Fraidy Hole: A Sheriff Lester P. Morrison Novel (24 page)

“How nice of you
to
ask Lester. Yes, I will marry you.”

“Hot Damn!” Lester said and kissed her again.

After a hasty but meaningful ceremony, they packed the pickup with everything Mary Alice could cram in it and drove to Oklahoma where they found a small, but
nicely furnished
apartment. There they lived poor but happy until Lester got his degree and found a deputy sheriff’s job in nearby Sequoyah County.
The duplex they
rented
in Sallisaw was nothing to brag about but would suffice until they could save a little money
and make a down payment on a home of their own
. Mary Alice found a job
she enjoyed
at the local feed and hardware store
,
horse and cattle folks being the most common customers, her kind of people.
After
his
first year of steady employment
and miserly life style,
Lester was able to trade in the old El Camino for a Chevy Silverado extended cab, used of course
with
80,000 miles
on it
,
but
about a hundred thousand less than his previous ride.

The next few years were the happiest that Lester had ever known. He loved the work, as he knew he would, and at the same time, enjoyed the feeling of doing something meaningful with his life. Married life for the pair of lovebirds could easily be described as blissful, regardless of their meager paychecks.
One of Lester’s co-workers called it “stupid rich”, so broke you don’t know you’re poor but you have fun anyway.

Lester excelled at the job of Deputy Sheriff.
He was a quick learner and had an easy going but firm style when dealing with lawbreakers.
Speeders were allowed to voice their invalid excuses, but the bottom line was that unless you were having a baby or your hair was on fire, you were going to get a citation.
Drunk drivers had no chance, going directly to jail without hesitation. Lester hated drunk drivers.

Within the department, Lester quickly earned the respect and admiration of the other deputies as well as the
S
heriff himself, a man by the name of James Bradley.
Sheriff Bradley was well thought of in the community but was now almost sixty-six years old. After spending most of that time as a public servant, the Sheriff had begun to talk about retirement.
Lester, despite his youth, had his eye on the job. When Bradley gave his notice, Lester decided to go for it. He hoped his lack of experience wouldn’t hurt him as he tacked
Elect Morrison
notices on every other telephone pole in the county.

It was a close race but when the final vote was in, Lester P. Morrison was the new sheriff of Sequoyah County. There was a raise in pay of course, nothing to brag about, but enough for Lester and Mary Alice to buy a modest home overlooking the Illinois River. On their days off, the happy couple enjoyed lazy canoe trips over the mild mannered river rapids.

Lester’s Camelot came crashing down on May 29
th
, only twelve and a half years since they had said their vows in that cozy little chapel in Missouri. It was on a Friday evening and after a boring day of serving warrants, that Lester had come home to find his golden girl
in dirt-stained jeans and an old denim work shirt,
lying in her rose garden …without a sign of life. Aortic aneurism the doctor had said, sometimes unforeseeable, probably genetic.

Attendance at the funeral exceeded anything the town of Tahlequah had ever seen.
Lawmen from Sallisaw, Ft. Gibson, Muskogee, and even a few from Arkansas, paid their respects and offered condolences.
Lester scattered her ashes in the Illinois, a river Mary Alice had grown to love. He watched as pieces of his heart floated downstream, riding on the current.
He sold the house soon after, unable to enjoy the river or tend to the rose garden, the memories too painful.

Lester changed after that
. He
became harder, a lot more cynical, and had far less patience with the assholes he dealt with from day to day. Thinking a change of scenery might help
,
he eventually ran for and was elected sheriff of McCurtain County, about a 150 miles south.
Geographically, McCurtain County wasn’t all that much different from Sequoyah, but it was new people, new territory, and a chance to start over, leaving the pain behind.

But then came the era of drugs, meth labs, and easy money.
It
consumed
his time on the job, taking down one lab only to have another appear a few days later.
The frustration of it ate at him. The almost daily raids became little more than a nasty chore, not unlike cleaning out the back of his patrol car where some drunk had tossed his cookies.
The constant dealing with the druggies added to Lester’s growing depression; their addictions, their drawn faces covered with sores. No matter how hard he worked at it, the number of labs increased every year. Then came the fire at the trailer house, killing the innocent mother and her kids, started by yet another careless zonked out meth maker.
It had tipped the scales once more and now, here in No Man’s Land
,
Oklahoma, Lester sat in his easy chair, head nodding in mini-naps, a good dog at his feet, no longer dealing with crack heads and their self-destructive cravings.

At the distinctive sound of the Camaro, Harley jumped
up
and dashed to the front door, pushing on it with one paw.
Lester opened the screen and let the dog out where he and Billy Ray had another joyous reunion in the front yard. Lester smiled at the scene.

If something ever happens to me, those two would be a perfect fit.
I need to talk to the boy about that.

Lester poured what was left of the coffee in his thermos and turned the rocker switch on the brewer to
off
, a small but important detail he had learned the hard way when he had found baked Folgers in the pot, and on more than one occasion.
He turned the kitchen light off but left the lamp by his chair burning so the house wouldn’t appear completely dark and unoccupied to any would be drive-by thief.
He could think of a couple people that might get a perverse pleasure from robbing the sheriff’s house. Of course there was the dog to deal with.
Harley would be more than happy to take a hunk out of somebody’s butt given the opportunity and motivation.

“Sheriff, I’ve thought about this,” Billy Ray said as he stood on the porch.
“I think I should do the driving tonight. You’re not used to how this car handles and frankly, it could get away from you.”

“Good grief boy, you think I’ve forgotten how to drive a car?
I’ve had a few hot rods in my day you know, probably driven way more stick shifts that you ever thought about.
Why, I was drag racing on the back roads while you were still in diapers and shittin’ yellow. Might get away from me, my ass.”

Billy Ray listened politely for a moment, but then took his seat behind the wheel leaving Lester to stand there with the passenger door open. It was ride or else.

Harley gave his owner
the look.

“No way dog, not tonight, not with the way you’re passing gas. You need to stay here. Besides that, my young deputy would probably have a hissy fit if you was to get dog hair on his fancy-ass machine, the one that’s too powerful for other people to drive.”

Harley didn’t hear the words he was listening for;
truck
or
in
or
okay
.
Not good. The big black tail got still.

The passenger door of the Camaro slammed shut with more force than was necessary but Billy Ray let it pass. He glanced at the older man across from him who sat stone faced and silent, staring straight ahead.
It was looking like the beginning of a very long and quiet stakeout at the Pirate’s Den.

C
hapter 19

Earl Redman was having a good day with a steady stream of customers, the cash register bulging with greenbacks.
When the clock wound down on the Saturday afternoon football games, the crowd had thinned only to be replaced by a good-sized group of thirsty bikers.
Earl was having a hard time keeping their pitchers full of beer but so far, no one was acting rowdy.
The bunch didn’t look all that menacing, no gang names on the back of their leather jackets, and only a couple had tattoos.
They looked to be exactly what they were, a bunch of decent and mostly law abiding folks that just happened to love motorcycles and were out for a fun ride on a picture perfect late September afternoon.
Come Monday, they would all be back at their regular jobs; bank teller, lawyer, UPS driver, and a mail carrier to name a few. There was not a single drug dealer in the lot although one of the women did have a warrant for outstanding speeding tickets.

The beer flowed like golden rivers until just past nine o’clock when the bikers suddenly left en masse, as if they all needed to be home before curfew
(
but most likely on their way to another bar
)
. The evening was young. In the parking lot, the big motors rumbled to life as one noisy fire-breathing entity, the exhausts shattering the peacefulness of the quiet countryside.
One by one, single file, and headed south, their taillights grew smaller, then dim before disappearing in the darkness like dying fireflies.

That left the regulars; the two Mexicans who couldn’t speak English, the guy with the wild eyes that lived down the road, and J.O. Mecham of course, who would not forsake his source of free beer until the joint closed up around him.
Then there
were two guys who looked to be in their twenties—Earl had never seen them before—shooting pool as they
’d
been doing most of the evening.
Three gals at the back table were having a girls night out, sipping their beers and laughing too loud, sometimes dancing with each other when a toe-tapping tune came up on the juke box.

Earl was dead tired. Despite the money he was raking in, he was ready to call it a day but damn it, he couldn’t shut the door when he had this many paying customers. Saturdays made up for his slow days and he couldn’t just lock up and go home. Besides that, his wife would chew him out good for leaving money behind, and Earl was too bushed to listen to that line of crap at this hour.
Getting cussed out for not working long hours from a woman who seldom got off her fat ass did not make for a happy ending to a good day. J.O. motioned for yet another refill. As to how many that made, Earl had lost count hours ago but a deal was a deal.

“You’re killing all my freakin’ profit J.O.
Don’t you think it’s time you packed it up and headed home?
That sheriff might be watchin’ the roads ya know. He’d love to catch you out there and slap a DUI on your ass.”

“That’s my business, barkeep. I’ll deal with him when the time comes, don’t you worry about that. You just keep this glass full until closing time, then and only then will I consider checking out.
Earl shook his head in despair and returned to his stool behind the bar where he kept the remote for the TV. He had set the DVR to record America’s Most Wanted and figured this was the best chance he’d have today to watch it.
He poured himself a shot of the cheapest bourbon in the house and waited for the set to come up to full color.

*****

Sheriff Lester P. Morrison and his deputy Billy Ray, sat in the far corner of the Pirate’s Den parking lot, nearest the highway, the rear of the Camaro backed toward an open field of wheat.
It wasn’t until the
rumble of the bikers
had faded away did the Sheriff speak, still miffed at being forced to ride as a passenger.

“You ever owned one of those Billy Ray, a motorcylce?”

“A crotch rocket?
Nope, not my thing.
I’ll take a good fast car over one of those machines any day; never had any desire to catch June bugs in my teeth. You?”

“Yeah, I had a bike once. It wasn’t a Harley by any means. It was a Suzuki 750, a rice grinder was what some bikers called them, but it went plenty fast for me. Had me some nice afternoons on that bike, I did. I liked to go out on the county roads on a late Sunday evening when I had the world to myself, just cruise along 30-40 miles an hour, smelling the smells, and watching the country slide by.

“Did your wife go with you?” Billy Ray said.
The Sheriff never talked much about his wife was why the deputy asked.

“Mary Alice wasn’t all that crazy about
two-wheelers
. She didn’t like to ride on the back and not be in control like with her horses, but she went along on some days.”

“So why did you give it up?”

“One day my buddy and I got a wild hair to ride to Dallas one weekend to watch the Cowboys play football. He had a Honda, also a 750cc. Well, we got lost of course and found ourselves closer to Ft. Worth than
Irving
where the stadium was. I remember we had just looked at a map and figured out where we thought we were. I took the lead and was barreling though this tight turn to get on a ramp and hit the expressway hoping to be there before kickoff when I hit something slick, a spill of some sort. Later on
,
I figured out it was probably diesel fuel from some truck that had just filled up.
Anyway, as I was leaned over and was goosing that bike through the turn, the back wheel broke loose. I remember hearing the motor rev high, screaming from lack of traction, and down I went. Only good side of it was that I slid and didn’t tumble, probably would have broke my fool neck if that had happened.
I had a light jacket on, but I still lost a couple layers of my hide off one arm and a leg.
My butt was sore for a week.
After that, bike riding wasn’t as much fun anymore.
Every time a curve in the road came along, I found myself thinking back to Texas, and getting tense.
I guess I gave up motorcycles for the same reason I gave up bull riding, seemed like there might be more sensible ways to have a good time.”