No Safe Refuge
Christopher C. Gibbs

Copyright 2000
International Standard Book Number: 1-929612-03-6
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-068801

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In the summer of 1919, America was entangled in the Great Red Scare. Leaders from the federal to the local levels feared that domestic radicals would snatch away the fruits of victory just won in the "war to end war." Secret agents, both official and self-appointed, spread across the land, stirring up hornets' nests of vigilantism and trouble. On July 4th, all of this bursts like a summer storm, fierce and unexpected, on Deputy Sheriff Jim Buckner, of Corinth, Missouri.

In 1917, Buckner had returned to his native Highland County from service on the Western Front with a chestful of medals and a wound that ended his cavalry career. The job of deputy was given to him as a way of recognizing his bravery and supporting his once-prominent family, now on hard times. To everyone's surprise, he takes the work seriously. But he is not sure how to respond when three "Red-hunters" come to town looking for local revolutionaries. They press Buckner to assist them. Buckner, unconvinced that there is any danger of revolution, moves slowly until one of the men is found murdered.

Buckner's search for the killer teaches him much about his home and about police work. A novice at investigation, he relies on the advice of his boss, Sheriff Aubuchon, and on his own expertise as a scout and tracker with the US Cavalry on the Mexican Border. He also has to handle complex and changing personal relationships with his family and with a beautiful war-widow that he meets along the way. He is both helped and hindered by a variety of people, including a pregnant hillbilly woman, an elegant Madame, and a shell-shocked doctor; he encounters a Marxist organizer and a black saloonkeeper, prostitutes, terrorists, and businessmen. Finally, after literally going through fire, he uncovers the link between the killer, the victim, and local radicals. In a violent climax, he brings an end to the Red Scare in Corinth.