The Protest

By Matthew Victor Schofield, Jr.

After returning home from a tour in Viet Nam, Jimmy Cramer has settled his conflict with a Highway Patrolman with a shotgun and now has been sent to a Veteran's Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation to see if he is fit to stand trial for murder. His doctor has a war protest in mind and looks to Jimmy Cramer for help. The plan is crazy, and crazier yet, is the directive that nobody gets hurt.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matthew Victor Schofield, Jr.
• Release date: Jan 3, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452386492

Book preview

Chapter 1

November 1970

In a small South Dakota town like Fargot, where everybody knew everybody’s business, or thought they did, murder was front-page news.

Looking through the bars of his cell, Jimmy Cramer watched the sun creep above the horizon and spill its morning rays across the sleepy hamlet of Fargot, South Dakota. From the fourth floor of the Henderson County Courthouse, he watched a few vehicles pull up in front of one of the local diners and disgorge early risers heading for the day's first cup of coffee. He looked down on the tree-lined streets and the rooftops of houses and old false-front businesses and watched almost disinterestedly as the town of 950 residents slowly came to life. The city street sweeper threw up clouds of dust and dead leaves as it made its way along one lane of Highway 34 that ran north and south through town. A boy on a bicycle, canvas bag slung across one shoulder, pedaled easily along a sidewalk slinging the morning’s Rapid City Journal newspapers onto porches and lawns. A small black dog trotted beside him.

Jimmy Cramer would have his own coffee soon.

Henderson County Sheriff Sam McCabe was himself an early riser and his wife a damn good cook. Twice a day for almost a week Jimmy Cramer had tasted her fried chicken and roast beef suppers and a variety of homemade desserts. You eat what we eat, Sheriff McCabe had told him and he would be here soon with a satisfying breakfast of coffee, juice, toast, eggs, and probably bacon. He liked Sheriff McCabe and felt sure he could see a certain sadness in his ruggedly handsome face when he had arrested, handcuffed, charged, fingerprinted, and confined him in one of the four 8’x12’ outdated cells in the county courthouse. His meals were brought to him in a cardboard box and its contents covered with tinfoil. His wife’s cooking and Sheriff McCabe’s almost fatherly disposition made him feel more like a guest than a prisoner.

Henderson County Sheriff Sam McCabe rose early too on this day in late November as was his habit. The soft sunlight filtering through the bedroom blinds told him that he and the sun were keeping their usual schedule. He showered and shaved and dressed without waking Darlene, his wife of almost 30 years. In the kitchen, the weekly copy of The Fargot Independent lay on the kitchen table where he had left it the night before. He made coffee and sat down to read yet again the week’s front-page story, the topic of which had the whole community and the whole state buzzing. In a small South Dakota town like Fargot, where everybody knew everybody’s business, or thought they did, murder was front-page news.

Sipping his cup of coffee, Sheriff McCabe sat down at the kitchen table and frowned again at the bold headline and read for the fifth time the week’s top news story:

Judge orders competency hearing for local man accused of murder

Fargot – Sixth Circuit Court Judge Ralph Stevenson ruled earlier this week that James M. Cramer, 20, of nearby Dulten will undergo a court-ordered evaluation to determine if he is mentally fit to stand trial for murder. Cramer is charged with the murder of South Dakota Highway Patrolman Jim Shanker, 31, who had been stationed in Fargot for the last two years. Shanker, a native of Sioux Falls, leaves behind a wife and two children.

Cramer, a 1968 graduate of neighboring Dulten High School, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of patrolman Shanker. According to Henderson County Sheriff Sam McCabe, Shanker was killed by a shotgun blast to the chest at close range. Sheriff McCabe was the arresting officer in the case, but has refused to speculate on Cramer’s motive.

The state Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) in Pierre is assisting local law enforcement in the investigation and released a brief statement indicating that Cramer has been formally charged with the crime and will stand trial if he is determined to be mentally competent by a court-appointed psychologist. One possible location for the evaluation is the Ft. Meade Veterans’ Hospital in Sturgis.

SP-4 Jimmy Cramer, son of Tom and Edna Cramer of rural Dulten, returned home in early August from active duty in Viet Nam. He was with the U. S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, which, according to national news sources, saw heavy fighting in Quang Tri province in recent months. SP-4 Cramer was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and a Purple Heart for outstanding bravery during an enemy ambush near Quang Tri where he was wounded in action. (See related story on Page 2.)

Sheriff McCabe said the prisoner is currently in the Henderson County Jail and will be transported soon to either the state’s Human Resources Center in Yankton or the Ft. Meade Veterans’ Hospital in Sturgis for extensive evaluation.

After warming up his coffee, Sheriff McCabe turned to page 2 of The Fargot Independent. His eyes were easily attracted to another bold headline and an accompanying photo of an unsmiling Jimmy Cramer dressed in his military uniform. He was a good-looking kid and, McCabe suspected, much friendlier than he looked in the file photo. Soldiers were supposed to look like they meant business, and Jimmy Cramer looked like he meant business in the picture: square-jawed, eyes hard and piercing, and no smile. McCabe went on to read:

Dulten High School educators say Jimmy Cramer was a normal kid

Dulten – According to teachers, an administrator, and one of his high school coaches, there was nothing in Jimmy Cramer’s behavior at Dulten High School that would lead them to believe that he would one day be in jail for murder.

Jimmy Cramer, 20, son of Tom and Edna Cramer of rural Dulten, is in the Henderson County Jail awaiting a court-ordered evaluation to determine if he is mentally competent to stand trial for the shooting death of South Dakota State Highway Patrolman Jim Shanker.

He was a normal kid as far as I could tell, said Dulten High School Superintendent Ted Lutz. I’m shocked and so is the whole community. No one that I know of would have expected anything like this from him. He was an above average student and an outstanding athlete. As far as I know, everybody liked him, teachers and students alike. Lutz has been the superintendent at Dulten for the past seven years and said that he knows all of his students pretty well. We’re a small school, he said. We have 75 students in the top four grades this year. When you see these kids every day you get to know them pretty well. Lutz said Cramer was the student council president and graduated fourth in his graduating class of 23 in 1968.

Alvin Barker, Cramer’s high school coach for both football and basketball, agreed with Lutz that Cramer was well liked and an outstanding athlete. He was our go-to guy in both football and basketball. Lots of times, even with other teams keying on him, he found a way to get the job done. He told me that he loved the challenge of it. I can’t believe he would do something like this. Everybody’s just kind of numb. Barker said that Cramer was a class B all state selection in both football and basketball.

Elsie Kline, long-time history teacher at Dulten High School, said Cramer was well liked by his classmates and was a good student. I personally never saw anything in his personality or his behavior that would indicate he was capable of something like this. That awful war, still undeclared as far as I know, will prove to be a big mistake. Just wait and see. I thought highly of Jimmy Cramer and until this all gets straightened out, I still do.

According to local draft board records, James Marcellus Cramer was drafted into the U. S. Army in the fall of 1968. Official Army news releases reported that Cramer completed his basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, and after two months of Special Forces training was sent to Viet Nam in June of 1969. It was during a firefight with the Viet Cong near Quang Tri province where Cramer earned two military medals, the Congressional Medal of Honor and a Purple Heart. According to a U. S. Army news release, Cramer was wounded in the leg while dragging a member of his platoon to safety under heavy enemy fire. Cramer was honorably discharged in July of 1970.

Bud Stabler, owner of the local Town and Country grocery store in Dulten for the past 14 years and a veteran of World War II, knew Jimmy Cramer. Sure I know him, Stabler said. I’ve known him ever since he was a little kid. Know his folks, too. They’re good people. I have a tough time believing he’d do something like this. I’m really sorry it happened. Everybody is. I’m sorry for Jimmy and I’m sorry for his family. Shanker’s family, too. That damn war, I wish the country would get behind it and go all out to win it or get the hell out. It’s dragged on too long.

Circuit Court Judge Ralph Stevenson said he could not set a deadline for the completion of Cramer’s psychiatric evaluation. It will take as long as it takes, he said. The judicial process won’t proceed in this case until the evaluation is completed.

Sheriff McCabe folded the newspaper and tossed in onto the table. Things were a mess, all right. Rumors flying. Everybody speculating on the kid’s motive. Gossip about Shanker sleeping with Cramer’s girlfriend. Half the kids in town had seen Shanker break up a fight between Cramer and another kid at a dance in the old auditorium a few weeks ago. Highway patrolman Shanker had worked him over pretty good with his blackjack in the process. No charges filed. The witnesses he’d talked to about the incident all said the blackjack was unnecessary, that Cramer was either drunk or stoned or both, and that Shanker had set upon him from behind, without separating the two and trying to talk some sense into them. The local ticket taker at the dance said it all happened so fast, he didn’t know what happened. Two guys we going at it pretty good, he said, and by the time I could get over there to break it up, Shanker came out of the crowd and started hitting Cramer in the back of the head with his blackjack. Knocked him colder’n hell. The kid’s girlfriend and another guy helped him up and took him outside. McCabe could only wonder what Shanker was doing inside the dance in the first place.

Even Sheriff McCabe himself had heard more than one rumor of Shanker’s alleged infidelities since his stationing in Fargot. In a small town it was almost impossible to keep anything secret. Rumors flew like a flock of sparrows, oftentimes gaining equally untrue details as they passed from person to person. Shanker had a wife and two young kids, but gossipmongers don’t care who gets hurt when there is a titillating tale to run with. They never do.

In the case of this particular rumor, however, Sheriff McCabe knew it was not a rumor, but fact. He had seen compelling evidence in at least one instance where patrolman Shanker was literally caught with his pants down.

Late one night on a sleepy return trip from delivering a prisoner to Rapid City, Sheriff McCabe had pulled off on an approach to answer nature’s call. The wire-fence gate was open so he drove through it and onto a sunken dirt road. He shut his headlights off and crested a small hill, reasonably certain passing cars wouldn’t see him watering the prairie grass. After zipping up his pants, his eye was caught by a flash of light beyond a small rise just ahead of him. At first he attributed it to his imagination and his sleepy condition, but then he saw it again. Curiosity got the better of him and moments later, after a short walk down the sunken dirt road, he came upon the source. It was Shanker’s highway patrol car. There was some sort of activity in the front seat and when the dome light flashed again, he could see Shanker and a woman in the process of enthusiastically removing each other’s clothes. In their passion, he guessed that an errant hand or foot accidentally kept hitting the control for the dome light or dash light. It was a chilly evening, chilly enough that he could see the exhaust coming from the car’s tailpipe. He could hear music from a rock station on the patrol car’s radio. He couldn’t help but be curious as to the woman’s identity, but in the darkness he couldn’t tell.

Soon she was riding Shanker for all she was worth. A bit chagrinned at his eavesdropping, he turned and walked back to his still-idling car. Before he pulled back onto the highway and continued on his way back to Fargot, just for the hell of it, he closed the gate behind him. It might give Shanker a moment of reflection.

He didn’t much care for Jim Shanker, even before his nighttime tryst. In a word, he was arrogant, and he didn’t like being stationed in Fargot, a place he had once described as a little hick town west of the Missouri River full of big cowboys and small minds. He told McCabe that his father, Clark Shanker, a lieutenant in the South Dakota Highway Patrol from Sioux Falls, was using his influence to get him stationed back east of the Missouri River where his friends were and where there were towns populous enough to require stop lights.

And patrolman Jim Shanker liked to stay busy. Sometimes after patrolling the state highways for speeders and overweight sixteen-wheelers, he would return to Fargot and manufacture business. His favorite pastime was to drive by the three bars in Fargot and make a mental note of how long a local’s car or pickup truck remained parked out front.

On slow nights, he would drive the thirty miles to the neighboring town of Dulten and do the same thing. It was an activity that usually paid off. On some nights he might have to wait until the drinking establishment closed and his inebriated quarry made his or her serpentine journey for home, but it was almost always worth the wait. He would follow his target and usually within a few miles, sometimes a few minutes, he had his probable cause for a stop: speeding, crossing the center line, failure to come to a complete stop at a stop sign, headlight or taillight out, or any other infraction that gave him cause to flip the switch for his flashing red lights. Invariably the driver was drunk and he made the arrest. He took great pleasure in telling Sheriff McCabe and Fargot’s two city policemen the details of his arrests. It was entertainment for him, and though his arrests were technically legal and he was protecting the public, McCabe didn’t like it. It was not the way he approached law enforcement in Henderson County.

Sheriff McCabe had been sheriff of Henderson County for almost 20 years and had always subscribed to the theory that as a law enforcement officer, if one was looking for trouble, one could always find it, no matter how small the town. He had lived in Fargot all his life and in this rural county of less than 2,000 people covering a hundred square miles, he knew them all, most of them by their first name. He was well aware of the dangers of drunk driving and knew there were locals that drove home over the legal limit every night of the week.

But the difference between him and Jim Shanker was that he didn’t go looking for them. In his almost 20 years as sheriff, Henderson County had exactly four fatalities due to alcohol-impaired drivers. And while that was four too many, he didn’t interpret that statistic as an epidemic or a mandate to patrol the bars to locate potential violators. He had stopped local drivers that had given him cause and on many occasions they had been drinking and were unquestionably over the legal limit, but he had always given them a choice: park their vehicle or be arrested. Sometimes even he would give them a ride home. As a result, his drunken driving arrests were rare. It was his way of dealing with the problem and he didn’t broadcast it, but he felt if this procedure was unacceptable to the voters of Henderson County, they could vote him out of office. To date, they had not.

Sheriff McCabe had no illusions about his lot in life and could care less about his place in history. He was the chief law enforcement officer in a sparsely populated state in an even more sparsely populated county. With only an eighth grade education, he spent no time dreaming of becoming a state legislator, senator, or governor of the great state of South Dakota. As sheriff, his political balloon was as high as it was going to go.

It was not that he didn’t want to go to high school or maybe even college. The fall after his eighth grade graduation from a rural Henderson County school, he stood on the porch of their small two-story farmhouse and summoned the courage to ask his father if he could go to high school in the little town of Fargot, some 16 miles away. It was 1928 and higher education was not always an option for farm kids, especially boys. He had a younger brother and two older sisters and it took them all to keep the farm alive.

What do you want to go to high school for? his father had asked disdainfully. For his answer, the best he could come up with was something like to get an education. His father mulled this over for a second and then pointed to the cornfield on the south side of the house where several acres of head-high green cornstalks stood waiting for the handpicking harvest. There’s your education, his father said and turned and went into the house. There was no appeal. His education that fall was in the cornfield, row after row after row of a hot and dusty education.

But none of that mattered now. Patrolman Jim Shanker was dead and it was a foregone conclusion that the Cramer kid did it. The question was why and was Cramer rational when he pulled the trigger of the shotgun. That wasn’t for him to determine though; some high paid psychiatrist would figure that out.

He heard the shower running and sipped his coffee, waiting for his wife to come into the kitchen and fix breakfast for him and his young prisoner. It would be one of young Jimmy Cramer’s last meals in the Henderson County jail. The next day he would take him to the Ft. Meade Veterans’ Hospital at Sturgis.

Chapter 2

For a fleeting second, McCabe thought he might be sick.

Jimmy Cramer watched from his cell window as Sheriff McCabe pulled his 1968 Chevrolet Impala four-door patrol car into his reserved parking spot on the east side of the courthouse. His car was the only one there at 7:00 in the morning. McCabe had to duck his head as he exited the car to keep from knocking off his Stetson felt hat. He was a big man, close to six feet four inches tall and two hundred and thirty pounds. In his official tan Henderson County long-sleeved shirt, Levi jeans, and round-toed cowboy boots, he reminded Jimmy of the Marlboro man in the ubiquitous cigarette ads. He even looked like the Marlboro man: handsome face, brown eyes, and thick, dark wavy hair. He looked like a guy who could take care of business if he had to.

Jimmy watched him walk around to the passenger side of the car and take out a cardboard box, his prisoner’s breakfast no doubt. As he disappeared into the courthouse, Jimmy sat on his bunk and waited. Today was the day, Sheriff McCabe had told him, for the 100-mile trip to Sturgis, SD, and the Ft. Meade Veterans’ Hospital.

He was edgy and had been ever since McCabe locked the cell door behind him. He wanted a joint, needed a joint, and a few lid-proppers wouldn’t hurt. He doubted if there was any marijuana or a handful of methamphetamines in the cardboard box McCabe was carrying.

He had got started on the lid-proppers, or co-pilots, as a buddy called them, after his second month in Viet Nam. At first the little pills made him more nervous than he already was, and over talkative. He couldn’t sleep at night, but then he couldn’t sleep anyway. After awhile he began sneaking a few before heading out on patrols. They made him feel hyper-alert, confident, unafraid of what might be waiting for him in the bush, and ready for anything. The M-60 machine gun felt lighter in his hands and he was more than ready to use it. He had quit taking them when he got back in country, felt he didn’t need them anymore, but it wasn’t as easy to kick them as he thought. He missed that feeling of invincibility, and right now he could use one or two.

McCabe brought him a clean pair of Levi’s and a T-shirt his wife had washed and ironed for him and after his cardboard box breakfast, Sheriff McCabe clasped handcuffs on him, gathered up his old suitcase, and led him out of his cell and down to the waiting patrol car.

Once inside the car, McCabe looked at his young prisoner. It probably goes without saying that I don’t want any trouble on this trip. If I was a by-the-book cop I should have you in leg irons too. But I don’t think they’re necessary. Are they?

No, Jimmy said.

McCabe started the car and put on his seatbelt. Put yours on too. I don’t think you’re stupid enough to try anything, like trying to run off, but if you do, we’ll put on the hobbles. He backed the Chevy out into the alley and within a few minutes they were heading, not west, but north to Sturgis.

It was a clear and warm fall morning and neither of them spoke as McCabe idled through town, and was soon pushing the Chevy up to 60 M.P.H. on Highway 73 north of Fargot. He set the cruise control. You know, McCabe said, you haven’t said ten words in the last week. I thought this might be a good time for us to talk.

Jimmy said nothing. Outside the car window, he could see a scattered herd of Black Angus cattle grazing along a dry, tree-lined creek bed.

Your Mom and Dad and little brother came to see you last Monday, but I had to turn them away. Judge Stevenson said to keep you in isolation, so that meant no visitors. Sorry about that.

How are they? Jimmy asked. He had not seen them or talked to them since McCabe arrested him at their farmhouse the night of the murder. He had thought of them often, but it didn’t matter that McCabe had to turn them away. He didn’t want to talk to them, not now anyway.

They’re okay, I guess, McCabe said. Worried about you, of course, your Mom especially. She said to tell you they love you and that she’s praying for you. They wanted to know if they should be getting you a lawyer. I told them I’d wait until this evaluation thing is over, that you might not need one until then. Your Dad thought that was probably the best way to go for now. Your friend Larry Banning and your girlfriend Sandra Selman also came by, but I explained that I couldn’t let them see you. They were both very worried about you.

It was okay; he didn’t want to talk to them either. Jimmy had a mental picture of his family gathered uncomfortably in McCabe’s office in the courthouse. This evaluation, Jimmy said, how long will it take?

I don’t know, McCabe answered. Judge Stevenson didn’t put a time limit on it. He said it will take as long as it takes.

Looking out the window at the burnished gold grass of the rolling South Dakota hillsides, Jimmy fidgeted with the handcuffs and said, "I suppose they want to see if I’m crazy. A full-blown, dinky dau grunt."

I don’t know if ‘crazy’ is the word I’d use, McCabe said. They’ll want to know your mental condition at the time you. . . . at the time of the incident.

My mental condition, Jimmy repeated, and laughed. I shot the son of a bitch in the guts with an Ithica twelve-gauge pump shotgun, twice, and they want to know my mental condition. It felt good. That probably won’t help me any if I tell them that, huh?

McCabe was silent for a moment. This was the first time since the young man’s arrest that he had said anything about shooting Jim Shanker, much less confessing to doing it.

When McCabe had followed his instincts the night of the murder, he knew without a doubt that the car Patrolman Jim Shanker was pursuing west of Dulten on Highway 14 at 130 M.P.H. belonged to Larry Banning, Cramer’s best friend. On the radio call relayed to him through Shanker’s wife Charlene, Shanker had said he was in high-speed pursuit of a 1969 two-door Plymouth GTX and Larry Banning had the only one in Henderson County that could outrun a patrol car with a 440 cubic inch police interceptor engine. Charlene had said in her relayed message that Shanker even thought it was the Banning kid, but couldn’t be sure. McCabe drove directly to the Fargot junction as requested by Shanker and waited. After twenty minutes had passed and no traffic except for an eighteen-wheeler and a pickup truck pulling a horse trailer went by, he headed east toward Dulten, thinking that maybe Shanker had the car stopped and the chase was over.

The progression of that night’s events came back to him yet again. He remembered he couldn’t reach Shanker directly with his little Motorola police radio and now, neither could his wife Charlene with their more powerful base radio situated in their house in Fargot. She called McCabe and said she’d lost contact, that her husband didn’t answer. His last transmission said he was turning north off Highway 14 at the Parkersburg turnoff. She thought maybe he might have lost control and wrecked during the high-speed chase or something. Maybe that was why he wasn’t answering her calls. McCabe could hear the real concern in her voice and told her not to worry, that he was almost to the turnoff and he would check things out.

The uneasy feeling he had in his stomach that night proved to be justified when he reached the Parkersburg turnoff. His headlights revealed two sets of very visible, black skid marks where two vehicles had turned off the main highway and slid onto the gravel road that headed north. One of the drivers showed signs of almost sliding into the road ditch and then correcting the slide to get back on the gravel road. There was no doubt that both cars were moving at a very high rate of speed.

McCabe sat at the turnoff in his idling 1968 Chevy and turned the situation over in his mind. Trying to put aside his personal dislike for Jim Shanker, he told himself that Shanker was still a fellow police officer and he might be in trouble.

What to do? He dropped the transmission into drive and headed north, knowing the fourteen miles of gravel road to the junction of Highway 34 was thick with trails and side roads and miles of open pasture for Banning to lose Shanker. He found nothing unusual, and turned the Chevy around after a few miles. He turned back west on Highway 14 and returned to Fargot. He called Shanker’s wife and told her he had not found her husband. She was very worried and justifiably so. So was he.

McCabe decided he would call the Banning place and see if the kid had returned home. When Larry Banning answered the phone and said that he had loaned his Plymouth Hemi GTX to Jimmy Cramer earlier that night, alarm bells went off in Sheriff Sam McCabe’s head. So it wasn’t Larry Banning that Shanker was chasing; it was Banning’s friend, Jimmy Cramer. Cramer had borrowed the car to go on a date, Banning said, but McCabe was sure there was more to it than that. It had now been two hours since the last contact with Shanker. He should have checked in by now. Something was definitely wrong.

McCabe again headed east out of Fargot for the Parkersburg turnoff, deciding to take another look. Maybe he had missed something. He pushed the Chevy to 90 m.p.h. and fifteen minutes later turned onto the gravel road, this time driving slowly north, wondering if the Cramer kid would try and outrun the pursuing Shanker or take a side road and try to lose him. His question was answered in a few short minutes when he noticed signs in the loose gravel of a sliding turn going onto a side road. He had missed it the first time, but he saw it now.

McCabe had felt the uneasiness again, this time stronger. He knew every road and side road in Henderson County and the one he was following now had long been deserted and led to the abandoned McPherson homestead. Except for the road he was driving on now, there was no exit. Idling down the single lane, sunken dirt road lined on both sides with three feet tall dying Russian Thistle weeds, he stared transfixed at the eerie shadows made by his headlights and wondered why the Cramer kid would take a road with no exit. Fifty feet from the deserted McPherson farm house, he saw a set of tire tracks in the crushed weeds where a vehicle had entered the road going in the opposite direction.

He tried again to raise Shanker on the police radio. Again no answer.

McCabe’s heart almost stopped a few minutes later when his headlights flashed across the back end of Shanker’s patrol car sitting strangely silent in the darkness. He stopped his car and surveyed the scene through his windshield. He could see in the smashed down weeds another set of tire tracks. They made a loop and disappeared, undoubtedly the ones returning to the sunken dirt road behind him that was the only exit. Where was Jim Shanker? His uneasy feeling became even stronger as he idled toward the patrol car for a closer look.

Leaving his headlights on, he stepped cautiously out of his car, flashlight in hand. After a few short steps, he stopped. On the ground beside the other set of tire tracks was a pool of blood, dark and drying on the crushed mass of weeds where there was an impression of some sort. McCabe’s flashlight beam followed in the direction of the bent and broken weeds until it settled on the rear of Shanker’s patrol car. There, smeared across the rear bumper and lower trunk, was a wide streak of drying blood. Lots of it.

For a fleeting second, McCabe thought he might be sick. In that same second, it all became clear what had happened: Jimmy Cramer, through accident or intent, had Patrolman Jim Shanker chasing him and when he got him where he wanted him, he shot him. He stood staring in disbelief at the rear of the patrol car with its bloodstained trunk. He did not want to open it, but knew he had to. By some miracle, Jim Shanker might still be alive.

Before he reached into the patrol car to pull the keys from the ignition, he placed his hand on the hood. It was still warm, but just barely. He glanced at his watch and said aloud in the darkness, Within the last couple of hours.

After he walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk, he knew there was no miracle. Jim Shanker was dead. He lay on his back, his torso twisted, knees drawn up and off to one side. The large gaping hole in his chest had soaked his shirt and pants in blood. His eyes were open, staring blankly and lifelessly at McCabe. His .38 revolver was still in his holster, the safety strap still secured across the grip. It was plain he wasn’t expecting a fight. Drops of blood had splattered across his badge, neck, and lower jaw. Jesus, McCabe said as the sickeningly sweet smell of blood and the faint odor of gunpowder threatened another flash of nausea. He shook his head again in disbelief. Cramer shot the guy, he thought. and he killed him. Murdered him. No doubt with a shotgun. His eyes locked with Shanker’s. Jesus, McCabe said aloud, staring transfixed at the dead man’s face in the darkness. He killed him.

Chapter 3

There was no doubt in his mind that the kid had slipped a cog.

Sheriff McCabe was brought back to the present by the sound of his young prisoner’s voice. How’s that again? McCabe said. I was daydreaming I guess.

Without looking at him, and with maybe just a hint of suspicion in his voice, Jimmy spoke again. I said why are we going the long way around to Sturgis. The interstate would be faster.

Maybe not, McCabe answered. There’s still some detours and construction delays on the other side of Rapid City. This way is a little longer, but there’s a lot less traffic and we can keep moving. Besides, Highway 34 leads us right into the Ft. Meade complex.

You don’t want to stop, Jimmy said.

Not unless I have to, answered McCabe.

You know, Jimmy said suddenly. I never thanked you for not throwing me in jail after that fight in the Crystal Slipper.

McCabe looked at him curiously. "No need to thank me. Hank is the one that should have thanked me. If I hadn’t showed up when I did, he might’ve bled to death. That beer bottle you