Wallace P. Goldstar, Town Marshall
                  An Episode taken from Tales of Springdale
                        Copyright 1994 by Dave Laird

The first notification anyone received that a new Town Marshall had been
elected by the Mayor came late one Friday afternoon when everyone came
pouring into the town for yet another night of drinking beer at any of the
three taverns that grace the main street of the town.

To the Mayor, who doubled as the owner of the Reservation Tavern, at first
this fact didn't seem to matter much, since he was like family to most of
his patrons. After all, nearly half the Spokane Indian women called Mayor
Ben Welchert "Poppa", a quaint habit that drove Ben's live-in girlfriend
Lila,to tears upon occasion, depending upon the level of endearment with
which Ben was called by that name. Most of the rest of the patrons of the
Reservation Tavern simply called Ben by name, but with respect, especially
if they were a bit behind in paying their bar tab.

Indeed, it did seem that Marshall Goldstar had little effect on the comings
and goings of the tribal members and towns people who flocked to the taverns
in droves that evening to escape the blazing heat.

Goldstar sat behind the rodeo grounds parking lot watching the traffic
flowing in from the Reservation, and grimly sighed to himself. Here he was,
Town Marshall less than twenty-four hours, and about to face the first real
test of his authority.

"I guess it's time to get acquainted, " he muttered to himself. Opening the
rear window on the driver's side he hung the radar gun on the lip of the
window sitting back to see how long it would be before someone drove into
what was now his town in excess of the posted speed limit.

It took less than two minutes before Freddy the Logger, hurrying to secure
his favorite barstool at the Reservation Tavern, came roaring by in his 1949
Ford log truck at nearly double the posted speed limit.

Turning on his overhead lights, Goldstar pulled out behind Freddy's truck,
and when Freddy showed no signs of slowing down, the Marshall briefly blew
the siren. Freddy immediately slowed down and eased off the side of the
roadway, his dual rear wheels almost straddling the shallow ditch.

Calling the Stevens County Sheriff's Department in Colville on the radio,
the Marshall told the dispatcher that he would be out of the car with
Freddy. About this time he grimly noticed that the old logging truck's
license plate, secured to the rear bumper of the old truck by a piece of
baling wire, had expired in 1974, over twenty years ago.

"Afternoon, Freddy," he said conversationally as he strolled up to the cab
of the truck. "I clocked you coming into town about 50 miles per hour back
by the rodeo grounds. Don't you think that's a bit fast, considering that
the speed limit in town is thirty-five miles per hour?"

Freddy was nearly speechless. In the twenty-some years that he had been
living in Springdale, he had never seen a cop pull someone over. In fact, he
knew that most of the cops that served as Town Marshall in the past never
wrote any traffic tickets because most of them could hardly read and write
their own names, let alone fill out the little boxes on the state citations.

"Not only that," Goldstar continued, "But I see that your license on this
truck has expired. Can I see your driver's license?"

"You could if I had one," Freddy tersely said. "I been meanin' to go get it
renewed, but I just haven't had the time, what with loggin' and all..."

"You wait here until I tell you it's okay for you to leave."

Returning to his squad car, Marshall Goldstar called Colville back on the
radio, asking them if they had record of a driver's license for one Fred
Vanderschwartz of Springdale. He was not surprised when the Colville
Sheriff's Department called him back a few minutes later to let him know
that Freddy the Logger hadn't had a valid driver's license in nearly ten
years and furthermore, that he had been stopped several times in the interim
and cited for various minor traffic offenses.

Grimly, he returned to the front of the old log truck.

"Freddy, it's been nearly ten years since you had a valid Washington State
operator's license. You'd better listen to my words close, because if I see
you driving this truck again, and you don't have a driver's license, I'm
going to give you a ticket."

"Since this is my first day on the job as Marshall of this town, I'm going
to let you off easy this time." The Marshall pointed his finger at Freddy in
what he hoped would be interpreted as a very no-nonsense manner. "The next
time I see this truck coming through town, it had better have a license
plate that's current, you'd better have a driver's license and you'd better
slow your ass down. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yessir." Freddy meekly replied.

With that, Marshall Goldstar returned to his battered squad car and turning
it around, headed back to the rodeo grounds to continue monitoring the
traffic on the highway.

Freddy the Logger, in the meantime, drove straight to the Reservation Tavern
and spying Ben down at the other end of the bar roared out his name. All up
and down the crowded bar, heads turned and it grew strangely silent.

"What's up Freddy?" Ben calmly asked, strolling down to where Freddy sat
disconsolately on his favorite bar stool.

"What the hell is going on in this town?" Freddy snapped, slamming his fist
on the bar. "I just came into town and got stopped by your new Town Marshall
for speeding. When did you, actin' as the Mayor, appoint that alcoholic Town
Marshall?" Freddy paused, taking a deep draught of the cold beer that Ben
set in front of him. "I'll tell you this, no damned tinhorn Marshall is
going to make me do nothin'...nothin'!"

Joe Red Dog, ever on the alert for something juicy to gossip about,
overheard Freddy's bitching about his first encounter with the law and eased
out the front door of the Reservation Tavern. Strolling in the front door of
the Crown Tavern which was right next door, he announced loudly, but to no
one in particular, "Freddy the Logger was just stopped by the new cop in
town and given a citation for speeding, no driver's license and a whole
bunch of other stuff."

His news, much like a hive of bees that have been suddenly and inexplicably
stirred into angry life, set everyone to talking in the tavern. Minutes
later a somewhat amplified version of Freddy and the Marshall was carried to
the Slide-Inn Liquor Bar down the street by Alice Herone where it was
greeted with equal animosity.

By the time night fell in a sodden heap over the streets of Springdale,
hardly a soul in town had not already heard at least one version of Freddy
the Logger's encounter with the Town Marshall. Depending upon which source
one heard it from, Freddy had been cited for no less than half a dozen
offenses, his truck had been confiscated and he was in Stevens County Jail.

Marshall Goldstar, still sitting in the darkness behind the billboard by the
old Rodeo Grounds, wryly had to admit that he had never imagined in his
wildest dreams what the first day on the job as the new Town Marshall of
Springdale would be like. In one six hour period, he had stopped a total of
23 vehicles for speeding, but had not written one citation. Of the vehicles
he had stopped. less than half of them had current driver's licenses or
vehicle registrations. He had removed two drunken drivers from their
vehicles, and giving them a stiff warning, had allowed them to proceed on
into town, so long as someone else drove their car.

Just before ten p.m., Goldstar eased the squad car from behind the
billboard, heading for bar row. It was time to do his first bar check.

He was greeted with dead silence and, here and there, hostile stares, as he
walked in the open door of the Reservation Tavern. Nodding briefly at Ben,
he walked through the old tavern, looking briefly into the back room, and
then on back out again without so much as a word being spoken. In fact, not
a word was spoken the entire time he spent walking between and into the
other two bars.

"Friendly buncha people," he muttered to himself, as he got back into his
squad car in preparation for going home.

The night waned and eased into morning. Last years' Christmas banners, still
hanging across main street, fluttered quietly as the night wind blew
fitfully across the town. Somewhere in town a dog barked a brief challenge,
and as the last beer sign was extinguished in the front window of the
Reservation Tavern, Springdale turned fitfully in her sleep, moaned briefly,
and then slumbered once more.