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Winner of the 2019 Ozark Creative Writers Dusty Richards Memorial Oxbow Prize
ACKS, COME ON OUT of that jail. Bring whoever the one-armed fellow is with you. There’s no need in you two getting hurt over the marshal. We know he’s in bad shape, so I’m taking my boy home with me. I’ll give you two minutes.” The old man guarding the jail looked at me and grimaced. “That would be Conner Noland out there. It’s his boy, Luke, locked up back there in the cell. Marshal Cates brought him in yesterday for killing a man down at The Thirsty Miner. I can’t let him go, and I won’t let them in here with the marshal. If you want to leave, you can, young man. This really isn’t your fight.” Looking over at the marshal being tended to by the town doctor and back at the jailor, I weighed my options. He was right. I didn’t know these people, and it really wasn’t my fight. But right is right, and I always had a way of getting involved in what was right. “Jacks, is that what I heard the Doc call you?” He nodded his head. “I guess when I found the Marshal out by the tracks nearly beaten to death and decided
to help, it became my business. Doc, how’s the marshal looking? “Not good, he’s got several broken ribs and lost a lot of blood. He might even be bleeding inside, I can’t tell. I didn’t catch your name, by the way.” “That’s because I didn’t throw it. Cory Miller.” Then I decided to lie. “The marshal was in bad shape when I found him, but he was still talking. He deputized me before he passed out on the way to town. Jack’s, do you have another badge laying around somewhere? Looks like I’ll be helping you keep those men out of the jail.” Doc and Jacks looked at each other before answering my question. I could see they were suspicious of what I had just told them. I would just have to trust it would work itself out. “There’s a badge in the top drawer of the marshal’s desk. I’ve known Marshal Cates for several years now and I ain’t ever known him to deputize anyone, especially some stranger.” Jacks was keeping his eye on the men outside but letting me know he wasn’t sure about my story.
