Colin was somewhat lost. He had heard tales of a woman working closely with the sheriff – something previously unheard of, even in all his travels. Copper Creek, it seemed, was legendary for her.
“The one that everyone’s been talking about around town? Recently beat out a couple of miners at their own shooting game?”
Amos and Blaze nodded. Blaze took a swig of his beer and wiped his mouth before replying. “Moonshine Mack, that one.”
Moonshine Mack. The name was only somewhat familiar to Colin – he’d only ever heard the name whispered reverently by men on street corners, or scoffed at in disgust by ladies dressed in their Sunday best.
“Yeah. I’ve been told she’s the best sharpshooter in town?”
“For a girl,” Amos started, but Blaze cut him off.
“Even as a man,” he disagreed. “Can’t nobody shoot as well as Mack.” He paused, looking around as if to see if anyone was eavesdropping, then dropped his voice to a low, coarse whisper. “Legend has it she learned from Calamity Jane herself.”
Colin nodded, mildly impressed. But he hadn’t seen the girl himself, yet. She remained nothing more than a tale, nothing more than a story to him. “See her around often?” he queried.
“Brings me back to our story,” Amos boomed, having nearly forgotten that he was in the middle of relaying a tale. “So as we were arguing with these young, pesky fellas, in walks Moonshine Mack herself. And she warn’t no pretty, blushing daisy either – walked straight up to us –”
“Imagine that,” Blaze chuckled, interrupting Amos, “a tiny little gal like herself walking up to four grown men like us.”
“So she walked straight up to us and asked, all mannerly and the like, ‘Somethin’ wrong here, boys?’” Amos was shaking with amusement, laughter dancing in his eyes as he spoke. “And,” he wagged a finger at Colin, “I reckon those boys ain’t never seen a lady before in their lives, by the way they was reacting.”
“Droppin’ all those ma’ams and misses like hot potatoes,” Blaze laughed at the memory. “But that’s the thing about Mack, y’see – she don’t like being called a lady or missus.”
“Really?” Colin had to say he was completely intrigued now. “All this talk, and I don’t even know the girl.”
“Really?” Amos looked surprised. “Never seen her walkin’ around here? She likes the Bandit Kid. Can hold her beer like a man,” he added admiringly.
“Don’t usually come here,” Colin shrugged. “My mother and father would have a fit.”
“Hmmm, lemme see.” Blaze craned his neck, looking around at the groups of people in the cramped space. Colin twisted around to look as well.
“She’s here?”
“Usually is,” Amos commented, swirling his beer. “Likes to come out with the sheriff and her boys down at the office.”
Blaze tapped Colin with a rough jab in the shoulder. “There. Lookit there. Right near the bar.”
Colin squinted, trying to make out exactly where Blaze was pointing. His gaze landed on a distinctly small figure, garbed in flannel and jeans.
“That’s her? The one in the flannel between two men?” said Colin. Blaze grunted the affirmative. Colin kept looking at the figure. Had she not been so small, he might’ve mistaken her for a man, particularly given the way she dressed. The outfit didn’t outline any of her curves in the way dresses would, and she slouched like no other. The only real giveaway of her gender was her dark brown hair, bound in a neat braid that reached the middle of her back.
He was slightly disappointed at not being able to see her face, but then she turned slightly, to address the man on her left, and he was able to capture a brief glimpse. Her face, too, was small, though her chin was sharp and her cheekbones even sharper.
“She doesn’t look particularly menacing,” Colin commented.
“Wait till you see her,” Amos reassured him. “Dead serious face she has – could scare the pants of a grown man, I tell you.”
“I’ll be looking to that, then,” said Colin. He tucked that information into the back of his mind, nodding, though he was certain he wouldn’t be seeing her face-to-face for a while, if ever.
How wrong he was.
***
It didn’t happen on his watch. Colin Hayes was a lot of things: the son of a wealthy merchant, an adventurer, and a younger brother. But he most certainly wasn’t a murderer. He had done a lot of bad things, most notably setting insects on fire as a young boy, but never something to this degree.
The cold efficiency of the act had shocked him almost as much as finding the body. He had happened on the victim by accident while heading back towards the storage shed to restock the tin sluicing pans.
The stretch of land from the shed to the store wasn’t long, though it was quite wide. And so on his way back from the shed, tin pans stacked high in his arms, he’d noticed an odd sort of lump within a patch of scraggly grass and cacti that normally wasn’t there.
It had piqued his curiosity – and he sincerely wished it hadn’t.
The tin pans he’d been carrying all clattered to the ground when he was close enough to see what it was.
The victim was female, likely no older than her mid-twenties and lying in an ungainly heap. Her clothing was rumpled, disheveled and torn, laced with dirt and dust. But worst of all about the whole thing was the steady iron-red trickle of blood that came from the side of her head. He shivered uncomfortably, cold ice trickling down his spine in unwelcome waves.
Colin had never seen anything like it. It wasn’t as if he was a delicate daisy – he’d seen a dead man before, many years before. But a woman? Women weren’t usually victims, and in the time he’d been in Copper Creek he’d never even heard of anyone getting murdered. Sure, there had been the occasional gunfight, but those had been more for show than anything, and usually nobody got hurt past a little bleeding.
He approached the still figure, inching forward on the tips of his toes. He looked around at the vast open space around him, suddenly struck with the thought that the murderer might still be in the vicinity. He could see nothing but the dust and tumbleweed roiling around him.
“Hello? Miss? Can I help you?” He waved his hand around, hoping to elicit some sort of response, anything, from the girl. There was none. She remained as still and silent as the yawning sky and fear stabbed deeper into Colin’s chest.
Deaths were not uncommon in the Wild West. He knew that. Everyone who had ever made the decision to come out to the West had known. But to be so close to a victim was something he’d never thought to experience himself.
“Hello?” He tried again and strained his ears to listen for a sound. Even the sound of breathing would suffice. But there was nothing.
Now, panic had begun to set in. All tin pans ignored, Colin bent down, sick dread twisting his gut. He didn’t know why he was bothering – she seemed so clearly dead. And yet, here he was, wishing, hoping, praying it wasn’t so.
She was cold when he touched her. Colin got up, wiping his hands on his jeans as he turned to head back towards the trade shop. He hurried back inside, heart pounding in his mouth as he skidded out the front doors of the store and towards the general direction of the sheriff’s office.
Some passerby cast him odd glances as he ran by, neatly dodging the occasional dog or horse in his way. The sheriff was located on the far northern end of the town and usually it would have taken a good while to get to. But Colin didn’t have the time.
He ran as if pursued by the devil himself, coughing and blinking as dust choked him and clouded his eyes. The door to the sheriff’s was open when he finally stopped in front of it.
Panting, Colin cast his eyes up at the rickety building. He was unfamiliar with it, having never really had a reason to stop by and walk in.
Nonetheless, he walked in, tugging at his shirt and wiping the sweat off his face as he did so.
“What is it boy?” The man behind the desk slouched heavily in his seat, hat pulled over so much it nearly
hooded his eyes. He had a thick, peppery moustache and beard and the hand that was resting on the table was coarse and leathery with years of work. He was smoking a cigarillo.
His whole composure showed a lack of interest, and with a sinking heart Colin realized he didn’t know how to frame his report without it seeming like he was the killer himself. He was silent for a few moments before the man waved a heavy hand at him.
“Look,” he started impatiently, “if you don’t have anything to report, don’t you come wandering your sorry hide in here to take up my time. Got your things stolen, did you? Too bad.”
“I found a body,” Colin blurted out before giving himself any grace period to think through exactly how he was going to report his discovery. The sheriff behind the desk raised a bushy brow at his words, lowering the smoking joint from between his lips.
“From outside Bandit Kid?” It was a reasonable assumption; in the few months that he had been at Copper Creek, Colin had seen more than his fair share of fistfights outside the saloon.
But Colin shook his head. “Found it a short ways from my storage shed just a while ago.”
The sheriff straightened up in his chair, grabbing a pen and form of sorts from the drawer next to him. Dipping the quill in ink, he paused just above the paper. “’Bout an hour ago, then?”
Colin nodded.
“One of them fellas?” said the sheriff.
“It was a lady.” At that the sheriff paused in his scribbling to look up at Colin, as if he hadn’t heard him correctly.
“A gal?”
“Yes.” Colin nodded the affirmative.
“Hm.” The man scratched at his chin, but said nothing more. He got up suddenly and Colin backed away from the table. He hadn’t even been aware of inching closer to the man.
The sheriff wandered through a side door without giving Colin so much as a second glance. Colin glanced around the room, for the first time taking in the simple interiors of the sheriff’s office. It was cramped, clearly only furnished for conventional purposes.
The room was watery-looking through the weak sunlight that filtered in through the carelessly drawn shades. A sad, deflated armchair was squeezed into the corner, looking as if it might give out at any moment. The sheriff’s desk was completely covered with an assortment of papers and files; clearly, organization wasn’t his strong suit.
Colin shifted on his feet, still feeling quite uncomfortable with the whole situation. Hopefully he could turn the situation over to the law and be done with it. His eyes widened as another thought occurred to him. He would have to tell his parents.
What would he to tell his parents? They would be absolutely aghast at the mere thought of having a murder victim on their property.
The sheriff suddenly returned, two other deputies entering close behind him. They were an odd duo – one a clean-shaven man of great height with tired looking eyes, the other a tiny, familiar looking woman with a firm, unsmiling mouth. The man looked to be in his late twenties, but the woman looked to be in her early twenties; not much older than Colin himself.
It was Moonshine Mack. Ever since his conversation in the saloon with Blaze and Amos, he had wondered about meeting her sometime in his stay in Copper Creek, but certainly not this way. Not at all this way.
“Sam and Mack will be going over with you to the scene,” the sheriff said, waving his two deputies forward. Colin nodded mutely, unsure of what to say.
“Right. If you’ll follow me, then,” said Colin. He spoke with a dry mouth, moving slowly towards the door. The two ghosted silently after him, only the man bothering to give him a brief nod.
The walk back was painfully silent for the first few minutes, but soon after, Colin began to regret wishing it was anything but.
“When did this happen?” the man, Sam, inquired as they walked.
“Um, did the sheriff back there fill you two in?” Colin felt obligated to ask – he didn’t want to repeat anything that had already been said.
“Just that a gal has been murdered and found in the back lot of your store. Near the storage area?” Sam clarified.
“Yes. She was unresponsive and cold when I touched her. Found her a short distance away from my storage shed when I went to go out back for more tin pans.” Colin felt strangely alienated from his body and the whole experience as he spoke.
Mack hadn’t so much as bothered to look at him this whole time, instead seemingly lost in her own thoughts. It seemed Amos and Blaze had been accurate in their description of her – her solemnity and silence unnerved Colin.
“And you didn’t see nobody when you were walking over?”
The more questions Sam asked, the more worried Colin became. It wasn’t that he minded the questions – he was happy to help them out in any way he could. It was the questions that were being asked.
They had started out innocently enough. The basics – who, what, when, where – were easy to answer. They weren’t personal. But when Sam had begun to ask more questions pertaining to Colin specifically, he began to panic.
He figured it was just standard procedure. Perhaps they asked everyone the same questions when it came to murder cases. And yet, he couldn’t answer the questions properly.
Where was he when it happened? He didn’t know; he didn’t know when it happened because he had been in the trading shop the entire day.
Did he know her? Had he ever seen her before? He’d only seen her around once or twice, and it always seemed like she was with another man.
Could he describe her? Pale, with a smattering of freckles across her face and arms. She was wearing a striped, blue dress, and had her hair tied back with a robin’s egg blue bow. She was slim, though nowhere near as petite as Mack. Had hazel hair in loose, limp curls, but he didn’t open her eyes.
Did he have a gun? Yes, he did.
Where was it? In the store.
Had he used it recently? Only for hunting.
Did he see anybody at the scene? No, he didn’t see anybody.
Though he knew he had nothing to do with the murder other than being the unfortunate fellow to have stumbled upon her, by the time the trio reached the trading post, his heart and mind were disoriented, completely derailed in a flurry of panic.
I didn’t do it.
Those were the only words blaring loud alarms in his mind as they headed around the main building to the back. By then, the mid-day heat had begun to settle in, and heat rose off the ground in hazy waves. But even those were not enough to obscure the still form still lying exactly where Colin had left it some time ago.
***
As soon as the body was visible, Mack broke away from the two of them and headed straight for it. She was utterly silent, never saying a word, merely content to observe.
Sam stayed behind with Colin – likely to keep a careful watch on him – but trained his eyes on Mack, anticipating. Mack hurried back a short while later, a grim expression on her face. She motioned for Sam to go over with her and the two of them left Colin standing alone.
It seemed like an eternity of waiting, an eternity of anguish. But Sam must’ve known the girl, Colin thought with mild surprise, because his face contorted with grief and he could hardly bring himself to look. Mack remained level-headed, comforting her partner as they finished their search around the area.
When Mack and Sam next approached Colin, he knew immediately from the looks on their faces that it was nothing good. Mack looked as stoic as ever, but Sam’s face seemed to have acquired lines of worry and grief that hadn’t been there just moments prior.
“If you don’t mind, we’d like you to come in to the sheriff’s office for a bit with us.” Those were the first words Colin had heard Mack say. And as if a puppet being manipulated by a puppeteer, Colin nodded blankly, almost in disbelief of what was happening.
The trudge back to the sheriff’s was even more silent than the trip they had made from it to Colin’s store. It was a miserable walk, heavily lined with heat and dread and terrible anticipation of
what lay in store.
It seemed like a shorter walk to Colin, because they arrived at the sheriff’s much sooner than he had expected. His legs and tongue felt as though they were made of lead. He could hardly bring himself to walk back into the sheriff’s office.
It’s fine. He tried to convince himself of it. They merely wanted more information. If he cooperated and answered all their questions to the best of his ability, he’d be free and on his way home in just a while.
“Mack will be in shortly.” The sheriff directed him to a dingy, small room. Colin nodded miserably, resigning himself to the small, rickety chair.
He waited, and he waited. Time seemed to drag on for eternity, stitching itself into one thick, woolen blanket that stifled his thoughts and movements. Left to their own devices, his thoughts ran rampant, filling his mind with all the worst scenarios possible.
What if they couldn’t find the killer? What if they assumed he was the killer? What if his parents were dragged into this mess as well?
A thousand questions and a thousand regrets hammered away at his mind and conscience, menacing him like a thunderstorm. If left alone for just another while, Colin was certain he would’ve gone mad with suspense and worry.
Mack entered the room just as his panic was beginning to escalate and he crashed back down into bitter reality. She looked at him with her sharp gaze, with eyes that missed nothing and spoke of nothing.
She was good, he noted, at staying aloof and silent. She observed. And he was all too eager to convince her of his innocence in the matter.
“The girl whose body you found is Beth Armstrong.” She said the words matter-of-factly, bluntly, gauging his face for any sign of recognition.
Colin furrowed his brow. The name did ring a bell in his mind. “The girl who – from the bakery?” He vaguely remembered seeing her occasionally buying small items in his shop. If he recalled correctly, her father was a baker, and ran the local bakery just a few blocks away from his trade post.
“Yes.”
***
“Can I ask you a question?” said Colin.
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