Fraidy Hole: A Sheriff Lester P. Morrison Novel (2 page)

“It was a dream
,
Nelda, a fantasy, just like I have about you sometimes.”

“I doubt that
,
S
heriff. I’m overweight and happily married, you know that.”

“But you got a cute face and a great personality.
Goodbye
,
Nelda.”

Lester rolled his lean, hundred and sixty-five pound body out of bed and stared at himself in the mirror over the dresser. The morning light fell on a head of gr
a
y, close-cropped hair, and cast shadows along the wrinkles around his eyes.

“Getting too old for this shit,” he said, as he did at least once or twice a day.
He stood, grimaced at the chronic ache in his lower back, and looked out the window.
September leaves gleamed in the sun,
green turning to gold,
hinting of the colder weather to come. The Oklahoma Panhandle was usually the first part of the state to feel the bite of Old Man Winter when it swung southeast out of Colorado, generally catching most of the population by surprise with a couple inches of snow.
At the end of the lane, a white truck with a tank on the back that read Arnold & Sons Propane sped past, the deeply treaded tires whining on the blacktop.

It would be the fourth winter for Lester as the sheriff of Cimarron County
, the most westerly county in
the
Oklahoma
Panhandle
. After
twenty-four years
as a lawman in
the
southeast
part of state
doing what he loved the most, locking up bad guys so that decent folks could live in peace, he had called it quits.
The country there had changed over the years.
The days when the biggest crime of the month was a stolen cow or some kids “borrowing” a car for a joy ride were gone forever.
Now it was all about drugs, marijuana fields and meth labs, seeing people destroy their lives with chemicals brewed up in plastic pop bottles.
Too many calls for fires in run-down trailer parks where some idiot had let his home go up in smoke, thinking he could handle the new
est shake
-and-bake, highly flammable recipe for methamphetamine.

The last call was the wors
t
.
Lester still had
nightmares
about it. A fire, another mobile home engulfed in flame, but this time the fire had jumped to a neighboring doublewide. The fire department was there, doing the best they could, but were unable to save the occupants of the second home, a single mother and two little girls, ages six and four.
One at a time, the firefighters brought them out, three bodies, black and charred.
The next day, Lester called the County Commissioner’s office to tell them he was resigning the job
immediately
.
“
Promote one of the deputies
until the next election,”
he’d said
.
“
I’ve had enough.
”

For the rest of that summer, Lester spent most of his time on Broken Bow Lake fishing for black bass and crappie
. But
as the weather turned colder, fishing became more of a chore than a recreation.
The boat was in constant need of repair and the motor was getting hard to start. Since Lester preferred to fish alone and with no one to help, getting the boat on and off the ramp was always a hassle. When the first frost came along, the now ex-sheriff threw a tarp over the boat, chained it to the big oak tree in the back yard, and that was the end of the fishing. Except for feeding the birds around the house and trying to figure out their species from a bird book he’d picked up somewhere, Lester had no other hobbies.
He was bored, plain and simple.

Somewhere during the last half of a cold, damp February, Lester ran across a newspaper article alleging a sexual scandal involving possible improprieties within the Cimarron County Sheriff’s Office and a couple of unnamed female prisoners.
A
few
weeks later, it seemed
almost
certain that the Sheriff and one of his deputies were about to
“resign”.
Lester figured
there was a good chance
that
the
job was about to come open
.

The Panhandle and all its colorful history appealed to the man.
Beaver County
,
just a ways east of Cimarron
,
was home to No Man’s Land, where outlaws, cowboys, and settlers lived for years without a lick of law enforcement. And there was the Sant
a
Fe
T
rail, a trade route between
Franklin,
Missouri and Sant
a
Fe, New Mexico, often subject to attack by the Kiowa, Comanche, and Arapahoe Indians
. The trail passed within
only
a few miles of Boise City, the county
seat
.
At the local library, Lester learned that Boise City itself had a special place in the history books as being the only city in the continental United States to be bombed during World War II when one of our own B-17’s mistook the town for a practice area. Luckily, the bombs held no explosives.

The idea of working out of a small town, surrounded by
wide-open spaces was tempting.
He hated to admit it, even to himself, but he wasn’t getting any younger. The years were adding up. He was a little less spry and not nearly as quick
of foot these days.
A
peaceful
land from a bygone era with fewer drugs
and less violence sounded good.
L
ester made a phone call
to the Cimarron County Commissioners explaining his qualifications and interest in the job.
Desperate for an experienced lawman
, t
he Commissioners
extended an invitation to go
to
work immediately on an interim basis.
Lester
headed west, the back of his pickup crammed with
clothes, boots,
books,
and his favorite easy chair.
What he couldn’t pack, he donated to charity.
He found an old but solid
house for sale at the edge of town
and settled in
,
thereby establishing a legal residence to qualify for the next election
.
When the
dust from the scandal settled
,
Lester
ran unopposed and
was now the official
new
Sheriff of Cimarron County.

Like he did
every morning, Lester checked the thermometer on the back porch. The numbers were large enough to see from the bedroom
which
was why he bought it. That and the fact it had a picture of a ten point buck on the face and was on sale over at the hardware store. The red pointer lay exactly between the 60 and the 70. Lester let out a grunt with a measure of contentment to it and said, “Gonna be a nice day, I hope.
Harley
!
” he yelled toward the kitchen. “You up yet?”

The black
L
ab lifted his head from the cedar-filled mattress. The remainder of his heavy body lay still with the exception of a thick tail that made a single swish through the air.

“Dog, get your big black ass out of that bed, we got work to do.
We gotta go find some silly little girl that’s done got her folks all worked up and frettin’ about her; not to mention involving the entire Cimarron County Sheriff’s department, all two of us
, three countin’ you
. Now get up! You hungry?”
Hungry
was Harley’s favorite word.

The dog scrambled to his feet, toe nails clicking against the hardwood floor, and trotted to the bedroom.

“Be with you a minute. I got to hit the bathroom and drain the dragon.”

Lester watched the steady stream with a degree of satisfaction. “Some of the old parts are still working pretty good by gawd. Bet I could still write my name in the snow if I wanted to.
How
‘
bout you dog? You gotta go pee?” Lester finished his business, opened the screen door, and held it against the spring
,
but Harley held his ground. The dog wasn’t keen about the odds of him being fed if that door slammed shut.

“Go on now. I’ll wait for you.”
The dog stepped off the porch, went to the nearest rose bush, glanced back to make sure the door was still open, and lifted his leg.

“Aw geez, Harley. Why is it that particular bush every stinkin’ time? I got ten acres of brush and fence posts and trees for you to pee on but no, you gotta spray the roses. I planted those in memory of Mary Alice just so I could look out here and remember how much she loved her flowers. And then
you
come along and hose it down. You got no respect for anything or anyone do you?”
The dog ambled back to the house, passed by Lester without stopping, and plopped down by his oversized food bowl, waiting.
Lester shook his head.
“Worthless hunk of hair and bone, that’s all you are.
When you gonna start earning your keep around here?”

From under the sink, Lester brought out a can of dog food,
cranked around the top with
the opener, and dumped the entire contents in the bowl. Three gulps later, the bowl was empty. Harley did a couple extra licks around the edge to make sure he hadn’t missed anything and looked up.

“No, that’s it for you. You’re overweight as it is.” Lester held the door open once again. “Go on out there and check the perimeter.
Protect me while I eat my breakfast.” Still in his boxers,
Lester
poured oatmeal in a bowl, added milk, stuck it in the microwave
,
and set it for one minute. Through the window, he
watched
the
dog do
his
rounds.

First stop was the little
red
barn, faded
but sound with good lumber and solid doors.
The barn was what prompted Lester to buy the property.
It was exactly the right size for the horse that
he
intended to buy…some day, when he got around to it.
Lord knows the house wasn’t much, a two bedroom clapboard affair built forty years ago and in bad need of a paint job, but it would do for an old fart living alone.

Harley did little more than stick his nose in the half-open
barn
door before moving on to what remained of the wildflower garden
—now more weeds than flowers—that
Lester fussed with every spring.
The dog was hoping that some careless rabbit might have mistaken the plot for a safe haven. It was not to be and the Lab moved on, working his way down the fencerow.

The sound of gravel crunching in the lane broke
Lester’s
reverie as a solid black 1995 Z28 Camaro jerked to a stop. Deputy Billy Ray Ledbetter slid out and
made his way across the lawn
favoring one foot, the limp noticeable
. Lester met him at the door as Harley raced to join them.

“Jesus, Sheriff, you still in your skivvies? I thought we had a missing person to find.”

“Don’t get your panties in a wad
,
Billy Ray. Sit still a minute and talk to the dog. I’ll be ready when I’m ready.”

For the better part of a year, Lester and Billy Ray had worked together busting meth labs in
southeast
Sequoyah County.
But it wasn’t the same job after Lester
retired
and
rather than stay in law enforcement, Billy Ray joined the Army.
It was
an unfortunate
decision
. His
military career
was
shortened by a rocket propelled grenade exploding into a boulder next to where Billy Ray
had taken shelter during an attack
.
The shrapnel shattered several bones in his right foot, prompting a medical discharge.
Back in the states and after
months
of rehab, Billy Ray needed a job.
The Sequoyah County Sheriff’s office had promised him
his old job
back if he wanted it
, but when he inquired, he was told that
there were no openings at the moment.
The goods news,
he
found, was that
Sheriff Morrison
had gone back to work and was now living
in
the
Panhandle
.
Billy Ray made a call.
Lester
was
surprised to hear from one of his former deputies, but extended an invitation to come out and take a look.
If he liked the area
—and pending county budget approval—he
could go to work immediately.
The very next day
Billy Ray
headed
for Boise City,
hoping
to get his old life back.