Meeting the Man

Several weeks later when I got a call to report to Mounted

Headquarters for a meeting with Inspector Johnson, I figured that Maloney
had let the cat out of the bag and that I was about to be recruited. I didn’t
know how I was going to explain to the man in charge why I didn’t want to
have anything to do with the unit without insulting him. I was determined to
resist any sunshine he was about to blow up my ass concerning what a
glorious future I might look forward to fighting crime on horseback.
As it turned out I didn’t have a chance to say anything. Inspector
Johnson or Big Ed as the boys in his unit affectionately called him, broke
right into his spiel.
Tapping his finger on a pile of papers on his desk, he asked me, “Do
you know what this is, Leeson?” I confided that I didn’t. “Well, let me tell
you what this is,” he said, slamming his fist down on the desk. “This is about
the most important god dammed thing that has ever happened around here!”
I’ll admit he had sparked my curiosity. Picking up the papers and fanning
them in my direction, he said, “What I have in my hand is the final
authorization for the expansion of the Mounted Unit. We’re going to fill all
those old stables again. Hell, they’ve even agreed to build some new ones.
Imagine,” he said, “Forty or fifty new horses and twice that many men!”
He finally took a breath and I used the opportunity to formulate an
intelligent question. “How come?” I blurted out. “How come?” he roared.
“I’ll tell you ‘How come?’ The bastards have finally realized just how
valuable Mounted Units are. Don’t you read the papers, son? There’s riots
breaking out all over the world and what’s the best way to deal with them?
Horses, horses and more horses.” He got to his feet and paced up and down
the width of his office, railing on about the advantages of using horses for
police work and he only stopped when another Inspector with some urgent
business to attend to appeared in his open doorway.
I felt like I had been to revival meeting as I accepted his card and took
my leave. “Call me son,” he said. “I need men like you.”
As good as his sermon was, I had not yet seen the light and dismissed
the idea of joining up.