Jeb shuffled papers around on the desk of his office. He'd just been elected a few months ago, and still spent every morning trying desperately to get his bearings in the mountain of paperwork on his desk. It's not that he had a job security problem that kept him on his toes, or anything like that, though. The rich, important people of Black Hawk County had made sure he was the only person that made it to the ballot come election time, which suited Jeb just fine. He didn't think that it made him any less of a Sheriff that he'd been placed at his position, he just figured that it meant he wasn't going to pretend who was important. Jeb still wanted to do his job and get as much justice as he could for the people of Black Hawk County, but he knew at the end of the day whose interests he would be looking out for.
The bankers, the oil men, and the factory owners of the industrial county of Black Hawk had banded together and sent for a professional gunman not many months before. Jeb had been south of the border in Mexico, trying to drown his troubles with females in a bottle of Tequila. Eventually they had gotten a hold of him by messenger; a little Mexican boy had run up to Jeb as he staggered out of his hotel room, already drunk, weaving his way down to the bar. The boy had shouted at him and held out a letter. When Jeb took it the boy vanished, scampering off into the heat of the day and the dust that seemed to fill the air around noon everyday in Mexico. Jeb had had to squint at the letter to get the words to come into focus, but finally he made them out after his hands stopped trembling.
You are cordially invited, the letter read, to attend the Black Hawk County Ball. The event is being put on by the investors who made the industrial city of Dry Well that is a conglomeration of the surrounding factory towns, and they seek to find someone skilled with rifle, pistol and horse who would be able to maintain order in Black Hawk county.
The letter had gone on to describe civil unrest, labor union strikes, crime on the rise and looters going about and picking through every idle factory waiting for repair. The powers that be were not keen on the idea of putting up with anyone's tomfoolery any longer. There wasn't a sheriff in residence already because a group of bandits from the wastes kept galloping in and killing whatever puppet sheriff the rich folk has put in place. The letter made clear that the knew sheriff was to be a puppet, that much was certain, but they wanted a puppet who would be able to repel the bandits, and if not repel than hopefully thin them out a little bit before the sheriff died.
Jeb read the letter over and sat thinking at the local watering hole. Jeb didn't have any love for banker types, they were the same kind of people that had sold the farm out from his daddy and mommy. That had led to his daddy being shot dead holding up at train and his mother having to turn to prostitution to make ends meet. Having a hooker for a mom had been awful hard on Jeb and wasn't something he wished on anyone else, not that he didn't realize that the second oldest profession on earth wasn't going anywhere. It was just kind of a sore spot with him, as was any kind of violence or wrong doing done to women. After all the nights he'd spent hearing his mom getting beat up by some drunk John in her room a good amount of animosity had built toward anyone who dare raise their hand against a woman. It was actually something he considered a weakness since he himself was a criminal. Jeb realized his soft spot could be exploited, and that wasn't something he was too keen on, having the things he cared about be exploited to hurt him.
The Mexican sun rose high in the sky and turned the little Mexican town Jeb was at into a furnace. Waves of heat came off the ground to obscure the sight of anyone who tried to look out into the desert as they drank. Jeb thought that it was like being in the inverse of snow globe. The more he drank the more he felt like this was the last day for him in Mexico. He was trying of chasing after women who kept breaking his heart. They were always either too young, or afraid of commitment, or had some serious daddy issues that made it incredibly difficult for any kind of real relationship to bloom. And he was running out of money. It would be a few months yet until he was completely out of money, but it was just one of those things that Jeb didn't like to play with. When a man ran low on money, then it was time to get some work done. It didn't do to wait until all of the money was gone to try and make some, that's when you would really find yourself in a pinch. Draining his last beer Jeb stood up and stumbled back to his hotel room to sleep off his drunk and the ensuing hangover. The next day when he felt right enough to ride he left town, headed north to Black Hawk County.