On the front porch of the long-shuttered Silver Gulch general store, two rather old men sat in adjacent wicker rocking chairs, discussing the situation they found themselves in. They weren’t the only residents who still remained in the dwindling boomtown, which had failed to follow other similar settlements into the bold new commercial vision of the incipient 20th Century, but it often felt like they were the only two locals who still had anything to say to each other. Everyone else who stubbornly remained in this virtual ghost town was hunkering down in their homesteads, accepting that the meager urban amenities the village had ever enjoyed, once depleted, would never replenish again. It was a dying town for dying people; the last child of the last still-flourishing family had emigrated before the railway shut down, and those who stayed were those whom, either individually or as couples, intended to spend their remaining days with only fond memories for company.
The town no longer had any law enforcement, nor any need of it; other than possibly a hiding place where they’d be unlikely to be pursued, but were unlikely to effectively imprison themselves by choosing so. The town had nothing that any outlaw might come looking for, nothing valuable left to steal and no people whom anyone might have a motive to kill. But even though Sherriff Pratt hadn’t shown his face in the town for years, no longer being paid by the silver mining concern that legally owned the whole town (which could no longer afford to pay the operation and shipping costs of extracting what little wealth the played-out Gulch Mine still might contain), one of the two old men still believed steadfastly in the dictates set down by the long-absent lawman. The other man did not share his feelings on the topic, and the slow and amiable debate over this quarrel formed the only real social bond that remained to the two.
“It doesn’t matter how you feel, old fellow, the law is the law,” said the slightly older man. The younger one just scowled for a moment, apparently chewing on his words as he carefully rephrased the venom he had briefly verged upon spitting.
“I really don’t see what harm it would do,” said the marginally younger geezer. “I’ve got nothing against the sherrif, wherever he is, but it’s not his job anymore. He’s probably not even here; he probably walked clear across the River Flats and put this town behind him once and for all.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute. This town is still his home, and pay or no pay, I’m sure he’s still on the job. Just because he didn’t shoot you down for it doesn’t mean you were right to do what you did.”
“This is still America, I say,” the dissenter continued. “It’s not like the old countries of Europe, where they believe in the divine right of kings; this country was born out of the desire for freedom, freedom for every individual man. Sure, the cities of the East Coast are too big to be run that way, practically speaking; you need civil law in a town of a thousand people, I get that. But that’s the whole reason people leave the urban lifestyle behind them, and come out to the wild frontier, where a man can carve out a niche for himself and live the way he feels like living. This town could never have sprung up if everyone had been timid and void of enterprise, doing only things that are confirmed to be legal and safe; they outraced the slow creep of civilization, and thrived in a lawless land. This town existed before the law, before ever good old Jim Brooks appointed himself to be in charge - something the law said he couldn’t do, I feel obliged to point out.”
“That much is true, I acknowledge,” said the more conservative man. “But the law did come, and we lived for a decade under the social contract that what Sherrif Brooks and Deputy Pratt and then Sherrif Pratt said. At no point did we ever agree that their authority ended when they themselves were nowhere to be found.”
“They didn’t just dis–well okay, Brooks disappeared, and if he reappears someday then great, I’ll be glad to have him back. But Pratt didn’t disappear; he gol-durn retired, because the Law didn’t pay him for his labor any more. The Law ain’t some abstract notion that everyone needs to cherish for its own benefit; it exists to preserve the society among men, the freedoms of the individual, and when there’s few enough individuals, they can just agree to disagree whenever they’re not on the same page. They don’t need a bank to set prices for them, and they don’t need a government to give them laws. They’re like the first men in the world all over again, before ever there was a need for leaders and followers. That freedom is what brought me out to the frontier in the first place, the ability to reinvent what kind of a person I wanted to be, and do it again and again until I get it right.”
“Be that as it may, we all still agreed to follow the law. Everyone who still lives in this town would agree with me; you’re the only one who feels this ridiculous way.”
The rebellious one scowled. “When everyone else is trying to make you change what you believe in, but you know that your right, then sometimes it’s your duty to plant yourself like a tree, and tell the rest of the world to move.”
With a sigh, the first man fell silent; there was nothing you could say when his old friend was in this kind of mood. He meant well, and he’d come to his senses in a while. Until then, they could just sit here quietly, enjoying the warmth of the sinking afternoon sun.