The Bumbling Sheriff of Latrine City Kansas

The grandfather clock in the corner of the Latrine City General Store was a temperamental beast of mahogany and brass, and Barnaby Bumblethorpe was currently losing the wrestling match he had started with its inner workings. Back in the East, Barnaby had been a clockmaker’s apprentice, a job that required steady hands and a quiet disposition. In Kansas, however, he was the sheriff, a job that required a certain level of rugged dignity he had yet to master. He was currently perched on a rickety wooden stool, his lanky frame folded like a pocketknife as he peered into the clock’s dusty gullet.

"Just a little nudge to the escapement wheel," Barnaby muttered to himself, his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth in deep concentration. "Fiddle-faddle, this spring is tighter than Mother Hubbard’s purse strings."

Barnaby’s vest, a garment gifted to him by the town council that was at least two sizes too large, hung loosely about his ribs. As he leaned forward to adjust a brass gear, a particularly long silver button on his waistcoat snagged on the pendulum’s suspension spring. He felt the tug and instinctively jerked back, which was his first mistake. His second mistake was forgetting that the stool had a shorter leg on the left side. The stool wobbled, and Barnaby’s arms began to windmill in a desperate search for balance. Instead of finding a handhold, his fingers clamped onto the heavy mahogany casing of the clock.

"Oh, heavens! No, no, no!" Barnaby squeaked as the massive timepiece groaned. The weight of the clock, combined with Barnaby’s frantic shifting, reached a tipping point. The heavy wood tilted away from the wall with the slow, inevitable grace of a falling cedar. Barnaby, still hopelessly tethered to the mechanism by his vest, went right along with it.

The front display window of the general store was a pride of the community, mostly because glass was expensive to ship across the plains. Barnaby didn’t have much time to appreciate the craftsmanship before he and the clock crashed through it in a spectacular explosion of shards and splinters. The sound was like a cannon blast echoing down Main Street. Barnaby felt the rush of hot Kansas air, a brief moment of weightlessness, and then a very solid, very soft thud as he landed on something that wasn't the dusty ground.

That something turned out to be a man. Specifically, it was a wiry fellow in a greasy duster who had been sprinting away from the store with a beaded reticule clutched in his hand. The clock landed to the side, shattering into a million wooden teeth, but Barnaby’s full weight, plus the momentum of his fall, pinned the stranger flat against the dirt. The man let out a sound like a squeezed accordion, his breath leaving him in a single, dusty puff.

Barnaby blinked, shaking his head to clear the stars from his vision. He looked down and realized he was sitting directly on the chest of a very confused pickpocket. Nearby, Mother Hubbard’s purse lay in the dirt, its contents spilling out. The townspeople, who had been going about their afternoon business, froze in their tracks. A silence fell over Latrine City, broken only by the rhythmic tink-tink-tink of a stray brass gear rolling across the porch boards.

"Huzzah!" shouted a voice from the hardware store. "The Sheriff got him! He saw that thief running and leaped right through the window to take him down! What a move!"

A chorus of cheers erupted. Men tipped their hats, and children ran closer to see the captured criminal. Barnaby, meanwhile, was frantically trying to disentangle his vest from the ruins of the clock while simultaneously making sure no glass had permeated his trousers. He felt a sharp sting near his hip and winced, his face flushing a deep shade of crimson. He wasn't a hero; he was a man who had just destroyed a three-hundred-dollar clock because of a loose button.

"Are you quite alright, Barnaby?"

The voice was like cool water on a scorched day. Barnaby looked up to see Clementine Montgomery standing over him. The schoolteacher was as poised as ever, her chestnut hair pinned in a neat bun that defied the Kansas wind. She reached down, her gloved hand steady, and offered him help. Barnaby took it, his heart doing a frantic little jig in his chest that had nothing to do with the fall. As he stood, his spurs caught on each other, causing him to stumble into her, but she caught his elbows and held him upright.

"I... I believe I have the situation entirely under control, Miss Clementine," Barnaby stammered, his voice cracking. "Mostly. I was just... checking the structural integrity of the glass. And the thief. Yes, the thief."

Clementine didn't laugh. While the rest of the town cheered for a feat of daring that hadn't actually happened, she looked at him with a soft, knowing smile. She reached out and straightened his tin badge, which was currently hanging upside down. "You have a very brave soul, Barnaby Bumblethorpe. Even if your methods are a bit... unconventional."

Barnaby felt ten feet tall, despite the fact that he was currently picking a splinter out of his palm. "Gosh-darnit, Miss Clem, that’s real kind of you to say. I just try to do my duty. Even if duty involves a fair amount of falling."

Before he could say anything more sophisticated, a fly, attracted by the sweat on his brow, flew directly into his open mouth. Barnaby’s eyes went wide. He swallowed hard, the insect hitting the back of his throat with a dry tickle. A violent coughing fit seized him. He doubled over, gasping for air, and his flailing arm struck a heavy rain barrel that sat beneath the general store’s gutter. The barrel, which was nearly full from a recent storm, teetered on its wooden base before tipping over. A wave of lukewarm water rushed out, soaking Barnaby’s boots and drenching the prone pickpocket, who was just starting to regain consciousness.

Mother Hubbard marched over, her iron skillet swinging at her side like a pendulum of doom. She looked at the soaked sheriff, the ruined clock, and the wet thief. "Barnaby! Look at this mess! You’ve gone and ruined a perfectly good barrel of soft water. And your trousers! Do you have any idea how hard it is to get mud out of wool?" She paused, huffing, and then shoved her recovered purse into her apron. "But I suppose thanks are in order. At least that scoundrel didn't get my bridge-club money."

Clementine chuckled softly, a sound that Barnaby thought was better than any church bell. "I should get to the schoolhouse," she said, giving his arm a gentle pat. "The children will be waiting for their afternoon geography lesson. Try to stay on your feet for the rest of the day, Sheriff."

Barnaby watched her walk away, her skirts swaying with a rhythmic grace that made his head spin. He wanted to wave goodbye, to say something dashing that would linger in her mind. He lifted his hand to do just that, but as he stepped forward to clear the puddle, his toe found the edge of the heavy oak hitching post. With a startled "Oof!", he tripped, stumbling forward in a half-run to keep from face-planting in the mud again. He managed to stay upright, but the moment was lost. He looked back, hoping she hadn't seen, but Clementine was already disappearing through the schoolhouse door. Barnaby sighed, straightened his crooked hat, and looked down at his badge. He had a long way to go before he was the hero she deserved, but as he hauled the soggy pickpocket toward the jail, he decided that maybe, just maybe, he was getting the hang of this lawman business.