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“Excuse me, uh…” Flop squints at the man’s badge. “Deputy?”
The man in front of him raises his head, just until Flop can see his mouth; the rest of his face remains obscured behind the brim of his hat. He seems utterly relaxed, arms crossed and boots resting atop what Flop assumes is his own desk. “Deputy Buggs,” he says in a deep voice. “Can I help you?”
“Uh, yeah.” Flop feels like he’s intruding, even though the man before him appears to have been doing absolutely nothing before Flop came trudging through the door. “I—I’m new in town.”
“Clearly.” Deputy Buggs pulls a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his jacket. Flop still can’t see his face. “Got robbed or somethin’? I wouldn’t worry about it. Not many people ‘round here. You’ll come across ‘em eventually.”
Flop blinks in surprise. “No, I didn’t—people are supposed to just get their things back
themselves?”
“What, you can’t point a gun?” The deputy flips the pack open and casually places one cigarette between his teeth, finally looking up at Flop as he does, and Flop is struck all at once by how handsome this small-town lawman is. All sharp angles, but with a gruffness that betrays his occupation. “Oh, you from the city or somethin’?” He asks with the smallest of smiles, looking Flop over.
“Wh—yes, but… that’s got nothing to do with anything,” Flop says defensively. He knows he looks out of place, but he’s not incompetent . “Ain’t you the law?”
“I’m just pullin’ your leg. Folk think we’re like animals out here, or some such.” The deputy looks away, flicking a lighter open and lighting his cigarette. “You needed somethin’?”
“Yeah.” Flop doesn’t know what he’d been expecting from the law in Strawberry, but it wasn’t this. “I, uh, was told to find Ziggy.”
“Well, shit.” Deputy Buggs swings his legs off the desk and stands, and Flop is once again struck with surprise, this time by how tall the man is. “That’s me.”
Oh.
That’s just Flop’s luck, isn’t it? Being led straight to someone he’d been told to find in the first place.
Ziggy’s a good cop, Matt had said to him when he’d first sat down with his dads and told them he was leaving.
He’s an idiot , Richard had retorted.
Maybe, Matt replied. His dads shared a knowing look, before Matt had looked his son in the eye again. He’s experienced. You get out to West Elizabeth and tell him Fae’s in town, alright?
Who’s Fae? Flop looked between his dads, confused, and they both do a bad job of hiding their discomfort at the name.
Someone important to him, Richard replies, and pats his son on the shoulder.
Flop didn’t understand why they couldn’t have just sent a letter, but now that he’s out here he understands. Strawberry is further west than he’s ever been, and the mail is slow even when the seasons are good. There’s not even a train here; he’d had to get off in Valentine and buy a horse, then ride west for the next week.
He has a inkling in his mind that “Fae” is bad news. No, it’s not just an inkling—he’s seen the way his fathers have come home as of late, tired and haggard-looking, and they seem to watch Flop with a closer eye than before. They were happy to tell him to leave and find Ziggy, too—they must have wanted him out of the city. It must be bad, he thinks, if they think he’s safer halfway across the country in a backwater like this than back in Saint Denis.
“You alright?” Flop is shaken out of his contemplative state by a hand on his shoulder. The deputy—Ziggy—looks down at him with a casual concern. “You seem a little out of sorts, friend.”
The hand on his shoulder feels comfortable after a week of riding alone, and Flop doesn’t move to brush him off. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You came to find me?” Ziggy turns his head and exhales a plume of smoke away from Flop’s face, though Flop can’t help but wrinkle his nose anyway. He’s never liked tobacco smoke, never gotten used to it, even though he’d grown up in the city, where it was part of daily life. At least it dissipates easier here, in the dry mountain air, than it does in the sticky swamp climate of eastern Lemoyne.
“My parents knew you,” Flop begins, fumbling for the letter Richard had given him to deliver. Thankfully, he’d kept it on his person this whole trip, and it hadn’t been stolen. “Sorry, know. Not knew. Matt and Richard Dark-Rhodes.”
The names seem familiar enough to Ziggy, who smiles at hearing them. “Aw, what, they miss me? Been a few years since I came west. Parents, you said?”
“Um,” Flop’s too preoccupied to answer, smoothing the creases out in the letter as best he can before he hands it to Ziggy. “I don’t really know everything, but… it might be best to just read.”
Ziggy takes the letter in hand, one eyebrow raised but still carrying an easygoing smile. Flop watches his expression closely as he opens the letter, trying to gauge its contents. He hadn’t read it—it had been sealed with a wax stamp, such that the recipient would have known immediately if Flop had done so. Flop suspects that’s exactly why Dark had sealed it: to prevent his son from nosing into the whole affair.
The deputy’s smile falters almost unnoticeably upon first reading its contents. He tries to maintain a carefree facade, but Flop can tell he feels otherwise; the deputy’s jaw tenses, and the paper crinkles beneath his fingers as he tries not to clench his fists. Flop’s always had something of a talent for reading people, and he’s glad now that he can put it to use, especially since Deputy Buggs seems to be hellbent on giving off the appearance of being relaxed in this moment.
“You said you’re Richard and Matt’s son?” He asks, voice flat.
“Yessir.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Mm.” Deputy Buggs nods, eyes still stuck to the letter. “You would’ve been an adult by then, I suppose.”
Flop doesn’t ask what he means by that, just stands and nods.
“I worked with your fathers for a time, briefly,” Ziggy says, folding the letter carefully, pressing each crease flat and tucking it into the inner pocket of his jacket. “I never met you. I wasn’t aware they had a son.”
Sons , Flop wants to correct him, but the deputy has a far-off look in his eyes right now that tells him not to interrupt. “That’s me.”
“You ever been up to Annesburg?” The deputy’s eyes flick to him.
“No, sir.”
“Do yourself a favor and don’t go. It’s miserable.” Ziggy takes one final drag on his cigarette before stubbing it out in the ashtray on his desk, only half-smoked.
“Sorry?” Flop shakes his head, incredulous. The atmosphere in the room has shifted, from relaxed to something tense that Flop can’t quite parse. “I’m not sure I follow, Deputy.”
“What was your name again?” Ziggy ignores Flop’s confusion entirely. The deputy looks a far cry from the man he was when Flop walked in, shoulders stiff and eyes unfocused; even Flop can feel whatever’s gnawing at the man in front of him right now.
“Flop. Flop Dugong,” Flop answers. He didn’t take his fathers’ names when they’d taken him in, given the whole affair was rather informal.
“Flop,” Ziggy repeats. “You seem a nice enough feller. Nice like your fathers. They tell you much about what they do?”
Flop shakes his head.
“I suppose they ain’t tell you about a woman, few years back, who killed folk up and down the mountains in the east?”
Flop shakes his head again. He knows what Ziggy is talking about, in a vague sort of sense, but he doesn’t know details.
“Well then,” Ziggy steps towards the door, and the steel spurs on his boots make dull clicks against the wooden floor. “I have a hell of a story to tell you on the way to Lemoyne.”