by Cindy Brown
I turned my head. Billie had pinned the snake with a broom. She reached down and grabbed it right behind its head. “Can’t turn and bite me from here,” she said. She picked it up, holding the rest of the snake’s body with her other hand. “Okay, folks, please proceed calmly out of the theater, staying quiet. But you,” she said to a tourist busy snapping photos with his phone, “take a picture of me, would you? Send it to info at goldbug.com.”
“For posterity?” I asked as quietly as I could while keeping a good, oh, twelve feet away from the rattler.
“For ammunition. I want a raise.”
“But you just started work here, right?” Gold Bug Gulch had only been open a few weeks.
“I only want what’s right. Chance gets paid more than me. Mongo did too. Nathan says it’s because they handle guns.” She held the snake up and it flicked its forked tongue at her. “I think a rattlesnake wrangler should be worth at least as much.”
Chapter 32
“All those critters crawled onstage?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Seems like they’d be more likely to hide somewhere dark.” Uncle Bob flipped a burger on the grill, and it sizzled and popped. I wanted to talk to someone after my overly exciting day at the Gulch. Matt was busy working on a big paper that was due on Monday, so I stopped by my uncle’s house and was persuaded to stay for dinner. Truth be told, I’d been hoping for an invitation. The only thing better than a talk with my uncle was a talk with him in his nice green backyard over one of his big juicy burgers and a cold beer. “I s’pose they could have been drawn by the warmth of the stage lights. But not real probable if you ask me.”
I got up from my folding chair and went to stand near him, the heat from the barbecue somehow comforting. “The guy who manages the reptile house told us the animals escaped. But you’re telling me that…”
“I don’t think they’d head for the stage. Unless someone helped them get there.”
After burgers and beer and a bit more conversation about reptiles and such, Uncle Bob and I sat in his small backyard, enjoying the balmy, barbecue-scented November evening.
“So the police said Mongo’s death was an accident?” Uncle Bob settled into his lawn chair with a second beer.
“Yeah, but between that and the plumbing issue and the reptiles, I’m beginning to think there’s something else going on. That maybe someone doesn’t want Gold Bug Gulch to succeed.”
“Like who?”
“There’s a guy named Frank, an old desert rat who wants to protect some bats in the mine. Seems like kind of thing he might do.”
“The vandalism or killing Mongo? Those are two different animals.”
I sighed. “I know. I can’t see any of the people I’ve met being involved in murder.”
“Anyone else who could be involved?”
“Not sure. The only other people I’ve turned up are investors and employees. Why wouldn’t they want Gold Bug to work out?”
We sat in silence for a moment, thinking and drinking in the coolness of the plant-filled backyard. My green-thumbed uncle was quite the gardener.
“This is beginning to sound dangerous,” said Uncle Bob. “Maybe you shouldn’t—”
“Hey,” I said, “there’s something else I wanted to ask.”
“What’s that?” My uncle wasn’t usually so distractible. Maybe it was his third beer.
“Did you know Dad likes cowboys?”
“Yeah. It’s always been a dream of his to own a little land and a few horses. He was even saving up for a place when you all lived in Spokane. Had his eye on a few acres over the state line in Idaho.”
“Really? How do I not know this?”
“Probably because he gave up on it. After Cody’s accident.”
“Oh.” I felt like I’d been socked in the stomach.
“Not your fault, Olive. Don’t even go there.”
How could I not? I’d never even thought about how Cody’s accident had affected my parents’ dreams. Just mine.
“Olive…” My uncle was reading my mind.
“Okay. Okay.” Now I wanted to distract both of us: me from guilt-tripping myself into a bad place and Uncle Bob from worrying about any danger in Gold Bug. So I said the next thing that came to mind: “What do you know about Annie Get Your Gun?”
Uncle Bob leaned back and stretched his legs out. He loved showing off his trivia knowledge. “I know that Ethel Merman made the role famous in the stage play, but Bernadette Peters, Reba McEntire, and Susan Lucci—that soap opera star—played Annie too. I know that Rodgers and Hammerstein produced the original show. I know that Jerome Kern was supposed to write the music, but he died, so they got Irving Berlin. They had to make a few replacements in the film too. Judy Garland was slated to star but got mad at Busby Berkley and started coming in late, generally making a mess of things. Probably more about pills than the director, but anyway, Judy was replaced by Betty Hutton, and Busby was replaced by George Sidney.
“The film won a couple of awards, but Berlin hated it. Word was he never liked Betty Hutton in the role, and he made enough noise about copyright to keep the film out of distribution for years. It wasn’t until its fiftieth anniversary in 2000 when it was finally released on video.”
I slapped at a mosquito. They loved Uncle Bob’s backyard. His was one of the few in the neighborhood that had actual green plants that needed watering (most folks had desert landscaping; i.e., gravel and yucca). “And what do you know about Annie Oakley?”
“She was a famous sharpshooter, one of the most famous women in the world at one point. Married to Frank Butler, another sharpshooter. Toured with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West—Cody didn’t say ‘Wild West show’ so that the, well, show seemed more authentic.”
I waited, but there was nothing more except the sound of Uncle Bob nailing a mosquito. “That’s it? That’s all you know about Annie Oakley?”
Uncle Bob cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah.”
Alrighty then. I knew what I had to do. If Annie Oakley could change the way the world thought about women, I could change the way the world thought about Annie Oakley. At least I could try.
When I got home, I made a quick call to Arnie and Marge, then called Billie. “I’ve got a piece of good news and a proposition. You’ll have to talk to Nathan about what he pays you, but Arnie is giving you a raise for your melodrama work. Same pay as Chance.”
Actually it was Marge who’d make sure Billie got a raise. When she heard about the pay difference, she was furious that Arnie had just accepted the numbers Nathan had quoted him. “Just saving us some money, babe,” Arnie’d said. I hung up pretty quickly after that. Marge could really project.
“That’s great. Thanks. What’s the proposition?”
I explained my Annie Oakley brainwave.
“Love it,” she said. “But…”
“I’ve got it all figured out. I just need your help with few things.”
“You got it. Not only do I owe you one, but after seeing what you did today with goats and flowers, I’m a fan.”
Chapter 33
On my way to Gold Bug the next morning, I swung by Sunnydale to check the wildlife cameras. Nothing. Several pictures of coyotes drinking out of the water hazards, but no Chihuahuas. No Lassie.
Light traffic on a Sunday, so I made it to Gold Bug two hours early, as promised. The sewer stink had dissipated and the flowers looked great, but…
“I miss the goats,” Billie stood in the open door of the opera house, reading my mind. “Cute little guys,” she said as I followed her inside. “Maybe I’ll get a couple. Mongo never wanted any animals, except for horses. ‘They earn their keep,’ he’d said.”
At last. A way to ask the question I needed to know. “Was it a money thing? Somebody said something about Mongo trying to get out of a business deal.”
“
Who? Josh?”
“I shouldn’t say.”
“It better not be Josh. After all it took for Mongo to put aside that old feud. Besides, far as I know, he hadn’t invested yet. He was still thinking about it.”
“Invested? In what?”
“I don’t know. Some big secret deal. And I don’t want to talk about it.” Billie wiped at her eyes. “It’s not you, Ivy. I just can’t…Can we focus on this new Annie Oakley thing instead?”
“Of course. I’m so sorry.” I was. I knew one of the best ways to get information out of people was to catch them when they were emotional, but I didn’t like doing it. That said, I did like the new Josh info.
“So,” she said. “I found a costume that’ll work great and revamped the melodrama script. Good thing it’s in the public domain. Chance should be here any minute. We should have time to run the new bit at least twice before the show.”
But Chance didn’t show up. Billie called his cell, but it just rang and rang.
“Do you think he’s okay?” I asked
“You know, I’m not sure which he felt worse about, actually shooting Mongo or being suspected of doing it on purpose. Now that everyone knows it was an accident, well, he was celebrating pretty hard last night. Let’s you and I run through the script.”
We did, and I got dressed and in makeup and still no Chance. Finally, five minutes before showtime, he staggered into the hallway outside the dressing rooms. He looked like hell, unshaven and kind of pale green, but already in costume at least.
“All right,” Billie said. “Since you missed rehearsal, you’re just going to have to wing this. We made a few changes to the script. You don’t tie Ivy to the tracks any more. You’re going to push her offstage, hold a gun on her, and say these lines.” She held a piece of paper out to Chance. “Then—”
“No. Not without rehearsal.” Chance’s voice sounded funny, throaty and staccato. He didn’t reach for the page Billie held.
“You’re supposed to be a professional,” Billie said. “Act like one.”
“Doing this without rehearsal is not professional.”
“You know, we can wait—” I interrupted.
“C’mon, Chance, after all, we both know what a great actor you are.”
Between Billie’s taunting tone and Chance’s glare, I could tell this was about more than a rehearsal. I was a detective, after all. They must have had a fight after leaving yesterday.
Chance grabbed the sheet of paper and stalked off to wait in the wings.
“You really want to go through with this without any rehearsal?” I asked Billie. Chance was right. It was unprofessional.
“It’ll be okay,” she said. “Chance really is a great actor.”
The beginning of the show went fine. My costumes stayed put and no critters crawled across the stage. But as we neared the new unrehearsed section, my palms begin to sweat. It didn’t help that Chance had a crazed look in his eyes.
He pushed me offstage right, like he was supposed to. Then he said something he wasn’t supposed to: “I’ve got you now, my pretty.” Offstage, I ran through the cramped backstage to stage right, undoing my Velcroed costume and unpinning my wig as I went.
“Ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?” Chance was being a good actor, pointing a gun at the place where he’d supposedly left me as Rose. He was also completely making up the script.
“You, escape?” Chance laughed at the invisible Rose’s naivety. “You underestimate the power of the Dark Side.” I skidded into place next to Billie, un-Velcroed my white dress, and dropped it to the floor. Billie grabbed the wig off my head.
“Go on, test me,” Chance said. “Someone did once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”
“Dammit.” Billie guided my arms into a fake buckskin dress. “Chance’s movie stuff works better than the lines I wrote.”
“Just try to escape,” he said. “Go ahead, make my day.”
Billie jammed a cowboy hat on my head. The two pigtails attached to it hung on either side of my face. She handed me a rifle. “I re-checked. They’re definitely blanks. Now go. You’re on.”
I was sweating bullets (pun intended). It wasn’t just the fact that we were unrehearsed, or that I was handling a real gun, but that Chance wasn’t following the script. I sucked at improv.
I stepped onstage. Billie came on right behind me. She held up a sign and the audience read aloud, “Why, it’s Annie Oakley!”
“Turn, you no-good varmint.” I said my scripted lines and pointed my rifle at Chance. “I won’t shoot a man in the back.”
Chance faced me, pointing his long-barreled pistol at my head. “Oh look, it’s a girl with a gun. How sweet.” He may have run out of movie lines, but he still wasn’t following the script.
“Run like the wind, Rose!” I shouted at the space offstage where the ingénue supposedly cowered.
Chance watched the disappearing Rose. “She won’t get far. And I’ll punish her when I catch her. Hmm, now where did I put my whip?”
“Boo,” said the audience. Billie must’ve held up that sign.
“And speaking of running, shouldn’t you run home now?” Chance said. “Someone’s going to be awfully mad if you don’t have dinner on the table on time.”
“Boo,” the audience said again, even though Billie wasn’t holding any sign.
“Guess I’d better hop to it then, ’specially since I need to shoot dinner, skin it, and cook it.” I cocked my gun. “Or maybe I’ll just have liver with some fava beans.” The audience roared. Ha. First good bit of improv I ever delivered.
“Think you’d better stick with beans,” Chance said. “That’s an awfully big gun for a little girl.”
I pulled the trigger. “Boom!” Chance dropped his gun, as if it’d been shot out of his hands. Good. He may have been improvising his dialogue, but he obviously read this part of the script. “That’s for all your villainous deeds,” I said. I stopped myself from rubbing my shoulder. Even full of blanks, the rifle had a kick.
“Boom!” Chance hopped as if avoiding a bullet at his feet. “That’s for Rose.”
“Boom!” He jerked his head so his black top hat fell off. “And that’s for calling me a little girl.”
The audience erupted into applause before Billie could even get the sign up. I kept the rifle trained on Chance. “Now, I’d like you to get over here and apologize to me.” Chance didn’t move. “Did you know I can shoot the apple off a dog’s head?” I sighted the rifle at Chance’s scalp. “Too bad you ain’t got no apple.”
He scuttled over to me.
“Now, I want you to say, ‘My apologies, Miss Oakley, for being a whoreson beetle-headed, flap-ear’d knave.’”
“I didn’t write that,” Billie whispered next to me. I shrugged. Sometimes Shakespeare just came out of my mouth.
“My apologies, Miss—”
“And I want you to curtsey while saying it.”
“My apologies, Miss Oakley, for being a whoreson, beetle-headed, flap-ear’d knave.” Chance curtseyed, spreading his black villain’s coat like a skirt. The audience roared its approval.
“That’s all she wrote, folks,” I said to the audience, “but if you’d like to hear the real story of Annie Oakley, come up and see me after the show.”
Chance bowed and Billie held up a sign that said, “The End.”
But I wasn’t finished. I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it was playing Annie Oakley. Maybe it was all those times I’d listened to the Annie Get Your Gun cast album. Maybe it was the glow I had from my first successful attempt at improv. All I know is that instead of bowing, I opened my mouth.
“It’s fun business, this gun business, like none business I know.” The audience exploded. Everybody loves that song. And my new version all rhymed. Ha.
“Every gal
can be a crack gunslinger…” I sang. So far so good.
“All it takes is spunk and sass and smarts,” I belted, a la Ethel Merman.
“Every shot she takes can be a zinger…” Ack! What rhymes with “zinger”?
“Just pull her finger…” Oh no. Please tell me I didn’t just say that…
“She farts.” Wow. Guess seventh grade is never really behind you.
Despite my last line (or maybe because of it) dozens of girls lined up to hear Annie’s story after the show. And dozens more after the next two shows. Around five o’clock, Billie and I stood in front of the opera house, still in costume. We waved goodbye to the last stragglers and watched Chance perform a few roping tricks in the road. “Loved your stories,” Billie said. “And your Annie Oakley was amazing.”
“It’s you who’s amazing. Coming up with that Annie Oakley costume and new script so quickly.”
“Pretty good for an old broad, huh?” Billie held a hand up against the sun—which illuminated a bruise on her forearm. I instinctively reached for her. She grabbed my hand and shook her head.
“That’s new,” I said quietly.
She shrugged. “Maybe now everyone will believe that it never was Mongo.”
“Is it Chance?” I asked as he lassoed a delighted little boy.
She shook her head. “It’s just sore losers. You wouldn’t believe it. I finally figured it out. I found out where Mongo was going. All those times. It’s not what I thought at all. It was something good.”
Did Billie shake her head because her bruise wasn’t caused by Chance? But he was a sore loser, right? As if on cue, he narrowed his eyes at Billie, then caught me watching him, and looked away.
And what wouldn’t I believe—that it wasn’t Chance or the new information about Mongo? “So where was Mongo going?”
Billie smiled. “I’ll show you. I’ll bring it to the next show.”
“‘It’? Ooh, I love a mystery.”
“Yeah?” said a voice behind me. I must’ve been awfully focused on Billie not to have noticed Nathan coming up behind us. “Then maybe you can solve the mystery of the cars with flat tires.”