The Ballad of Sheriff Davis

Jennifer Davis placed her head in her hands and wondered why she had thrown out all the alcohol. Two weeks ago she had stood at the sink and calmly poured it down the kitchen drain without a single emotion. Last week she had placed her husband, not yet thirty-five, in the ground. Last night she had seen off the rest of her relatives at the airport, assuring them that their frozen casseroles would be eaten and that she and the kids would be fine. For the last hour, she had thought of nothing but booze and cigarettes, though she had kicked the college lifestyle years ago.

From the living room, Molly whimpered in her playpen. Jennifer tilted her chair back and looked past the couch. The little tow-headed girl rolled over and stuck a thumb in her mouth, drifting back into oblivion. Andy was curled up on the floor beside her in his Transformers sleeping back, a stuffed teddy bear cradled in his arms. Mr. Potato head was laying half-assembled at his feet besides a green dinosaur and the Mr. Spell machine.

"So young," she muttered to herself, bending back over the kitchen table and her hot coffee, gazing at the centerpiece. The police chief had dropped it off early that evening – it was one of the few things they had saved from the car. She reached out and picked it up. "Well, Sheriff Woody, what do you have to say for yourself?"

The doll stared back silently with his large, glassy eyes.

"Not a talker, eh?" She hooked a finger through the white plastic loop attatched to his back and pulled.

"There's a snake in my boot!" echoed from somewhere in the cowboys chest as the loop slid back into place.

"I bet there is," Jennifer tugged at the cowboys hat and looked at his pointy nose. "Jamie always called you his good luck charm. Why weren't you working your mojo that night?" She dropped the doll back onto the table. "I always thought a cowboy would be able to handle a drunk, even if he was behind the wheel of a truck." The coffee left a ring of condensation on the table as she shoved the mug away from her, making room to lay down her head. "A widow at twenty-eight," she blinked back the tears in her eyes as she thought of her husband, "what kind of luck is that?"

Sheriff Woody watched with unblinking eyes as Jennifer cradled her head in her arms. He waited several minutes, until her shoulders had stopped shaking, to sit up and straighten his hat and blink the tears out of his rapidly filling eyes. He had been Sheriff Davis's good luck charm; ever since Davis was a little boy and he was fresh out of the box from the store. They had grown up together; Davis from a headstrong, determined boy into a headstrong, determined Deputy into a headstrong, determined and married Sheriff; Woody from a new and wide-eyed toy just enteirng the world into an experienced leader for the others like him.

And now Davis was gone, snuffed out like a candle in the mornings first light, all because he was doing his job.

Woody pulled his hat off his head and spun it between his hands absent-mindedly. Jennifer now had two children – a four year old son and a one month old daughter – to look after all by herself, without the aid or emotional support of a husband. His plastic fingers dug deep into the sides of his hat, and he tried once again to steer the blame away from himself.

He wasn't lucky. He was just Woody. The luck had all been inside Davis's head, and now that had been smashed to pieces and buried six feet under. Maybe if it hadn't been Andy's birthday, if Davis hadn't come back to pick him up from the office and deliver him into the hands of his son, the crash wouldn't have happened. Maybe it was his fault after all.

"Are you crying?"

Woody thought for a moment that his voice box would jump out of his stuffing-filled chest. His head snapped up, and he stared into Jennifer's hazel eyes with his own very alive ones. The woman, however, didn't seem phased at all by his reaction.

"I didn't know dolls could cry," she pointed out absently, rubbing her own tears from her cheeks. "Did the snake bite you?"

Woody said the first intelligent thing that came to mind: "What?"

"The snake in your boot," Jennifer reached out and drew her coffee mug close once more, "The one you're always prattling on about when Jamie pulls your string. Did it bite you?"

"No."

"Then what are you crying about?" She sipped her coffee, pulled a face, and reached over his head for the jar of sugar. Woody simply stared at her as she added a generous spoonful to her drink and stirred it in. From all the stories he had heard from older toys, from all the rules he had heard, talking to humans was the number one no-no. Nothing good ever came of it. Despite his deep seated love of rules and regulations (he was an officer of the law, after all) Woody found himself answering her.

"I miss Jamie."

Jennifer propped her head up on her fist and smiled softly at him. "I do too," she stirred her coffee. "He was such a sweet man – I don't know what I'll do without him."

Woody shifted so that his back was flush with the peppermill. Jennifer merely watched him, showing no hint of fear or surprise.

"I'm sorry," he felt awkward apologizing to the woman, "But why aren't you surprised, or afraid?"

"I am afraid," her shoulders seemed to slump beneath the weight of something far too large for her to handle. "Andy will be growing up without a dad, and without any significant father figure close to home – all our family lives out west. Molly will never even remember her father, and she's still so little. How am I supposed to raise two children all by myself?"

Woody felt a pang of sympathy for the widow, but that still didn't answer his question. "Yes, that is frightening, but I was asking why you ar-"

"Why I'm not afraid of you?" She interupted. "Little cowboy, what could be scarier than losing the one you love?"

For several moments, he was struck dumb.

"I'm not about to call the cops because you finally decided to talk to me," she waved her hand at him as though clearing the notion from the air, "And I'm certainly not going to tell anyone; nobody would believe me. They'd lock me up in the nut house, and where would that leave my children? Besides, I've seen you talking to the other toys before."

"You've what?"

"Don't get your pull string in a knot," Jennifer smiled at the startled look on his face. "You and the other toys come out and talk late at night. I heard you once and thought Andy was having a nightmare, but when I came in to take a peek I found you all having a checkers competition." She took a small sip of her drink, clearing her throat. "I thought I was dreaming so I left it alone. After the third time, however, I simply accepted it as 'one of those things' and continued to live my life."

Woody was, once again, speechless. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"

She shrugged, looked at her empty mug, and stood up to refill it. "Like I said, I just thought it was 'one of those things.'" She crossed to the counter and poured more coffee for herself. "One of those strange, unexplainable, yet not frightening things. Like crop circles or raining frogs."

"You always 'roll with the punches,'" Woody commented as she sat back down. "Jamie liked that about you."

Jennifer paused with the muge half-way to her lips. "He did?"

"Yeah," Woody smiled softly, "He used to talk about you in his office, to his buddies, or just to himself. He really, really loved you, and Andy and Molly too." As an after thought, he added, "He was glad Molly got your eyes."

She felt the tears building up behind her own eyes again and blinked them away. "He liked you too, sheriff. Wouldn't have carried you around in his patrol car if he didn't, you know." She looked at the coffee and found she wasn't thirsty anymore. They sat in silence for a few moments, lost in their thoughts about the man they had both loved. "Sheriff," she began again minutes later, startling the cowboy out of his repireve.

"You can call me Woody."

"Woody, then. You were in the car when it happened, weren't you?"

There was a lengthy pause, and for a moment Jennifer found herself afraid that he wouldn't answer, that he would simply go back to being nothing more than a doll made of plastic and stuffing and long-gone dreams.

"Yes."

"Did you see what happened?"

Woody bowed his head. "Some of it. Jamie was chasing a drunk driver. The man was swerving all over the road. He tried a pit manuver – you know, running the cruiser into the back of the car to make it spin out." He looked away from her, unable to meet the bright hazel eyes that Molly had inherited, "It didn't work right. They both went off the road and the cruiser broadsided a tree."

Jennifer had heard all of this from the police officers and deputies and EMTs and firefighters. "Woody," she reached out and touched his leg with the tip of a finger, hesitant to make contact now that she knew, undeniably, that her sons toys were alive. "Did he go quickly?"

"I didn't see," he didn't even notice the contact. "When he hit the other car, I was thrown off the dash and under the passenger seat."

"Oh." She looked at a spot somewhere above his head. "Do you know...did he go quick?"

Closure. It all made sense now. She was looking for closure, and trying to find it in one of the other few souls who had loved Jamie as she had, even if he was just a toy. "Yes." He reassured her. "There was no suffering or anything. He went quickly."

"Good." They lapsed back into silence, and Woody couldn't help but notice her shoulders shift a bit, as though a weight had been removed. A small weight, only a tiny part of her whole burden, but at least it was a start.

A moment later a pair of slippered feet shuffled across the carpet, and Andy appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room.

"Mommy?" He tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes, "Who are you talking to?"

Jennifer pulled the child into her lap. "Just an old friend, dear." She looked at the cowboy doll, who was now laying on the table as though she had just dropped him there.

"Daddy's cowboy?" Andy reached out and snagged the dolls arm, pulling it into his grasp. He yanked the pull string and was delighted to hear a voice issue from the toy.

"You're my favorite deputy!"

"Can I have him mom?" Andy looked up at his mother with big eyes. "Please? I'll take good care of him, I promise! Just like dad did."

Jennifer looked down at her son. Within his tiny arms, Woody met her gaze and winked.

"Of course, son." She kissed his forhead, "Sheriff Woody is all yours. He's your lucky charm now, so take care of him."

"I will mommy!" He hugged the soft toy to his chest, and for just a moment Woody thought he felt something of Jamie in those hands.