Shadow in Serenity

ten


Thursday, Logan swung around in his chair at the Clippety Doo Dah, where he spent as much of his spare time as he could, buttering up the ladies. He grinned at the proprietor. “Tell me, Lahoma,” he said, “do you consider yourself single-handedly responsible for the abundance of beauty in this town?”

Her laughter had a sweet, infectious ring to it. Eliza Martin, whose hair she was working on, hooted right along with her, and the ladies under the dryers chuckled as well, even though he doubted they’d heard his question.

“You’re such a talker,” Lahoma said in her deep southern drawl. “By the way, have you heard about the dance tomorrow night? Down at the bingo hall?”

“I sure have,” he said, “and I intend to be there.” “And have you got a date?” Lahoma asked with a wink. He grinned. “You got somebody in mind?” She blushed, then recovered. “Well, if I was fifteen years younger, I’d snap you up myself. Might anyway, now that I think about it.”

The other ladies guffawed, and Lahoma preened in the mirror, proud of herself. “No, Logan, I had someone more your age in mind. My daughter, Mary Beth, doesn’t have a date yet. Or there’s Jean Miller, who works at the drugstore. Or Bonnie … you know, the little waitress in the diner? Take your pick. There’s plenty of gals in Serenity who wouldn’t mind going on your arm.”

Grinning, he swung around in his chair again. “Well, you see, that’s just the problem. There’s so many I’d love to go with. It’s hard to decide. I think I might just go stag so I can dance and flirt with all of them.”

The women laughed again, as if that suited them just fine. Logan pulled up out of the seat and sighed. “Well, ladies, I’ve sure enjoyed shooting the breeze with you. And like I said, if any of you want an appointment with me, you know where you can find me. Time’s running out, though. I have to have all my investors registered pretty soon, or we’ll have to move on to another town. My employers don’t like to be kept waiting. And the idea, of course, is to get the park started by the end of the year, so we’re really under the gun here.”

“My husband’s gonna call you today, Logan,” one of the ladies under the dryer said. “His name’s Jess. When you hear from Jess, you’ll know who he is. My husband.”

Logan leaned down and took her hand. Kissing it, he said, “I sure will, ma’am. And if he’s half as delightful as you, it’ll be a pleasure going into partnership with him.” He went to the next lady under the dryer, kissed her hand, then reached for the third. They all tittered like birds.

Then he grabbed Lahoma, pulled her into a waltz, and spun her. “Tomorrow night, you save a dance for me,” he said, kissing her cheek.

“I will,” she said, almost swooning. “‘Bye, Logan.”

On the sidewalk, Logan checked his watch. He’d talked Carny into giving him a private lesson today, and he had just enough time before it to stop by the barbershop and shoot the breeze. It was these intimate little gab sessions, unscheduled and relaxed, that inspired the kind of trust he needed to make the people of Serenity part with their money.

He stood by the red-and-white barber pole outside and looked in the window. Slade was cutting the mayor’s hair, and Cecil was cutting that of a man Logan didn’t know yet. There was one other man waiting, and they were all laughing.

Friendship. Camaraderie. It was something he’d missed terribly since Montague died. But he couldn’t break Montague’s rule of getting too close now, just because it felt good. A lot of things felt good, but they could also land him back in jail. The goal now was to get to know the folks as well as he could while still holding himself aloof from them. That was the trick. Fortunately, he was good at it. It was what made it easy to leave the towns behind.

Serenity was something else, though. 20/20 was right. It was just like Mayberry, for Pete’s sake. And this was Floyd’s Barber Shop, and the men in the chairs could have been Andy and Barney. He hadn’t really believed such towns existed. No wonder Carny was protective of it. But he couldn’t let that influence him. A man had to make a living, after all.

Logan slid his hands into his pockets and strolled inside. Everyone turned and greeted him. “Logan!”

Slade and Cecil shook his hand, and the mayor, almost completely hidden by a voluminous chair cloth, freed his hand and reached for Logan’s too. As if he were the town celebrity, the other men introduced themselves and told him they had been at his town meeting.

Slade looked over at the chair where his dog sat, and said, “Jack, get up and let Logan sit down.” The dog jumped down immediately and went to lie beside Slade’s chair.

Laughing, Logan stooped to pet the dog. Jack sat up and licked Logan’s hand. The gesture broke the shell of a memory Logan had kept stored away for years. Butch, a lab mix with big, soulful eyes — the dog he’d come to love in his first foster home. At five years old, Logan had curled up with Butch in bed every night, crying softly for his mother. Butch had been the only one who could comfort him.

When Logan was taken from that home, he’d begged to take Butch with him. But the family wouldn’t give their dog to the homeless boy.

“Logan?” Slade said. “You need a haircut?”

Logan shook himself out of his reverie. “No thanks, Slade,” he said as he stroked the dog. “I just had a few minutes to kill before my next meeting and thought I’d see what you fellows are up to.”

Fellows. Wasn’t that how they would have said it in Mayberry?

“Well, oddly enough, we were just talking about you.”

“Oh yeah?” He looked up. They were smiling, so they hadn’t been raking him over the coals. “I came just in time to defend myself then, didn’t I?”

“Oh, you don’t need defending. Not from us, anyways. From Carny Sullivan, maybe.”

“Yeah, she’s not so bad, though. I’m taking flying lessons from her. I figure when the park gets underway, I probably ought to buy a plane.”

“Carny’s teaching you?” The man who’d introduced himself as Joey, a younger man than the others, who had an enviable beard and was as big as a bear, gave him a surprised look.

“She sure is. She’s a good lady. Just a little suspicious, and from what I’ve heard about her, you can’t blame her. It’s a shame about her childhood.”

“So which class are you in?” Joey asked. “Her Monday night class?”

“No. She’s teaching me privately. All the other classes were already in progress.”

Joey got quiet, and Logan noticed something behind the man’s eyes. Was it jealousy? He couldn’t afford to make any enemies in this town, so he tried to rally. “You’re not the Joey she keeps mentioning, are you?”

His eyes lit up. “She talks about me?”

“Well, I guess it’s you.”

“What did she say?”

Logan laughed and bent down low to let the dog lick his face. “Well, now, whatever she said, it was in confidence. But I will tell you that she thinks a lot of you.”

Joey smiled and looked off into space.

“How long have you had Jack, Slade?” Logan asked.

Slade put the finishing touches on the mayor’s hair. “Ten years. He’s been by my side almost every minute of that time. Goes everywhere I go, don’t you, boy?” Slade went over to pat the dog’s head, then resumed his cutting.

“He looks like a loyal pal.” Logan patted the dog’s coat one last time, and, as if he knew that meant a dismissal, Jack wandered over to the corner.

“So how are the plans for the park shaping up?” Mayor Norman asked.

Logan crossed his arms and looked the mayor straight in the eye. “Well, sir, I’ll give the people of Serenity another week or so to get their investments in. Then I’m supposed to meet back with my employers and their big investors with my recommendation. I’m pretty sure that, if we can demonstrate enough support from Serenity, they’ll choose this site for the park. In fact, I’d bet on it.”

The mayor laughed. “The best thing to happen in this town in forty years, and it’s during my administration. Who would have thought?”

“You’re not tryin’ to get credit for it, are you, Mayor?” Cecil asked, a twinkle in his eye.

The mayor shook his head. “Oh, no. No one would believe me. It’s just kind of nice to be in office when so many good things are happening.”

Slade swung the mayor’s chair cloth out of the way and shook it out, and the mayor got to his feet. “I’m going to need an appointment with you myself, Logan,” he said as he fished through his wallet for Slade’s fee. “I’ll call you later.”

“I’m going your way, Mayor,” Logan said, standing up and stretching. “I’ll walk with you and we can nail down a time.”

As if he had lived there all his life and knew them each as well as they knew one another, they all waved goodbye.


Logan’s lesson with Carny that afternoon went well, and he noticed an ever-so-slight change in her attitude. “So did you check on me yet?” he asked when the lesson was over. “Decided I’m legit?”

“I checked, Brisco,” she said, consulting her appointment book for a time for the next lesson.

“Good. Then I should be cleared. You want me to make you an appointment so you can talk about investing?”

She shot him a look. “Your stories may have checked out, Brisco, but I’m still not convinced you’re on the level.”

Not convinced, he thought. Wasn’t that better than before, when she’d been absolutely certain he wasn’t? Still, it aggravated him that she hadn’t considered his references positive enough to clear him. She was just too smart.

“What did I ever do to you?” he said, intending it as a joke, but his words came out sounding a little plaintive.

“Nothing,” she said with a flip smile. “I just don’t intend to sign my soul and my bank account over to you, like my friends and neighbors have. Don’t get too secure, Brisco. I haven’t given up trying to expose you.”

“Carny, you have got to be the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met.”

“I’ll buy that,” she said. “You’ve probably never met anyone like me.”

“You’ve got that right.”

“Good. Then you won’t quite know how to handle me, will you? It looks like I’m the one who has the advantage here. I know exactly how to handle you.”

That was a challenge if he’d ever heard one. “What if I’m one of the good guys, Carny? What if you’re completely, absolutely wrong?”

“I’m not,” she said simply. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a delivery to make. I have to hurry if I want to get back before Jason’s out of school.”

“You still going to the dance tomorrow night?”

“Yep.” She jotted down the time for his Saturday afternoon class on the back of one of her business cards.

“Going with Joey?”

She stopped writing and looked up. “Boy, you don’t miss anything, do you? No, I’m not going with Joey. I’m going alone.”

“Oh, yeah?” He took the card from her, looked at it, and put it into his pocket. “Me too.”

She slapped her hand against her forehead. “Say it isn’t so. Logan Brisco, celebrity among us, has not got a date to the dance?”

“Oh, I could have gone with Lahoma’s daughter, or Jean Miller, or Bonnie …”

She smirked. “Then why didn’t you?”

“Because I wanted to be free to dance every dance with you.”

She laughed. “You’ll have to stand in line.”

He liked that spunk. Grinning, he went to the door. “I



will,” he said. “See you tomorrow night.”

She was still smiling when he closed the door behind him. Progress, he thought. He was making progress.