“Don’t assume guilt when you can presume innocence.”

-Earl Westman, Marshal of Stagna

Earl Westman was steaming in his hot box of an office on the north-west corner of Stagna's square. His home away from home wasn't you'd call comfortable, but it suited his needs. The town marshal with his black hair, brown eyes, and being vertically challenged looked much like any other settler. He wasn't from Stagna, and looking the part went a long way towards fitting in. Even so, he'd never quite felt like one of them. The least Agalian thing about him, was the fact that he was a teetotaller. Not that he was especially fond of tea, but he had to be careful with drink, because he liked it too much.

Drinking and brawling were the favourite pastimes of his adopted countrymen. It often ended with them rolling around on the ground, where they couldn't do much harm. Seeing Earl approach, in his light-brown hat with the black leather stripe, was often enough to brake things up. If not, he'd give the wheezing bodies a few minutes to hug it out. Gasping for breath they could barely get back up, and were more than happy to crawl off to the jail. There they could sleep it off for as long as he felt appropriate. Marshal law was always in effect in Agalaland's seven districts.

The town's gravelled square, surrounded by several pubs, was a hot spot for fights. It was also the natural gathering point for the Remington district. Hosting four week-long markets every year. Upcoming, was the summer-market and the Hein-day celebrations of midsummer. The visiting drunks meant these weeks were always Earl's busiest. He'd never understood the appeal of dragging along old junk to sell, only to replace it with other junk. Still, the markets were a good time, and most everyone looked forward to them. Like his daughter Charlene.

At the moment, Earl was busy putting off going to Bern's. Even though the tavern was only across the square. No one would blame him for slacking off a bit, the summer's first heatwave was in full effect. But that wasn't the problem, he needed a favour from Fannie. She was the current owner of Bern's and direct descendant of Bern Bloomer, a town icon. Besides Charlene, Fannie was the only person in town Earl respected. She was wranglesome, but entertaining, and always spoke her mind.

Stagna sat right above where Zanja branched into three rivers. Making the town an important hub for trade. Still, in the hearts and minds of the people, Bern's Bucket O'Beer was what made the town historic. The tavern was believed to be their oldest permanent structure. It'd once served as the sole beacon of civilised drunkenness, in an otherwise wild and sober landscape. Stagna was the first town of settlers coming to the grasslands, before they started calling themselves Agalians. Because of that it'd become Agalaland's unofficial capital. A questionable honour at best since Agalians tended to judge social progress on the number of pubs a town could support.

Bern's was a special case and counted as at least three taverns. Even Earl, who never had more than half a pint these days, still ate most of his meals there. Not to diminish Bern's importance — but from his law-man point of view — the courthouse was what made the town's position legit. As the only court in Agalaland, it was the one place where a lawful sentence of capital punishment could be handed down. Besides the importance of pubs, Agalians also felt that hangings were an essential government function. They were executed from the branches of the sombre old oak at the centre of Stagna's square.

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Fanning himself with his hat, he thought about what Charlene'd suggested. That he bobble down to Zanja for a cooling dip, but it wouldn't look right. He was serious about his duty. More so than anyone expected. Even now, with his boots off and showing the holes in his socks, his mind was working double time. Because unless there was some progress in the case of the elusive chicken thief, the deadly fruit of lynchings would soon be in season.

The case was strange, as far he could tell it amounted to nothing more than a few missing vegetables. If it hadn't been for the p-word rumour, the case would've never come to his attention at all. Once he looked into it, he found it started two months ago in the Benelli district. Each theft taking place near Ganja river, and always moving towards his town.

Starting to get pins and needles in his arse from the hard wooden chair, Earl shifted with a frustrated grunt. The arse-rot wasn't his only annoyance. The only other person who worked during a heatwave was his daughter. He could hear Charlene back in the jail scrubbing the floors of this one-level, sweatbox of a wooden office. Her beige work dress probably wet from being on her knees.

The jail only had two lockable cells; the rest was just a holding area. Locks were a luxury, and the system worked fine. Most drunks left through the separate exit when they felt ready. That way he didn't have to see them, or smell their crapulence. They all looked like boiled shite when leaving the jail.

He couldn't understand why Charlene bothered with cleaning the cells. The more pesky hooch-goblyns who slept in there, were dirtier than a mucky bag filled with muck. More than that, he wished she'd slow down a bit. Still, he couldn't blame her. Charlene inherited his sense of duty, and sometimes it seemed she was waging a personal war on the dust of the world. He'd tried putting his foot down when she put little flowerpots in the barred windows. His argument being that cells weren't supposed to be nice.

"Why not," she'd asked with a straight face.

Since he couldn't come up with a good answer on the spot, both office and jail were now nice. She'd even put up curtains and various knick-knacks. The more he resisted, the harder she worked. What really him most was that this wasn't even her only gig. It was his job to work himself into an early grave, when he was dead she could take over.

Officially, she only worked for him as the jail house cook, and she'd been doing that unofficially since she was ten. As long as no one starved to death, she more than fulfilled her obligation. Still, Charlene'd taken the position to mean housekeeper, secretary, deputy, counsellor, interior decorator, and all-round handy-woman. Even then, she only accepted pay for the time she spent cooking.

At least this time the cell she was cleaning would be in use soon. The thief had damn well better appreciate how nice the cell was, that all he could think. Earl had no doubt about whether he would catch the chicken stealer, it wasn't a hopeless case. Not like trying to lure Charlene away from her scrubbing.