The Call of the Badge

The Call of the Badge

Josh Brody, a tall, lean, wiry-built man in his later thirties, was exhausted, frustrated and downright mad. He wasn’t much good at accepting defeat. He’d known failures. No one gets to his maturity without some of those. But failures were teaching moments. This wasn’t a failure by which he could see anything to be learned. He’d been outsmarted, outridden and plumb snookered. But Josh didn’t know how to give up so this was merely a temporary defeat.

He had just spent three punishing days tracking on a dead-end trail. A drunken drifter had shot Mason Billings, a storekeeper in the town of Blind Creek, during a gambling brawl. Billings wasn’t dead, in fact he was probably back at work having only been winged in the shoulder. The nameless drifter, who had fled north on a fast horse, had to be held to justice. Josh, being the sheriff, had gone after him. 

The trail had given out after the first day when it began to storm and wash all tracks away. The sheriff, having not been in possession of even a short-ration of quit, had circled that cap-rock country for yet another day, coming up with nada. He was a man who’d ridden long trails. Long trails developed useful habits, and this habit told him it was time to go home, rest, re-think and perhaps develop a plan.

❖

Joshua Brody had grown up an army brat. His father was a major in the 7th Cavalry. Most of his formative years he’d spent at Fort Riley, Kansas. His mother had been the fort’s schoolmarm. She was stern. Young Brody knew his numbers and could read the Bible unaided by eight years of age.

His had been a lonely childhood. Play was not a familiar pastime. Most of the other kids at the fort were older or much younger. The only three near his age were girls who laughed at him and stuck to themselves.

At thirteen, Smoke Howard, one of the post scouts, had taken a shine to Joshua and begun to teach him savvy ways. Smoke’s mother had been a stunningly beautiful Cherokee squaw who had genetically passed cunning ways on to him.
Being a cavalry officer’s son he learned to ride, and ride well, by five or six years old. He never had the opportunity or need to learn to rope and cowboy, but he was nonetheless a top horseman.

Josh not only learned to track, but he learned to read more subtle sign. He could read a lot about a man by the way he traveled, how he treated his horse and where he might choose to build his fire of a night. Smoke would sometimes play a game with Josh, leaving misleading cues and tracks, while going off into a different direction. He would then double back and try to get behind Josh. As years went on, Smoke was rarely able to put the sneak on young Josh.

Smoke would take him out for several days at a time. He showed Josh how to find his way by stars and shadows. By his early teens, he entertained himself by reading the men as they would stroll in and out of the sutler’s store. More often than not, he could surmise much about the regions from which they hailed, or their general upbringing and inclinations. Reading faces and eyes he learned, mostly successfully, to judge a man’s honesty and character by his squint, scars, the speech of his eyes and the set of his jowl.

These keen powers of observation, along with a commitment to justice and a devoted sense of duty and loyalty, were the skills he brought to his job when he’d first hired on as a deputy marshal in Hays, Kansas. After more than three years in the office, he had been invited to run for County Sheriff in Shawnee County. He had never lived there, but he knew some folks. They spread the word and he got elected. That was twelve years ago. He had become a legendary lawman and a good one if, perhaps, a touch too much on the suspicious, untrusting side. Josh was aware of the reputation he had for suspecting first and trusting later. It bothered him not. He pondered on it little but if you’d have asked him about it he might have simply answered, “It’s my survival tool.”

❖

It was late on a summer afternoon by the time Sheriff Brody rode back into Blind Creek. Thunderstorm rain was still coming down in drops hard enough to make a drumming sound on his beaver felt. Slickered, yet dampened, Josh was watering his horse at the trough when a familiar itch made him frown. His neck hairs were bristling, a sixth sense that served him well. Strange as it was, he’d long ago learned better than to ignore the feeling when it came upon him. He figured he had been called to being a lawman, drawn to it as a siren-destiny. And this neck-notice was a gift that came with the call. It was his personal trouble-tell.

His cross-draw rig was at the ready. His preferred short-gun, a Remington 1875 in .45 Long Colt, was well worn and long-used. It was clean, oiled and had a habit of putting a chunk of lead where it’s shooter intended, when its trigger was pressed. Josh was still holding his mare’s reins in his shooting hand, which was casually inching towards his gun. He wasn’t trigger happy, but he’d been up the trail and collected some sand along the way. This salty law-dog had more than enough grit to do by.
Shifting slowly, so as to not draw attention, he raised his head to have a casual look-see. What was making his neck crawl?
There it was. He spied three riders, strangers, passing the bank. Having been the sheriff for a dozen years, Josh knew most folks in his county, but these three he'd never before seen. They had a look, a familiar look of trouble that Josh had immediately recognized. After more than fifteen years as a law-dog, a man who pays attention learns some things. His subconscious will recognize some characteristics and mannerisms, subtle though they may be, common among outlaws. Josh was no fool. He would never take violent action based upon these gut-checks, but he would be dangerously remiss in his job if he did not get into high alert when they reared up. All three hombres had the look of packing a bounty. He wanted to check to see if he had any papers that might match their description.

Then he noticed their focused study on the bank which they were blatantly examining, apparently not even trying to be subtle about it. There was an arrogance to the way they set their horses, which were all fine looking animals of a blood superior to the average. These well-conformed rides were the sort of horse most couldn’t afford but an outlaw might acquire as a getaway insurance policy.

The three, glancing about, continued west at a walk, twelve hooves plopping along the muddy street. Dismounting at the rail, they let out brazen laughs as they swaggered through the mud to the saloon. Grey-coat kicked open the bat-wings with his boot.

❖

“Well, spit!”, Josh exhaled a weary sigh. He'd just ridden nearly thirty miles that day alone. He was cold, wet and spent. He wanted a bath, a meal and sleep. 

Was he getting too old for these trials? He owned more than three hundred acres with good water ten miles north of town. Maybe he ought to retire, raise some cattle and settle down. It had been his plan all along to only do lawin’ for so many years and then to set about a more peaceable, pastoral life. He’d of late been courting Adeline Trueblood, a preacher’s widow. At fatigued times like this, the vision of a woman’s comfort and a home with a feminine touch set a longing in him. Womenfolk brought finery to a home. They set about with china plates and antimacassars on chair backs and clean, sleeping-linens regularly. She had been widowed a respectable enough time. The thought of hitching up and building a new life with Adeline out there on that promising spread, made him wonder why he hadn’t already done so.

Whether it was time to retire or not was a ponderation for another time. He was still drawing county pay so he knew what he had to do today. He needed to go have a palaver with these no-accounts to learn their business in Blind Creek. If it all turned out to be legitimate, he still might get to that bath and meal in an hour or so. Might's well get to it, come what may.
Gus was tinkling on the ivories in the Painted Lady Saloon. The raucous laughter sounded about normal. Josh typically enjoyed an internal grin under such circumstances. He wouldn’t have called it a superiority, though it had a flavor of that, but he saw this feeling as a knowing, a consciousness , an awareness, maybe. He was being mindful while others were merely setting about after pleasure and distractions, their escapes from the mundane lives they endured. He heard the laughter, and the grumbles and the clink of glass. Someone was shuffling cards. None seemed to have any awareness that potential trouble had just walked in.

Times like this, mindfulness among the oblivion of the masses, reminded him of the smart feeling he’d get as a boy, when he’d be up hours before daybreak delivering eggs to the porches of folks in town who bought from Ma’s hens. They were all sleeping while he was about, aware of things that they knew not of. They were missing out on this placid, dark time.
The troublesome trio was bellied to the bar hurrying down rye whiskey while men gambled their wages or spent them on the frisky soiled doves.

Josh approached the riders, stopping about six feet behind, and ordered them to turn around. The one on the right in the grey-coat, a lean-faced man with gritty teeth, violently swung around fast, whirling a neck-gripped bottle at Josh’s head for a deadly blow. Josh didn't have time to react consciously, but his nature and experience kicked-in unbidden. Without thinking, he ducked left then dropped bottle-man where he stood by a vicious, full-weight, boot to his shin-bone. As he was kicking the man down he was also slicking out his Remington. The middle man was inches taller than Josh and coming at him with rage in his eyes, but Josh barrel-whacked him. He buckled to the floor like a dropped anvil.

Number three stood frozen, drink-in-hand, bug-eyed staring down Josh's barrel. This last hombre, clean-shaven, was probably the leader being as he showed some sense as he quickly, hands-up, wisely yielded to the sheriff.
"Winston, Abe, how about gathering up their hog-legs and getting these no-accounts to a cell with the finest accommodation in our renowned Graybar Hotel."

❖

At Homer's tonsorial parlor, Josh got his shave and bath and then strolled over to the café where he got Fritzie to burn him a steak. After, he went to his office and found the three strangers all asleep in the same cell, one on the floor. Tomorrow he would check his files to see if he had any papers matching the descriptions of any of these three and then interrogate them to find out their business in his town. He would have two of them before Judge Washington to face charges of assault on an officer of the law. Winston and Abe, known freighters in Blind Creek, would be reliable enough witnesses.

Ten minutes later he had absolutely collapsed, folding into his bed in a room behind his desk. He grabbed nearly six hours of sleep like a dead man. He awoke well before dawn. His first thought was that lawin' just seemed to be his path. No way was he ready to retire. His swan song was yet to be sung. He got way too much satisfaction locking up the predators, the two-legged wolves in this world, to walk away from such a calling now. When he tried to imagine his days without a badge, they were a vacuum.

Maybe he’d serve another year or two of putting the lawless away, protecting his people and their property, all while fulfilling what seemed hell-bent to be his calling. It was a service he reckoned he was suited to. Josh didn’t know when he’d retire but it dang-sure wouldn’t be today. Tomorrow he was headed back north to the headwaters of Blind Creek where that drunken drifter had given him the slip. Josh had an idea now of how that no-good had gotten away.

When he returned, he’d put that shooter in the lockup.
Then, figuring it was time, he’d go have a visit with Adeline and speak of possibilities and such.

by Rik Goodell
© 2024 All rights reserved

This painting of an observant law-dog is the artwork of Clark Kelly Price.

To see more of his fine art, visit his website: 

https://clarkkelleyprice.com/