Free The Midnight Men and Other Stories by Lee Moan Page A

Federals, or so the story went. The majority of Perseverance’s citizens were immigrants, with pasts and secrets they wished forgotten or buried, so no one questioned him about the scandal, and the town was happy to let it slide into history. The Parnell family seemed to fit right into the close-knit community of Perseverance . . . until the night Parnell brought terror to their peaceful little town.
    He remembered his deputy, Randy Took, jostling him from sleep.
    “Injun gone crazy in town with a gun”, he’d said, and Wade was out of bed and strapping on his guns in no time at all. They were both new to the post, both full to overflowing with youthful vigour. Looking back, Wade found it hard to reconcile himself with the idealistic, gung-ho young man who had stormed out into that sultry night, filled with arrogance and the certain belief that no matter what happened out there, he had the law on his side and was thereby free from recrimination. But the law is a manmade thing. What happened that night, the outcome, turned the law on its head and made a mockery of it.
    It did not take them long to reach the Parnell residence. They crept past the rickety wooden outhouse into the deep shadows at the eastern side of the house. With a silent gesture, Wade sent his young deputy round the back of the building. Wade crept along the eastern wall until he was able to peer round the edge of the house.
    In the front yard he found Parnell’s daughter sitting in the dirt, bound with chicken wire to a wooden stake in the earth. Moonlight turned the bloody scratches on her dark skin into silvery curls. She was crying, tears glistening on her cheeks. Sitting on the porch steps only a few feet away was John Parnell. He was dressed in his nightgown, a wide-brimmed hat pulled down low over his eyes. His arm rested on his knee in a relaxed manner, a silver pistol in his hand.
    “Papa, please,” the girl sobbed.
    Parnell’s arm rose, as if independent of his body, and fired a single shot into the stake inches above the girl’s head. She screamed and tried to twist herself away from further shots, but the chicken wire tightened, cutting deep into her arms.
    The retort of Parnell’s gun was like a thunderclap in the night. The echo seemed to last forever. Wade’s earlier bravado wilted in the face of this very real, very unpredictable threat. After firing the shot, Parnell resumed the same relaxed pose.
    Wade placed his back against the wall and closed his eyes. He had to steady his breathing, control his fear. Think what to do.
    A bloody hand fell on his shoulder. It was Parnell’s wife. Her face was a mass of bruises, her lower arms dark with fresh blood.
    “Don’t kill him!” she screamed. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing!”
    Whatever advantage Wade had hoped to gain was gone. He shoved her away and rushed out into the open yard, gun pointed at Parnell’s head. The big man hadn’t moved, and Wade found that more terrifying than if he’d found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. He held Parnell in his sights and glanced quickly at the girl. She was staring up at him with the blazing light of hope in her eyes.
    The mother remained in the dirt, wailing like a banshee.
    “Please, Sheriff!” she cried. “He’s just had too much to drink. The drink makes him crazy, that’s all. Don’t shoot.”
    “I don’t intend to, ma’am,” Wade hollered. “Just as long as he drops that weapon, and—”
    Randy appeared around the western edge of the house, creeping cat-like towards Parnell’s static figure. His gun was drawn, but Wade could see he was intent on disarming Parnell by hand. Wade tried to halt his advance with a shake of his head.
    At the last moment, Parnell twitched. In hindsight, Wade figured he must have spotted Randy’s moonlight shadow edging across the dirt. Parnell’s gun hand whipped round and the pistol went off. There was a cloud of smoke which obscured Wade’s view of Randy, and in that split