Norman Partridge - The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

“Well… they asked if the moon would be full this evening. I didn’t answer, of course, because I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. And then they asked if I’d even seen what a two-hundred pound timber wolf could do to a rabbit, and I have to admit that I got a little nervous.”

“So they threatened you?” Dwight asked.

“Well, it was obviously more than a question , but I’m not quite sure if I’d say that it was actually a threat.”

Lily sighed. “What are you trying to do, Sheriff? Catch these crazies on some legal technicality? You can’t handle the one you’ve got locked up. How do you expect to handle twelve more?”

“Look, Lily, I appreciate the help and all, but let me handle this by myself, okay?”

‘You want me to take my shotgun and go home, is that it?”

Dwight sighed. All right. Little Miss I-can-drive-better-than-you-can wanted an answer. Fine. He’d give her an answer.

But before he could, the bank doors swung open, and a redhead wearing a black dress, mourning veil, and sunglasses stepped into the bank. It was Angela Rosewell, the banker’s wife.

“Angela,” the banker said. “Darling… you should be resting.”

“Shut up, Milt. Speedy Gonzalez is dead and he ain’t coming back, so get used to the idea.” Mrs. Rosewell turned to the sheriff. “Are you ready for some good news, Dwight?”

“Sure.”

“I’m dropping the charges,” the banker’s wife said. “So you can let that Chihuahua-eating son of a bitch out of your jail, and maybe we can have a little peace and quiet around here.”

Dwight shook his head. “I can’t do that, Angela. Threats have been made.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Did you ever see Rio Bravo?”

“Yeah,” the banker’s wife said. “Did you ever see The Wild One Meets the Teenage Werewolf”

“There’s no such movie.”

“That’s my point, Dwight.”

Dwight pushed through the banks double doors and started down the deserted street. Things were real quiet. So quiet that if he’d worn spurs, he would have heard them jingle-jangle.

He crossed the street and stopped short in front of Liz Bentley’s barber shop. He wasn’t thinking straight. He was starting to think just as crazy as everybody else in town. Christ, if only he’d managed some sleep in the last forty-eight hours, but those two days had been just as crazy as the weeks — and months — that had come before them.

He sighed. Fine. If he was going to act crazy, he might as well go whole hog. He pushed through the barbershop door. Liz was sitting in the big chair, reading a confessions magazine.

“That silver razor of yours,” Dwight said. “Can I borrow it?”

“Take a load off,” Liz offered, standing up. “I’d consider it my civic duty to do the job for you, Sheriff. I don’t mind telling you that you look pretty shaky. I’m afraid you’d cut your own throat.”

“It’s not that,” Dwight said. “I don’t need a shave. I need some answers, and I need them fast.”

Liz nodded. “I get it. Lon Chaney, Junior kind of stuff, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, sit down for a minute just the same. Let me get this thing good and sharp for you.”

A few minutes later, Dwight hit the streets once again.

No one in sight. Not much to hear, either. No gunning motorcycles. Only the sound of his footsteps.

He passed the diner and crossed the street to the jail. The kid’s motorcycle sat in the side lot, and Dwight grinned at the sight of it.

He flicked open Liz’s straight razor. Polished silver caught the gleam of the sun. The werewolf had stood up to Vin Miller’s fists, but Dwight wondered what the kid would do when he caught sight of a silver razor. Maybe he’d sing a different tune.

Dwight didn’t like Vin Miller, and he liked Vin Miller’s methods even less, but right now he needed some answers.

And right now, he wasn’t going to let like get in the way of need.

Dwight came through the door and saw Deputies Hastings and Rutherford with their hands in the air.

Then he saw the guns.

“Shit,” was all he said.

And the next thing he knew, he was locked up in a cell.

SIX

Vin Miller couldn’t believe it. Here he was, locked up in a jail that was more like a nuthouse.

The whole thing was loony. They’d locked up the sheriff and turned the prisoner loose in broad daylight, and the kid had hauled ass on that big motorcycle of his. Then they’d waited until morning — letting the full moon give way to sunrise — before turning over their weapons to Hastings and Rutherford.

A shotgun, a dainty little chrome-plated automatic, and Vin’s own service revolver.

That was a hell of a note. Big blonde Vera Marlowe packing Vin’s own gun. The undertaker’s daughter with that big old shotgun. The banker’s wife with that chrome-plated automatic. The three of them putting the freeze on every peace officer in town.

For a while they’d all been locked up together — Vin, the sheriff, and the three crazy broads — one in each of the jail’s five cells. Well, Dwight Cole wasn’t really locked up. Rutherford had opened his cell when the women surrendered, but the sheriff wouldn’t come out. He just sat there, looking like a man who’d been pole-axed.

And that’s when the women started in on him. Vera first, saying that she’d just been jealous, mad at the way ol’ Dwight had stopped visiting her, and she didn’t mean visiting her at the diner. She said that she didn’t care about Vin at all, said it right in front of Vin like he was the Invisible Man or something!

Christ Almighty, and Vin the guy who’d been ready to cook breakfast for her!

Then the undertaker’s daughter started in on the sheriff. She said it was a big mistake, them getting involved. She felt terrible about it, especially now that she’d heard Vera’s side of the story, and she said they were just going to have to stop meeting clandestinely. That was what she said. Clandestinely. She couldn’t leave her father alone at night, because if anything ever happened to him she’d feel just awful.

The banker’s wife had no such regrets. Except one, which was that her cell and the sheriff’s were separated by the cell that held Vin. And it was pure hell, hearing that, because Vin had tasted her warm lips when he’d given her mouth-to-mouth. He wanted to remind her of that, of how brave he’d been while capturing the fiend who ate her Chihuahua, but he just didn’t have the heart.

Women! Damn! Vin was plenty happy when the whole wild bunch of them made bail.

Still, the sheriff just sat there in the cell with the open door, that pole-axed look glued to his face, not saying a word. Not that Vin felt sorry for the idiot. Christ, he should have such problems.

It took the lady barber to get the sheriff talking. She showed up and collected her silver razor from him.

“Do you think he was a werewolf?” she asked.

“We’ll never know,” the sheriff said.

“But what do you think ?”

“Why think about it? We’ll never know. It’s crazy to think about it.”

“You know,” she said, “you’re the kind of man who always waits too long, trying to figure all the angles. One day you’ll have to make a decision based on faith alone.”

He grinned. “Maybe I’ve already made my decision. Maybe I’m just sitting here waiting to tell someone about it.”