Fog hung low around Hal Morgan’s simple cabin as he trudged up the dark trail late Tuesday night.
“Banker’s hours” may have meant a cushy gig back east, but out here in the hardscrabble west, it meant waking up before everyone else and going to bed even later.
“Stop right there, Hal.” A voice growled from the gloom.
Morgan squinted into the mist and was shocked to see Sheriff Roscoe Ritter, and the barrel of his gun, emerge from nothingness.
“Sheriff, what …”
Ritter pushed up his wide-brim hat, took a wide stance, and cocked his revolver.
“You’re under arrest, Morgan.”
“What? You must be joking! On what grounds?”
“Embezzling, you scoundrel!”
Ritter shoved the nose of his gun into Hal’s chest -- the man was not joking.
---
A long, tense hike to the jail gave way to an even more uneasy silence once they were inside.
“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” Ritter said when Hal pressed him about the charges.
Morgan tried to sleep, but every time he drifted off, the building popped or a mouse scurried across the floor.
When the first long rays of morning finally streamed through a window high on the wall, Ritter stood and walked toward the front of the building.
Hal just watched, dazed.
No sooner had the Sheriff disappeared than Deputy Frank Johns clopped into the back room.
“Morgan! What are you doing here?”
As Hal told his story, Johns’ face went sheet-white.
“What’s wrong, Deputy?”
“Hal … Sheriff Ritter was gunned down at the bank over in Wrathchapel yesterday morning.”
“Who would do that?”
“Far as we can tell, it was the same fellas who robbed our bank not more than an hour ago.”
The shadow of a wide-brimmed hat flashed on the wall between them, then shrank to nothing.
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