“Little Bit, are you okay? One of my deputies is following him and can have Clyde in jail in no time at all.”
She shook her head. “No, Floyd, he didn’t do anything.”
“Did he threaten you in any way?”
She started to shake her head then remembered the last thing Clyde had said. “I guess you could say he did.”
Floyd’s face turned red and his grip on her shoulders tightened.
“He said I’d be sorry if I didn’t join them.”
“That’s good enough for me. Did anybody else hear what he said?”
She shook her head and said, “I don’t think so. Everyone else was over there.”
He looked around the bar at the customers and the waitress who were all on the other side of the long room. He let go with a few cuss words then turned back to her.
“I still think I’ll have a little talk with Clyde.”
He pulled out his cell phone and made a call. When he finished, he said, “He’s at his bar now. I’ll be back as soon as I finish with him.”
When the door closed behind Floyd, Jo suddenly felt alone and she didn’t like it, especially when two biker types came through the door a few minutes later. She moved over to where the gun was and waited to see what they might do.
When they went to a corner booth and sat, she relaxed a little. But she kept an eye on them for the whole twenty minutes it took them to drink two beers apiece and leave.
That was when she almost collapsed. Jo hadn’t realized she was shaking so bad that she couldn’t have waited on anyone right then even if she’d had to. So she called her waitress to come and cover the bar for a few minutes and almost ran into her office behind the small kitchen.
That’s where Floyd found her almost an hour later. She didn’t realize how long she’d been in there until she looked at the clock. That’s when she remembered that her waitress was out there alone.
When she jumped up and started to run out to the bar, Floyd stopped her by blocking the doorway.
“It’s okay, Little Bit. Carmen’s got things under control out there. You just sit here a while longer and try to relax.”
She sat back down with the help of a gentle shove from Floyd. She didn’t want to talk to him right then or anybody else for that matter.
“I had that little talk with Clyde, but I think it was like talking to a deaf mule. I don’t think he heard a word I said.”
Floyd stayed with her until she could get her emotions under control and walked with her back out to the bar. She felt bad when she saw how many customers were out there. She took over the bar so Carmen could go back to waiting on the tables.
Floyd gave her one last hug. “Anything happens, you call me right away, you hear?” When she nodded, he left reluctantly.
* * *
Gil had been able to concentrate and get some work done for most of the day. At least he thought so, until two o’clock when Betty came into his office and said, “Why don’t you go on home, you look bushed. I’ll stick around until four and if anything happens, I’ll call you.
He looked up at her and tried to smile. “I think that’s a good idea Betty, but I need to run an errand first.”
When he left the office, he climbed the hill to the parsonage. After a joyous greeting by Harry, he was able to slip into the garage and get into his car.
Ten minutes later, he parked in front of the sheriff’s office. He sat there for a few minutes needing to talk himself into going in after taking the time to go there.
When he finally worked up enough nerve to go inside the building, he found himself in a room that had plastic chairs along the front wall and a four-foot high counter built into the center of the opposite wall. There was nothing else in the stark room.
“Can I help you, sir?”
A woman who was looking down at him through what looked like bulletproof glass and sitting behind the counter greeted Gil immediately. She looked to be short and very big around.
He looked up at the woman and said, “I’m Gil Turner, the pastor of First Baptist Church and I’d like to see Sheriff McCracken if I could please.”
She threw back her head and laughed loudly. “After such a polite request as that, I got to try, but I got to warn you, I don’t think he’ll see you. Frankly, you’re not one of his favorite people right now.”
That didn’t surprise him. After all, it was what he had expected. Why did he even bother to come here?
She picked up a phone and dialed. Gil couldn’t hear anything she said because of the glass but when she placed the phone back down, she laughed again.
“I guess I was wrong city feller, he said for you to go on back.”
Gil heard a buzzing sound and she pointed at a door to his right. “Just pull on it Sonny and go on down the hallway to the door at the very back. You’ll know it long before you get there. It’s the only one with a big badge on it.”
She laughed again as Gil pulled the door open and found himself at the beginning of a long hallway. Even from where he stood, he could see the badge on the door at the end.
Well, it was too late to back out now, so he might as well go on down there.
He stepped up to the door and had his hand out to knock when the door flew open. The sheriff stood there glaring down at him.
“Well, don’t just stand there Boy. Come on in.”
When the sheriff had returned to his desk chair, Gil sat in one of the chairs in front of the massive desk. It had to be the highest desk he’d ever seen. As soon as he sat down in that chair and tried to look over the desk at the big man, Gil realized what was going on.
He felt like a little kid in the principal’s office. He was sure that the whole effect was planned for intimidation. He had to stretch to be able to look at the man over the extremely high desk.
That was when he realized that McCracken was waiting for him to speak first.
“Sheriff, I wanted to talk to you without Jo present.” That brought a dark frown to the big man’s freckled face. Gil thought he’d better hurry and get to the point before he was thrown out.
“I am concerned for her and her sister’s welfare. I think that there must be some way that we can protect them.”
He paused to gather his thoughts but McCracken broke in. “I am the sheriff of this county, Boy, and it’s my job to protect every blame person here. I don’t see that it’s any of your concern how I choose to protect any of them, especially my cousins.”
He placed extra emphasis on ‘my.’ Gil didn’t know what to say next.
Something passed over the sheriff’s face and he said, “I would like to know why you’re so concerned about my cousins all of a sudden.”
Gil didn’t know what to say now. He could already see that this meeting was not going the way he had planned it. But he had always believed that the truth would work for every occasion just as the Bible taught.
He tried to look over the edge of the desk into the sheriff’s eyes. “Frankly, I am becoming quite fond of Jo and I don’t want to see her get hurt.”
Nothing. No change in his facial expression or in his eyes. McCracken sat there like a big stone for a long moment before his face began to turn red. Gil was leaning out of his chair ready to run for the door.
The sheriff’s face began to return to its normal color slowly before he finally spoke. “How well do you know Jo?”
Gil was so relieved that the sheriff hadn’t attacked him that it took him a moment to realize he’d been asked a question.
“I guess you could say that I don’t know her very well, but I would like to get to know her better.”
Silence again, for what seemed like forever before McCracken leaned across the desk and looked down on Gil.
“I was in Iraq, Boy, and I saw some pretty nasty stuff over there.”
When the big man paused, Gil was wondering where he could possibly be going with this line of talk.
“I saw a man blown to pieces right in front of my eyes once.” He paused and leaned back in
his chair so much that Gil had to push himself up off his chair to maintain eye contact.
“But that ain’t nothing to what I’ll do to you if you ever hurt that little woman.”
Gil felt the effect of those words as if they had been delivered on a gale-force wind. He fell back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling, feeling as though all the air had been knocked out of his lungs.
While he was still trying to get his mind to come up with something to say, McCracken said, “Do I make myself clear, Boy?”
Gil looked at the door out of the corner of his eye, knowing it was too far away for him to get out before the big bully could catch him.
“Yes, you have made yourself extremely clear.” He took a deep breath, swallowed, and said, “I have never intentionally hurt a living thing in my whole life, and I don’t intend to start with Jo.”
The sheriff crossed his arms on his chest and glared at Gil as if expecting more.
Okay, he’d give him more. “I think I can understand your protectiveness of Jo. I have been able to determine that she has been hurt badly in the past and I want to help her overcome her fear of men.”
The big sheriff continued to sit there with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at Gil for so long that he thought the guy had fallen asleep with his eyes open.
When he finally spoke, it was with the softest tone Gil had ever heard the big man use with him.
“I may have underestimated you, Son.” He uncrossed his arms and stood.
Gil still wasn’t sure if he should make a run for the door or not.
McCracken came around the desk thus cutting off Gil’s line of escape and sat on the corner in front of Gil. Very slowly, he held out his hand. “Let’s start over Gil. My name is Floyd.”
Gil could barely move his own hand up to accept the friendly, not too tight handshake.
“Now, let’s get down to business. Which is, of course, how best to help Jo.”
They talked for another half hour about different things they could do but ended with Floyd saying he’d think things through and get back to Gil later.
Gil left the sheriff’s office almost walking on air. He never would have dreamed that his meeting with the sheriff . . . Floyd, could ever have turned out the way it did.
When he parked his car in the garage at home, Gil was still in shock. He went through the door into the house and let Harry lead him out onto the back patio. Bert had taught Harry how to play ball and that was what the little dog wanted to do.
So he threw the ball and Harry brought it back several times. Gil was bending over to take the ball from Harry once when he heard two strange thuds behind him. He was turning around to see what it was when he heard the accompanying gunshots.
He dropped to the ground and crawled into the house with Harry bouncing around him and licking his face, thinking it was another game. He pulled out his cell phone and called 911 for the third time.
Floyd was the first of several to arrive. Gil was waiting for him at the front door to let him in.
“What you got here, Gil?”
Gil didn’t have time to revel in the fact that Floyd had actually called him Gil, again. He’d have to reflect on that later.
When Gil told him about the shots, Floyd sent deputies around each side of the house and went through the house to the back door himself.
Ten minutes later, when Floyd returned through the back door, Gil was waiting for him in the kitchen.
Floyd pulled out a chair and sat at the table with Gil.
“Well, looks like there was only one of them and he was shooting from the edge of the woods out back. He picked up his brass but the slugs we dug out of the wall out back look like .30-30 Winchesters.”
While Gil was trying to make sense of that, Floyd went on. “One good thing . . . I think. Either he wasn’t trying to hit you or he’s one heck of a bad shot. A half-way decent shot, using a rifle like that would have hit you both times from only fifty yards away.”
Gil didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing either.
Floyd pulled himself to his feet. “Well, I can’t do anything else here right now.” he looked down at Gil with a half-smile. “I wouldn’t walk in front of any windows with the lights on if I were you, Gil.”
With that, he headed out the front door leaving Gil with many more unanswered questions.
Chapter Eight
Gil had been so tired the night before that he allowed himself to sleep later Sunday morning. He wasn’t too concerned though. He still had plenty of time with a little more than an hour before Sunday School. He just wouldn’t be able to spend his normal time in prayer and study as he had planned. He’d try to squeeze a little in during Sunday School.
His thoughts returned to the shots that had been fired at him yesterday. Was Floyd right when he said that whoever had fired them hadn’t been trying to hit him? No matter what, it was still rather frightening to think that someone was that upset with him. What did he ever do to them?
Floyd had told him that he thought the culprits were the owners of the other two bars in town, Earl Jordan and Clyde Jenkins. Gil wondered if it would do any good if he was able to talk to them and assure them that he had no plans to close them down.
That sounded like a good idea, at least at first. Then as he thought about it, he realized he couldn’t just go into their bars and talk to them. He would have to meet them in public somewhere. But how could he do that without being too conspicuous?
Maybe Floyd or even Jo could give him an idea of how to go about meeting those men. He’d just have to ask the next time he saw one of them.
Then his thoughts turned to Floyd. It was so strange to think of him as Floyd rather than the sheriff, or any of the other titles he’d placed on the man in his mind, like bully. Was Floyd really going to treat him right now? Was he actually going to allow Gil to work with him to keep Jo safe?
Jo! She had been in his thoughts ever since his talk with Floyd. Why did he risk Floyd’s wrath to try to keep Jo safe? That was easy if he admitted it to himself. He liked her. He genuinely liked her. He had never felt this way about a woman before. In fact, he’d never really sat down and talked to a woman other than relatives before. Maybe that was it. The first time he was getting to know a woman didn’t necessarily mean anything else was going on, did it?
The more he thought about it, the more he was able to convince himself that was the case here. He had been so focused on his studies for the last ten years, as he’d worked diligently to get his degrees, that he had taken no time to get to know any girls or women. To be fair, there hadn’t really been any girls or women who had shown much of an interest in him during those years either.
That was when he realized that he was stepping into totally new territory for him. He hadn’t even dated much in high school. Even then, he’d been focused on taking the right classes and making good enough grades to get into the college he had chosen.
He had to face it. He knew nothing about women except what he’d learned from being around his mother and Aunt Eunice. But he didn’t think that would be of much help. If he were honest, his mother and his aunt were rather eccentric at best. So where did that leave him? In trouble, that’s where. He’d just have to wing it and that was something that he had never done anywhere at any time in his life.
As he was stepping out of the shower, he heard a noise at the back door. At first, he thought it was just Harry going in or out his doggy door. But then the noise continued so he pulled on some slacks and went to check it out.
As he approached the back door, he could see the silhouette of a man through the curtained window in the door. He was reaching for his cell phone when he heard Bert calling out to Harry.
When Gil opened the door, Bert called out, “Hey Mr. Preacher, me and Harry are playing ball. Want to come out and play with us?”
Gil couldn’t get angry with Bert. “That’s okay, Bert. I need to finish getting dressed. But I think you might need to be a little more qu
iet. You don’t want to disturb anyone who might be trying to sleep.”
Bert and Harry ran off to the other side of the backyard and Gil went back in to his bedroom.
As he finished dressing, his thoughts went to Jo again. Would she come to church this morning? He was certain that she had come last week just to see what he might say about the bars, and only then because her friend had talked her into it.
His usual quiet time during Sunday School was interrupted by one of the teachers knocking on his open door.
“Pastor, I hate to disturb you, but I have two six-year-old boys here who were fighting. What do you want me to do with them?”
Gil wasn’t prepared to deal with fighting six-year-old boys. He really had wanted to get a little study time in. But he said, “Bring them in, please.”
By the time he finished with the boys, Sunday School was over and it was time for him to get to the front of the church to greet people as they came in.
The first person he saw was Richard with his whole family.
Richard pulled him off to the side and said, “Pastor, I’ve called another deacon meeting for this afternoon at four. I think it’s about time we started doing something to protect you.”
“That’s fine Richard. I’ll plan to be there.”
As Richard moved to rejoin his family, Gil said, “And thank you Richard.”
Richard nodded and followed his family into the sanctuary.
It was almost time for Gil to go in for the beginning of the service when he saw Jo’s friend Sue Ann coming through the door with Jo and her sister right behind her.
He suddenly realized how disappointed he would have been if Jo hadn’t come. What? He would definitely have to analyze those feelings later.
* * *
As Jo was getting dressed to go to church, she remembered the argument she and Carla had had the night before about church. Carla had called her a hypocrite for even attending a church that was against drinking. Was she a hypocrite? She didn’t think so. Wasn’t a hypocrite someone who went to church for the wrong reasons? After last week, she’d discovered that she had a genuine desire to know more about God and besides she’d never wanted to be a bar owner anyway?
No Easy Solution (Crowley County Series Book 1) Page 12