Echoes of Glory

Chapter 1

1 CHAPTER ONE s Sheriff Timpson Smith lumbered through the dim, drafty Mills County courthouse, his boot heels gunshots on the wooden floor. The courthouse —a stone breadbox with a metal birdcage for a bell tower—was not designed for grace or beauty but for the assertion of authority. Five Mills was a facsimile of thousands of rural towns that had a sole reason to exist—the courthouse. It was the center of gravity, and it weighed heavy in the county. Despite his years in office the sheriff had never grown accustomed to the dank smell of limestone, sweat, fear, perfume accented with the ammonia and disinfectant from the public toilets in the basement that had once been the sheriff’s office. Without a glance he walked past the display of rusty tools, pistols, and rifles left by the five Mills brothers who had become out of place in their place. The case was as familiar as the face of his wife that he seldom studied any more. He howdied the mayor, district attorney, developer, clerk, lawyer, cronies, supplicants, court flies, he alone in boots, hat and without a tie. “There goes Timpson Smith. We won’t see his like again,” someone said, loud enough for him to hear. “And maybe that’s a good thing.” They chuckled without derision. He was an emblem like the display case, the monument, the pistol on his belt. When he was gone the county would have to invent another. The sheriff had been a tare extending his roots until he was tangled with the “courthouse crew” so that none could be uprooted without disturbing the others. They weren’t friends, but teammates with privilege by association. They had exchanged glances, touches, confidences, as thick as high schoolers in a huddle, but he was quitting the team. They didn’t fear him any more or need his sanction. He had announced his 2 Echoes of Glory retirement with something akin to guilt; remembering the boy he had killed, the lies he had told, the little crimes of the law. They had accepted his announcement with relief. The sheriff focused on the stairs. Damn, they got steeper every year. And louder. There was a lawsuit to force the county to put in an elevator for a paralyzed veteran who wanted to serve on a jury but couldn’t climb the stairs. Ronald Reagan and the sheriff would be out of office. And maybe the vet would be dead before the issue was resolved and the elevator installed. He climbed to the drafty second floor with its one courtroom, jury room, conference room, and judge’s office. One of the sheriff’s duties was to provide courtroom security, and he stepped in the side door to survey those present, a visible threat to anyone who troubled the decorum of the building. The only big trial in years had been of a coward who had tortured and killed a young girl but those who wanted to draw and quarter him had been tamed by church and state, and he was a frightened child who cried for his mother in his cell. “I didn’t go to do it,” he said. The scenes that usually required the sheriff’s glare had been property, divorce, and child custody cases. A half-dozen people were scattered down the courthouse pews. They glanced at him and looked away. After the implicit warning and the judge’s nod he stepped back into the hall that was lined with locked filing cabinets. The building seemed poised to explode papers and folders over the town of Five Mills even after they had moved the tax collector, county clerk, agriculture extension, road commissioner, and indigent care to the old jail. His department had expanded to occupy the third floor—space for more files, more deputies, more reports, more everything. Martha was right; the job had become too complex for him with its intricate relationships between social mores, business ethics, and usage of the law. He didn’t want to think about that. If the calendar didn’t require an election he would happily remain in office. But he had given his word to Martha. Reaching the third floor, he stopped for a moment to catch his breath. Every year in office he had added a pound and, although too young to retire, some days he was troubled by old wounds and two knees that no longer communicated with each other or the rest of his...