One Man's Calling : One Man's Calling, Ch 4A by Wayne Fowler |
So far, Ben worked as stagecoach guard for a time where he encouraged the driver to return to his farm. Ben then worked for JD Watson as his deputy. Ben left Creede, Colorado, in his quest to follow the will of God. As deputy, Ben managed to save several saloon girls from their plight, engendering the wrath of the saloon owner, Salinger, who Ben and the sheriff ran out of town. Creede’s sheriff, JD Watson, had never been a religious man. The old home place in Louisiana was in a remote parish, or county, the nearest town having but one church, the ancient cathedral ministered to by an Irish priest to the handful of women who attended Mass regularly. The priest never ventured beyond his walls. JD often thought of the after-life during the war, witnessing many trench conversions and cries for salvation among the terrified soldiers under his command. Generally, he spent that time tending to his weaponry and his men’s needs. Occasionally, as the sheriff of a rough mining town, he seriously reflected on the matter of eternity and the after-life as he watched men draw their last gasps, occasioned by his own hand gave him the most pause. It was a slow, mid-week evening when a commotion at the Silver Dollar Saloon drew his attention. He’d just passed it by and walked not forty steps when the sound of a fight turned him about. “Hold it!” he ordered, seeing a freight driver about to deliver a potentially lethal blow to Frankie’s unconscious head. Frankie was on his back, obviously defenseless. The short fight’s loser. “I was bluffing, Sheriff,” the freight driver, a man of about six feet and muscled shoulders said. “This punk walked behind me, saw my cards and snickered. Seeing the coins on the poker table, the sheriff said, “Now how about you drag him to my jail. That’ll be payment enough for disturbin’ the peace. And I’ll fine him five dollars to cover your loss. Fair enough?” The freight driver finally lowered his fist, nodded to JD, and hoisted Frankie to his shoulder. +++ “Mornin’, Frankie,” the sheriff said about ten minutes later, Frankie safely locked in a cell. Frankie groaned as he sat up, holding his head with both hands. “Mornin,” he repeated loud enough to let Frankie know that he’d best return some sort of greeting. Frankie glanced up at the sheriff, and then his surroundings, figuring where he was. “Morning, but I happen to know that it’s still Thursday afternoon and I’m supposed to be at the hotel at work by six.” “Well, Son, you’re going to be a bit late. As a matter of fact, Toby’s going to have to work your shift tonight.” “He won’t like that.” “He might even have to hire somebody else, since you’re going to be staying with me for a while.” “What do you mean? For losing a fight? That don’t even get overnight. You usually separate the fighters for a bit, an’ that’s it.” “Not this time. You’ll be stayin’ a while.” At that, JD left, not ready to have his long talk with the young man. He still wasn’t ready when he brought Frankie a late supper of potatoes and beans. Over oatmeal the next morning, after allowing Frankie the use of the outhouse, JD pulled a chair up to the cell bars. “Frankie, how many times have I arrested you since you got to town?” Frankie didn’t respond, but increased the pace of spooning up the gruel. “Six. And that doesn’t count the many times I’ve scolded you for whatever it was that drew my attention.” Frankie glanced at JD through his eyebrows, not lifting his head. The oatmeal nearly gone, he continued spooning, though with only a dab in each bite in order not to have to fully engage in conversation. “Son, that makes you a repeat offender.” He exaggerated the term, unused to its sound. “It might take me some doin’, but I’m thinkin’ I’ll just adopt you.” “You can’t do that, Sheriff. First, I didn’t start that fight. Second, it’s against the law!” He emphasized law for effect. “Oh, you know the law, do you?” “I can read. Graduated from High School in Moline. Habe Corpse. You have to charge me, or let me go. And the fight? All I did was see his butt crack you know? The way he doesn’t wear a belt and his pants fall low?” “He said you snickered at his bluff hand. Gave away his play.” Frankie grew silent in obvious thought. JD gave time. “Sheriff … I don’t see very well. Can’t hardly see at all, really. I couldn’t make out the cards if I held ‘em in my own hand, unless I pulled ‘em tight to my face. Been like this my whole life.” JD wondered how he hadn’t figured it out before. “You’re blind?” “Nearly. I can see figures. People think I’m looking at them funny, or at their women, and we’re in a fight.” “Which you lose because you can’t see.” JD nodded his head in understanding as he spoke. Frankie lowered his head. “And you never told anyone because you didn’t want to look weak.” “Or be taken advantage of,” Frankie added. After a moment, JD spoke as in confirming his resolution. “Well that’s it then. You’re in protective custody until I say different.” “You can’t do that, Sheriff! I got rights.” “Yeah, well you do what you have to do. But it’ll be behind those bars.” “For how long, then?” Frankie wailed, his voice on the edge of a childish cry. JD thought a minute, his plan only in development. “You remember my deputy named Ben Persons?” “Kind of. He left ‘bout the time I got here.” “Yeah, well. I’m thinkin’ he’ll be back through here sometime, or other. That’s when you get released.” “That’s horse crap! You’re some kind of dictator!” “And that’s another reason I’m taking you into my care, Frankie. Your mouth. You have a control problem. Why, half your troubles have been your mouth overloadin’ your brain. You insult people near every time you open it. And that’s got nothing to do with your eyes!” Frankie opened his mouth to speak, closing it back, choking off a part of a word. “Now that’s a start. You’ll get fed three-a-day.” JD left the sheriff’s office wondering what he was doing, questioning his actions. +++ A few days later, JD woke Frankie’s sleep by barging into the office, a prisoner by the collar, a gun to his side. “Wake up Frankie. I need your cell.” A sleeping drunk occupied the jail’s second cell. “You letting me out?” “No. You’re under what I call office arrest. You’re confined to the office and the outhouse. Oh, and you’re in charge while I’m gone.” “I’m a deputy that’s under arrest? That’s crazy, JD!” JD smiled to himself. The next morning over coffee as the two sat in desk chairs brought out to the boardwalk, JD began “Tell me about yourself, Frankie. How you came to be so much trouble.” Frankie gave JD a look that might have gotten him punched by anyone else. Comfortable with him, Frankie opened up. “I was the second of three boys. My older brother got to do everything. Jimmie, the youngest couldn’t do anything wrong – the apple of Daddy’s eye. Only times I remember him talkin’ to me was to tell me to grab my ankles for a whuppin’. “Don’t get me wrong, JD. I deserved every one of ‘em.” JD smiled, nodding his head. “Soon’s I had my diploma in my hand, I was in an empty west-bound cattle car with the old man’s wallet and all Momma’s potatoes I could carry. Only reason I was in school long enough to graduate was that Daddy said I was useless on the farm – hoed up as many corn sprouts as I did weeds.” “Nobody ever thought to check your eyes?” JD asked. “Phuph.” Frankie made a puffing, snorting sound. “New bull, cultivator, bad crop. You kidding? You went to the doctor for typhoid, or a broken leg. I wasn’t sick.” “Well Doc Cranston can order you some specks.” “Yeah, well, you cost me my job, Sheriff!” JD smiled in silence, gladly willing to outfit the youth with spectacles. Tired of the melancholy and unwilling to follow the course of the conversation, Frankie leaped from the chair, tangling himself in its legs before kicking it to the street. Refusing to concede fault, he stormed back into the office shouting derogatorily about Deputy Ben who’d quit and ran off, and in his estimation – never to return. “What’s so special about him, anyway?” Frankie shouted through the slammed door. JD shook his head sadly, hearing Frankie rouse the drunk from the cell that Frankie was claiming for himself.
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Wayne Fowler
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