The Tarnished Badge
(2019)(The first book in the Toby Giles: Lawman Western series)
A Story by Charles Ray
Toby Giles, a slave, runs away from the Virginia tobacco plantation where he’s held in bondage. He makes it across the Ohio River to the industrial town of Ironton, and its nearby neighbor, a walled community of rich people called Jericho. When he encounters locals, who threaten to turn him over to the slave catchers, he’s saved by Lawrence County Judge Joshua Lansing, who happens to run a statin on the Underground Railroad, a system of safe havens that aids escaped slaves find their way to freedom. Lansing decides in Toby’s case, though, that he needs go no further. He has found a home in Ironton and Jericho, but he will have to work for it. When Jericho is plagued by a series of robberies, the rich residents insist that Lansing, representing the law in Lawrence County, do something about. That something shakes everyone to their core; he appoints Toby sheriff of Jericho, and when the residents object, informs them that they can take Toby or continue to be victims of crime. Gaining acceptance from people who consider themselves, by virtue of their wealth, superior to even their white neighbors will not be easy, but Toby feels that he owes it to Lansing and the memory of Lansing’s father who had been a sheriff when Lansing was a child. A momentary lapse of judgment had caused the elder Lansing to dishonor the badge, and now, his son wants Toby to restore that honor. He only has to catch a gang of thieves, endure unending prejudice and discrimination, and stay out of the clutches of the slave patrol to do it.
Genre: Western
Genre: Western
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