PART 9
“Dan? Before we go after
Hank, we need to get help. Let’s go get
Matthew. He was sheriff here years
ago. He’ll know how to handle this.” Sully told him. Dan still had an angry look on his face. “Dan.
I know you’re angry, but we have to be calm about this. We’ll figure out what to do.”
Dan conceded, the anger left
his face, “Alright.” He looked away
from Sully. “I just don’t like to see
Nat hurt,” he turned back toward Sully.
“He’s still the best friend I have.”
“Of course you don’t want to
see him hurt, or Nan, but you have to work with me.”
“Let’s go get Matthew.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * *
There was a knock on the
door of the Cooper homestead. “I’ll get
it,” Elizabeth yelled over to her husband, who had just got sat down after a
hard day at the law office.
“It’s probably somebody to
pick up their kids,” Matthew said to himself.
He looked over at Katie, Mandy, Charlotte, Charles, and his own son,
Daniel, on the other side of the room.
Elizabeth answered the
door. “Sully, hi.” She greeted
him. “Come on in.” Elizabeth waved
Sully and Dan inside.
Matthew looked up from the
Gazette that he had in his hands. “Hi,
Sully,”
“Pa, Pa!” Mandy and Katie
called as they ran over to their father.
Sully kneeled down beside
them. “Girls, we need to talk to your
brother alone. Could you take the other
kids to another room for a few minutes?”
“Is something wrong,
Pa? Where’s Ma?” Katie asked.
“Your Ma is fine. She’ll be by later to pick you girls up and
take you home.”
“Ok, Pa.” Mandy told
him. The girls took the other kids to
the kitchen.
“We need you’re help,
Matthew,” Sully told him, a serious look adorning his face.
Matthew saw the serious
look, and set his paper down. “What
kind of help?” he asked.
“There’s been trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Nan’s been shot.”
“Oh, no,” Elizabeth
gasped. “Is she OK?”
“Yes, she’ll be Ok. She was shot in the arm. She’s at Colleen and Andrew’s,” Sully
explained.
“Who did it?” Matthew asked,
already knowing the answer.
“Hank,” Sully simply said.
“That doesn’t surprise
me. He’s had something against Nan
since that saloon-girl of his died. I
told him not to cause any trouble,” Matthew said. “I wish Daniel were back.
Those men he deputized are jerks.
They spend most of their time in the saloon with Hank.”
“I guess we’ll just have to
take this upon ourselves,” Dan spoke up for the first time since they arrived
at Matthew’s.
“Even if you found Hank, you
couldn’t do anything about it, though, could you?” Elizabeth asked. “You can’t throw him in jail. You have to have the sheriff or deputies to
do that.”
“Not unless one of us were
wearing a sheriff’s badge,” Matthew told his wife.
“Can one of you become
sheriff?” she asked.
“In one of two ways,”
Matthew said.
“What are they?” Dan asked.
“The town can vote on it…”
“That would take to
long. This has to be done now,” Dan
interrupted.
“Or the mayor can choose to
make one of us a temporary sheriff,” Matthew finished.
“Jake?” Sully asked.
“Yes.”
“Jake…” Sully said with a grin
on his face.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * *
“Howdy, Sully. What can I do for you?” Jake asked him as
Sully walked into the barbershop.
“Surely you don’t want a haircut or shave.” Jake joked.
“No, that’s not why I’m
here. I wanted to talk to you about
something.”
“What?” he asked as his
wife, Theresa, walked in from the back room.
“Hello, Mr. Sully,” Theresa
said in a definite Spanish accent.
“Hi, Mrs. Slicker,” Sully
greeted politely.
“So, what did you want to
say to me?” Jake asked.
“I wanted to let you know
that you need a sheriff to keep town peace.”
“We have a sheriff?”
“No, we don’t. Daniel’s gone. Won’t be home for another month,” Sully reminded the mayor.
“We’ve got his deputies.”
“Deputies? Is that what you call them? They turned on us the day Daniel left.”
“Jake?” his wife began. “Sully’s right. They have been seen in the saloon a lot.”
“They’re in the saloon right
now. Would you like to go see how well
our law is doing their job?” Sully pointed toward the saloon.
Jake looked over at his
wife. She had a worried look on her
face. Jake sighed, “No, I don’t need
to. I’ve seen them there. Just where do you expect me to find a
sheriff?”
“You’ve got a couple good
choices.”
“Like who?”
“Me.”
“Who’s your other choice?”
Jake asked, not wanted to make Sully sheriff.
“Dan.”
“Dan?” Jake laughed. “You mean that guy that just got to
town. He’s not even a member of this
town.”
“Maybe not, but he’d make a
good sheriff.”
“How do you know?”
“I know. He’s not afraid of anything. Determined, he is. He’d be perfect.” There was a moment of silence. “I don’t think there is anybody better. It’s either me or him.”
“Jake,” his wife
pleaded. “We need a sheriff. Anybody would be good as long as they aren’t
in the saloon all day and all night.”
He looked from his wife to
Sully. “OK, fine. As long as he does his job to keep the peace
and stays out of the saloon; he can be sheriff.” Sully smiled, as Jake handed the extra sheriff’s badge to him.
