Randle no longer bothered waiting to be off duty to tie one on. He sat at the bar in Son’s and savored a cold beer. Son leaned on the cash register and read the newspaper. The evening crowd was hours away, and the only other patrons were a couple of barflies who cleared away from the bar as soon as Randle entered. They now stood near the jukebox, babbling incoherently about how fucked up the law was in Baptist Flats.
Randle sat with his back to the door and worked through thought after thought about how worthless he was. A splash of light washed over him from behind and he turned. His eyes narrowed as he observed the silhouette of a man standing in the open doorway, scanning the empty dive. The shadow man stepped inside and the heavy door pushed against the industrial hydraulic hinge until it clicked shut.
The man’s face inched into view as the backlight vanished. Randle knew him, but couldn’t place him. He returned his attention to his beer, but before he could swallow the next mouthful of fermented hops and barley, the man took a seat at the bar, two stools away.
“Bourbon, barkeep. Top shelf.”
Son groaned and pushed himself away from the register. “We ain’t got but one shelf.”
The man laughed. “Well, only-shelf it is, then.”
Son moved slowly, but eventually poured the man his bourbon and plopped it down in front of him. “Five.”
“Five what?”
“Dollars,” Son growled.
The man handed Son a fifty-dollar bill. “Ima run a tab.”
Son shrugged, retrieved the bottle of bourbon, and set it in front of the man. “On your mark. Get set. Run your tab, mister.”
The man smiled and gave a twitch of his head in Randle’s direction. “Get my friend a glass.”
Randle didn’t acknowledge the request with a response because he wasn’t aware the man was referring to him.
Son put a glass in front of Randle and said, “Don’t get yourself out of hand, boy.”
Randle looked at the glass. “What’s that for?”
“Man says get you a glass, I’m getting you a glass, but control your drunk ass because law or not, you’re on a short leash.”
Randle turned to the man. “I know you?”
The man stood and moved down the bar to pour Randle some only-shelf bourbon. “We ain’t never officially met, but we’ve run in the same circles.”
“Where would these circles be?” Randle asked as he sniffed the bourbon before throwing it back and slamming the glass down on the bar.
“I used to share your profession.” The man sat next to Randle.
The deputy gave the man a closer look. “Can’t place you.”
“Rock Hollow SD. I was the S in the D.”
Randle got a hitch in his spine as he figured out the man’s identity. “Rucker.”
The man sipped his bourbon. “That would be me. Stan ‘The Lawman’ Rucker. At least I once was. But no longer. That was my campaign slogan. Stan ‘The Lawman’ Rucker. Got a ring to it.”
“Rucker the motherfucker’s got a ring to it, too,” Randle said, pouring himself a fresh bourbon.
Rucker snickered. “I can see your boss has put a bug in your ear about me.”
Randle downed another glass of bourbon.
“Or was it that little deputy bitch in your department?”
Randle swallowed the taste of fire from the bourbon and stared straight ahead. “You might not want to sit next to me, Rucker.”
Rucker patted Randle’s shoulder. “I apologize. I do. That was uncalled for. I should’ve never called that bitch a deputy.”
Randle turned to him to find the perfect spot to crack open his skull, but caught Son’s look of warning in the turning. He sighed deeply and struggled to restrain himself. “Ima say it again. One more time. One. You might not want to sit next to me.”
Rucker chuckled and moved back to his original stool. “I’m just having a little fun with you. That’s all.”
Randle whistled to get Rucker’s attention. When the former sheriff looked in his direction, Randle slid the bottle of bourbon to him. “You forgot this.”
Rucker nodded. “Fair enough,” he said, pouring just an extra splash of bourbon into his glass. “Believe it or not, I didn’t come here to start trouble.”
Randle, back to this beer, engulfed a mouthful.
“I got a proposition for you.”
Another mouthful.
“You wanna hear it?”
Another mouthful.
“I want you to be my chief deputy.”
Randle snorted out a laugh. “Chief deputy to an out-of-work sheriff. That’s some proposition.”
Rucker smiled. “Shit, did I forget to tell you that Ima be the next sheriff of Baptist Flats?”
Randle stopped short of inhaling his next mouthful of beer. He turned to Rucker.
“The election’s what, a year away?”Rucker said.
Randle said nothing.
“County charter says you gotta be a resident for six months to qualify to run.”
Nothing.
“I just put in an offer on a place. A little tobacco farm off Edge Road. Just right inside the county line. That’s what the realtor said. Been on the market two years. I’m getting the place for nothing. Oh, you should see all that land. Comes out to twenty-two acres. Got a little duck pond with a gazebo just off the shore. Ima fill that thing with catfish and bass. The pond, not the gazebo.” Rucker laughed at his own joke. “You fish, Deputy?”
Randle stared at him a beat before saying, “Folks in Rock Hollow booted your ass. What makes you think you can come into Baptist Flats and win votes?”
Rucker smiled. “Because I know how to do something ol’ Otis don’t know how to do.”
When the disgraced ex-sheriff of Rock Hollow didn’t offer up his special skills quick enough, Randle asked, “And that is?”
“Campaign.”
Randle downed his beer and stood. “Folks know Otis. They like him. Mostly. They don’t know you and from what I hear, there ain’t much to like about you. So, my money’s on Otis.” He gave Son a quick nod. “Later, Son.”
As Randle headed for the door, Rucker called out, “Ima keep you in mind for the chief deputy position. I got a feeling you’ll come around sooner or later. Once you see what’s what. You strike me as a man who chases fortune not folly.”
Randle stopped short of exiting. Staring at his hand on the flat surface of the door he said, “How’s that?”
“It’s another way of saying you ain’t foolish. Once it becomes clear that this county is mine, you’ll do the right thing. You’ll switch your allegiance.”
Randle turned to him, his blood boiling. He was tempted to pull his sidearm and shoot the asshole in the back of the head. He saw himself do it. He saw himself firing shot after shot, and that’s exactly why he pushed the door open and stomped out onto the sidewalk, drawing in deep buckets of air, grasping on to every bit of self-control he could muster to prevent himself from walking back into Son’s and committing cold-blooded murder.