Tin Badge

by Len Levinson

  Jennifer turned to Stone. “I’m sure you’ll be comfortable with us, and we’d love to have you.”

  “I’ll stay with you until I can find a suitable place of my own.”

  Her green eyes glittered like emeralds. “You may stay as long as you like, Captain Stone.”

  Stone thanked her and her father, and backed out of the office, closing the door behind him. It was silent in the office for a few moments, and Mayor Randlett stared at his daughter as if seeing her for the first time. She calmly picked up a land lease and looked it over, as if nothing unusual had happened.

  “Young lady,” Mayor Randlett said, “what are you up to?”

  She maintained her gaze on the lease. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Daddy.”

  “I think you’re being disingenuous, my dear, but you can’t fool me. I used to change your diapers. Could you please tell me what in the world is going on between you and Captain Stone?”

  “The poor man needs a place to sleep, that’s all.”

  Mayor Randlett wrinkled his brow and tried to imagine Stone as a woman might see him. “Are you in love with him, in some way?” he asked her.

  “Why, Daddy, I hardly know him!”

  “Don’t do anything foolish, Jennifer.”

  “But, Daddy, all I did was offer our deputy sheriff a place to sleep. Whatever can you be talking about?”

  “You know very well what I’m talking about. Just be careful, that’s all. John Stone is a drifter and we really don’t know very much about him. Sheriff Rawlins thinks he might be a wanted man.”

  “Sheriff Rawlins is an obnoxious drunkard and everybody knows it. Why anybody pays attention to him is beyond me.”

  “Just be careful,” he told her, “and now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”

  “I just thought of something, Daddy. What if Esmeralda doesn’t let Captain Stone into the house? I mean, she doesn’t know him from Adam. She might think he’s a burglar. Maybe I’d better run home quickly and tell her to expect him.”

  Mayor Randlett looked askance at his daughter. “If you like,” he said.

  She stood behind her desk, smoothed the folds of her skirt, and headed for the door. Mayor Randlett watched her tall, slim figure, her flashing red hair. Only nineteen years old, he thought. It’s a dangerous age.

  Jennifer walked swiftly down the main street of Petie, the sun gleaming on her brilliant red hair. Men tipped their hats and said hello, and she smiled back perfunctorily, but her mind was somewhere else.

  She was thinking about John Stone, wondering if she’d gone too far when she’d invited him to stay at her home. Would he be aware that she liked him?

  I shouldn’t be so impetuous, she said to herself. I don’t want him to think I’m throwing myself at him. Men don’t respect women who throw themselves at them.

  She recalled how he’d looked, sleepy and grumpy, in her father’s office. He was a big strong man, but he needed a woman to take care of him, that was clear to her, and she thought she might be the right woman for him, although she couldn’t be sure.

  She barely knew him, after all. It was premature to think of marriage, but there was something about John Stone that excited her. She thought him handsome and charming, and could feel the strength of his body all the way across a room. He made her nervous, and no man ever had made her nervous before.

  I’ve got to be calm whenever I’m with him, she said to herself. I can’t ever let him know what I’m thinking or feeling. Somehow I’ve got to make him come to me.

  Out on the prairie, near the base of the Hawksridge Mountains, Deke Casey and his men were gathered around their breakfast fire, drinking harsh black coffee and smoking cigarettes.

  “We don’t all want to ride into Petie together,” Casey said, spreading a crude map of the town and its surrounding territory on the ground, “so I’ll go in first with Schuler, and we’ll take a look around, find out what happened to Chopak. We’ll meet up with the rest of you after sundown here,” he pointed to a hill to the west of town. “Hurley, you and Ramsay’ll carry the dynamite for the bank. Anybody got any questions?”

  Nobody said anything, and Casey tossed the butt of his cigarette into the fire. He nodded to Schuler and they arose, walking back toward the horses. He’d selected Schuler because Schuler was the fastest gun in the outfit. If there was any trouble in Petie, he’d rather have Schuler at his side than any other of his men.

  Casey and Schuler climbed onto their horses and rode away, heading for Petie. The other outlaws put out the fire and broke camp, preparing for their own journey to Petie later that morning. Their mood was solemn and mean. John Stone had killed eight of their comrades, maybe nine if he’d got Chopak, and that night they were going to pay him back.

  They’d surround him, shoot him down like a dog, and watch him die. Maybe they could gutshoot him, so he’d die slowly, or shoot off his kneecaps, which was the most painful wound of all.

  But no matter how they shot him, he was going to die.

  John Stone stood in front of the Randlett mansion, a saddlebag full of his belongings in his left hand and his rifle in his right hand. The mansion was large and white, two stories high, and had Georgian columns in front, reminding him of the home in which he’d grown up back in South Carolina before the war.

  His home had been substantially larger than this one, and the architecture had been finer, in his opinion. Albemarle had been situated on a hill, and a visitor approached the front door on a long, winding road lined with leafy oak trees. There were vast lawns dotted with trees and bushes, and many slaves labored to keep them neat and well-manicured. Not far away were forests full of game, where Stone had hunted during the day, and at night there were fabulous parties, with full orchestras and ladies dressed in the most beautiful gowns. Stone had never done a lick of work in his life until he went to West Point. He’d been a rich man’s son and never had lacked anything. Then the war came, the Confederacy was crushed, and now Stone was just another saddle bum, roaming the frontier.

  He knocked on the front door and waited for a few moments. All he wanted to do was get to bed as soon as possible.

  The door was opened and he saw Jennifer Randlett standing in front of him. “Come right in,” she said. “I had to come home to take care of a few things, and I might as well show you your room.” She turned around and shouted, “Esmeralda!”

  A stout black maid in a white apron entered the vestibule, and she reminded Stone of his old mammy back at Albemarle. He removed his hat.

  “Esmeralda, this is John Stone, our new deputy sheriff. He’ll be staying with us for a while. Please see that he gets anything he wants.” She turned to Stone. “This way, Captain. I’ll show you your room.”

  He followed her into the living room, where a huge crystal chandelier hung over their heads, and up the curving staircase to the second floor. He was aware of her perfume trailing behind her, and she lifted her skirts as she climbed the stairs, revealing her trim ankles.

  She led him to a room on the second floor, and they went inside. It had white wallpaper and large windows overlooking the mountains in the distance. The bed was immense, covered with a white ruffled bedspread, and above the bed was a painting of a herd of mustangs galloping over the prairie. Jennifer opened the window, and a cool breeze touched Stone’s cheeks.

  She turned around and smiled. “Hope you like it. If you need anything, just call Esmeralda. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to be going. Oh, yes—one more thing—do you think you’d like to have dinner with us this evening?”

  “I go on duty at eight.”

  “Dinner will be served at six-thirty. That should give you plenty of time. Is there anything you don’t like to eat?”

  “I eat anything.”

  “We’ll expect you for dinner at six-thirty, then. I hope you’re able to get some sleep here.”

  “I’m sure I won’t have any trouble.”

  She turned and left the room.
Stone stripped off his shirt, then washed his hands and face in the basin, thinking of Jennifer. She certainly was a lively little thing, quite vivacious and pretty. In a way, she reminded him of Marie, who also had been bright and full of life.

  He dried himself with the big fluffy towel and pulled the drapes over the window, blocking out the light, plunging the room into darkness. He removed the remainder of his clothing and crawled into bed, bringing his head to rest on the pillow. He closed his eyes, remembering Jennifer’s brilliant red hair.

  Deke Casey and Fritz Schuler hitched their horses to the rail in front of the Paradise Saloon. They looked to the left and right, and Casey angled his head toward the front of the saloon. They climbed to the sidewalk, pushed the doors, and stepped inside. Both had been here before when they’d been planning the bank robbery, and they headed for the bar.

  “Whiskey,” said Casey.

  Doreen Eckles was working behind the bar. She placed a bottle of whiskey and two glasses in front of them.

  “Nice day,” she said with a smile, trying to make conversation.

  “Yeah,” grunted Casey.

  She realized they didn’t want to talk with her and moved to another part of the bar. She wasn’t surprised; cowboys and freighters were often a moody lot, probably because they spent so much time alone on the prairie.

  Casey raised the glass to his lips and took a sip. His hat had a cord that hung around his neck, and a one-inch length of hollow bone could tighten or loosen the cord. He pulled the bone down all the way and pushed the hat off his head, causing the hat to hang behind him, showing his straight black hair streaked with a few strands of gray.

  He and Schuler were dirty and unshaven, but so were many of the other drinkers in the saloon. He leaned his back against the bar and looked at the men playing cards. If things were different, he wouldn’t mind sitting in on a game.

  A waitress walked by, carrying a tray of drinks. Casey turned to her and licked his upper lip. It’d been a long time since he’d had a woman, and he undressed her with his eyes. If the bank robbery had worked, he and his men would’ve taken the money and gone to a whorehouse.

  Casey and Schuler stood at the bar and had a few drinks, looking at the waitresses, listening to conversations, trying to find out what was going on. A man with a big belly, wearing a suit with the coat open, approached the bar.

  “Whiskey,” he said.

  Doreen placed a bottle and glass in front of him.

  “Nice town you got here,” he told Doreen. “I been in some towns lately that I wouldn’t give you a dime for.”

  “Travel a lot?” asked Doreen.

  “I’m a salesman. Sell to dry-goods stores. Carry a nice line of ladies’ garments. Like to show ’em to you sometime.”

  Doreen had heard every line in the book, and this one wasn’t new. “Maybe later,” she said.

  “Best thing about this town,” the salesman continued, “is that it’s so peaceful. I always like to come here. Never feel like somebody’s gonna shoot me when I’m not looking.”

  “You should’ve been here last night,” Doreen said. “We had plenty of shootin’. Our new deputy sheriff, John Stone, had to kill a drunk who went crazy at Miss Elsie’s, and then a stranger tried to bushwhack Stone, but Stone shot him first.”

  Casey leaned his elbow on the bar and smiled, showing tobacco-stained teeth. “Who tried to bushwhack your deputy?” he asked Doreen.

  “Nobody ever seen him before yesterday. He was a big feller, had a tattoo on his arm.”

  Casey looked at Schuler significantly. They picked up their glasses and bottle of whiskey and made their way to one of the empty tables, sitting down across from each other. Casey propped up his feet on an empty chair.

  “Guess we don’t have to worry about Chopak no more,” he said.

  “Always was a damn fool,” Schuler replied. “I bet I could’ve taken Stone. Would’ve walked straight up to him and drawed.”

  Casey looked at Schuler, who wore long blond sideburns and had a pink complexion. “Maybe he would’ve been faster than you.”

  “There’s only one way to find out.”

  “What the hell’s the point of takin’ a chance, when you could have a sure thing?”

  Schuler leaned toward Casey and grinned. “I like to see a man’s face when I shoot him. They always look surprised, as if they can’t believe it’s happening to ’em.”

  “You think you could take John Stone?”

  “Sure.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Ain’t many faster than me.”

  “What if he’s one of them?”

  Schuler shrugged. “We’re all gonna die sooner or later.”

  “Look who’s here,” said Schuler.

  Schuler turned around and saw Sheriff Rawlins walk into the Paradise, his fingers hitched in his belt. He wore his customary frock coat that reached his knees, and his black hat with the flat crown. The only open spot at the bar was next to the salesman, and Rawlins stepped beside him, placing his foot on the rail.

  “Whiskey!” he called out loudly.

  The salesman turned to him and smiled. “Howdy, Sheriff. Heard your deputy had a hot time for himself last night.”

  Rawlins looked at him and narrowed his eyes. “Who’re you?”

  “Name’s Smith, and I’m a traveling salesman. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Smith held out his hand, to shake with Rawlins, but Rawlins looked at his hand disdainfully, and Smith withdrew it. Meanwhile, Doreen brought Rawlins his whiskey and filled his glass half full, just the way he liked it. Rawlins raised the glass and gulped it down.

  Smith watched him with admiration. He knew of Rawlins’s reputation, and people in other towns that he’d visited spoke of Rawlins in the same breath that they spoke of the great gun-fighters of the frontier. Rawlins was a legend, and Smith was proud to be standing next to him.

  “Guess it’s nice to have a new deputy,” Smith said, trying to strike up a conversation with the great man.

  Rawlins didn’t say anything. He just poured himself another half glass of whiskey.

  “What happened last night anyway?”

  Rawlins threw his head back and drank the whiskey, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

  “Guess your new deputy takes some of the load off your shoulders. Wish I had somebody to take the load off my shoulders. It ain’t easy carrying a bag of samples all over the damned countryside. Sell men’s clothes too, by the way. You might want to look at some of my merchandise. Bring a few items over to your office anytime you like. Just tell me when.” Smith smiled. “I aim to please.”

  Rawlins turned to him, and his eyes were bloodshot. “Get away from me,” he said, a deadly tone in his voice.

  The smile vanished off the salesman’s face. “Didn’t mean any harm, Sheriff. Just making conversation.”

  “Hit the road.”

  The bar became still, and the salesman was aware that all eyes were on him, but he’d always been a fast talker and was confident he could talk his way out of anything.

  “Sure thing, Sheriff,” he said with a smile. “Just as soon as I finish my drink.’

  In a sudden lunging movement, Rawlins spun the salesman around, grabbed him by his collar and the seat of his pants, and carried him to the doors, while the salesman screamed and flailed his arms helplessly. Rawlins kicked the doors open and heaved the salesman into the middle of the street.

  The salesman flew through the air, his legs kicking wildly, his mouth agape with fear, and landed in the muck. Rawlins turned around and reentered the saloon, and everybody was laughing. He returned to his position at the bar and poured himself another drink.

  A few feet away, a freighter was giggling in his beer. He had a droopy mustache and had just arrived in town. Rawlins looked at him.

  “What’s yer problem!”

  The freighter went pale. “I got no problem, Sheriff.”

  “Stop that goddamned noise.”


  The saloon went silent. Rawlins picked up his glass. Across the room, Deke Casey leaned toward Fritz Schuler and said softly, “Think you could handle Rawlins?”

  “Sure.”

  “They say he’s awful fast.”

  “Maybe he was awful fast in his prime, but he ain’t in his prime no more. He looks like a goddamn drunk to me. He pushes me around, I’ll show him what fast is.”

  The door to the office opened, and Jennifer looked up. She saw a middle-aged man covered with mud from head to foot.

  “Can I help you?” Jennifer asked.

  “I’d like to speak with the mayor.”

  “I’m afraid he’s busy right now. Is there anything I can do?”

  “It’s about your sheriff. Look what he did to me.”

  Smith gazed down at his clothes. They were wet and filthy, but more than that his pride was hurt. He considered himself a clever person, and it had been humiliating to be laughed at by everybody in sight.

  “What exactly did he do to you?” Jennifer asked.

  “He threw me in the street.”

  “What for?”

  “I was only being friendly, and before I knew it, he attacked me. Let me tell you something, young lady. I do a lot of traveling, and I’ve seen a lot of sheriff’s. They’re supposed to help people, and uphold law and order, not attack honest citizens who pay their taxes and mind their own business. I think something ought to be done about your sheriff, before he actually harms an innocent person.”

  “I’ll take it up with the mayor,” Jennifer said.

  “The man’s a menace to life and property. I’ve never been treated this way in my life.”

  “The mayor will receive a full report.”

  The salesman filled his lungs with air and expelled it loudly. He was angry and didn’t know what to do. Frustrated and embarrassed, he considered it unmanly to complain to a woman. Turning around, he walked out of the office.

  A few seconds after he left, the door behind Jennifer opened and her father stepped out.

  “Rawlins is at it again,” he said, frowning, because he’d heard everything. “What in the name of God am I going to do with him?”