Ellen Hart Presents Malice Domestic 15: Mystery Most Theatrical. Karen Cantwell
The calm she had worked so hard to create evaporated. Shane was a bully and bullies were dangerous.
She ducked through the door of the stone building. Smitty stood in front of an open forge at the far end of the shop. He served as both prop master and armorer, but now the muscles of his shoulders rippled with each hammer stroke as he worked a glowing piece of iron. A woman wearing her weight in turquoise jewelry leaned against the fence that kept guests from straying too close to the forge.
“You just missed the sheriff,” he called out.
If only.
The woman glanced toward Cassidy, but quickly returned her attention to the sweaty blacksmith.
Cassidy entered the employee equipment room and found her Colt House Pistol waiting for her on the workbench. On a ranch, a gun was just another tool. She’d dispatched more than one rattlesnake while checking her family’s irrigation ditches. This pistol was different. It was a pretty little thing, manufactured in the 1870s. Elaborate engraving swirled across the brass frame and the handle sported pearl grips. When it worked properly, the cylinder held four .41 caliber rounds and resembled a four-leaf clover—which explained why it was dubbed the Cloverleaf. And with only a one-and-a-half-inch barrel, a user would need the luck of the Irish to hit anything.
Frontier life was hazardous for anyone, but more so for women. As a saloon girl, Cassidy would have carried a single shot derringer—it was the only gun tiny enough to stay tucked in a garter. Twice now, she’d jostled the small 4-shot revolver right out of the holster when she ran across Main Street. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how the cylinder had become jammed. Although for the record, it had happened before she came along.
Still, if there was one thing a person from the west could spot at a hundred paces, it was a toy gun. The history buff in her appreciated the effort the resort made to bring realism to the show.
Theater arts took considerable liberties with range-safety rules, but even blank rounds were dangerous. They didn’t have a projectile per se, but the firing pin still created an explosion, and depending on proximity, exploding gas could be lethal.
As the armorer, Smitty prepped the guns for the daily shows, but Cassidy always performed a safety check. She’d been handling guns for years. It was habit.
The pistol had been recently polished and not a smudge marred the glinting brass. She drew the hammer back and sighted down the barrel, rotated the cylinder. The bottom of each cartridge lay flush with the edge of the cylinder. Just like they should.
Across the forge, Smitty plunged the red-hot iron in a tub of water and the sizzle of steam hissed like an angry snake. You’ll be regretting them words ‘fore too long.
Cassidy’s heart beat high in her throat and she stared at the pistol in her hand for a long moment. She had to face facts. No matter how much she wanted to believe otherwise, Shane was unhinged. And she was squarely in his crosshairs.
She propped her foot on a bench and with a shaking hand, wedged the revolver into her garter holster.
The chapel bell began to toll the noon hour and she scribbled a note to Smitty.
Today’s script needed a new ending and it was time to pick a fight.
It’s High Noon Somewhere
The tap of Cassidy’s granny boots marked her progress along the boardwalk, each step jostling the brass in the cloth purse dangling from her waist. Plenty of other costumed employees worked at the ranch, but with the exception of Shane, the gunslingers had all been plucked from the Echo Valley College theater group and had known each other for years. Smitty had once mentioned that Shane had drifted into town like a tumbleweed, but no one knew much about him. The daily frontier show was a cheesy high noon shootout where good always prevailed, hats were either black or white, and everyone got shot, but no one was ever hurt.
The midday sun beat down on Curly Joe as he sat in front of the Assayer’s Office, his chair tipped back on two legs with his black cowboy hat pulled low over his face. Resort guests glanced at him as they paused to look in the window at the chunks of silver ore and gold nuggets on display, but no one disturbed his siesta.
An errant gust slapped the iron Wells Fargo Bank sign and it creaked eerily above the door of the narrow building. On the corner stood a solid adobe building with a barred window high on the wall that overlooked the street. Slim Jenkins, the most fearsome gun in the west, would be inside the cell on the other side of the jail wall, waiting for his cue.
It was as if the whole town was holding its breath. Anxious.
Sheriff McMasters leaned against the opened doorframe and eyed Cassidy as she neared. She felt her face twist with anger and struggled to wipe it clear. He grinned as he placed two fingers along the brim of his cowboy hat in a mocking salute.
Cassidy stepped into the street to give the bay mare tethered to the hitching post an apple. It wasn’t in the script and she knew it would provoke him. Frankly, she didn’t care. The mare’s whiskers tickled her palm as the horse lipped the apple out of her hand. It was oddly reassuring. A moment of normalcy in the minutes before everything changed.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be, Nellie?” His voice held an unexpected menace and she raised herself on her tiptoes to see over the mare’s shoulders. He’d taken a step toward her, his face flushed.
You’ll be regretting them words ‘fore too long.
“Now that you mention it, I’m late for a meeting with the devil.” She patted the mare’s neck, at once reluctant to leave and anxious to get away. No sense delaying. She’d made her decision.
Tinny piano music lured her across the street, and she stopped in front of the saloon.
Inside, Rusty would be slamming a sarsaparilla while sitting at the Faro table with Six-fingered Sanchez and any number of thirsty guests. He had his back to the wall, and his eye to the street, waiting to see the flounce of her petticoat that set the drama in motion. Already other employees were roping off the street behind her to give the actors their space.
“You’re a stinkin’ cheat!” Sanchez yelled from inside.
The piano music abruptly stopped, and the swinging doors slammed against the outside wall. Rusty crashed onto the boardwalk at Cassidy’s feet, rolled twice, and came up in a crouch. “Ain’t no one call me a cheat and live to tell the tale.”
Guests plastered their faces to the windows. Strollers gathered closer, eager to watch the drama unfold.
Sanchez barreled onto the boardwalk. The six fingers on his right hand twitched above the handle of his gun. “I’m going to give you one chance to hightail it out of this town.” He stared hard at Rusty. “And you best start before I change my mind.”
More guests craned out over their balconies to watch the show. Cassidy scooped up Rusty’s black hat and stepped between the two men. “That’s the bottle courage talking. I’m sure we can settle this peacefully.” She smacked the hat against Rusty’s chest. “Step back inside. Let me buy you a drink.” She turned and smiled at Sanchez. “On the house.”
“Ah, Nellie,” Sanchez said. “You know I can’t refuse you when you smile at me all pretty-like.”
Rusty snorted. “Well, if this ain’t something. Ol’ Six-finger’s sweet on a sportin’ woman.”
Cassidy concentrated on not rolling her eyes. Sporting women worked in bordellos, not saloons. “You hush, Rusty,” she said. “You know my heart belongs to the sheriff.”
Blech. Whoever wrote this drivel should be tarred and feathered, and had obviously never met the sheriff in question.
Cassidy kept her focus on the two men in front of her, but listened for the creak of leather and scrape of metal behind her. After all, the three of them were just the distraction while Curly Joe set up.
“Gentlemen.” Cassidy put