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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
or, The Sheriff Without a Gun
Chapter 11
As Andy locked the courthouse door behind them, Sydney said, “Andy, in the morning would you direct me to the schoolteacher’s house?”
“The schoolteacher? Why?”
“Miss Parker understands from your Aunt Bee that the schoolteacher gets the New York Times, and we would like to borrow some back issues.”
“Oh.” Comprehension dawned. Andy bit back a grin. “I’ll do better than that. I’ll take you there myself and introduce you. Helen’s a good friend of mine.”
“Thank you, Andy. Good night.”
“Good night.”
He watched the strange pair walk away toward the hotel, the short, thin, nervous man and the tall, accented, dignified man talking quietly together—probably about how Jarod was in New York. Well, that would be useful.
Andy walked home and found the house dark and quiet. He peeped in at Opie and found him sound asleep in his usual tangle of blankets and sheets, as if he had been fighting off bad guys in his sleep. He peeped very quietly into his own room and found Jarod uneasily asleep, twitching and muttering. Poor boy, Andy thought as he went back downstairs. He couldn’t decide whether to think of Jarod as a highly competent fellow officer (though he knew he wasn’t) or a boy just about Opie’s age. To Aunt Bee he was all boy, but then, so was Andy most of the time, out playing at cops and robbers with Barney. He shook his head and grinned.
Aunt Bee had just laid out his pajamas and robe on the couch downstairs, but he set them neatly on a chair and simply took off his uniform shirt, belt, and shoes. Then he went to the china hutch against the wall and took his pistol down from the top of it, loaded it with bullets from the drawer, made sure the safety was set, and took it with him to the couch, slipping it in the crack between the cushion and the arm, right where Aunt Bee had laid out his pillow. He was known as the sheriff without a gun, but he did have a gun, even if he didn’t carry it in the normal course of his duties, and he had used it.
He wasn’t quite sure what to expect tonight. He hoped for a good night’s sleep for everyone without interruptions, but it was just possible that all that talk of New York and Catherine had just been a ruse, to make him believe Miss Parker had good reason to stay in that jail cell. He had no doubt that she could get out as easily as stepping out of her own house. She was that kind of person. The question was, would she? Did she have any reason to suspect that her prey wasn’t far away from Mayberry but tucked up helplessly in the sheriff’s house? It she did and came looking for him, Andy could not face her without a weapon of his own. Here in Mayberry he could get away without a gun for the most part. Most of the people respected him and the force of the law. Other times he’d been able to use his wit, ingenuity, and knowledge of people to do his work without sticking a gun in people’s faces. That would work on both Sydney and Broots, but not on Miss Parker. Trying to talk her down wouldn’t do anything. She respected superior force, not law, and she would fight dirty. She thought that was an advantage, and oftentimes it was, but she wouldn’t understand the advantage of being morally in the right, of respecting law and goodness above mere physical force and power. She wouldn’t understand how a man could sacrifice himself for what was right. And there both Andy and Jarod had the advantage over her.
Andy lay on the couch thinking for a while and then finally willed himself to sleep, but not too deeply. He had the capacity of a good policeman or a good soldier to remain alert while getting some rest, and he would have known it instantly if someone had tried to come in the front or back doors or any of the windows, or even if there were any unusual sounds outside. There weren’t, and the Taylor household slept in peace all night long.
