The Sheriff of Sorrow, no. 1
Page 4
What did stop him was the press of steel into his back.
“Hold it right there, sheriff,” a man said. His voice waivered.
“Do I know you?” Cal asked. He started to turn but the side-by-side barrels of the shotgun pointed at his back pushed into him some more.
“I told you to hold it,” the man said.
“You want to tell me what this is about?”
“My daddy had an attack this evening,” the man said. “My son lost his leg.”
“And you’re blaming me for this, Mr. Langston?”
Cal felt the barrels drop away from him.
“I—I have to do something, sheriff,” David Langston said.
“You think killing me will fix that for your family? You all need to understand I’m the law in this city.”
“Maybe you haven’t figured it out yet, but there’s the law and then there’s the Langstons.”
“So you’re doing this for your daddy,” Cal said.
“I’m doing it because I’m a Langston.”
Cal turned around to face the man. Langston jerked the barrels of the shotgun up so that they were now level with Cal’s belly. Cal raised his hands.
“Listen, Langston, I don’t know what goes on in your house, but I get the feeling there’s more trouble between you and your father then there is between you and me.”
“That’ll be enough from you.”
“Wouldn’t have anything to do with the death of your daughter and you being married to a Zenas, would it?”
“That is none of your business.”
“When a troubled man raises a gun on me, it becomes my business. Tell me something before you shoot me, Langston. Didn’t this city used to bear your name?”
“On some maps it still does.”
“Yes, sir, I know. One of the ones I looked at to get here had that name printed on it. It only changed after Jacob added her name to the city sign.”
“She didn’t even live a day,” Langston, Jr. said. The gun bobbed. The barrels pointed at the dirt.
“That why you named her Sorrow?”
“Mary was devastated. She’d always wanted a child.”
“You had Jacob.”
“Jacob was my son from my first wife.”
“She die, too?”
Langston shook his head. He stared at the ground. “She ran off. Went back down to Detroit. We were never in love. My daddy kept telling me it was important for the families to be united. Hell, he just wanted her family’s money. And he wanted her.” David Langston looked up at Cal. “You have to understand, she was a very desirable woman. Even I recognized that. But do you have any idea of what it’s like to see your father lust after your wife?”
“Thought you didn’t care about her.”
“She was still my wife, dammit, even if my heart wasn’t for her.”
“You were in love with Mary Zenas.”
“Always was. And my daddy hates the Zenas’. When I told him Mary was going to have my child, and us not being married, well, it tore him up inside.” The two barrels swung up again. “Don’t you see, sheriff? All my life I’ve been a disappointment to my daddy. I can’t keep letting him down.”
“Killing me ain’t going to change any of that, Langston.”
Langston looked at his shotgun. “You know something, sheriff? You’re right.”
Cal breathed a little easier. He reached a hand out to take the shotgun from him when Langston jabbed the barrels into Cal’s belly knocking the wind out of him. Langston swung the stock up cracking Cal in the chin. Cal went down to the ground on his hands and knees. His head throbbed and felt like it was spinning on his neck. Cal tried to right himself but his arms gave out and his face struck the dirt. Still slightly dazed, he heard the hammer of a revolver click back. A second later there was the thunder of a gun firing. Something warm and wet covered Cal’s face just before he blacked out, his last thought being he’d been shot in the head.
*****
Cal came to the next morning in a bed that wasn’t the one in his hotel room. A white-haired man with a weathered face and a bristly, salt-and-pepper beard, sat in a straight-back, wooden chair at the foot of the bed.
“Morning, sheriff,” the man said.
“Knuckles?”
“That’s me.” He stood. “Doc Lowell wanted me to fetch him when you woke.”
“Guess there wasn’t any room at Doc Pigg’s?” His jaw felt tight.
“Well, that was where they took David Langston.”
“He didn’t die?” Cal found it easier to talk through clenched teeth.
“Oh no, he was dead.”
“I guess I owe you some for shooting him before he could shoot me.”
“I didn’t shoot him, sheriff. He done that to himself.” Knuckles left the room.
Cal raised a hand and gingerly touched his jaw. Fireworks exploded where his fingers made contact with the bruise. He hoped it wouldn’t be like that for long. He was pretty hungry.
The door opened and Doc Lowell entered the room. Cal’s eyes drew back wide when it turned out Doctor Lowell was a young, colored man. Cal coughed to cover his embarrassment.
Used to similar reactions, Doctor Lowell offered Cal a reassuring smile and said, “Sheriff, pleased to meet you. Hell of a way to welcome you to Sorrow.”
“I get the sense I’m not quite done with the Langstons.”
“Well, they’re like horseflies. After a while, you just tolerate them.”
“Anything other than my jaw in bad shape, Doc?”
“No, sir. You got lucky. Didn’t even lose a tooth. Going to have a nasty bruise there for a while.” Doc Lowell examined Cal’s eyes. He had Cal follow a pencil he moved in front of his face. “Pupils aren’t dilated. No signs of concussion. I think you can go once you get some food in you. Soft meals for a while. I’ll have Knuckles bring you in some soup.”
“Sounds fine,” Cal said.
“If you’re up to it, you do have a visitor waiting to see you.”
Cal sat a little straighter. “Visitor? If it’s Nils Frosen, he’ll want to know if he’s acting sheriff or if Knuckles is.”
“It’s not Nils,” Doc Lowell said. He opened the door and waved his hand for the visitor to come in.
*****
Miss Jenny stepped in and stood at the end of the bed, her hands on the footboard. “I’ll leave you two alone,” Doc Lowell said. He shot Cal a wink over Miss Jenny’s shoulder.
“I was on my way to hear you sing,” Cal said. “Honest.”
Jenny frowned. “Now don’t go lying to me, sheriff. It’s bad enough you stood me up last night. I’m not in the mood for excuses.” A second after the scolding, a smile slipped over her face.
“What are you in the mood for?” Cal asked.
Miss Jenny pulled up the chair Knuckles had been sitting in and sat down on it. She took off her hat and shook out her hair. “Same thing you are, sheriff, but until you’re healed, you’re going to have to settle for this.”
She took his hand, straightened her back, and began to sing the most beautiful song Cal had ever heard, even if it was all in Italian. Cal settled back, listening to her sing. It wasn’t going to be easy serving as the law with the Langstons breathing down his neck. Didn’t matter, he decided. What had Doc Lowell called them?
Horseflies. Tolerate them, like hell, he’d just shoo them away.
Cal managed to shoo them out of his thoughts so that all he’d have to concentrate on was Jenny and her operatic singing. If there was to be more moments like this to come for him, Cal Haskell would long be the sheriff of Sorrow.
About the Author
Jack Bates is a playwright and has written for children as well as adults. His works have been produced locally in his home state and nationally. In addition to the Harry Landers Series, his published works are in various anthologies, and in the spring of 2011, his pulp fiction short story, Broken Down on the Bonnevile Flats, was nominated for a Derringer Award after appearing at B
eat to a Pulp. He is an English teacher and resides in Michigan.
Other titles by Jack Bates at Smashwords.com:
Harry Landers, P.I. Series:
Mumbly Peg
Dan Tanna Ain’t Dead (The Infidelity Case)
Ten Minutes After Midnight
The Girl with the Dragon Wings Eyes
Satan’s School for Scandal
A Model for Murder
The Butcher’s Heir
Lake Solitude
Only the Dead Will Whisper
The Girl Whose Life Went Up in Smoke
General Works:
A Murder of Crows
Stumptoad
The Bending of Glass