The Inky Outlaws

By Lincoln Reed

The door flung open before Marshal Roland Chadwick could finish pouring his morning coffee. The frontier town’s lawman, Sheriff Tiller, was away on his honeymoon, so Chadwick had offered to substitute. He sat at the sheriff’s desk, reading a worn copy of Emerson.

“Well?” the intruder asked, striding toward Chadwick with her dress swaying. “What’re you going to do about this?”

The marshal sipped from his mug and studied Sandra Newman, a lady of noble stature with piercing eyes and hair as white as milk. Sandra owned the telegraph office and oversaw the distribution of mail delivered by the stagecoach each month. In her bony fist she grasped a Wanted sign.

“You’re the law! And this is vandalism!”

“Morning, Ms. Newman.”

“And it would be a good one, too, if killers like Blade Jenson weren’t robbing stagecoaches!”

Chadwick lowered his tin cup and took the paper. The poster was thin, of yellowing complexion, smelling of dust and fresh ink. US Marshals could often calculate their yearly income by how many Wanted posters they collected; this one stated payment of one thousand dollars to anyone who could arrest or kill Jeremiah “Blade” Jenson, leader of the Viper Gang.

Chadwick squinted, inspecting Blade’s face. Someone had taken black ink and drawn a mustache across the outlaw’s upper lip, spectacles around his dark eyes, points atop his ears, and a wart on his left cheek. On the back of the paper was a crude drawing of a horse, mountains, and what appeared to be a woman with long hair.

Sandra, with arms akimbo, gritted her teeth. “Blade Jenson could be out there, Marshal, wandering these God-fearing streets, but we wouldn’t recognize him!”

Chadwick rubbed his thumb against the drawing, licked the picture, and spat. Tastes like iron. The ink was barely dry. Maybe a few hours old. “I’d know if Blade was in town.”

“Even so, this is vandalism!”

“Suspects?”

Sandra huffed. “You think I would withhold something so crucial? Marshal, I am the postal officer. Busy enough, I assure you, without having to perform my duty and yours.”

Chadwick smirked. “But you do have suspicions?”

Sandra’s eyes narrowed. Her lips flattened. “This isn’t the first doodling, but Sheriff Tiller’s got no leads on the perpetrator. And word’s gotten around, you know, about how you caught Olson Kenton in his lie. That rustler deserved to hang. Lord knows Tiller wouldn’t have sniffed out the truth the way you did.”

The marshal finished his last drink of lukewarm coffee. “Drawing isn’t the same as stealing cattle.”

“This sign is a federal warrant, thus a federal crime. You’re a United States Marshal. Do your duty, or I’ll wire the governor!”

Later that day Chadwick inspected the postal office, checked the door and windows for signs of tampering, but found nothing suspicious. He compared the Jenson sign with the other vandalized posters. All had the same penmanship, but he still couldn’t decipher a proper motive.

From what Chadwick could discern, Blade was defaced sometime before dawn. Otherwise, the ink would have been ingrained. But who would go to such lengths? And why?

Chadwick offered to spend the night in the postal office. Usually, he’d have bemoaned the loss of a bed, but the mystery itched his curiosity, and the marshal hadn’t a better cause to serve until the sheriff returned.

“Shoot the outlaw on sight,” Sandra said. “But don’t go putting bullet holes in my walls.”

When Sandra approached the sheriff’s office the next morning, Chadwick hadn’t yet prepared his coffee, which was a shame after the night he’d had. She marched in and slammed the door shut. “Well?”

“Caught two in the act.”

“Two?” Her eyes danced. “And you shot them?”

Chadwick nodded to the row of cells at the back of the jail. “You were right, Ms. Newman. This vandalism’s a federal offense. But first, I need to know, will you press charges?”

“As I live and breathe, I hope they hang!”

“Very well.”

He led Sandra to the back room where a pen of iron bars contained the two outlaws. Their legs dangled from the bench within the cell as the captives awakened with groggy stares and trembling lips. Sandra gasped at the sight of a boy and girl not much older than ten or eleven, dressed in dirty clothes, with unkempt hair and unwashed faces.

“Marshal, is this a joke?”

“Check the ink stains on their hands. Guilty as sin.”

The boy stood tall while the girl, his sister, clung to his arm with eyes watering. “I ain’t no thief, ma’am,” he said. “Pen was my own, and I didn’t steal no paper.”

Sandra’s jaw sagged. “How?”

“Loose floorboard in the back of your office,” Chadwick said. “They crawled underneath and pushed through. Tell her, Billy.”

The boy’s voice quivered. “We ain’t got no paper, ma’am. And Lila loves to draw. Meant nothing by it. We’re sorry. Won’t happen no more. Honest.”

Chadwick folded his arms. “You broke the law, son. Federal offense. Ms. Newman here says you’ll both hang. I reckon she’s r—”

“No, wait!” Sandra’s cheeks flushed. “What I meant was, this young man, he’ll need to learn to hang those signs properly if he intends to atone for his wrongdoing. If he’s willing to learn, that is, I could use an assistant. Part time, of course.”

Chadwick hid a smile. “Meaning?”

“My goodness, Marshal, please! Open that cell.” Sandra wagged her finger like a gavel. “Don’t you know better than to lock up children?”

After Chadwick retrieved a key from the wall, the postal officer took both kids under her arms, promising to see to it that each gained a bath and some fresh clothes. When they’d left, the marshal retrieved his copy of Emerson and opened to a page bookmarked by a doodled Wanted poster, brewing his coffee atop a wood stove while an orange sun rose into the cloudless sky.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lincoln Reed is a professor, writer, and editor. He holds a BA in film and media production from Taylor University and an MFA in creative writing from Miami University of Ohio. More than a dozen of his short stories are featured in online publications and print anthologies.

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