Hard Times and the Raccoon's Tale

Chapter One

A Skull is Discovered

"Sure wish this was Saturday instead of Thursday," Chief Deputy Webster Gage said to himself as he slowly backed his patrol car out of the driveway, and headed east down the dusty gravel road towards town. "This would be a great day to go fishin' for channel cats in the Raccoon."

It was early fall, and the weather was near perfect. The blue sky had only a few wispy clouds to get in the way of the promised sunshine. Tall corn, on both sides of the road, was rapidly turning from green to brown, and soon would come under assault by an army of huge green and red harvesting machines

Gage reached over and switched on the small battery powered radio that he kept on the seat beside him. It was against the sheriff's rules to have a personal radio in the car but being Page chief deputy allowed him a certain amount of leeway. A news commentator was discussing the upcoming meeting between Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, in Reykjavík, Iceland. "They will be continuing discussions on scaling back their intermediate missile arsenals in Europe," he announced. Web quickly switched it to a country music station.

Arriving at the building that housed both the sheriff's office and county jail, Gage said a quick "Good morning" to Janice, the plus-sized office manager, as he headed for the tiny deputy's office in the back.

"Good morning yourself, Web," she replied. Web was Webster's preferred alias, and the name he had been called since he was a child. As usual, the desk he shared with three other deputies was cluttered with various reports and summonses to be served. Glancing at the stack marked "Web," he noticed it was smaller than the other three stacks. "Either the sheriff is finally making those other slackers do their share of the work, or something's up," Web mumbled to himself.

Web had held the position of chief deputy for the last four years of the nearly fifteen years he had been with the Dallas County Sheriff's Office. Sporting a short chevron style mustache, and with a few reddish-brown locks remaining on his balding head, Web was still considered a handsome man. Pushing fifty and divorced with two grown children, he was looking forward to taking over as sheriff when the current sheriff retired. Although he seldom discussed it with Sheriff Walford, it was more or less understood the chief deputy would run for the position of sheriff when the current occupant retired after his next term. After all, Web was well-liked by the entire sheriff's office staff and he had made a few friends among the more prominent Republicans in the courthouse. His nomination by the Republican party to be their sheriff candidate, and his election to the position, would be a snap, he hoped.

Web could hear the sheriff, on the other side of the closed door, yelling to Janice, "Gage in yet? I need to see him 'bout this damn skull they found up near Perry." A second later, the grey steel door to the deputy's office opened and Sheriff Lem Walford stepped in.

Sheriff Lemuel Walford was a man who commanded respect, not only for his size (over 6 feet tall and pushing 250 pounds), but for his confident manner. He was not the type of man you argued with, unless you were dead sure of your position. The voters of Dallas County, a fast-growing Iowa county just west of the capital city of Des Moines, respected him enough to elect him three times to be their top law enforcer.