This is part B of chapter 3. In the first part of this chapter Ben accepted a deputy sheriff position in Creede. Ben met a wayward soul named Billy and had a verbal confrontation with his saloon/brothel owner boss, Mason Salinger. Ben rescued a young prostitute of Salinger’s, sending her to Livvy in Alpine to recover from injuries.

“Sheriff, you have to go after them! He ruined me. Bad enough people don’t pay like they promise, but that wagon load of goods will close me up. I can’t order no more.” The complaint was from the mercantile/general store owner, the town’s first, Pressure from the town’s second general store cut deeply into Brockton McKnight’s profit margin. “He said he was from the Ford ranch. Had their wagon, and brand on his horse. They usually pay cash. I figure he stole ‘em, the wagon and horse. Headed north. My bet is that you’ll find him sellink it cheap to the North Creede store.” McKnight enunciated ink as he did all his ing words. Pulling his handlebar moustache from both sides of his mouth, he repeated his demand for recovery. “He said Ford himself would be in the next day to pay.”

Within minutes Sheriff Watson and Ben were riding at a fast canter, a pace the horses could maintain the entire distance, even at altitude. His first trip to the north, Ben noted a row-crop farm on the way. An inner urge impelled him to return for a visit.

“Have your gun out,” JD told Ben, directing him to the back door of the general store. “We’re not here to have a fair fight. Biggest part of sheriff work is to not get shot.”

There was no one in the store but the owner, who provided description enough to identify the man. He begged the return of his money to JD and Ben’s backs as they left the store. Following the sheriff’s orders, the man reloaded everything back to the Ford wagon for return to the rightful owner in Creede J.D. and Ben would stop for it on their return.

The miscreant was at the saloon, laughing into a glass of beer.

JD casually walked to him, lifting his gun from its holster just before tripping him to the floor. As instructed, Ben watched the other customers, his gun drawn in a non-threatening, but ready posture. “Everybody hold still,” Ben ordered. JD took a silver dollar from his prisoner’s pocket, offering it to the bartender toward a round on laughing boy, the dollar being a small price to pay by the North Creede store owner.

Bound and ready for travel, JD lectured the store owner a second time. “Oughta run you in for theft-by-receiving. You knew full well that he wasn’t a freight man, or any kind of legitimate peddler.”

“I was going to send word to Creede, Sheriff,” he responded.

“Uh-huh.” The sheriff’s tone belied his trust.

Ben drove the wagon load of goods while the sheriff escorted the thief, a fired Ford Ranch employee back to Creede. Ben stopped at the row-crop farm for his intended visit.

+++

“We don’t care what they done,” the young farmers sang out in near unison. If they don’t mind dirt floors, we don’t mind their soiled past.”

“I’m just saying that these girls are as sweet and innocent as you treat them. You don’t bring up their past, I expect they won’t either.”

“Heck, Ben, the cow gets into the garden, you don’t shoot her, you just lead her out.”

Ben smiled, accepting the comparison’s weakness, but appreciating the men’s attitude.

Within the week Ben whisked Jackie’s two friends, both high yellow orphans that Salinger had purchased from the underground flesh market in Kansas City, to the farm, promising to let them know when it might be safe to allow them to venture to Creede. Salinger would be moving out soon enough.

+++

“Ben,” JD began one morning as he entered the office to relieve him. JD had lain awake most of the night thinking of Ben, unable to rid himself of a growing concern over the young man. “Ben,” he repeated.

Ben held back a morning greeting, at first finding it odd that JD hadn’t greeted himself in his usual manner, but simply by name, an uplift to his voice that foretold something of import to follow.

“Ben,” JD said a third time. “Been thinkin’ on this … You have some, some kind of future ahead of you.”

Ben remained silent, biting back dismissiveness and sarcasm, which wasn’t in his nature anyway.

“You’re special, Ben. I guess you know that, though.” JD didn’t mean anything of an egotistical bent, merely a statement of the obvious. “Heck, law enforcement, politics, business, or whatever, you could go to the top of whatever you chose. You have something. Here you are, half my age and working as a night jailer and I catch myself wishin’ I was you. Took me all night to figure things out. Not that I have.

“What I’m tryin’ to say is that you need to, to go sit on a rock and decide your course right now. Today.

“Why you could take up with any of those girls you’ve been savin’. They all worship you. Start your family, and get on to whatever it is you’re meant for.”

Ben paced himself. Allowing his boss, and friend, time to believe he’d considered the counsel. “JD, don’t think I don’t appreciate your kind thoughts and concern. I do.  But my future is right now. My next step. I don’t want to take my next one but that God tells me. You know Joseph, in the Bible, he spent three years in prison following exactly what was ordered for his life. I’m only comparing myself to his following, not his life.

“Oh, I know I’ve taken missteps, here and there. I can feel it when I have and it isn’t hard to get back on track. As far as a wife … I don’t see that in my calling.”

JD’s eye sparked wide, the first he’d heard the expression.

“It isn’t healthy to marry someone who worships you, anyway. First time you accidentally let out a stinker, well, there goes the pedestal she put you on.”

JD laughed out loud, breaking his tension. He envisioned himself climbing out of a cesspool, covered with the worst imaginable, clearly observed and disdained by a worshipping bride.

“Better to marry somebody who knows you, and likes you anyway.”

JD nodded, sensing the wisdom. “Well,” he began, “I just …”

“And I thank you for it, JD. That’s what friends do.” With that, Ben donned his broken-down, second-hand Stetson, leaving the office to JD.

+++

“Sheriff, I want that boy outta here, clear outta town!” Salinger was adamant. “It’s him, or me. And you know I pay more toward your salary than anybody in town.” Salinger was, of course, referring to Ben, the man he’d rightly suspected of somehow making off with his female staff.

“Well, Mason, I’m glad to hear you put it that way. ‘Cause I happen to know of two miners wantin’ to settle in town, get off the mountain for the winter. They’ll buy you out for what you paid to build. And your stock at cost.”

Before Salinger quite reached boiling point, his finger-twitching right hand resting on his pistol, Ben injected himself, his eyes intently boring into Salinger’s. “Won’t be a better offer.”

Sheriff Watson was taken aback at Ben’s insertion, raising his eyebrows at the youth’s temerity. Once said, he settled into a clear acceptance and understanding of Ben’s call and role in the matter. He watched Salinger whither under Ben’s glare, Salinger’s gun hand limp.

With nothing but a barrel of whiskey and a few cases of bottles, Salinger and three brothel maidens made their way out of town, heading for the San Juan Mountains where rumor had it gold had been scratched up.

Billy had quit Salinger shortly after his stay in Ben’s jail. From out of the blue, the hotel owner thought Billy might make a good cook. He did.

+++

“Ben”, the sheriff began one morning upon relieving Ben of his night’s duty. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing, saying to our customers, but it’s working. Tom, Johnny Q., Randy … and a few others used to drop in for our hospitality on a regular basis, taking their nights behind our bars. I know they’re still around, but … Spratt in there,” he added, pointing to the jail, “I ‘spect not to see again, either. You been preaching to them, or what?”

Ben smiled, his calling overcoming his fatigue.

+++

“Feel like my job’s done here, JD.” Ben said one morning to the sad but knowing eyes of his friend.

Ben had no idea why this day was different from any other.  He felt especially good after the talk with the young man in the jail.  He’d felt that before. Salinger was gone. There were more women in the other saloons; but they did not draw his focus, though he could not fathom why. He’d come to accept that not every problem was his to fix.

“Ben, I love you like a son. Wish you’d stay, but I guess I understand. That church you’ve been talking about all over town’s gonna be built.” JD swallowed, relaxing the grip about his throat. “Happy trails, Son, and I sure hope to see you again.”

With that, Ben leaped onto Red without use of the stirrup, his crystal blue eyes glistening with tears as he galloped off. He cleared the town proper just as a stranger was entering, a stranger whose gaze felt evil. Ben believed he’d seen the man inch his pistol from its holster as he quickly passed by. The man’s mouth gaped half opened as if to speak, or perhaps in some sort of quandary. Ben spurred Red to a short sprint, out of pistol range in a moment’s time.