Manhunt. Volume 14, Number 1, February/March, 1966

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The suddenness of the blow sent me sprawling. I struggled in a swirling fog to keep my feet... then the world came down on me and I slipped into a bottomless pit.

It stood there, rising stark against the sky. The barn next to it was weathered and discolored by years of rain, snow, and wind beating against it. The silo itself was old and nearly as weathered as the barn, although there was some evidence of the red paint that must have once shone brightly upon its wooden staves.

I drove my new station wagon into the rutted driveway, feeling each bump and jolt with the anguish only an owner of a new car can feel. When I saw Clyde Jenkins, the county sheriff, waiting for me some of my annoyance at being called out here to this part of the county vanished. Clyde had greater problems than my resentment. Ever since he’d taken office a little over two months ago, after Tom Rinehart died suddenly of a heart attack, he’d had more trouble than Tom had encountered in twelve months. Clyde, a short, undersized man, was nearly dwarfed by the big western-cut hat the sheriffs in this state have taken to wearing. Following in the footsteps of a long line of big, bluff, stockily built sheriffs whose size alone had often been enough to quell a disturbance, Clyde had become the butt of some of the county’s worst ruffians, who wouldn’t hesitate to take a swing at a lawman they thought they could whip in a fight. Clyde’s brow was knitted now in a frown which he seemed to wear continuously these days.

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