Bookshelf Battle

Joe found Miles inside the church, drawing away. A grizzly bear this time.

“Go.”

“What?” Miles asked.

“Get up and go,” Joe said. “Right now. Start walking. Anywhere. I’ll find you.”

Miles stood up. “What’s going on?”

“I am your father and you will do as I say!”

Miles sniffed the air. “Blythe! He’s in town.”

“Now you know,” Joe said. “Get out of here.”

“No,” Miles said.

“Miles you know what he does,” Joe said. “He’ll use you to make me suffer.”

“I’m not going,” Miles said.

Joe grabbed his son by the shirt collar and dragged him toward the door. Miles dug his heels in and slapped at his father’s hand.

“If she were here she’d want you to go,” Joe said.

“BUT SHE’S NOT IS SHE?” Miles yelled as he struggled with his old man before finally clocking him a good one upside the head.

That didn’t…

“Rain!”

Halfway down the main drag, Gunther caught up with his now ex-boss. Slade was on fire and making a beeline for the Bonnie Lass, outside of which Blythe and his new gaggle of employees were congregating.

“God damn it son, will you hold up?”

Slade kept walking.

“You think you could have run that stunt you pulled back there by me first?” Gunther asked.

No response.

“I’ve had this job before you were even born and now I gotta up and leave it because of some slick sleazy lawyer?”

“No one asked you to,” Slade replied.

“Shit boy,” Gunther said. “Forty years I’ve never not once had a Marshal’s back and I’m not about to start now. Do you at least got some sort of plan?”

As Slade drew near, Jack rubbed his eyes and cried some crocodile tears. “Boo hoo hoo those poor Injuns!!!”

WAM! Slade’s right cross…

After the courtroom cleared out, Slade confronted Sampson.

“What the hell are you doing?” Slade asked, his voice raspier than ever.

“Marshal, I hate this as much as you do but the Governor has the right to issue pardons and once he does there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. Take it up with him.”

Slade, man of action that he was, ripped the star off his shirt, slammed it down on the Judge’s bench, and stormed out of the courtroom.

“Slade!” the Judge called after him. “Don’t be ridiculous! This town needs you!!!”

Gunther’s stomach churned. The idea of leaving a job he held most of his life was unsettling, as was the idea of being disloyal to Slade.

“I don’t reckon there’s some kind of generous retirement payment for a man who’s held the position of Deputy Marshal for over forty years, is there?”

“Not that I…

From the moment Blythe walked into the courtroom, Joe felt the beast surge within him. Under his shirt, he felt his chest hair grow. His fingernails started to jut out. But he took a deep breath and held his alternate form at bay.

He and Blythe had met before. Joe positioned himself outside the door and grabbed the counselor’s arm as he walked out into the hallway.

Hewett and Becker drew their weapons instantly. Joe released his grip.

“Joseph!” Blythe said. “So lovely to see you again.”

“We have unfinished business.”

“Do we?” Blythe asked. “My, my. You never learned your lesson, did you?”

Blythe patted his hand against Joe’s cheek. “So much sorrow written all over your face. Such a pathetic inability to let trivial matters go. How dreadfully unkind time has been to you.”

“I will end you,” Joe said. “The biggest mistake you ever made was not…

Judge Sampson was not a man to be trifled with.

“The Legion Corporation? This case has nothing to do with your company!”

Blythe had a prominent Southern accent.  So flamboyant was his drawl that it was almost as if he spent a lot of time working on it. The only thing he was missing was the mint julep.

“Your honor, may it please the court…”

“It does not please the court!” the Judge shouted. “The court is very displeased!”

The doors opened again and two men entered.

“Now who are these two peckerwoods?” the Judge so astutely inquired.

“Apologies,” Blythe said. “Where are my manners?”

The counselor pointed to his left, toward a man with a high widow’s peak, a square jaw and a stern face.

“This is Mr. Dalton Hewett.”

Blythe shifted his attention to his right, toward a man with short brown hair and a handlebar mustache.  This…

The courtroom buzzed as the Right Honorable Mortdecai Sampson took his seat. Bald with the exception of the white hair that grew out of his ears like unruly haystacks. Ugly teeth. A perpetually angry face. And a pair of wire rimmed spectacles he was always using to look down over his crooked nose at people with.

The Judge slammed his gavel down with enough force to crack a walnut. “ORDER!”

Everyone went silent. Smelly Jack sat at a small table, to which he was chained. His brother-cousins took up most of the seats. Slade and Gunther stood watch toward the front of the room. Joe and Knox were on either side. As usual, the younger Knoxes were in the back.

“Smelly Jack Buchanan…”

“HANDSOME JACK!”

Sampson pointed his gavel at the defendant. “SHUT UP! Smelly Jack Buchanan, you and your inbred family stand accused of committing a litany of heinous…

A full week had passed since the capture of Smelly Jack and his villainous brood.  Rifle in hand, Slade led the processional. The town’s nosey citizens poured out of their shops and homes to watch the chained up criminals march toward the courthouse.

Knox took the left flank.  Gunther and Joe took the right.  The young Knoxes brought up the rear.

Jack was performing for the crowd.  “What a crying shame that an innocent man and his kin get railroaded just for passin’ through town!”

An old lady pelt him in the head with a rotten tomato.  He laughed it off.

“You people aint much on hospitality, I’ll tell you that!”

Swears, insults, obscene gestures and all kinds of abuse were heaped on the Buchanan Boys.  Jack reveled in it.  He even broke out into song.

“Nobody knows…the trouble I seen!  Nobody knows…my sorrow!”

Jack eyeballed Joe.  “Hey boy!  BOY!…

Midnight.  The criminals snored and shifted in their seats.  Smelly Jack was having a difficult time drifting off seeing as how he was chained to two of his brother-cousins.  Slade and Gunther were outside on the porch.  The oldest Knox was fast asleep.  The two younger Knoxes were locked in a heated debate about whether or not Jesse James was an outlaw or a hero.

Joe walked to the pulpit, which Miles was using as a desk to draw his latest masterpiece.

“Are we leaving?” the boy asked.

Joe answered his son’s question with a question. “I’m that obvious?”

“I can smell your fear,” Miles replied without looking up.  This time he was working on a pirate ship, complete with sails, masts, cannons, and little pirates on deck.

“You don’t smell so brave either,” Joe said.  “I don’t know anyone who could at a time like this.”

“Should we go now…

Back at the church, Slade walked in on a gentleman’s game of pinochle.  No money was at stake. It was just a means of passing the time.

“One of you suckers is cheating,” Knox declared.

“You say that every time,” Gunther replied.

“That’s because there’s always a sucker who’s cheating,” Knox said.

Joe smirked and studied his hand.

The younger Knoxes weren’t playing.  They were more interested in the magnificent hawk Miles was sketching with a pencil on a piece of paper he scrounged up.

“Looks so real,” George said. “Who taught you how to do that?”

“My Mama,” Miles said.

Slade took a load off.  Gunther slid the blueberry muffin tin across the table.

“A gift from Miss Bonnie.  I had to rescue them out of the dirt after she discarded them upon the sight of you canoodling with your new paramour.”

Only one muffin left.  Slade, a frequent…