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    The indoor shooting range at The Tomahawk was small and cramped; Sheriff Michael Tavish continued to come here because of his long-time friendship to its owner, Max Dromgrel, even though there were newer, more advanced shooting ranges just west of town that most of his deputies frequented.  The one-story building stood on the corner of Wilkesburg and Harrington since 1956 and extended lengthwise about two hundred feet where inside ten stalls stood side by side like armored soldiers with only a few feet of cold concrete to the wall behind them.  There were three setting to the makeshift pulley rigs that moved the paper target a distance of 25, 50 or 75 yards and it wasn’t uncommon for the rig not to work and to have to manually pull the looping rope to the desired distance.  The walkway was just as cramped; if two patrons were to pass each other each would need to turn sideways (gun barrels down) to avoid a collision; though that was rarely an issue any more.  The wall paint was a sharp, shiny grey back in ‘56, now it was stale and faded and the place had a smell of must and disinterest and every shot fired echoed loudly through the thick silence. 
    There was no pain at first; his mind had told him his gun had simply misfired.  His left arm swung wildly across his body, made a sound like slapping a slab a beef as it smacked into the next stalls reinforced wall, then came to a rest at his side with a lifeless limp sort of swing.  Even the warm blood soaking through the thin polyester fabric of his uniform and down his chest didn’t alert him.  It took a few seconds for the alarm to sound in his head, like waking from sleep it started slow but came on increasingly loud and with incredible speed.  Sheriff Tavish stared blankly at his left arm as he tried in vain to make it move, like a marionette puppet with a broken string.
Sweat beaded across his forehead and his body quivered as he noticed the flapping hole in his uniform a hole the size of a baseball.  Instead he looked at open flesh and torn fabric, his left arm attached only by torn muscle and skin; the upper ball of his Humerus sheared off to a jagged point like a pin without a cushion.  The entirety of his body burned white hot.  The searing and throbbing extended to the point his vision blurred black with each pulse.  He froze for a second as his stomach emptied its contents onto the concrete below. He used his right hand to wipe the sweat from his eyes but when he looked at his hand it was streaked red.  He realized he was gasping for air so he closed his eyes trying to slow it down, trying to focus, trying to stave off the blackness that seemed to want to consume him.
    His left foot tripped over his right and he stumbled further back from the shooting range stall, his eyes wildly searching but finding nothing - always coming back to the massive hole in his left shoulder, the blood now blanketing his entire upper arm sleeve like spilled red paint.  His breathing was choppy and incomplete but more stable.

    Charlie sported a grin and watched intensely as the Great Sheriff Tavish stumbled back away from the safety of the bulletproof stall (impressed – thou he viewed guns as more of a cowardly weapon and hadn’t shot one in ten years, he’s still a surprisingly good shot).  Knowing if the Sheriff hadn’t been so arrogant (a trait Charlie believed the Sheriff carried as proudly as his badge) and stood back from the stall while shooting, Charlie would have had to of gotten up close with a weapon he handled much more efficiently – and really, what was the fun in that?
    The Sheriff stumbled back then caught his footing after smacking into the back wall like a massive weeble-wobble bringing himself back to center, begging Charlie to wonder what they put in the water in North Carolina to grow ‘em that big (between him and his Marshal nephew there must be thirteen feet and five hundred pounds of man).  The Sheriff’s roots were well known after 20 years and five elections – none of them close.  Hell, Charlie thought, watching the blood slowly pool beneath the Sheriff, they’ll probably build him a statue after this.  Sherriff Tavish had finally managed to make eye contact.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

    Sheriff Tavish saw his attacker and adrenaline raced through him.  Every hair on his broken body tingled and his face soured with anger.  He was hunched over but alert again (thank God).  He quickly glanced to his right, back to the empty stall then to the floor below.  A heartbeat ago he had had his Smith & Wesson firmly in his grasp, now it was nowhere to be seen – now he was defenseless.  Charlie Hearst – not the boy but the man. 
    Sweat dripped down his face as he flashed back to rustling Charlie’s hair as a boy after he had gotten into a fist fight with the Jenkins kid behind Hong’s bakery.  He remembered looking down on the boy with compassion and sympathy.  His mother had run off on a summer June night and left him as a baby with her alcoholic brother.  Many days the Sheriff would see young Charlie just sitting on a park bench well into the evening waiting for his uncle to leave The Alibi Tavern.  His small, thin frame clothed in torn, dirty rags; always in need of a bath, his eyes cast straight down.  No amount of visits from Child Protective Services, foster homes or notices from the Department of Social and Health Services could stop the path the child was on – he always seemed to make his way back to that bench.

    Pain ripped through his body and scorched the memory; no longer the face of Charlie Hearst but of the young boy they had just found frozen to death, the face of a boy they had to pry from a tree trunk, so frozen a hunk of hair was left on the tree bark when they pulled him free.  A thought buried somewhere deep inside him boiled to the surface.  Instead of rustling the boy’s hair after the fight with Marty Jenkins kid he calmly pulled his 9mm from his left hip holster, put the muzzle to the boy’s dirty, ratted hair and pulled the trigger.  He watched with indifference as the bullet ripped through his skull, his hair scattering from the blowback, a pair of glasses flying off, bouncing on street curb.  The bullet zigzagging through his body, destroying everything it touched.
  The Sheriff bent over further, almost touching his knees with his face, his stomach seized and released, seized and released.  Partially digested tortilla chips and copious amounts of coffee formed a sort of slime lake on the cement below.  There was nothing but the pain, white hot electric currents shooting through him.  His vision came in spurts, mostly just off color beats in rhythm with his rapid pulse.  He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force the action.  For a moment it worked.
    He opened his eyes to the left breast pocket of his uniform.  It was bare; nothing but a clean tear about three inches across exposing skin and hair, all covered in a slow and steady river of blood.  The bullet must have ripped his badge free.  He tried to remember if, at some point, he had heard it hit the ground but his mind couldn’t handle that sort of push right now. (Basic functions only when in an emergency.  For the briefest of seconds he mourned its loss.) He had little thought on this, only instinct and emotion were running.  His glare locked again to Charlie.  Charlie Hearst, with his twisted face and gun at his left side.  The young boy he had seen grow from quiet child to juvenile delinquent to convicted rapist and killer.  On more than one occasion over the last few years he’s wished the fucking wolves had finished him off.  Wishing his deputies hadn’t been so good at their job and found him cowering in a tree pleading, crying for help as a pack of wolves had the tree surrounded and any ground exit cut off; another hour was all they would’ve needed.  The bodies of the two girls wouldn’t be found for another week (the wolves had had their meal) by then Charlie was long gone, on his way to New York, where more bodies would pile up.  Now the Sherriff was convinced if he could just stand up he wouldn’t need more than one arm to kill that little fucker.  He pleaded with himself to stand up straight.  What wasn’t covered in blood was now soaked with sweat.  For the first time in his life he questioned the existence of God – or at least His motives.

“Looking for me, Sheriff?”  Charlie dropped his smile.  His tone and look was more determined; one of anticipation.  Sheriff Tavish was heaving air now.  He assumed the posture of someone who just completed a long run – the longest of runs.

“You…you killed…that woman…the child.”

“Sheriff, I never touched that fat little fucker.”  His tone insinuated an insult.
“I called for him, Sheriff!  I let him know I was looking for him! FUCK!” The mere mention of that kid enraged him; no part of his Plan had ever gotten away before.  “I let him know what was going to happen when I found him!” 
Off in the distance a phone began ringing. 

Please God, let me stand.

    If this were a dual they would be no more than at the prerequisite ten paces, but to Sheriff Tavish it might as well be ten miles.  The shivering had become more violent and he struggled to focus, a drop of sweat left the tip of his nose to the ground below - the size of the blood pool shocked his system.  That was his blood, his life.  His one good hand, supporting his weight, shook violently on his right knee.  His head was swimming, and the throbbing – the fucking throbbing – like in an invisible vise being cranked closed.  He gulped another chunk of air and pulled his hand away from his knee (sink or swim time) and began to straighten himself.  The shaking made this task that much harder but he soldiered on.  Bodily fluid of some kind continued to drip from his body (even his eyes were leaking) but he was more focused, more alert (thank you, God).  Even in his present state (or because of it) Sherriff Tavish knew the score – There was no walking away from this one.

Do not go gentle

    Memories of his older brother, Colin, playing catch as kids in the back lot of Commissary C.  The long ago North Carolina wind rushed forward with such speed the breeze cooled the back of his neck there in the shooting range hall.  A memory of his nephews on their fifth birthday and their amazing connection to each other he could never figure out (Alex, are you there?).

into that good night

    Of Mrs. Jenkins, a quiet woman with natural beauty, who survived twenty-five years of sometimes brutal beatings from her drunkard husband only to be rewarded with ovarian cancer at the age of forty-seven where she died in the middle of a winter’s night in a hospital bed, alone.
    Of Master Sergeant (Ret.) George Lyte who, after surviving the trenches of WWI, had to survive Jimmy Egge and his group of thugs who roamed the neighborhood and prayed on those who cowered in their presence, winced at their words or flinched at their actions.  After shift one night Sheriff Tavish and his number two, Donald Simms, decided to take a walk, coincidentally, wondered onto Juniper Street and into Jimmy and the boys.  Later that week a small, slightly frail, old man with only one serviceable leg walked the five city blocks to the Municipal building, up five flights of stairs (elevators were for women and cripple folks) to the Sherriff’s office just to shake his hand.  No words were spoken but both were well understood.

Rage

    To his left a faint twinkle caught his eye as the pain continued its torment.  Like a white boat in a sea of black, laying half against the wall and half against the ground, was his badge.  The bullet must have struck it free, the star was nearly sheared in half as it rested.  Partially torn and spackled in his blood Michael Heron Tavish looked on it with pride; the same as he did when it was first pinned to his chest twenty-eight years ago this coming November.  It was a private, peaceful thought that he normally wouldn’t allow himself to have; it warmed him and gave him strength to continue.  He knew had one last job to do.

Rage against the dying of the light

    Sheriff Tavish rose.  He was heaving air but he was upright.  Through the blood, the sweat and the tears he was again staring down the enemy.  He had stood up to the bully.

    Charlie looked away while shaking his head in admiration of the wounded man’s resolve – his defiance.  (No wonder they keep electing this guy.)  As he watched his hometown Sheriff struggle – his hometown’s hero – Charlie flashed back to when he was a kid, sitting alone on a park bench watching his feet slowly swing back and forth as he waited for his Uncle to leave the tav for the night.  He remembered it being cold; he remembered his ears stinging when he cupped them with his hands.  He remembered it being dark, the only light being from the streetlight above.  That night, like appearing through the dark, a man sat with him; a huge man that made the bench squeak and pop when he sat down.  He remembers seeing a metal star pinned to his chest, a star that shined bright enough from the streetlight that it made his eyes water to look at it.  The man never said anything, he just removed his coat and put it over Charlie’s thin, bony shoulders, a coat so large it nearly swallowed Charlie whole, and they both just sat there watching his feet dangle below the bench.  Later, when his Uncle came into view the man got up from the bench and walked down the middle of the street to where his Uncle was; the closer the man got to his Uncle the smaller his Uncle seemed to get.  They were too far away for him to hear what was said but the next day his Uncle took him to Nifty’s Thrifty’s and let him pick out a coat to wear when it was cold out.  He also got a beating, but he got a coat too.
    The ringing phone brought Charlie back and with it a sense of urgency.  He opened his eyes and pushed the thought back – back from where it came from – things have changed since then.  Whatever was then is no longer now.  The dreams started many years later from that time on the bench.  He wasn’t that kid anymore.  Too much time, too many bad things have happened.  He had a mission now, he had a purpose.  A vision he first saw while lying on the cold linoleum of the kitchen/dining room floor, bleeding; the day he took his last beating from his sweet, dear Uncle.  The say he saw the Son of God.
    From that point on something bigger was happening, something that made him feel more like the vehicle being driven than the driver.  The Sherriff was now part of it, too, like all the pieces before him: his Uncle Terry, the Galexi girls, Mark the Husband, Traci and her fat fucking kid.  All a part of It, like being lost then finding a landmark you’d left yourself sometime before, the Sherriff was a landmark.  The Sherriff was a landmark but not THE landmark, not the final piece.  The final piece was the Marshall, he’d seen him in a dream a long time ago, a dream where he had the Marshall trapped, pinned down, and he could feel the fear and panic coming from the Marshall the closer he got to him.  He’d known it when the Marshall first arrested him back in New York last year, they didn’t talk to each other, but they were somehow connected.  They both felt it, Charlie was sure of it.
    He knew the Marshall was the final piece, but New York was not the final destination.  He knew that just as he knew Bellingham wasn’t the end.  And being told the Marshall was the Sherriff’s nephew only reinforced his belief in his mission.  He had to keep going – even if it meant the Sherriff; the Sherriff who sat with him that cold night long ago.  The only night he can remember ever truly feeling safe.
The end was near – it just isn’t here.
    He watched as the Sherriff stood before him, his posture bordering between aggression and drunkard; either way Charlie accepted the challenge.  He moved the gun six inches to his left and fired again, this time sending a hunk of meat and bone from the Sherriff’s right shoulder onto the reinforced partition behind him.  The Sherriff howled as he fell, his body thrown backward from the force of the bullet.  The sound of his head crashing to the cement below came over the top of the repeat.  It was a guttural sound, like an unripe melon being thrown to the ground.
    Charlie dismissed the gun, taking two running steps he leapt forward while pulling his bloody Buck knife from his waistband.  Sheriff Tavish gave a soft grunt as the knife drove home into his midsection.  Blood was now trickling from his ears and from somewhere in the back of his head.  His eyes rolled white but came back to focus when Charlie drove the knife deeper then withdrew it in a sawing motion.  Charlie couldn’t tell which was tougher – dear hide, or human.
  “Why…..doing…..me?  His words were soft and muddled.  Blood spurted from his mouth with each word like a mini eruption.  Charlie shook his head at no one.

“This isn’t about YOU, Sheriff.”

    Sheriff Michael Heron Tavish raised his head a few inches, a confused look came over his face.  Charlie gripped the knife tighter and leaned forward, his face no more than an inch from the Sherriff’s – he wanted to see this.
“I’m picking a fight with that nephew of yours!”
    Sheriff Tavish’s eyes grew wide for a split second as Charlie plunged the knife down again, and again, and again, then rolled white.  Michael's head fell back with an empty thud.  Charlie’s groin bucked with each twitch of the body below.  Charlie closed his eyes and moaned, then continued working the knife from right to left just as his uncle had taught him all those years ago.