Sallow Bend by Alan Baxter

Author:Alan Baxter [Baxter, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Cemetery Dance Publications
Published: 2022-08-19T06:00:00+00:00

21

Deputy Val Baker drove slowly along Wilson Street with the windows up and the AC blowing an arctic gale. She hated the heat of summer, but despised the cold of winter more. One day, she thought, she’d learn about a place that had a steady springtime climate and badly needed a police deputy and she’d pack her bags that night.

She grinned, imagining her dad. He had been a cop and a damned good one by all accounts. But he took two bullets in the city, one to the knee and one to the chest. The chest wound had nearly killed him, but healed up leaving nothing but an ugly scar. The leg wound was never life-threatening, but it destroyed the joint and left him with a limp and a walking cane, and bad case of bitter recriminations. He had never held it against the job, but against his inability to continue with it. Pensioned out when she was still a kid, he eventually accepted defeat and retired to Sallow Bend, bringing his relieved wife with him. Safer than the city where he got shot, maybe, but dull as hell for his kids.

Val’s mother had become a valued member of the town, though Val herself never really felt like she belonged. Arriving at fourteen years of age, she immediately cemented her position as outsider and went off to college first chance she got. Her older brother moved back to the city after less than a year in Sallow Bend. But college life never really suited Val and her parents were appalled when she came back and followed him into the police. After more than ten years serving the community of Sallow Bend, they had learned to respect her decision. Getting old now, they were proud of her. And that’s why she found the thought of moving away amusing. Her dad’s façade would crumble and fall if she took her gun and badge to anywhere bigger than the sleepy town she had finally called home for thirteen years. She imagined he only respected her choice to be a police deputy because the risk levels in Sallow Bend were about as low as they could get. She didn’t mind the idea of being a big city police officer, it sounded quite exciting, but if she was honest with herself, she was a little chickenshit too. In thirteen years, she had never pulled her service weapon in anger or need. Only ever on the range, for practice she hoped to never put into use. Long may that situation persist.

Her radio hissed and Janssen came over the waves, sounding surly as usual. He was the one who most often got to go out with Holtz while Val and Clive manned the station, but every once in a while Holtz would grow sick of Janssen’s acidic company and leave the young man on desk duty to give Val the second squad car, and a day or two out in the fresh air. Why he never took her along with him like he did Janssen always confused Val.

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