Anatomy of a Lawman

by J. R. Roberts

  “Hey Doc?” Harper called.

  “Yeah?”

  “Why don’t you take a walk and let me talk to my friend?”

  “I’ll be out in the hall,” Foster said, not offended at all. “Call if you need me.”

  “Okay, Doc.”

  Foster went out into the hall and pulled the door shut.

  “My best friend in town,” Jack Harper said. “It’s killin’ him that he can’t help me.”

  “Apparently he’s managed to keep you alive.”

  “At least he’s done that,” Harper said, “but my back hurts like hell.”

  “So what do you want from me, Jack?”

  “I need your help, Clint,” Harper said. “I need somebody to wear my badge until I come back.”

  FOUR

  “So you want me to help you find a replacement?” Clint asked.

  “No,” Harper said. “You know what I’m talking about, Clint. I want you to replace me until I get back.”

  “Jack—”

  “You haven’t been in town that long, have you?” Harper asked.

  “No, I just got to town about half an hour ago,” Clint said. “I spoke to your deputy, but he didn’t have much to tell me.”

  “That’s because I told him not to say anythin’,” Harper said. “I wanted to tell you myself.”

  “Look, Jack,” Clint said, “I can help you, but I can’t—”

  “This town is a throwback, Clint,” Harper said. “It needs a firm hand.”

  “There are plenty of other men out there with a firm hand.”

  “Yeah, but you’re here now,” Harper said.

  “That’s because I didn’t know what I was walking into.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You sent me a telegram that asked me to come, but didn’t say why,” Clint said. “You tricked me.”

  “I need you, Clint!” Harper said. “If you turn me down, I’ll have to keep lookin’, and I won’t have time to get these slugs out of my back.”

  “You’re crazy, Jack,” Clint said. “Leave your deputy in charge and go to the hospital—where? In Kansas City? Somewhere else?”

  “Doc says Kansas City, but Buck can’t handle the job. It’s too big for him.”

  “It’s just a town—”

  “I told you,” Harper said. “This is no normal town. This is how Abilene used to be. Tombstone. Dodge. You get it?”

  “I know what you’re saying, but—”

  “And the Graves boys ain’t done!” Harper said, cutting him off again.

  “What?”

  “They’re coming back, and with more men,” Harper said. “More family.”

  “Did you kill any of them?”

  “I don’t know,” Harper said. “I know I hit at least one, but I was shootin’ from my belly.”

  “And how many are coming back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And when?”

  “I don’t know that either,” Harper said, “but somebody needs to get this town ready for them. Buck can’t do that, and I don’t have the time to look for someone else.”

  “Don’t you have somebody in town—a leader—who could take your place?”

  “No,” Harper said. “Doc’s on the Town Council and he’s talked to them, but none of them can handle a gun, and they don’t know what to do to get ready for the gang to come back.”

  “Jack,” Clint said, “this is unfair. If I say no, you could end up dead before you find someone else.”

  “I know that,” Harper said. “I tricked you into comin’. I admit it. But that’s how desperate I am to keep this town safe. I’ve been the law here for twelve years, Clint. If word gets out that I’m gone, who knows what will happen?”

  “You mean, besides the Graves gang?”

  “Yeah,” Harper said. “Trouble could come from anybody.”

  Clint stared down at his friend. Harper was sweating and looked pale. The bandages on his back showed some blood leakage.

  “Damn you, Jack—”

  “My badge is on that table, Clint, right there next to you.”

  Clint looked down, saw the star sitting on the table next to the bed.

  “Come on, Clint,” Harper said. “Pick it up.”

  Clint picked it up.

  “Pin it on.”

  Clint hefted the tin in his hand, then put it in his shirt pocket.

  “I’ll hang on to it until I can think of something,” Clint said.

  “I guess I’ll accept that.”

  “You have to let the doctor take you to Kansas City,” Clint said.

  “I will,” Harper said, “as long as you tell me you’ll either pin the badge on, or find somebody to pin it on who can do the job.”

  “I promise, Jack.”

  Harper heaved a sigh of relief, then said, “Good. Now maybe you should tell the doc to get in here. I need somethin’ for this pain.”

  Instead of calling the doctor in, Clint stepped out into the hall.

  “He wants something for the pain,” he said.

  “Finally,” Doc Foster said. “He wouldn’t let me give him anythin’ because he wanted to be alert when you got here.”

  “Before you go in, Doc,” Clint said, “what are his chances?”

  “Here, he has no chance,” Foster said. “In a good hospital, with a good surgeon, I give him fifty-fifty.”

  “That’ll he’ll die?”

  “Fifty-fifty that he’ll walk,” Foster said, “if he doesn’t die.”

  “I see.”

  Clint took the badge out of his pocket and looked at it.

  “You gonna pin it on?” Foster asked.

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “Take the advice of an old man,” Foster said, putting his hand on the doorknob.

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t think about it for too long.”

  Doc Foster went into the room.

  FIVE

  Clint left the hotel and went to the nearest saloon. It was midafternoon, and the Dust Cutter Saloon was doing a bang-up business. Tables were full, the bar was busy, and girls were working the floor.

  “Whataya have?” the bartender asked.

  “Beer,” Clint said, “nice and cold.”

  “Onliest kind we got, mister,” the bartender assured him. The barkeep brought him his beer and went about his job, which suited Clint. He didn’t need a nosy bartender chattering at him tight now.

  He was mad.

  He was angry at Jack Harper for getting himself shot in the back, and he was angry at his friend for tricking him, inviting him to Guardian under false pretenses.

  The sheriff’s badge felt heavy in his shirt pocket. He’d worn a badge early in his life, but quickly learned what a thankless job it was to be a town or county sheriff. You were expected to do your job to the best of your ability, which was no problem. It was when you needed a little extra help—some extra deputies or a posse—that you learned you were on your own.

  He expected nothing different from the town of Guardian. If Jack Harper expected this town to stand up for itself against a gang of gunmen, he was in for a disappointment. Then again, he’d been sheriff here for twelve years. He knew the town better than Clint did. Maybe that wasn’t the case here. Maybe things were different.

  Yeah, right.

  Clint decided to listen to some of the talk going on around him. Eventually, among all the inane conversation that went on in a saloon, he picked out a conversation about the Graves gang.

  “. . . ain’t the sheriff’s fault they’s gonna be comin’ back here,” one man said.

  “It ain’t? He shot one of ’em, didn’t he?” a second man asked.

  “Sure he did,” a third man said, “but they was robbin’ the bank.”

  “And didn’t they put two slugs in his back?” the first man asked.

  “Which is gonna make him useless when the gang comes back,” the second man said. “We’re gonna be sittin’ ducks for them Graves boys, and
it’s his fault. Too bad he didn’t die from them slugs.”

  Clint almost went looking for the men. They must have been standing at the bar somewhere. He held himself back, though. They were only proving what he’d already thought. At least one man would rather have had the sheriff dead, thinking that would save them from a gang. Clint had dealt with gangs like this all his life. They’d ride into town, kill the lawmen, and then either take over the town or burn it.

  He was thinking of packing up and leaving town right then and there. Let the town fend for itself, but this town meant a lot to Jack Harper. He couldn’t just walk away and leave it to be destroyed.

  “The sheriff’ll take care of us,” the first man said. “He always does, ya know.”

  “That’s right,” the third man said. “He ain’t never let us down before, has he?”

  “I’m havin’ another beer,” the second man said. “I wanna be dead drunk when them Graves boys ride in here and burn us down.”

  “No tellin’ when they’ll come back,” the first man said.

  “Well, I’m gonna be drunk ’til then,” the second man said. “And you mark my words. I ain’t the only one in town blames the sheriff for this. There’s members of the Town Council feel the same.”

  Again, Clint almost went looking for the three men, to find out from the one with the big mouth just who on the Council felt that way, but he decided against it. Doc Foster was on the Council. He’d just ask him.

  Deputy Buck Wilby came in at that point, looked around, and spotted Clint at the bar. When Clint saw him approaching, he quickly ordered the young man a cold beer.

  “Here you go, Deputy,” Clint said, handing it to him.

  “Are you gonna do it, Mr. Adams?”

  “Do what?”

  “You know,” Buck said, “take the sheriff’s place while he’s gone.”

  “The sheriff’s likely to be gone a long while, Buck,” Clint said. “I can’t stay here indefinitely, you know.”

  “Yeah, well, what about until the Graves boys come back?”

  “You think you could handle this job, Buck?” Clint asked him.

  “Nossir.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Nossir,” Buck said. “I can back your play, but there ain’t no way I could do the sheriff’s job. Not yet anyway. I ain’t experienced enough, or good enough.”

  “It’s a smart man who knows those things about himself, Buck.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  And it’s a smart man who knows what he has to do, Clint thought. He took the badge out of his pocket and pinned it on.

  SIX

  While they drank their beers, the three men somewhere along the bar continued their discussion, and suddenly the big mouth had some support.

  “Glen’s right,” a fourth voice pitched in.

  “Yeah,” a fifth man said, “why didn’t the sheriff just let ’em go?”

  “And let ’em rob the bank?” the first man asked. “Don’t you got money in the bank, Hank?”

  “Sure, I do,” Hank said, “and I wanna be alive to get it out.”

  “And I want it to be standin’ when I’m ready to get it,” Glen said. “But that ain’t gonna happen when the Graves gang gets here.”

  “Goddamned idiots!” Buck said, and before Clint could stop him, the young deputy went looking for the men.

  “Glen Parks, you’re a blamed fool!” he snapped, moving down the bar. “If it wasn’t for the sheriff, this town probably woulda been burned to the ground a long time ago, so you shut yer damned mouth!”

  “Oh, here’s the loyal deputy, boys,” Parks said. “And where was you when the sheriff got two in the back, Buck?” the man asked.

  “Hidin’ somewheres, I bet,” Hank said, and the men laughed, even the ones who had been defending Sheriff Harper.

  “Goddamnit, Parks!”

  “Go ahead, boy,” Parks said, “skin that iron. Who you got to back your play now that the sheriff’s flat on his back?”

  “Will I do?” Clint asked, stepping forward.

  Suddenly the saloon got very quiet.

  The five men looked at Clint as he stepped forward. The sheriff’s star on his chest loomed large.

  “This here’s the temporary sheriff,” Buck said. “He’s gonna be around until Sheriff Harper gets back on his feet.”

  “Is that a fact?” Glen Parks asked.

  Clint could have picked Parks out of the five. The man with the big mouth had a sullen face and mean eyes. About forty-five, Clint was sure this man had caught as many beatings as he’d meted out in his life.

  “And do you two think yer gonna be able to defend this town against the Graves boys and their gang?”

  “Sure we are,” Clint said. “Because you’re going to help.”

  “What?”

  Clint noticed they were the center of attention now, and took advantage of it.

  “And so are you,” he said, pointing to another man, “and you, and you, and you. All of you are going to help. Otherwise you’re right, this town will be burned to the ground.”

  “Whataya mean?” Parks demanded. “That ain’t our job. It’s yours!”

  “Since when is it not a man’s job to defend his home?” Clint asked.

  “Since we pay Jack Harper—and now you—forty a month,” Parks said.

  “Forty a month?”“ Clint asked. “That’s twenty for each slug he’s got in his back. And he wouldn’t leave town to get those bullets taken out in a hospital until he got somebody to take his place. He wanted to make sure this town had a fighting chance when the Graves gang returned.”

  “And we’re gonna have that with you?” Parks asked.

  “We sure are,” Buck Wilby said. “Let me introduce you to the new sheriff, boys. Meet Clint Adams.”

  SEVEN

  The entire saloon seemed to be staring at Clint.

  “The Gunsmith?” Parks asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re our new sheriff?” someone asked.

  “Temporary sheriff,” Buck said. “Just ’til Sheriff Harper gets back on his feet.”

  Someone pushed through the crowd to face Buck and Clint. He was wearing a suit, was well spoken, and Clint assumed he was one of the town fathers.

  “You can’t just appoint yourself sheriff of this town.”

  This was the first time Clint realized that Jack Harper was the town sheriff, not the county sheriff.

  “I’m assuming this will go before your Town Council,” Clint said, “but for now, Sheriff Harper has asked me to take over.”

  “Well, whatta we got to worry about, then!” somebody shouted. “The Gunsmith’ll take care of them Graves boys.”

  “Like I was telling these gents here,” Clint said, indicating Parks and his friends, “I’m here to help. I’m not here to face this gang alone. I’m not a gun for hire.”

  “You ain’t?” somebody asked.

  “If I was,” Clint said, “it would cost you a hell of a lot more than forty a month.”

  “Now look,” said the man in the suit, “before we talk about whether this man will or will not do, we have to have a meeting of the Council to see if we approve his wearing the badge.”

  There was some murmuring, and some laughter, and someone shouted, “Why would you not approve of the Gunsmith wearing that badge?”

  “Because he wasn’t duly elected to do so!” the man said. He turned to Clint. “Adams, I’m going to convene a meeting of the Council. I assume you’ll be there?”

  “Just tell me when and where,” Clint said. “I’ll either be at the sheriff’s office or in the hotel across the street.”

  “Fine,” the man said, and walked on.

  The man left, and before the rest of the men in the saloon could surround Clint and bombard him with questions, he grabbed Buck’s arm and pulled him out of the saloon as well.

  “Who was that man?”

  “Parks? He’s nobody—”

  “No, the man in the
suit,” Clint said. “Obviously he’s a member of the Town Council.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s Mr. Radke,” Buck said. “He owns a bunch of businesses around town. In the last election he ran for mayor and lost, but yeah, he’s on the Council.”

  “Is he going to be trouble?” Clint asked.

  “He just always has to have a say in what’s goin’ on,” Buck said. “He’ll make a lot of noise, but in the end he’ll go along with the Council.”

  “And how’s the Council going to react to Sheriff Harper passing his badge to me?”

  “Well, Doc’s on the Council and his word carries a lot of weight.”

  “More weight that Radke’s?”

  “Oh yeah,” Buck said, “a lot more weight than Mr. Radke’s.”

  Clint shook his head.

  “I better go over to the hotel and let Jack know what’s happening already.”

  “He’ll just be happy to see you wearin’ that badge . . . Sheriff.”

  “Yeah, well, let’s see just how long I’ll be holding on to it.”

  Clint knocked on the door of room eleven again. It was opened by Doc Foster, who looked at him with raised eyebrows.

  “Trouble already?”

  “Is he awake?”

  “No,” Foster said. “I gave him somethin’ for the pain and he’s out.”

  “The Town Council is apparently convening to decide if I should wear this badge or not.”

  “And whose bright idea was that?”

  “A man named Radke.”

  The doctor waved his hand.

  “Don’t worry about him,” he said. “I can overrule him.”

  “What about the rest of the Council?”

  “When they hear who you are, nobody will object—as long as you’re takin’ the same forty a month, that is.”

  “I’m doing this as a favor to Jack,” Clint pointed out.

  “You got the forty a month comin’,” the Doc said. “And you’ll earn it.”

  “So you’ll be at the meeting?”

  “Don’t worry,” Foster said. “I’ll see you there.”

  EIGHT

  Clint went to the sheriff’s office to await word of the Town Council meeting. While he was there, he looked through Jack Harper’s desk, found some wanted posters. He was leafing though them when Buck Wilby came walking in.