Families First: A Post-Apocalyptic Next-World Series Volume 6 Battle Grounds by Lance Ewing (ereader for comics .txt) 📕

“What did you see?” she asked, slapping him hard across the right cheek.

He wasn’t expecting that, and she knew it.

His eyes misted over, like when you get hit in the nose.

“What are you going to do—cry now, Deputy Mayor?”

“No, and I don’t know anything,” he blurted out, forgetting all about Ken’s girlfriend’s advice to stay quiet.

“You know what happened to Sheriff Johnson,” added Judge Lowry, before being shooshed by Kate.

“I’ll ask the questions,” she reminded him. “After all, if it wasn’t for me, you would still be hiding out like a thief down by the lake.”

He mumbled something inaudible, but it was clear to Jason that she was calling the shots—not just with respect to him but also everyone in the room. He decided at that moment to focus only on her and try to get out of this nightmare.

“Ma’am, I was...”

 “It’s Sheriff to you!” she spat.

“Okay, Sheriff. It’s clear to me that what happened down by the lake was maybe a tragic mistake...”

* * * *

“Here he is!” shouted the lead deputy and James’ friend only a few knew about, coming in the door behind James in his chair.

“Good afternoon, Mayor,” she greeted. “All done buttering up my citizens, are you?”

“For what?” replied James, his confidence giving Jason some new hope.

“Oh, you know, maybe what happened down... You can go wait outside, deputies,” she announced without going further into the story.

“Yes, ma’am...I mean Sheriff,” they both said.

She continued after she was sure they had stepped outside. “Where was I? Yes, you may have been telling people what you think you know about the lake tragedy.”

“We just ran into some folks who...” started Jason.

“I’ve got it, Jason,” said James, now wondering what else he had told them.

“Oh, sure,” said Jason, relieved.

“I used to hang around with your old boyfriend, or fiancé if I remember right, and of course the Judge here,” James began, pointing to him—“sometimes right here in this office. I remember when Sheriff Johnson shot that buck hanging right over your head. It was a few years back. Shot him down by the lake—not a great shot but enough to wound him.

“Do you know what he did? That buck,” he continued, not waiting for an invitation or answer to his question... “That buck, the one right here in this room, headed straight for the lake and into the water. Now even a non-hunter such as yourself, Judge, should know it’s a whole lot easier to pull a shot duck from a lake than a 250-pound deer. Why, they even have dogs for it—Labrador Retrievers, like our Chance. This one right there,” he pointed to the mounted head again, “weighed a near-record for a mule deer—around here, at least—at 242 pounds. Now you can imagine, I’m sure, that a hunter out alone like he was, and a buck that size, we’re going to have an interesting story, no matter how it went. Am I right?”

He got no response from either of them, and for the first time a typically nervous Jason realized he couldn’t just run out of the jailhouse if he got sick.

“Well,” continued James, “even if you two never heard the story, this guy’s head is now on your wall. How good of a swimmer do you think a man in hunting clothes, and probably cowboy boots, would have to be to overpower a more than 200-pound deer struggling to get away in the lake? We’re talking about the very same man who had been out in his fishing tube a hundred times before without fear of drowning.”

“All right, that’s enough,” said Kate. “We can go down memory lane another time. We found the girl, and she sang like a canary.”

“You didn’t hurt her, did you?” asked James.

“No, not yet. But now we’re all on the same page with this, and really there’s nothing you can do about it, either of you.”

“So, we just do this little dance?” asked James, already knowing the answer. “I’ve been around long enough to know only one man walked from this jail.”

“And now you have his girlfriend locked up in back!” blurted out Jason.

“Do I?” she asked, staring a hole straight through Jason.

“Yes. I mean, that’s what she told me.”

“Now, why would you have the girlfriend locked up of the only man who walked out of this jailhouse alive?” asked James. “Maybe some history there?”

She didn’t respond; she only looked at Judge Lowry.

“When he crashed his bike,” James continued, “jumping over your Courthouse, buddy, you Kate…I mean Sheriff-elect Kate, if there is such a title, were the first one to check on him after running full out. Why, even the Sheriff, the other one, dead now, couldn’t keep up.”

“Where are you headed with this, James? I mean Mayor-elect, if there is such a title,” she responded.

He smiled, thinking at least they were still talking. “I think you, too, have a history, and I can see it on the Judge’s face. Don’t ever play poker, Judge Lowry; you don’t have the face for it.”

The Judge turned red, and he recalled telling Sheriff Johnson that anger was near as crying as an emotion. He smiled, looking at James, and said, “I call.”

“Okay, what about you, Kate? Do you call?” asked James casually.

“What the hell is he talking about?” she asked.

“The future of the town, I suspect,” said the Judge, feeling good he still saw two steps ahead of the sitting Sheriff. “Isn’t that right, James?”

“You’re spot on, Judge. I once had a chicken problem on my ranch, or let’s call it a fox problem. My chickens were inside the coop. They couldn’t leave until daylight but were protected by the very walls that held them captive. The fox came by most nights,