lack of interest.

  “Well,” said Mayor Randlett, “we’ve got to be on our way. Lots to do, you know. I’ll leave you here with Sheriff Rawlins, who’ll explain your duties.”

  Mayor Randlett left the office, followed by the Reverend Scobie. Stone turned around and faced Sheriff Rawlins, who’d pulled an old newspaper from his bottom drawer and was reading it.

  “What’re my duties?” Stone asked.

  Sheriff Rawlins glanced up at him. “You’ll have the shift from eight at night till eight in the morning, seven days a week, but you’re always on call. You can start at eight tonight.”

  Sheriff Rawlins raised the paper and covered his face. Stone stood in front of him silently for a few moments, waiting for more instructions, and realized he wasn’t going to get any more. He reached out and pushed the paper down until he could see Rawlins’s face again.

  “What does a deputy sheriff do?” Stone asked.

  Sheriff Rawlins glowered at him. “You figger it out.”

  Mike Chopak and Fred Ramsay rode down the main street of Petie, trying to appear casual, as if they weren’t outlaws. They’d never been in the town before, and no one knew who they were. They passed the Petie Savings Bank and looked at each other significantly, because that’s where their pals had been gunned down by John Stone. Angling their horses to the other side of the street, they came to the stop in front of the Paradise Saloon.

  They tied up their horses and went inside. Nobody paid any special attention to them, because strangers often showed up in town, on their way to other places. Cowboys were hired and fired at the various ranches in the territory, and there were always new faces to see. Chopak and Ramsay weren’t on any wanted posters in that part of the frontier, as far as they knew, and made their way to the bar, confident they were safe.

  “What’s your pleasure, gents?” asked Doreen Eckles.

  “Whiskey,” said Chopak.

  Doreen placed two glasses and a bottle in front of them. Chopak filled the glasses half full, and he and Ramsay took a drink. They looked strange together, because Chopak was so wide and Ramsay so slim. Chopak’s arms were enormous, and it was hard not to notice them, because he’d torn the sleeves off his shirt.

  Chopak and Ramsay sipped their whiskey and turned around, looking at the men playing cards at the tables. The saloon had a festive air and most of the people were well dressed. Chopak and Ramsay felt out of place. Their clothes were dirty and they hadn’t bathed for several days.

  There was an empty table near the wall, and Chopak motioned with his head toward it. He picked up his glass and the bottle, and threaded his way past the other tables, heading for the empty one. He bumped people a few times, and had to say, “Excuse me,” because he was so wide.

  He came to the table and sat down, his massive haunches spilling over the seat of his chair. Ramsay sat opposite him and pulled his hat low over his eyes so no one could get a good look at his face. He leaned toward Chopak.

  “I hate these fuckin’ people,” he muttered.

  Chopak winked, reaching for his bag of tobacco. He didn’t like ordinary citizens either, and was tempted to draw his gun and start shooting at them, just for the hell of it.

  He liked a good massacre, and had participated in a few during his career. The biggest and best was in Lawrenceville, Kansas, which he and the other boys under Bloody Bill Anderson had burned to the ground, shooting all the men, raping the women.

  He’d love to do the same thing in Petie and see the smug, self-satisfied faces all around him covered with blood, begging for mercy, shaking in their boots. He spat into the nearby cuspidor and scratched his armpit. It was a nice thing to think about. These people looked like they could use a good dose of reality.

  A man wearing a derby pushed open the doors of the saloon and stepped boldly inside. “We got us a new deputy sheriff!” he shouted. “The mayor just swore him in!”

  A cheer went up in the saloon, and a few of the men whistled. The man in the derby walked to the bar and ordered a drink. He held his glass in the air and yelled, “Here’s to Deputy Sheriff John Stone!”

  The men cheered again. Chopak looked at Ramsay, his face blank but his eyes sparkling with animosity. Ramsay nodded.

  At the next table, four men played poker. “Anybody tries to rob the bank again,” one of them said, “and John Stone’ll show ’em a thing or two.”

  “He’s one tough son of a bitch,” another man at the table replied. “Outlaws’d better steer clear of Petie, if they wanna go on breathin’.”

  Chopak’s knuckles went white around the glass in his hand.

  John Stone entered his hotel room and locked the door behind him. Sitting on the bed, he pulled off his high-topped black boots. He wanted to get some rest, because it was going to be a long night.

  He unstrapped his guns, took off his clothes, and splashed water on his face. Then he lay on top of the bed, placing the palms of his hands behind his head and staring at the white paint on the ceiling.

  Sheriff Rawlins had given him the dirty end of the stick, and Stone wasn’t too happy about it. Frontier towns were at their worst during the night, when men got their drunkest, starting fights, shooting at each other, beating up their wives.

  Stone wasn’t tired, but somehow had to get some sleep in preparation for the night. He knew from experience in war that a man wasn’t at his best when he was tired. His timing would be off, and
that could cost his life.

  Rawlins hadn’t told him anything about what the job required, but Stone had been in many frontier towns and knew generally how lawmen functioned. The good ones roamed their towns, showing their badges and guns, and stepped into the middle of trouble if it came up. The bad ones hid someplace and hoped someone else would handle the trouble.

  Stone wasn’t about to hide and let somebody else handle the trouble. He’d been a conscientious officer during the war and always had taken his duties seriously. That’s the way he was raised by his parents, and that’s how they’d trained him at West Point. He wasn’t about to change now.

  The sounds of the street outside his window caught his attention. He heard hoofbeats, the voices of men, the laughter of women. All those people were depending upon him for protection, and he wondered whether he’d put himself in over his head.

  The townspeople thought he was a hero, because he’d stopped the bank robbery, but he knew he’d done no great deed. A determined man with a rifle had superior firepower over anybody with pistols at a distance, and it would’ve been hard for him to lose. Another factor was that he’d taken the bank robbers by surprise, and the element of surprise was always a tremendous advantage. Jeb Stuart and Wade Hampton had taught him that in the war, and he’d never forgotten it.

  Somehow sleep wouldn’t come. It was too early in the day, and he was accustomed to sleeping at night. He thought of Jennifer Randlett working in her father’s office. She certainly was lovely, and the memory of her made him feel warm all over.

  She’d looked at him with more than casual interest, but he was engaged to Marie, and that bond could never be broken. He’d been tempted by other women in the past, but he’d never given in. It was one of the few things he was proud of, along with his service in the war and the times he’d helped people in need.

  He punched up the pillow and tried to get comfortable, but somehow nothing worked. Rolling over onto his stomach, he grit his teeth and tried to force himself to fall asleep, but no matter what he did he remained awake, wondering what would happen to him on his first night as deputy sheriff of Petie.

  Chapter Three

  Stone rolled out of bed at seven-thirty and touched his feet to the floor. He hadn’t slept at all, had a mild headache, and felt irritable. He splashed water on his face, rolled a cigarette, and put on his clothes.

  Lifting his shirt off the back of the chair, he looked at the badge. It was a crude lopsided star, cut hastily out of a thin piece of tin. DEPUTY SHERIFF was written across it, the words engraved with a hammer and a nail, dot by dot.

  He put on the shirt and buttoned it up, then strapped on his two gunbelts. He’d learned long ago that two pistols were better than one, providing six extra shots without reloading, and that could spell the difference between life and death when bullets were flying around.

  He inserted his knife into the sheath inside his boot, because a man never knew when he might need six inches of sharp steel. Then he placed his hat on his head and pulled the brim low over his eyes. Checking himself in the mirror, he couldn’t help smiling. He’d never realized that someday he’d be a lawman.

  He left the hotel and walked down the street toward the sheriff’s office. Everyone he passed said hello to him, and he tipped his hat to the ladies. The sun was sinking toward the horizon on the west side of town, and the buildings cast long shadows. He walked past the Paradise Saloon and heard the piano tinkling inside. He was tempted to go in and have a drink, but thought he’d wait until later.

  It was strange to think that he was protector of the town. If any problems cropped up, he was supposed to straighten them out although he knew nothing about law, and Sheriff Rawlins had given him no guidelines. Somehow he’d have to make up his own law as he went along.

  He came to the sheriff’s office and tried the doorknob, but it was locked. Pritchard had given him a ring of keys, so he tried them in the lock until one of them turned. He opened the door and entered the office, which smelled of tobacco smoke and whiskey. Leaving the door open, he lit a kerosene lamp and wondered where to put it. He had no desk of his own so decided to use Pritchard’s desk for the time being. He placed the lamp on Pritchard’s desk and sat behind it, pushing his hat to the back of his head.

  He wondered what to do. Maybe I should’ve bought a newspaper. He took out his guns, made sure they were loaded, and stuffed them back into his holsters. Then he rolled a cigarette and lit it up. A faint breeze rustled the papers on Pritchard’s desk, and it was quiet outside in the street except for the sound of hoofbeats as a man on a horse rode by.

  It’s a peaceful night so far, he said to himself. Let’s hope it stays that way.

  Seated on a bench in front of a cobbler’s shop on the far side of the street were Mike Chopak and Fred Ramsay, passing a bottle of whiskey back and forth between them.

  “So that’s John Stone,” Chopak said. “He don’t look like so much to me.”

  “He’s awful big,” replied Ramsay, pulling a thread out of his fraying sleeve.

  “Nobody’s bigger than a bullet. I think we ought to take him down ourselves.”

  “Don’t get no crazy ideas. Casey told us to find all we can about him and then go back to camp.”

  “Why waste time?” Chopak asked. “When it gets dark, I’ll just come up behind him and put a bullet in his head.”

  “I don’t think you should try to take him on your own,” Ramsay told him. “That’s not the way Casey wants to play it.”

  Chopak turned to him and narrowed his small eyes. “I’m not gonna take him on my own, because you’re gonna help me. You ain’t afraid of this galoot, are you?”

  “Hell no, I ain’t afraid.”

  “He killed some good men, and he ain’t gittin’ away with it. We’ll fix him later, you and me. These people around here might think he’s a big hero, but he ain’t gonna be much when he’s lyin’ on the ground with a bullet in his head.”

  Chopak turned toward the sheriff’s office again. He saw a scrawny old man shuffling down the sidewalk on the far side of the street, carrying a guitar. The old man stopped in front of the door to the sheriff’s office, straightened his back, and threw his left foot forward, staggering into the office.

  Stone was looking at a wanted poster tacked to the wall when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned around and saw Toby Muldoon.

  “Thought I’d stop by to see if you needed any help,” Muldoon said. “How’s it goin’?”

  “Been pretty quiet so far.”

  “Well, if you need any help, you know who to call.” Muldoon drew a rusty old pistol from his holster and waved it menacingly in the air. “I may not look like much, and I know I’m just an old goddamned drunk, but I ain’t never run away from a fight in my life!”

  Stone held up his hand. “Put that thing away before you shoot somebody.”

  “I won’t shoot anybody, Cap’n. Hell, the damn thing ain’t even loaded, and if it was loaded, it prob’ly wouldn’t work anyway.”

  Just then the pistol fired, and a bullet went crashing into the ceiling. An expression of astonishment came over Muldoon’s face. He looked at the smoking barrel of the gun.

  “Now how’d that happen?” he asked.

  “I think you’d better put it in your holster.”

  Muldoon nodded, dropping the gun into his holster, but his aim was off and the gun dropped to the floor, where it exploded again, shooting a bullet into the wall next to a filing cabinet.

  “Damn!” said Muldoon. “Must be somethin’ wrong with that gun.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the gun, Muldoon. It seems to be working perfectly fine.” Stone moved in quick strides toward Muldoon, picked up the gun, and placed it in Muldoon’s holster. “Leave it in there, okay?”

  Muldoon grinned. “Lend me some money so’s I can buy me a drink, okay, pardner? When I come into my own, I’ll pay you back.”

  If Stone gave Muldoon money, he’d just be contributing to
his drunkenness, and if he denied him, it would be mean. Stone gave Muldoon a few coins.

  “That’s all for today,” Stone said sternly.

  “When I fust set eyes on you yesterday, I said to meself, There’s a good man.’”

  Muldoon walked out of the sheriff’s office. Stone sat behind Pritchard’s desk and looked up at the bullet hole in the ceiling. Then he turned to the bullet hole in the wall. My first night on the job, and I let a drunk shoot up the sheriff’s office.

  Stone’s stomach rumbled, and he realized he hadn’t had dinner yet. Putting on his hat, he walked outside and locked the door to the sheriff’s office. He noticed two men sitting on the bench across the street, and recalled that they’d been there when he’d unlocked the sheriff’s office after he’d first come on duty.

  He didn’t think anything special about the two men, but the fact of their existence registered in his mind. As a former army officer, he’d been trained to notice details.

  He walked up the street toward the Diamond Restaurant, and two pairs of eyes observed his every movement.

  “Let’s go,” said Chopak.

  “You ain’t gonna try to kill him now, are you?” asked Ramsay.

  “First chance I git,” Chopak replied.

  The town of Petie consisted of a main street and several side streets. Residents lived in rooming houses, the hotel, or private homes. Some of the private homes on the outskirts of town were ramshackle affairs with sagging roofs and lopsided windows, and others were quite large and well-constructed, freshly painted, with spacious yards, balconies, and porches.

  The largest house in town was a white mansion with two neo-Georgian columns in front, two stories high, at the top of a hill in the best section. It was owned by Mayor Randlett, who lived in it with his daughter and numerous servants.

  As Stone made his way toward the Diamond Restaurant, Mayor Randlett was seated in his dining room, finishing the soup course of his dinner. He was accompanied by his daughter, Jennifer; Clyde Akerson, manager of the Petie Savings Bank, of which Randlett was majority stockholder; and Marjorie Akerson, Clyde Akerson’s wife, who wore an ill-fitting mail order black wig, due to a disease that had caused her to lose all her hair when she was a little girl.