The Law.....

It was a day of omens and portents. There was an odd pre-dawn lack of dew and a dry, warm, east to west wind when the predominant direction should have been the opposite. The sun rose to a cloudless sky but there was an ominous haze. Everyone knows now that it was reddish saharan desert sand trapped way up yonder but they were geographically and meterolgically ignorant then.

It was eerily quiet. No songbirds. No crickets. No cicadas. People actually heard their own heartbeats. The curious ringing in their ears drowned out the seldom ceasing, underlying hum and whine of the yarn mill. Traffic noise could be heard but there were no car horns blaring or tires squealing. Normally active children stayed indoors of their own volition. Cattish, gossiping biddies did not meet to slander and back-bite their enemies over clotheslines or bordering walls, hedges and fences. They all stayed to home and watched the telly for breaking news.

Noontime came and went. There was a staccato of rapid pops like firecrackers and a few louder booms. Then finally, emergency sirens from varying points of the compass began blaring. "Told you so !" they all said to themselves as they sighed a breath of relief. Bad news extant was better than the stressful anticipation of its coming. The civil defense klaxon on top of the city jail echoed throughout the metropolis. Word spread quickly thanks to doctor bell's invention. The first national farmers and mechanics bank of patona city had been robbed !

The first responders to the scene of the crime were Mack Kimber the chief and James Dudley his lieutenant. Olean Frady and Edgar Wallace blocked the south end of town. Doorknob Gitty and Chromedome Anderson guarded the north, their shining pates reddening in the slanting afternoon sun. Various volunteers watched east and west. Most were of the opinion that the robbers had already slipped through.

Out at jung's truckstop, Mabel (strawberry shortcake) and Charlotte (ping-pong), unidentical twin sisters who dealt-off the arm, waiting tables were expectantly looking out on the gravel lot for the arrival of mack and dudley for their usual tuesday 1400 hrs. appointment. The sisters were astute waitresses, attractive and flirty but efficient. They also had that rare combination of both soft-palmed hands and firm grips.....as popular with the truckers and local keystone cops in the broom closet or dry-goods pantry as they were slinging plates and refilling java in the dining room.

A silvery-grey car with throaty pipes and a patrol car look about it flew by in a cloud of dust. S.S. asked P.P. if she thought that that was them. Wally, the short-order cook, expecting James Dudley to answer, phoned up to city hall to ask whether or not to drop the eggs on the griddle. The dispatcher answered instead and informed them of the robbery and gave the description of the car. Wally alerted them of seeing the strange, fast car and in less than four minutes Mack and Dudley passed by in pursuit.

Straight ahead on 278 was the logical trail to track but Mack took a chance on veering to the left on County Rd. 33. Down in the flats looking from the heights of frogg mountain, eagle-eyed Dudley, riding shotgun, thought he saw brake lights ahead. If it was the fleeing robbers then they would have to slow their pace at the dead man's curve just past sanford springs. Mack opened up the throttle to diminish the intervening distance between.

Now the police car had 72 more cubic inches of engine and two more barrels of carburation than the bandits but they, in turn, had both a better suspension and a more experienced driver at those speeds. The result was that the outlaws, on two wheels, safely navigated through the dangerous curve but the following police cruiser did not.

To the left and on the convex side of the curve lay a farmstead down in a hollow some thirty feet below the grade of the road. An optical illusion of course but passerbys often noticed the roof of a barn peeping over the shoulder of the road that looked so close you could almost reach out and touch it. It was the obvious and logical site for protective guard rails but those came later.....much too late to save the pursuers from injury. The squad car left planet earth and flew straight through the hay-loft of the barn with a sickening crash.

The two-legged inhabitants of the farmstead consisted of an elderly, childless couple with no servants. The husband armed himself with a side by side fowling piece and rushed out to the wreckage of his barn. Amongst the confusion of panicked livestock and chickens, he yelled back to his wife, "Ma.....Ma, call the law ! An aereoplane has done went and crashed into the barn !"

Out of the ruins of the barn staggered and stumbled James Dudley, his uniform rent and bloody, his smokey hat askance with hay, straw and feathers protruding underneath. His sam browne had slipped-around so that his heavy sixgun rode in front like a tudor cod-piece.

"Don't you dare call the law !" he screeched hysterically as he jerkingly righted his sixgun to its proper location at the starboard side.

"We is the law !"