The Sheriff of Sorrow, no. 1

by Jack Bates

  “I meant my overcoat pockets,” Langston said.

  “Look, Jacob,” Books said. He put a hand on the younger Langston’s arm and turned him away from the crowd. “I’m not saying you did, but you do have a reputation around Sorrow. Did you maybe try your hand at being a card sharp just now?”

  “I do not.”

  “He’s lying, Hank. He cheated. Arrest him or I’m going shoot him.”

  Books took a deep breath. “Buke, you ain’t gonna do no such thing and you know it.”

  “I won’t spend one minute in jail, Hank. You know that. Besides, if you arrest anyone, it should be him for assaulting me. We were just having a friendly game of poker when he became abusive, not to mention he just threatened to shoot me.”

  Books rubbed his chin. “Gentlemen, it is plain to me we are not going to solve this here. I’m going to take you both down to the jail and we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  “Fine with me, Hank,” Buchanan said. “Let’s go. But you better hope to the heavens we don’t find that queen on you, Langston, because if we do, you’ll bloody well pay for it.” Buchanan headed for the swinging doors. Books took a step behind him. Neither man noticed Jacob Langston going back to the poker room, but Cal did. He stepped in front of Langston.

  “Excuse me,” Langston said.

  Cal put a hand on Langston’s chest. “Believe the man said you were going down to the jail.”

  “I will. I’m just getting my overcoat.”

  “It’s all right, Cal,” Books said. “We’ll be right outside in the street.”

  Cal backed off. He went over to the bar and leaned his elbows on the rail. Jacob Langston went into the poker room. It gave Cal a chance to take in the demeanor of the town. For the most part, the men went back to their card games and their drinking. Somewhere in the entertainment hall the piano man started playing again. Jacob Langston exited the poker room and went through the swinging doors.

  “Sticking around for my next show, sheriff?” Miss Jenny asked. She leaned in close to Cal. He took a deep look in her eyes and figured even if she didn’t have one, she’d be entertaining him that night.

  “You got a later one? I have a town council meeting I need to be at in a little while.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll do a special one just for you.” Miss Jenny moved closer.

  There were three shots from the street. A woman screamed and poked her head inside the Three Trees. “He shot them! He shot them both in the back!”

  *****

  Cal pushed through the crowd. Out in the street a small crowd gathered around two men lying prone in the dirt track of the street. The bigger man, Buchanan, was dead. The gunman had put the barrel of a gun to the back of Buchanan’s head. Buchanan’s skull had exploded as the bullet tore through his brain.

  Contrary to what the woman had said, only Buchanan had been shot in the back. Books lay on his back. He must have turned and tried to draw, but the shooter had put a bullet in his gut. There had been three shots, but there were only two men down.

  “Books!” Cal said. He dropped to his knees. “Was it Langston?”

  Books gasped and jerked his head forward. He reached up with a bloody hand and grabbed Cal’s shirt. “The badge,” Books said. He coughed up blood.

  Cal fumbled in his shirt and pulled the tin star out of his pocket. Books pushed it into Cal’s breast with his blood covered fingers. Blood ran down the sides of his mouth and flowed out of his belly. “You are the law.”

  Cal looked around. “Get your doctor! Someone get the doctor!” he yelled.

  Books moved his head side to side just once. “No good.” He let out an agonizing moan. “Gut shot. Hit my spine. Can’t feel my legs.” The pain took Books. He grabbed Cal’s shirt with both his hands staining the front of it. “Stay. Sorrow … needs you ….” Books let out a single, rattling gasp. He slumped and his hands loosened. Books fell back onto the street.

  “Let me through, God dammit,” a man said. Cal looked up at a clean cut man pushing through the crowd. He wasn’t much younger than Cal. There was a napkin around his neck with fresh food stains upon it. He dropped down between the two dead men. He lifted Buchanan by the shoulders, took a quick look, and lowered him to the ground. Without any hesitation, he leaned over Books. There was some murmuring from the crowd and the man violently jerked his face at the people nearest him. “Shut the hell up,” he yelled. He leaned closer to Books putting his ear close to the man’s nose. He put two fingers on Books’ neck. A second later the man looked up.

  “Ladies, I need a mirror. Now,” he said.

  “Will this do, Doc?” Miss Jenny asked. She removed a cameo locket necklace from around her neck. She opened the locket and revealed a small mirror inside one half of the jewelry case. Cal caught a look at the face of a man on the other half. It was just a glimpse because the man kneeling over Books’ body snatched the locket from her hand. He held the mirror surface up to Books’ nose.

  “Come on,” he said. “Fog it up, Hank.” He looked closely. His eyes met Cal’s. “He’s alive. We need to get him to my office.”

  “He said the bullet hit his spine, Doc,” Cal said.

  The doctor stood up and looked around. He pointed at two men. “You two. Go rip up a wide plank from the porch of the Three Trees. Bring it back here.” The men ran over to the porch and kicked at the overhang of the widest plank they saw. The front end came up and they worked the other end free. They ran it over and the doctor put the plank nail side down next to Books’ limp body.

  “We need to lift him on the plank and then we need to put the board and Hank in the back of a cart. Who’s got a wagon here?”

  “I do, Doc!” a man said. A pair of bright, gray eyes peered out of a weathered face, the lower half of which was covered with a thick crop of black-and-white whiskers. Whoever he was he’d spent most of his life in the tough northern woods. Cal saw a familiar tin star hanging on a gold chain around the man’s neck.

  “Go get it, Knuckles.” The doctor gave Cal a serious look that rattled him. “This isn’t going to be easy. We need a bunch of hands to get Hank up and the board under him.”

  Four men stepped forward from the crowd and got down on their knees next to Books. The doctor took Books by the shoulders. Cal got the feet. The volunteers paired off to either side and got ready to lift the dying man. “I’ll count three,” the doctor said. He did and they lifted. A moment later the four volunteers lifted the makeshift stretcher into the back of Knuckles’ wagon.

  “I’ll need you men to help me get Books into the operating room. Get in the back and try to keep him from bouncing too much.” The doctor went around to the front of the wagon. He climbed up next to Knuckles and told him to go as quickly and as smoothly as he could. Before they left, he turned to the crowd. “And would somebody please go to Anthony’s dining room and tell my wife I won’t be back to finish my meal?”

  Cal stood and watched the wagon head away. The crowd began to disperse.

  “Hold on, folks,” he said. A few in the crowd turned and walked away. “Really be helpful if someone went and got the undertaker and let him know about this man.”

  “Who the hell are you?” a man asked.

  “I’m the temporary sheriff,” Cal said. He hung the blood stained star on his shirt. “And right now I’ve got my hands full, unless you want to go after the man who shot these men.”

  “I’ll get him, sheriff,” a younger man said.

  “Thank you, son,” Cal said.

  “Name’s Frosen,” the younger man said. “Nils, after my grandpa. And if you need an extra gun—.”

  “You get the undertaker. I’ll do the rest.”

  “Yes, sir.” Nils hurried off down the street. Cal thought he detected a tinge of disappointment in the young man’s voice.

  “Listen, sheriff,” Miss Jenny said. “Jake Langston thinks he’s above the law because of his grandfather. He left town to go to Harvard but came back when he couldn’t cut it out there. Fo
und out his clout only stretched so far. He’s been nothing but trouble for his family and this town since he returned.”

  Cal nodded. “Where do you think he’d go?”

  “More than likely he’s run home to Olds Langston. But he could be up at the ski lodge his father’s been building at the top of Copper Peak.”

  Cal looked up at the top of the mountain Books had called Copper Peak. It loomed over Sorrow.

  “How do I get up there?” Cal asked.

  “I’ll show you, sheriff.” Nils had returned. Behind him the undertaker orchestrated the loading of Buchanan into a cart.

  “How old are you, son?” Cal asked.

  “Nineteen.”

  Cal studied the young man. He shook his head. “I can’t risk it.”

  “You aren’t risking a thing. I’m the one taking the chance. The longer we stand here the further away he’s getting.”

  *****

  Cal followed Nils along a narrow trail that cut along the facing of Copper Peak. Stormwind’s steps were steady on the path, though at times it got a bit steep and she kicked small rocks off the side. Cal wasn’t sure how a ski lodge could be built anywhere on the mountain until they got to a wide bluff tucked away on the north side. He saw the makings of a timber road that had helped move the trees out of the area.

  The skeletal framework of the lodge was underway. There was a finished barn with a bell tower atop it. A wagon was parked out in front of the barn, but there was no horse to be seen. In between the lodge buildings and where Cal and Nils rode up on their horses there wasn’t much cover, aside from the line of trees that bordered the east and west sides of the bluff.

  “You any good with a gun?” Cal asked.

  “You’re asking me now?” Nils said.

  “Might be good to know.” Cal pointed to the trees to the right. “I’m going to come up around from that side. I want you to ride off to the ones to the left. You hear any shooting it means I’m drawing his fire. You take advantage of that and make your way up to the barn and see if there is another way in it. I want him alive, Nils. And I want you alive, too. I don’t want to have to explain to your mother what happened.”

  “I don’t have one,” Nils said. “Father neither. Just me and my sister and she’s older and married.”

  “All the same it ain’t a speech I want to give to anyone.”

  “Yes, sir,” Nils said. He pulled on his reigns then gave his horse a kick in the side. He galloped off to the west. Cal watched the boy ride into the line of trees before he pulled Stormwind to the right and made for the pines. No one had fired on either of them. Cal began to suspect Langston had gone to his grandfather’s home where he’d be shielded from the law.

  A foul sour smell filled the air around Cal. It belonged to something unclean, something that had soiled itself at both ends mixed with sweat. Cal pulled back on his reigns and slowly withdrew the lever-action repeater from its saddle sheath. He swept his line of sight from shoulder to shoulder and saw nothing even though the foul scent persisted. A moment or two later, Cal heard the low, hiccupping grunts of the beast that came out “goot, goot, goot.” Staying in the saddle, Cal turned as far around as he could and there it was an adult black bear, roughly 400 pounds in size, holding Jacob Langston by the shoulder, dragging him away.

  And Langston was still alive.

  His leg looked broken and there was a good deal of blood over most of his body. His eyes bore the stare of a man clinging to life even as death carried him away. Langston must have surprised the animal. What Cal knew of black bears back in Wyoming, they usually stayed clear of people. Attacks mostly happened when a sow hurried to protect her cubs or if someone wandered too far into the bear’s territory. Seldom did the bear hunt man. Things might be slightly different in northern Michigan, seeing as how Books had said it was a tougher than usual winter.

  Even if Cal were able to free the man from the bear he wasn’t certain Langston would survive the ride back down to Copper Peak. Still, he had to try.

  His ’86 Winchester carbine was built for hunting, but bears were a little different. He might put a half a dozen rounds into the bear’s hide and all it would do was make it angry. The bear’s fury would be directed at Langston and as much as Cal wanted to see the man get his just desserts, he knew it was best left up to the law to handle it.

  Cal considered scaring it off by firing shots into the air. The tactic wouldn’t necessarily get rid of the bear, especially if it was the one Books had said was going down into town to get food. Nor would it assure Langston would be free. All the animal wanted was to protect its meal.

  From the other side of the trees a bell rang. It was a loud, heavy ringing and it played over and over. The bear stopped tugging on Langston and dropped him to the ground. On and on the bell tolled disorienting the bear. The animal lifted its snout to the air and looked around at last spying Cal and his horse. The bear backed up from Langston making its clucking “goot” calls out of panic. The bell continued to ring.

  Cal raised his carbine and shot at the tree above the bear’s head. The report echoed confusing the bear even more. Cal fired a second aiming at the ground not far from the bear’s flank. It was enough to startle the bear and it hurried off, going deeper into the woods. Once he was sure the bear was gone, Cal rode over to Langston and got down off his horse to examine the dying man.

  Langston was losing a lot of blood from the busted leg and from the shoulder wounds. He had a dazed look in his eyes that Cal recognized as shock. Cal knew he had to get Langston to the doctor soon, but also knew there was no way to get him down the timber road without killing him. Using the man’s belt, Cal pulled it as tight as he could over Langston’s leg wound. He took the blanket roll from the back of his horse and threw it over the man. When he stood again, Nils was riding across the cleared field.

  “Lucky bastard is going to be able to tell everyone he survived an attack from Kahru,” Nils said.

  “Only if we get the doc up here.”

  “You want me to ride down and get him?”

  “I’m staying here to make sure that bear won’t come back.”

  Nils looked deep into the woods and shook his head. “He’s gone for now. Bell scared him off.”

  “That you that was ringing it?”

  “Yes, sir. See, I got to the spot you wanted me and when I didn’t hear anything, I kind of made my way up to the barn and found a root cellar. I went into it and made my way up to the top. He was ready for war up there, sheriff. A couple of rifles, some revolvers, and a spyglass for watching for us. That’s how I saw Kahru.”

  “You did real fine, Nils. Go on down now and get the doc.”

  Nils nodded. “Yes, sir,” and nudged his horse forward.

  *****

  For the second time that day a man was loaded into the back of Knuckles’ wagon. The doc had sent his wife this time as he was still with Books. She spoke less than her husband and when she did, her voice was soft but firm. She rode down in the back of the wagon next to Langston. Cal and Nils rode behind the cart.

  Cal leaned closer to Nils. “What’s the story with Knuckles?”

  Nils shrugged. “Ain’t much of one. He lives at the jail, keeps the place clean. Cooks for the crooks.”

  “He from around here?”

  “Don’t think so. Think he came east to work in the mines.”

  “Too old?”

  Nils shook his head. He held up his hands, fingers together and slightly bent at the knuckles. “Got arthritis. Pretty bad. Fingers still work some. You’ll like him.”

  *****

  They came into town off of Flath Street. Olds Langston and his family were already there. A woman who was surely Jacob Langston’s mother broke free of her husband and ran to the back of the wagon as it pulled up in front of the doctor’s house. The woman was hysterical and it took her husband and another man to hold her back so Cal and Nils could carry Jacob inside. They met the doctor on the porch who stopped them long enough to lift the
blanket back and look at the leg. He kept a poker face.

  “Will my grandson live, Doctor?” Olds Langston asked. He leaned forward from the rear-facing seat of a fancy black carriage.

  “He’d have a better chance if you and your brandy-club friends would build us a hospital,” Doc said. To Cal and Nils he said, “Get the boy inside.”

  “I’m going with him,” the hysterical woman said.

  “The hell you are,” Doc said. “Last thing your boy needs is a bunch of germ incubators hovering over him while I’m trying to save him.”

  “Mary, you’re welcome to wait in our sitting room,” the doc’s wife said.

  Mary Langston said, “Thank you, Abigail,” and followed her into the house.

  When Cal came back outside, Olds Langston sat outside on the porch with his son and the other man. He didn’t bother to introduce them to Cal. He rolled a silver-tipped walking stick with the palms of his hands back and forth on his frail legs.

  “Mr. Haskell,” the senior Langston said, “I’d like to know what prompted this tragedy.”

  Cal studied the faces of the three men. Nils came around the corner of the house and stopped once he picked up on the doings of the porch.

  “No polite way to put this, Mr. Langston,” Cal said. “Jacob Langston killed a man today and there’s a good chance he’ll have a second murder on his hands before the day is done.”

  “Oh dear God,” said one of the two other men.

  Olds Langston held up a hand. “David, don’t say another word.”

  “But Daddy, the judge said—” David said.

  Olds slammed the tip of the walking stick into the floor boards of the porch. “When will you learn to follow my orders? If you had only done this from the start we wouldn’t be sitting here now because you wouldn’t have married that Mary Zenas.” Olds looked at the other man. “You know what you have to do.”