Excerpt from Chapter One of "To Save the Realm"

The County Sheriff, Bull Caldwell, whom Brock had known since they were both little ruffians in the first grade, got out of the lead cruiser followed by two deputies from the other car. Brock didn’t recognize the deputies. They were very young and fit, probably just graduated from hood academy, which for a long time had been the preferred recruiting ground for the county’s law enforcement ranks. Bull had been drinking a little bit himself if one could judge by his oystery eyes and beet-red face. As usual, though, his crisp khaki uniform was starched to within an inch of its life, and his motorcycle boots shone like little black suns. He brought his heavy frame to a halt on the sidewalk a couple of feet away, lit a Camel with his Zippo, and said, “Hi, Brock, how you doing tonight?”

“Fine, Bull, just fine.” Brock, slurring his es’s, found himself, not unsurprisingly, wobbly on his feet. Very undignified. And he was fighting hard to hold back the really rather goofy grin that had gotten him into so much trouble, sometimes very deep trouble, so many times before in his life. It was a losing battle: Bull had a new kiss curl plastered across his forehead a la Bill Haley. On top of the sheriff’s wide, Saint Bernardish face, it was as odd a sight as a big Pontiac tail fin on the back of one of those new Volkswagens.

“Where ya been, buddy? My eyes may have been playing tricks on me, but you seemed to be weaving a little bit there coming down the street.” The deputies walked around their boss. They stood close on either side of Brock and fidgeted the way young men tend to do when they think they may have to sock someone. “Driving like that here on Rhea Street, you might run over the mayor or Doc Redmon or one of our other guiding lights who are out prowling around town this time of night. Oh, they are out and about, I can promise you that. Comin’ home from the Country Club dance or the Elk’s Lodge or someplace we don’t need to know about.” A gorgeous bright green luna moth as big as a sparrow flapped around behind Bull’s head in the bright cone of a street light. “So you need to be more careful about your drinking and driving.”

Brock felt as if things were getting a little redundant, like he was hearing everything twice. Bull blew a long, slow stream of smoke at the ground, then looked up. “You might want to be more careful about who you’re spending your free time with, too.”

Brock was surprised by this, even though he wasn’t exactly thinking too clearly. Bull had never said anything to him about his sometimes raucous private life. Brock and Bull had been constant, if unlikely, companions until the ninth grade. Then they’d separated to follow the diverging passions of their adolescence, Brock to roam the river and lose himself in his books, Bull to play football and to run with the hoods who hung out at Black’s pool hall on Princess Street. By the time Bull was seventeen, he knew every bootlegger, gambling house, and chop shop in the county. His steady captaincy of a winning football team and his detailed knowledge of Patrick County’s complex web of criminal enterprise made him a shoo-in when he returned from the war in Korea. County Sheriffs in Tennessee, after all, were expected only to manage the crime in their counties. The idea of preventing it was a Quixotic proposition.

Brock said, “You could have talked to me about this all alone. You didn’t need to bring the help.” He glanced at the deputy on his right. The kid was doing his best to sprout a sparse black moustache.

“I could have Brock, but I’m not so sure how well I know you anymore. And I damn well know what you have strapped to your leg down there underneath those Levis.”

Brock shook himself loose a little, like Elvis when he first came out on stage. This made the deputies jump. He let his eyes rest on the pink marble statue of Dionysus, head thrown back, nibbling a bunch of grapes, love-smacked Ariadne clinging desperately to his knees, that stood in the grass beside the brick walkway up to the mayor’s house. “Bull, I don’t think I fought my way across Europe so that someone, even you old buddy, could tell me where I ought to be on a Saturday night.”

Just then a Plymouth convertible full of kids came roaring down Rhea Street, Chuck Berry blaring from its radio. The car slowed down at the sight of the cop cars and rolled slowly past what looked like a scandalous tableau involving the police and one of their staid teachers. The teenagers inside were laughing hysterically, and one of them—it looked like Carol Sue Kesterson—waved  at Brock and yelled, “Salve, magister!” before the car sped off, laying rubber as it went.

Bull dropped his cigarette on the sidewalk and stepped on it. He told the boy deputies, “Catch those damn kids and tell them to quiet down. And don’t get too rough with them.” After they had climbed into the car and were tearing away in an overly dramatic pursuit more suitable for overtaking bank robbers, Bull said, “Okay, Brock. Listen to me. I’m giving you a friendly warning. And I hope you hear it, really hear it, instead of doing like you always used to do, and taking in only what you want to and letting everything else go right by your head, especially everything that makes a damn bit of sense. And you need to know I’m serious as a heart attack here.” He pushed back his thick hair with his right hand. His left arm was bent permanently akimbo from a Chinese bullet that had smashed into his elbow, and he had a habit of propping his fingers on the rim of his pants pocket. He was sweating heavily even though a cool, steady breeze that had blown all the way up the Mississippi Valley from the Gulf was rattling the stiff leaves of the magnolias. “You know those boys out in Big Sandy? Rough fellas that get their kicks wearing their pointy hats and marching around with torches late at night? They’ve got friends here in town, and they know about you and your tomcattin’ in the Bottom. I’ve heard threats. Right-out-loud threats. No whispering about it.” He paused to see if his words were having any effect. Brock’s eyes were back on Dionysus and Ariadne. “Fact is, I don’t want to find you floating in some god-forsaken creek around here or hanging from a tree.”

Brock didn’t hesitate for a second. “Those rednecks can kiss my ass, Bull.” He took a crumpled pack of KOOLs out of his shirt pocket, shook one out, and lit it. “You know me, I can take care of myself.”

Bull stared at Brock with his flushed face for a long while, then shook his head and said, “Damn it, son. You will never change. I’m done talking.” He turned around and began to stomp toward his car.

“Bull?”

“Yeah.”

Brock’s voice was quiet and had lost any hint of party time. “You better let your friends know what they’re in for if they come after me.”

“They’re not my friends, Brock.” The sheriff got back into the black-and-white and drove to his office, where he resumed the marathon weekend poker game he had going with his deputies and a few of the less objectionable inmates of the county jail.