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The municipality of St. Martin held sheriff Malachi Laroche in very high esteem. He came from a long line of professionals, the mantle passed down through his family until it landed comfortably on his shoulders. His election after the death of his father had been swift and decisive. He was rarely scrutinized and even more rarely challenged by anything at all.
Today, though, his right hand, the deputy sheriff, came riding into town slumped over on his spooked horse, blood crusted on his jacket and leaking down the animal’s belly. Five or six arrows sprouted like weeds from his back, and a stuck piece of paper fluttered gently in the breeze.
His corpse attracted the townspeople like flies. Buddy was no exception. He walked out dazedly with the rest of them and watched the deputy clop down Main Street like it was a parade. They watched in silence.
Laroche appeared at the other end of the street and stood in the dust, also watching silently, and the horse slowed to a halt. Its deceased rider slumped out of its saddle and onto the ground, foot awkwardly tangled in one stirrup. One of the arrows snapped.
Buddy edged closer to the matter, watching the set of Laroche’s jaw as he tore the piece of paper away from the body. His stoicism was the most admirable thing Buddy had ever seen. He was trim, and he was lean, with deep lines on the sides of his mouth and gray creeping nobly over his temples. He finished reading, then looked over the mass of people.
“It seems as though Huck Sherman is back,” he said finally, “and is demanding a reasonable sum of tribute by Sunday.” A collective breath was sucked in and then held.
“We can’t pay these men any more!” shouted a man.
“We can’t even pay to repair our own church, Mister Laroche,” a woman next to him added softly.
The sheriff straightened the brim of his hat. “It seems then, folks, that I will have to get to the root of this matter, and fix it up as best I can, is that so?”
The townsfolk seemed to agree.
“I understand that this is a frightening matter, but I want to assure all of you that I am here to take care of you, and it is a duty I fully intend to fulfill. Now please, go back to your homes; I have all of this under control.” It was terrifyingly reassuring to Buddy. The townspeople, obediently, went, leaving the sheriff in the middle of the street with his hands on his hips looking at the remains of his second-in-command.
Buddy lingered, feeling the stirrings of something strange in his chest as he watched Laroche heave the body over his shoulder and adjust his hat. The deputy’s badge was left glinting in the dust behind him, and just then, Buddy felt as though an angel had been sent from heaven to tell him what to do; it was like he was struck by lightning. He ran up and grabbed it from the ground. He clutched it tightly. “Mister Laroche?”
The man in question turned.
“I happen to notice you are left without a deputy,” said Buddy, near frozen in the wake of the sheriff’s gravitas and celebrity, “and I also happen to wonder if I could be of some assistance to you, sir?”
The sheriff wiped his brow with his free hand. “Bowerman, is it? Buddy Bowerman?”
He knows my name! marveled Buddy.
“Bowerman,” continued the sheriff, “I am quite equipped to handle this situation by myself. The last thing I need is civilian blood on my hands.”
“But see, I wouldn’t be a civilian anymore if you made me deputy!” Buddy flourished the badge. “I could be your partner. I could be good at it.”
“No, Bowerman, you wouldn’t.”
The rebuke stung. Buddy’s hands twitched into fists. “Well, then, sir, at least allow me to lend my cart to you and yours,” he said, gesturing to the deceased, “and take you outside of town to the graveyard. It’s an awful long way to walk.” He took off his hat and pressed it to his chest.
Laroche took the cart alone.
Buddy walked back to his home on the little town’s outskirts, his left hand shoved into his pocket but still clutching the deputy badge. He lit the lamp in the window with a match and knelt beside his bedframe. Hesitantly, he reached underneath and grabbed a wooden box, cradling it in his hands. Inside laid a plain but beautiful revolver and two cases of bullets collecting dust. On the butt of the hilt, the initials T.B. were carved into the wood. Buddy took the note tucked to the side and read it over, as he had a thousand times before:
Buddy the day you finaly grow the Balls too use this too shoot a Man is the day you finaly becom a reel Man Theodore Bower Man
The metal was cold. Buddy stared at the lamplight, sat there with his father’s gun in one hand and a dead man’s badge in the other, and thought for a very long time.
Early the next morning, Buddy found his cart empty outside his house and his donkey tied up on the fencepost. He quietly saddled up, gun tucked into his belt, and walked on to the sheriff’s office. He arrived as Laroche was loading his saddlebags at the hitchpost outside, shoving a shotgun neatly into its holster.
“Mister Laroche, I have come back,” Buddy declared.
“I can see that,” the sheriff grunted, swinging himself into the saddle.
“I am coming with you,” Buddy also declared, spurring his donkey to follow.
“No, Bowerman, you are not.” Laroche glanced back at the other man. “Where did you get that gun?”
“It was my father’s, sir.”
The sheriff glanced down at the revolver on his hip. “So was mine.”
“I remember the day you got that gun,” Buddy blurted, “in the schoolyard, you had it held in your hands just so, and all the boys were real amazed, ain’t it almost as old as your family, mister Laroche?” Buddy had hung back from the crowd, but he still remembered the way Malachi had looked, cross-legged on the grass, holding that gun. Older by seven years and ahead by eight grades, Laroche never paid much mind to a child like Buddy.
“Ain’t you a little young to be remembering?” the sheriff asked, then, thinking better: “No, don’t answer that. Just go home.”
“But see, I may not be all that much in terms of muscle, or brains, but I’m a hard and honest worker, and I can do good by you,” Buddy pleaded. The sheriff began to ride out to the edge of town and Buddy followed.
“You are a liability, Bowerman, not a deputy. Don’t try to be something you ain’t.”
“Laroche!” Buddy rode in front of the other, blocking his path. He looked into his face with all the earnestness he could muster. His hand hesitantly hovered over the grip of his gun. “Please.”
Laroche’s jaw was set in its way again. After a pause, he sighed, and “alright,” he said, “you can come along. Only for a little while.”
A smile crept onto Buddy’s face that he couldn’t get rid of long after they set out west of St. Martin.
They rode for hours, tracing the path the dead man’s horse had taken. The deputy had been sent to Stockville for supplies, the sheriff explained, so they would head east towards the town and watch for signs of a fight or struggle. Sometimes, Laroche would dismount and toe at the dirt, seeing something there that Buddy couldn’t see, then gaze into the horizon, and then without explanation remount and they would continue on their way.
They made conversation, or, more accurately, Buddy made the conversation, and Laroche listened whilst absorbed in the distance. Sometimes there would be a lull where Buddy couldn’t think of anything to say, so he just watched the other man riding ahead of him. Everything about him, from the hat he wore to the houndstooth vest to his gleaming and bitter spurs, was the embodiment of a truly perfect man. He was undeniably driven and achingly competent. Buddy had never been more envious.
As the sun began to set at their backs and a chill hovered over Buddy’s shoulders, Laroche dismounted and walked a ways off the path, companion in tow. They came over a ridge and Laroche held his hand out to stop.
“I think I see a camp,” he whispered, “be quiet and follow me.” They rode up the hill, then Buddy followed the sheriff’s suit and crouched down in the dust. The sheriff brought out his binoculars and brought them up to his face.
“Wait, let me try,” Buddy said, grabbing at them. Laroche jerked them away. “I know how to use them, I’m good at it, I promise.”
The sheriff relented, and Buddy squinted through the contraption to where he had pointed. The picture was fuzzy, and quietly Buddy began to panic. He spun the dial on the nose, then wiggled the lenses back and forth, but the picture didn’t clear. “I can’t – ”
“Damn fool.” The sheriff took the binoculars back out of his hands and looked through them easily, shaking his head. “That’s the Shermans, alright. Some of ‘em, at least. I thought I caught a whiff of their stench.”
Buddy, feeling ashamed but still wanting to be helpful, strained his neck to see what the sheriff was referring to. “Should we raid ‘em? Catch ‘em by surprise?”
“It’s too dark. We need to make camp for the night. And ‘we’ nothing.” He cleared a spot and spread his bedroll out flat. “Go find something for a fire. Anything dry. Brush, wood, twigs, anything that’ll light should be fine.” Buddy hurried off, glad to finally be useful, and combed over the site, gathering tinder into his arms. When he brought the pile back, Laroche picked it through, examining the pieces like a jeweler appraising fool’s gold. His eyebrows twitched up ever so slightly.
“That’ll do, Bowerman.”
Buddy felt like he’d swallowed the moon.
They sat around the lit fire. Buddy grabbed his knees to his chest. “Sheriff?”
“Hm?”
“Why’d you become a sheriff?”
“My father was the sheriff. His father was the sheriff, and so onwards.”
“Ah.”
They both fell silent. Buddy looked up at the stars for a bit. After minutes of terse silence, Laroche got up and walked over to his horse to reach into his saddlebag. He pulled out two cigars, holding one in his teeth and lighting it. “Smoke?”
“No, sir, I don’t.” Buddy shook his head.
“Come on, now, who are you? My mother? Here.” Laroche pushed the cigar between Buddy’s lips. It bumped his teeth.
Buddy paused and stared at the sheriff’s hand. “Light?”
The sheriff withdrew and tossed him the lighter from across the fire. “Yep.” He drew in a long breath, then tipped his head back, mouthing rings of smoke into the dark sky. After a moment and a few more drags, he leaned forward and looked Buddy in the eye.
“This is personal for me,” he admitted. “The Sherman gang, they’re bad men, and they’ve been haunting our town for longer than any soul alive can remember. And they shot my father, killed him, and his father, and so onwards. It’s ancestral. Now, they’ve killed my deputy.” He ashed his cigar into the flames. “I’m starting to think I’m next, if I don’t kill them first.”
“Never!” exclaimed Buddy, “you’re the best sheriff this town’s ever seen, sir, you ain’t gonna let a couple of degenerates kill you! You’re strong, and – and hard as iron, twice as sturdy, too, like them girders, you know what those look like? You’re our girder, mister Laroche, and I’ll be damned if I let those Sherman boys melt you down!”
Laroche stared at the other man. “You ain’t right for this line of work.”
Buddy straightened. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re soft, ” spit Laroche, “and soft men ain’t fit to be deputized. You remember when I got this gun?”
Buddy nodded.
“That was the day my father died.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh. And I was fine. I barely even remember that day, Bowerman, it is insignificant to me in the biggest way. I didn’t give a single shit about it. But I remember the day yours died.” He leaned over, mouth contorted. “You cried and cried, and wailed all through the streets, saying ‘daddy, daddy, they killed my daddy, oh God’n heaven!’” He threw his hands around, pitching his voice up till it broke. “And I watched you, and I hated you. And you ain’t fit to be deputized.”
And Laroche sat back and took another drag off his cigar.
Buddy’s eyes stung and his throat felt like it was swelling closed. He threw his unlit cigar to the ground and sniffled.
“If you’re gonna cry, at least pretend to be asleep while you do,” sneered Laroche.
“I didn’t bring a bedroll,” said Buddy, looking over and wiping his eyes.
“Tough shit.” The sheriff spat on the ground, snuffed his cigar with his heel, and laid down to sleep.
Buddy stared up at the stars and cried until he slept.
He woke up to popping in the distance. He sat up, spitting dust from his dry mouth, and felt his face gingerly. His vision was bright red when he closed his eyes and the entire world seemed blue when he opened them; the sun beat down, and the popping got louder. Buddy stumbled to his feet. There was an imprint in the sand where the sheriff used to be, and the pile of tinder he’d gathered had burnt to ash. His donkey stared at him.
“Sheriff?” he croaked. It registered to him that the popping was the sound of gunshots. “Sheriff?”
He swung ungracefully into the saddle, slumped over, and spurred him on. The damned sheriff had left without him. Buddy felt an imminent sense of doom. What would happen if Laroche died, and he couldn’t save him? What would happen to St. Martin?
He came over the hill and saw the camp. There were four men, all armed, all shooting. The sheriff was crouched behind a pile of crates. One man waved his hand at another, and he mounted his horse and rode off at full tilt. The sheriff turned to shoot at the escapee, but the other man grabbed him from behind, bringing his rifle up to his throat and trapping him. They struggled for a few seconds.
Buddy felt odd, suddenly, breathing hard, then without thinking he reached into his pocket and pulled out the deputy badge, still splattered with the other man’s blood, pinning it to his shirt. Then, he let out a strangled cry, holding his father’s revolver out in front of him, and charged his donkey into the fray. This was the moment he became a real man. He aimed the gun surely at the Sherman’s forehead. He met Laroche’s eyes. He squeezed the trigger.
Click.
Click. Click. Click.
Buddy only had time to look down at his gun in horror before the Sherman buried one bullet between his ribs and two in the muscle of his steed.
The donkey keeled over, and then they were on the ground, Buddy trapped underneath its convulsing body. There was movement out of the corner of his eye, it was Laroche, then gunshots and hoofbeats through the ringing in Buddy’s ears.
“Sheriff,” gasped Buddy, “help me, I’m stuck.” His voice broke, and he felt his nose begin to run. “I can’t get up, sheriff.”
Laroche walked up to him and cast his shadow over Buddy’s face. “They’re getting away, Bowerman.”
“Please,” Buddy whispered.
Laroche bent down and plucked the badge from Buddy’s lapel, staring coldly into his face. “I told you, Buddy, don’t pretend to be something you’re not.”
And suddenly all that was left was the clink of his spurs as he walked slowly away.