Something About a Lawman

by Em Petrova

  Judd shoved Wes, and he lowered his head to ram him like a bull—his only defense was his big, hard head.

  Aiden turned his back on the pair and started picking his way along the bank of the stream. He had a full stringer of trout for their dinner, and he wanted to hurry home so his momma could start putting them into the hot oil. His stomach was turning inside out and they had a long walk home.

  “Aiden!” Judd’s call made him throw a look over his shoulder. His twin was holding his own with Wes. They were both still on their feet and nobody was bleeding. He didn’t need any help. He faced forward again. “Hey, dummy! Aren’t you gonna defend your own mother?”

  “Momma jokes are too stupid to bother over. C’mon, Judd. Don’t you want supper?”

  A second later he heard footsteps behind him, and then his brother was next to him. Wes flanked his other side and they started toward home. Nobody talked for a full minute.

  “Think your momma would care if I have supper with you?” Wes asked.

  “If I tell her what you said about her, she will.” Judd thrust his jaw forward.

  “Quit bickering. Sick of listening to it. A man needs some damn peace once in a while,” Aiden said.

  The boys sucked in gasps of shock.

  Judd’s eyes were round. “You swore.”

  “You sounded just like your old man,” Wes added in awe.

  Aiden’s mouth twisted in a smile. “Let’s just get home. I’m hungry and these fish are heavy.”

  They followed the stream, meandering back through the valley. The mountains were jagged spikes against the deep blue sky, and the air was clearer here than in any other part of Wyoming. Aiden would know—he’d been to all twenty-three counties. When his pa went to cattle auctions, they drove all over the state. Aiden loved those times, standing next to his father while they inspected cattle. His pa had even let him place a bid or two in the past. When he grew up, he wanted to take over the ranch.

  Wes squatted to look at a fat toad next to the water’s edge. Before he could get his hands around it, the toad leaped. Wes lunged. Aiden and Judd laughed as he tumbled down the bank into the water. He scrambled to his feet, dripping and his face screwed up with anger.

  “You guys—” He cut off, his voice strangled.

  Aiden looked at him more closely.

  “Did he swallow a bug or something?” Judd asked.

  “No, something’s actually wrong.” Aiden rushed down the bank and thrashed his way into the stream. Water rushed into his boots, filling them up to his shins. “You okay, Wes?”

  He pointed. Aiden followed his finger to an overhanging branch and a foot visible just beneath. Not just a foot. A foot attached to a body, attached to a torso. And when Aiden moved to the side, he spotted the face of a man, bloated, staring.

  “What the hell?” Judd drew up beside them and stared at the dead man. He folded at the waist and puked into the stream.

  “He’s been dead a while,” Wes managed, sounding as if his stomach hung out in his throat too.

  Aiden nodded. He’d seen people dead before. An old neighbor lady who’d made delicious batches of peanut butter cookies and their grandma Caroline. But those people had been cleaned up, eyes shut so they appeared to be sleeping.

  The bile rose in the back of Aiden’s throat too, but he gulped it down.

  “What do we do?” Wes pushed his heavy brown hair from his eyes.

  “I think we should run to the road and flag down a car and tell somebody.” Judd was as pale as the underbelly of a fish.

  Aiden held up a hand. “I’m oldest here—”

  “By four minutes!” Judd retorted.

  “And by five months,” Wes added.

  “Still oldest. So I’m taking charge.” He looked at the man again. Could they manage to drag him? He’d be heavy. He was wet.

  Maybe Judd’s idea was best.

  “Town’s closer than home, if we run straight through the woods. We go now, we’ll get there in an hour tops and we can tell the sheriff.”

  The boys looked at him. “What about the fish?” Judd asked.

  “And that big dinner?” Wes didn’t look like he was going to barf anymore.

  “The fish should keep. Maybe we can buy some ice and put them in a bag when we get to town. C’mon.” He gave the body one last appraising look and headed up the bank. He paused to dump out his boots and then set off again without a backward look. His brother and cousin followed, and Aiden didn’t tell them his knees were shaking.

  Twenty years ago

  Wes released a long, low whistle as they approached the sheriff’s office. For the last mile of walking, all Judd and Wes had talked about was supper. Judd’s stomach had been growling so loud that Aiden thought about starting a fire and roasting a fish or two over it on a stick. But they’d pushed on, and here they were, about to talk to one of the most intimidating men on the planet.

  Sheriff Rawlins. Six-foot-four with a chest the size of a bull. He was rumored to take down everything from petty thieves to cattle rustlers to murderers with only a glare. One look from that steely-eyed stare and a man confessed, it was told up and down these parts.

  “You go first,” Wes said. “You’re oldest.”

  “You never think me being oldest gives me an advantage any other time.”

  Judd elbowed him. “Go on. You walk up to the door first.”

  Aiden looked at the door. Painted white, like the rest of the building. Didn’t look so scary if he thought about it being a place of business, like a bait shop.

  He steeled his jaw and walked up to the door. His brother and cousin were at his heels, crowding close. Aiden shrugged. “Give a man some room, would ya?”

  Wes stepped back but Judd didn’t budge. Aiden figured his twin was experiencing that connection, same as he was. Each of them swore when one was scared, their heart beat double. It made him woozy, but he didn’t have time for that crap right now.

  He opened the door and stepped inside with Judd plastered to his back. Wes tripped over the threshold and nearly fell on his face.

  From behind a desk, a woman looked up at them.

  Aiden swallowed.

  “Can I help you boys?”

  “Uhh.” They hadn’t figured anybody besides the sheriff would be here, so being met by a kindly smile made Aiden want to weep with relief. He wouldn’t, though. He firmed his jaw again.

  “We need to talk to the sheriff.”

  She got up and came around her desk to smile at them wider. “He’s out on a call right now, but I can take a message.”

  “It’s the sheriff we need to see,” Wes spoke up.

  Judd threw him a shut-up-idiot look. Aiden had to admit, talking to this nice woman instead of the beast of a sheriff was looking better by the second.

  “Everyone needs to see the sheriff, son. But sometimes people have to tell me what they need to speak with him about and then I pass on the message.”

  Aiden nodded and then stopped. He glanced over the woman. She was older, with gray in her hair, looking a little frail in a baggy pair of pants and a sweater. How in heck was she wearing a sweater? It was eighty degrees out. Yeah, she was definitely old. Could her heart handle what they were about to tell her?

  “We’ll wait,” Aiden said stubbornly. He wasn’t about to be responsible for her death.

  Behind him, Judd’s breath washed out. “You sure, brother?”

  Aiden nodded.

  “Well, if you’re set on waiting, there’s a bench outside. Could be a while.”

  Was mighty hot too. The fish were starting to stink.

  Aiden pulled at his hat brim the way he’d seen his dad do a million times. “Thank ya, ma’am.”

  She smiled again and went back to her desk while the boys headed out. Aiden plunked onto the bench first and the others crammed next to him.

  “What’s wrong with you, thick-head?” Judd smacked the heel of his hand off Aiden’s skull, knocking his hat sideways. “We coulda told that nice lady wh
at we saw and been on our way home. I’m starving and those fish are rottin’.”

  Aiden looked down at the stringer of fish dangling down his thigh. He couldn’t argue. But he couldn’t voice his reasons for wanting to wait for the sheriff. “We’ll wait,” he said firmly.

  Judd sighed and Wes fell silent, kicking at a pebble under the bench with the toe of his boot. What felt like hours passed. From inside, the sheriff’s secretary started to hum, the sound projecting through the window like an invitation to tell her. Easy to walk back in and spill the story and be home for a late supper. Too much later and they’d miss chores, which would end in nothing till breakfast.

  “What if he’s gone till mornin’?” Wes asked.

  Aiden looked at his cousin. He was so scrawny he probably wouldn’t last till morning. Aiden swung his gaze to his twin. He was red-cheeked from the heat but wasn’t sweating anymore. Probably getting heatstroke. He’d seen a cowpoke get it once and he had to be taken to the hospital.

  He had to make a decision. Scare the bejeezus out of the secretary with their story or risk his family.

  Family came first.

  He pushed to a stand. Before he could take a step, a big old white SUV pulled up right in front of the office. Aiden didn’t need to look to know the word SHERIFF was painted on the side. Everyone knew this vehicle.

  “Oh shit,” Judd whispered.

  Aiden put out a hand. “I’ll take care of it.”

  The sheriff climbed out and started toward the office, shoving a small notebook into his breast pocket. He stopped short when he saw the boys. “Your pa inside waitin’ to talk to me?” he asked.

  Aiden shook his head. “We need to talk to you about something we saw, sir.”

  The sheriff towered over them, his gaze as cold as the body that lay by the stream when he looked them over. “You look hot. Hungry too. I was fancyin’ a chocolate cone from Amy’s down the street. Seems like you could use one too.”

  Wes’s head practically bounced off with the force of his nod and Judd’s stomach rumbled in answer.

  Aiden answered for them. “That would sure sit well, Sheriff.”

  Hours later, after a round of ice cream cones and the story about the body they’d discovered and their ideas about how it had come to be there, the sheriff drove them home. As he dropped them off at the ranch, he gave them all a smile—the first they’d ever seen on his face.

  Twenty years ago

  “’You leave this to me, boys. I’ll take care of it.’ That’s what the sheriff said.” Wes’s face was lit by the greenish glow of the flashlight they took into the closet they used as a clubhouse. The light sat on its end, the beam spreading a dim glimmer on each of them, sitting cross-legged on the closet floor.

  “Well, he’s not doing his job. There’s nothing in the newspaper about the murder at all.” Judd picked at the frayed lace of his boot.

  “You’re gonna catch hell for having your boots on in the house,” Aiden said.

  Judd made a face. “You called an emergency meeting right after chores and there wasn’t time to take them off.”

  “I managed to take mine off.”

  Wes cleared his throat pointedly. More and more their cousin was stepping up in this investigation, drawing things to order. After the three of them had spoken with the sheriff about the body they’d seen, they’d made it their mission to look after the case. When they heard nothing except that the man was dead, they’d decided to launch their own investigation.

  “You’re right, Wes. We have to stay on track.”

  “But I’ve got homework,” Judd whined.

  “We all do, dummy. Old Mrs. White gave us all the same math pages, remember?” Aiden didn’t know why he was having a go at his twin. Maybe he was hungry and it smelled in this closet like stinky feet and manure off Judd’s boots.

  “Get on with it, guys,” Wes said. “Aiden, read what you have written in your notebook this week.”

  He pulled out the notebook he’d bought with some spare change at the drugstore in town and proudly opened it to the second page. The words were scribbled, barely legible in the crappy light coming from the flashlight. He lowered the book and stared between Judd and Wes.

  “Why we gotta meet in Wes’s closet? Why can’t we just sit in his room?”

  “Because nobody can listen in here,” Wes said. He tapped a finger on the book. “Now read.”

  Aiden and Judd exchanged a glance at their cousin’s sudden force of character. Maybe he could start beating up his own bullies from now on.

  Or maybe not. Wes was still as big as a Junebug.

  Aiden read, “Nothing in newspaper. Boot tracks down at the stream near where the body was found.”

  Judd leaned forward, his face animated. “That’s our best lead yet.”

  “Could be any old fisherman down there catching some trout, Judd.” Aiden wasn’t committed to the detail being that important.

  “Or the killer could be coming back to make sure he didn’t leave anything behind.”

  “Well, he left a boot track.” Wes stretched out, kicking over the flashlight. Darkness closed around them, and Aiden wasn’t feeling so good about being in the closet anymore.

  “That old track didn’t show us anything but somebody likes to fish the stream. I’m gonna wash up for dinner.” He fumbled in the dark for the door handle, but Judd grabbed his arm as Wes righted the flashlight.

  “Dude, we gotta write everything down in the murder book. That’s how it’s done,” Judd said.

  “That’s right. We nail the timeline.” Wes started ticking things off on his fingers. “Follow every single lead. And we keep looking at every clue even when the case goes cold.”

  “Guys, I think it is cold. If the sheriff hasn’t found a suspect yet, how can we?” Aiden asked.

  Judd gave him a long, solemn look like he was disappointed to have shared a womb with him. “That’s why we have to keep searching. No stone is left unturned.”

  “That’s it!” Wes said. “Tomorrow we start looking for stones.”

  They both stared at him.

  “The stones from the creek will be muddier than anywhere else. And it’s not just any mud—it’s that thick brown stuff that gets all over everything.”

  “That’s true,” Judd said. “Momma yells at us all the time for dragging in creek mud.”

  “Yeah, and it’s sticky too. It picks things up. Like pebbles.” Wes opened his gray eyes wide as if they’d catch his meaning. They didn’t.

  “Say it plain,” Aiden said.

  “If the murderer went back to the creek to see if he left anything behind, the mud would stick to his boots and pick up anything he walked over, like pebbles or twigs. Then when the mud dried, those things might have fallen off.”

  “So if we find some rocks or sticks from the man’s boots, then we could follow the trail to the murderer,” Judd said excitedly.

  Aiden took out his pen and wrote that all down. Then he snapped the book shut. “I’m starvin’. Let’s get washed up before Momma calls us to dinner.”

  Twenty Years Ago

  “That’s it. It’s all over.” Aiden sat back, looking at his twin and cousin. The newspaper lay on the closet floor, the headline that the body found at the creek had been a result of natural causes. No foul play involved.

  After all the discoveries the boys had made. The hours beating the path, talking to suspects and finding what they believed were leads in the case, the man had simply died of a heart attack while hiking. He’d fallen down the bank and into the water, where he’d turned his blank eyes up to God.

  “Son of a bitch.” Judd kicked at the notebooks scattered on the floor.

  “Doesn’t mean anything, guys,” Wes said.

  Aiden stared at him. The crack in the door afforded enough light that they didn’t need the flashlight. “What are you talking about, Wes? It means he died of a heart attack, and we wasted all this time trying to hunt down a murderer.”

  “Yeah, but
we learned a lot. At least I did. I… I think I want to do this when I grow up, guys. Go into the law. Maybe become a sheriff.”

  Judd and Aiden gaped at him as the realization sank in. They had learned a lot in the past few weeks they’d been trying to solve the crime. And they’d enjoyed doing it.

  “Maybe I want to be a lawman too,” Aiden said.

  “Me too. I can’t see myself being happy with just ranchin’ the way pa does.” Judd reached for the notebooks and started stacking them again.

  Wes grinned at them both. “Then we keep our detective club?”

  “Sure, we’ll just find other crimes to solve,” Judd said with excitement.

  “I heard someone broke into Mrs. Craft’s barn the other day and stole a bunch of stuff.”

  “What can Mrs. Craft even own that’s worth anything?” Judd scoffed.

  “Doesn’t matter. Stuff was stolen, and that’s a crime.” Aiden lifted a brow as he looked at his brother and cousin. “What do you say? Are we takin’ the case?”

  Wes nodded at once and Judd followed.

  “Good. Gimme a new notebook. I’ll write down what I know.”

  Eighteen years ago

  The boys were getting too large for Wes’s closet. They were all twelve now, shooting up like bad weeds, Aiden and Judd’s pa said. Wes was still shorter than them. Skinnier too. But he had a gangly look like a colt did right before they came into their full growth.

  “So Old Thatch got his John Deere stolen yesterday. You might have heard him talkin’ to Pa,” Aiden said as way of opening the meeting of their detective club.

  “Who can just drive off with a John Deere? Where was the key?” Wes asked.

  “In the ignition,” Judd said, flicking his shoelace like a tiny lasso.

  Wes stretched out his long legs and kicked over the flashlight serving as light. The closet went black.