The Shining Badge (21 page)

He listened carefully as Kat told about the game and how Deighton had failed to break the line at Red Rover, and then her face grew pink with indignation. “He got mad, and he said that Jenny was a tramp and slept with men all over the county.”

A cold fury seized Lewis Winslow. He was ordinarily a mild-mannered man, but this accusation touched off some
sort of volcanic action in him. He turned quickly and faced Al Deighton, and polar ice was never colder than his eyes. “Al, if a man said that, I’d flatten him with anything handy—even a baseball bat.”

Al Deighton opened his mouth to shout a reply. He was a bully, but something in the face of Lewis Winslow caused a warning to go off somewhere deep within him. He stood staring at Lewis and remembered that this was the man who had charged up San Juan Hill and showed enough grit and courage to win the Congressional Medal of Honor. His mouth clamped shut, and he swallowed hard. He saw that Winslow was waiting for him to make a remark and suddenly dropped his eyes.

Mr. Latimer said quickly, “I think we’ve heard about enough of this. I’ll leave the discipline of your son for making such a remark up to you, Mr. Deighton—and you ought to make it rough on him. All four of you will write an essay on why peace is better than war, and the spelling and the grammar and the content will have to be acceptable to me or you’ll keep writing it as long as you are in this school.”

“Fair enough,” Lewis said. He turned to Kat and smiled. “Good for you, daughter.”

“Dallas helped me. We would’ve whipped both of ’em too if Miss Williamson hadn’t stopped us.”

“Always fight for your people, Kat.” He turned and faced Al Deighton, and the silence seemed to grow heavy in the room. “If you ever say anything detrimental about my daughter again, Al, we’ll have trouble.”

Deighton did not say a word as Winslow turned and left the room. He glared at George and said, “We’ll talk about this when you get home, George,” then turned and left the room without another word.

****

“I’m gettin’ a little long in the tooth for this sort of business, Sheriff.”

Jenny was blinking, for she had walked straight into a vine and her smarting eye was now watering profusely. She stopped and wiped it with her handkerchief. The sun was almost down, but the day had been hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk in town. Even in the woods shaded by the towering oak trees there was not a breath of air stirring, and Jenny felt she had to exert extra effort to breathe. Giving her eye an extra wipe, she stuck the handkerchief in her pocket and blinked to clear her vision. “We needed you on this one, Kermit.”

Kermit Bing was a large man, overweight and out of condition. He was in his late sixties and had spent most of his life as a deputy for the county. He had technically retired several years earlier but still worked part-time whenever there was need for extra help. Jenny had grown fond of Kermit, for he was a good man. He taught Sunday school classes at his church and had been a scout master for years, but since he had lost his wife two years earlier, he was not as cheerful, according to reports.

“I hope we get these fellows,” Kermit gasped. They had been walking up a hill, dodging briars and vines and saplings that impeded their progress. Kermit peered ahead and said, “Are you sure they’ll be there, Sheriff? Them Cundiffs is sneaky fellers.”

“Billy’s been spying them out,” Jenny said. She was holding a rifle in her right hand, but it felt out of place. Billy Moon had been giving her shooting lessons with the side arm and with the rifle, but she still felt awkward and ill at ease. The idea of pointing a gun at a human being and pulling the trigger was repugnant to her, but now she grimly nodded. “They need to be put out of business.”

“They’re meaner than snakes,” Kermit agreed.

The two struggled through the dense woods, crossing down through a steep gully. When they had scrambled to the top, they were both gasping for breath.

“Let’s rest a minute,” Jenny said, more for Kermit’s sake
than for her own. She did not like the look of his face, and he had mentioned once that he had had a mild heart attack a year back. As they sat down, she said, “How are those grandsons of yours?”

“They’re doin’ better than snuff.” Kermit smiled, despite his heaving chest. He wiped his steaming brow as he gave her reports of his two grandsons, of whom he was inordinately proud. Finally he said, “You need a younger man on this kind of thing. I was pretty good in my younger days, but I’m too old now.”

Secretly Jenny agreed, but she said cheerfully, “Well, Billy and Frank are coming up on the other side. We’ve got them trapped here.”

“I’ve got to say, Miss Jenny, you’ve done a good job as sheriff. I know it was hard for a woman with no experience, but you’ve got a good heart and you’re honest. Back when Sheriff Beauchamp was running the show, it was pretty good, but after he passed, I didn’t keer much about puttin’ on my badge. I felt like Conroy sort of tarnished it, if you know what I mean.”

“That’s exactly what I said when I testified against Arp and Pender!” Jenny exclaimed. Then she reached over and patted the old man on the shoulder. “Well, if you’re up to it, let’s get this done.”

“I’m fine, Sheriff.”

The two rose and crept slowly toward the designated spot. Billy had identified the location, and now Jenny exclaimed, “There it is! And look, there comes Billy and Frank down that hill. We’d better move in with them.”

The two moved forward, but when they reached the other two officers, Billy shook his head in disgust. “They’ve flown the coop and moved all the equipment. It was all here yesterday, but look at these tracks. There’s been a truck in here that hauled it all off.”

Jenny felt angry and frustrated. “How could they have known we were coming? Nobody knew outside the office.”

Billy stared at her and cocked one eyebrow but said only, “We’ll have to try again, Sheriff.”

Jenny waited until Billy and Frank Eddings went to get the cars, and she was disgusted because she had been certain that they could make an arrest. Now she said to Bing, “Something’s wrong, Kermit. How could they possibly find out what we were doing?”

Kermit Bing said quietly, “The next time we won’t say a word at the office. Just me and you and Frank and Billy.”

Suddenly Jenny stared at the deputy. “You don’t trust people at the office?”

“Not saying a word ’cause I’ve got no proof. But next time it’ll be just us four, Sheriff.”

Jenny nodded and then said quietly, “You may be right, Kermit.”

The air was still, and Kermit Bing looked up. “I’ve been on this old earth a long time. It’s not the same as it was when I had Helen with me.”

“How long were you married, Kermit?”

“Forty-nine years. She was the best woman I ever knew,” he said simply. “All those years I loved her more every day.”

“That’s so sweet,” Jenny whispered. Her eyes grew misty at the thought of this old man. He was old now, but once he had been a young man full of blood and ambition. She tried to think of him as a young man of twenty courting his Helen. The years had come and gone, but they had stuck together. Kermit had often spoken of his love for his wife. He did it so simply. Most men, Jenny knew, were reticent about saying things like that aloud, but Kermit Bing had no reservations. Now he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against a tree. “The best woman I ever knew, and I had her for all those years,” he murmured.

****

“I think you’re some kind of a pervert, Luke Dixon.” Dixon had walked Jenny up to the porch. A single light
bulb glowed faintly, dispelling the darkness. He pulled her down to sit on the steps beside him and said, “Well, I’ve been called lots of things but never that.” He put his arm around her and said, “Maybe you’d better tell me all about it.”

“You don’t have to hug me so hard,” Jenny smiled but did not attempt to pull away. “It’s the movies you want to see. First it was Frankenstein and tonight that horrible Dracula film. Ugh, I don’t even want to think about it. I suppose you feel sorry for that old vampire.”

“Well, I do in a way.”

“Why do you always feel sorry for monsters? He was evil.”

“No, he wasn’t evil. He didn’t make himself into a vampire. Another vampire bit him, and he didn’t have any choice.”

Luke Dixon loved to argue. That was the lawyer in him, and for a while he sat there defending Count Dracula. Jenny was always amused at Luke, and finally she said, “Oh, shush! I don’t want to hear about any vampires.” She looked up at the moon, a huge silver medallion in the sky, and grew still for a moment.

“What are you thinking about, Jenny?”

“I was thinking about Kermit Bing.”

“A good man.”

“You know, he really is. I don’t suppose he’s ever had his name in the paper. Never done anything much except be a great husband and now a wonderful grandfather to his grandsons. There needs to be more people like him in the world.”

“He’s not been the same since his wife died. You should have known him before, Jenny. He was always full of practical jokes and laughing, but he’s grown pretty quiet since then. He misses her a lot, I know.”

“He talked about her today when we were out in the woods. He’s like a man who’s lost an arm—or something even more important.”

“That’s right. A man can lose an arm and get by, but when he loses his woman, he’s like a ship without his rudder.”

Luke suddenly leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You smell good,” he said.

“Thank you. Now, you behave yourself, Luke.”

Luke saw that Jenny was in a pensive mood. He studied her profile, admiring the smooth curve of her cheek and the strength of her face, then asked, “What do you think about marriage?”

Surprised, Jenny turned to face him. He was, she saw, watching her curiously, and she was startled by his question. “Why, I think it’s forever.”

“No matter what?”

“No matter what. Someday I’ll get married, and the minister will say ‘as long as you both shall live.’ That’s the way it should be.”

“It’s a noble ambition. A little bit hard to achieve, though. Lots of couples don’t make it.”

“You know, I admire geese. Canadian geese, I mean.”

“You’re a funny girl,” Luke said, laughing. “What do geese have to do with what we’re talking about?”

“Why, they mate forever. Don’t you know that?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Well, they do,” Jenny said. “I read a book about them once. It was pretty dull, except when it got to the way they mate. It told about what a hard life they had struggling just to stay alive. The book said geese just can’t afford to philander. They need one another all the time.”

“Why more than other birds?”

“I think it’s because they travel so far. And then I remember it said that they have inefficient digestive systems. They can’t digest cellulose.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Well, you see they have to fly, and they can’t fly with a huge belly. The book said a meal of grass will digest in only two hours, so they have to stop and eat a lot. And then the female goose,” Jenny said meditatively, “gives away her own energy resources through the laying of her eggs. Then for a
month she has to sit on those eggs and can’t leave to grab even one daily meal. Sometimes a female will starve to death right on the nest. Then the eggs won’t hatch or the hatchlings will die.”

“Why do you remember all this?”

“I don’t know. It just makes me think about how awful it is that geese can be more faithful in love than human beings.”

“What else did that book say?”

“Well, it said they have to work together full-time to raise a brood of goslings. While the female sits on the nest, the male has to stand watch. If a predator comes, he warns her by honking, and they fly to safety. Or else she hunkers down on the nest, and he flies alone, trying to lead the danger away. Even after the eggs hatch, they continue to do this because the goslings are flightless. So they need each other.”

“You know, I think you’re right. It would be good if all married couples were as faithful as geese.” He shifted his arm and took out his billfold. “I found this the other day in a bunch of clippings I’d saved. I don’t even know what it’s from now. I forgot to mark the location, but I liked it.” He held it up to the light and read:

Luke fell silent, holding the paper in his hand. For a time the two of them sat, and then finally she rose. She turned to face him as he stood before her, and when he leaned to kiss her, her lips were ready. He held her tightly, and she felt a sense of security. There was goodness in this man, she knew. How deep her own feelings went she could not say, but when he lifted his head, she said, “I like that very much, Luke. Good night.”

“Good night. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Stepping into the house, Jenny found her father sitting in the parlor reading. It was late for him, and she said, “What are you doing up so late?”

“Waiting up for my daughter. Have to be sure she’s all right.” He rose and came over to her, putting his arm around her, and she kissed him on the cheek. “Are you serious about that young man?”

“We’re just good friends, Dad.”

“You look tired. Is something wrong?”

“I’m not getting the job done.” She told him briefly of the attempted raid and of the failure it brought. “I just can’t handle it.”

“You haven’t been at it long, Jenny. You’re just tired. Go to bed now, and things’ll look different in the morning.”

“Maybe you’re right. Good night, Dad. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Twenty minutes later Jenny lay in bed, but she could not sleep. Over and over she explored various schemes to make her office more effective. Finally a plan began to form, and she thought for a long time and then, satisfied, rolled over and went to sleep.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Raid

Jenny did not say anything for over a week about her plan to go after the moonshiners of the county. She stayed awake at night thinking and planning, but it was not until the first of September that she called Moon aside and laid before him the results of her planning. The two of them had been patrolling along the county roads when Jenny turned and said, “Billy, I think it’s time for us to make a dent in this awful moonshining business.”