Smokin' Six-Shooter

by B. J Daniels

  “I’m going to call her,” Dulcie said.

  “Be careful what you say,” Russell said behind her. “I’m afraid of what she might do when she remembers.”

  Dulcie didn’t hear him as she listened to her sister’s message.

  JOLENE STARED AT THE LIGHT through the trees. She felt the faint push of memory. The feel of the warm creek water on her bare feet. The night pitch-black. The scorching wind carrying the scent of dust and dry grass and the smell of desperation.

  Crying on the bank of the creek, rubbing her eyes with her fists, her hands as dirty as her clothing. Her stomach aching because she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. A bowl of cereal.

  She’d gone home for lunch, but her mother had been napping and the refrigerator was empty. Was that when she’d first gotten really scared? She’d kept telling herself that her mommy would get better.

  Jolene had a flash of memory: her mother sitting across from her, talking too fast, scary happy, eyes too bright just as she’d seen her before, too many times.

  “Everything is going to be all right now, sweetie. Fin is going to take us far away from here. Don’t cry. He’ll be your new daddy. He’ll buy you things. He’ll take care of us. He isn’t like the others.”

  The memory fell over her, the weight of it stealing her breath, the pain of it making her want to curl up in a ball on the floor.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” She couldn’t think about this now. She had to get up to the schoolhouse. Stepping into the kitchen, she opened the top drawer. The butcher knife was long, the handle warm in her hand. As the blade caught the light, she flinched as if she could feel the blade cutting through flesh.

  She started to put it back, repulsed, her stomach revolting as she remembered the smell of blood. Blood pooling on the once-white sheets, her mother’s vacant eyes. She stumbled back from the open drawer, afraid she might black out, the knife gripped in her hand.

  Fighting back the darkness that threatened to pull her under, she stepped out the back door and, keeping the knife hidden behind her, started up the hill. She could see the light burning in the schoolhouse, knew who was waiting up there for her.

  Do you remember yet?

  You know who killed her. You’ve always known.

  “JOLENE?” DULCIE GLANCED over at Russell next to her standing on the steps of the small house and knocked again on Jolene’s door. The lights were on inside the house and both her car and her bike were out front.

  When she didn’t get an answer, Dulcie tried the door and found it unlocked. Her heart in her throat, she opened the door. “Jolene?”

  The house looked empty. She stood rooted to the floor and Russell hurried past her to search for her sister.

  Dulcie felt numb, too afraid almost to breathe, let alone help him search.

  “She’s not here,” he said when he returned.

  The house had felt empty, empty as she felt inside. She glanced at the computer sitting on a desk under the window in the corner.

  “I’m going to go look for her,” Russell said, heading for the door.

  “Wait. I don’t want you going alone. I want to check something.” If Jolene had been writing the murder story, wouldn’t it be on her computer?

  She stepped to the desk, pulled up the chair and with trembling fingers touched the mouse. The screen lit up, the words leaping out at her.

  You know who killed her. You’ve always known. But you don’t want to remember the blade of the knife, dripping bright red with your mother’s blood, or the hand holding it.

  “Oh, God, Russell. It’s here on the computer. At least part of it,” Dulcie cried. “It looks as if she is in the middle of writing it—”

  More words began to appear on the screen. “She’s typing it right now from another computer. The schoolhouse. The computers must be connected.”

  “There’s a light on at the school,” he said, opening the front door. “I’m going up there. Stay here.”

  Before she could stop him, he was gone, the door closing behind him. She looked down at the computer screen.

  It’s hard to admit, isn’t it? This secret you’ve been keeping all these years. You wanted her dead. You wished it that night on the creek. Loving her was so hard. Sometimes you hated her.

  You wanted to be with your sister, with your grandparents in their nice house your mother told you about.

  Dulcie had to stop reading to rub her eyes to clear them of tears.

  You wanted to be the chosen one who got to leave your mother and didn’t have to listen to her crying at night and laughing with men and that horrible squeak of the bed springs when she told you to go play at the creek.

  She’s dead because you

  Dulcie stared at the screen. Why had she stopped typing? Russell couldn’t have reached the school yet.

  THE NIGHT WAS BLACK. Earlier the wind had been hot and stinging. Now as Russell walked up the road, he sensed something had changed.

  He looked to the west, past what was left of Old Town Whitehorse, and thought he saw something glitter behind the Little Rockies. Lightning? A low, distant rumble followed.

  The air around him suddenly felt cooler, the wind in his face smelling of rain. He couldn’t believe it. Rain? Finally this horrible hot, dry weather would end.

  As he neared the schoolhouse, he told himself a lot of things would end tonight. The thought scared him. Dulcie and her sister had been through so much. They were strong, but were they strong enough to face this?

  He glanced back, wishing now he hadn’t left Dulcie alone in the house. But bringing her with him was out of the question. He had no idea what he would find at the schoolhouse.

  Was there any doubt now that Jolene was the author of the murder story? Was she even aware of it? He could see that, like tonight, she might have gotten up in the middle of the night to write it and then taken the story to the schoolhouse to leave it for her conscious self to find.

  How disturbed was Jolene? They’d all thought that her being unable to remember was because she’d seen her mother’s murderer. But what if they’d been wrong? What if she’d killed her mother? That could explain why she’d buried the memory so deep that it could only surface as if someone else was telling the story—and why the town had banned together to protect her.

  At the schoolhouse, he stopped to listen. A bolt of lightning splintered the sky; this time the answering boom of thunder followed close behind. The wind kicked up, moaning along the eaves. Closer, the limbs of the old cottonwood scraped against the side of the building, making his skin crawl.

  He reached for the doorknob and realized it was sticky and wet with…The door swung open. He stared down at his hand in the dim light. Blood.

  His gaze shot up at a sound. Jolene stood just inside the door. Her face was distorted in fear, her mouth open. She was saying something but the wind was stealing her words before they reached him. Or maybe he didn’t hear what she was saying because he was too busy staring at the butcher knife clutched in her hands, the blood dripping from the tip onto the hardwood floor at the feet.

  Her mouth opened but he never heard her yell.

  The blow came out of the darkness. Something hard and cold struck his temple. He reached, his fingers brushing fabric as he fell, a familiar face peering down just before the darkness closed in around him.

  DULCIE WAITED ANXIOUSLY for something more to appear on the screen. She could hear the howl of wind and looked up to see tree branches whipping in the gale outside. Shadows flickered wildly. She could barely make out the dim light at the schoolhouse.

  Russell must have reached the schoolhouse. That’s why Jolene had quit typing the story. She glanced out the window toward the faint light glowing through the blackness.

  She started to push away from the computer when words began to appear again.

  You killed your own mother.

  And now you have to kill yourself the same way you killed her. It’s the only way your story will end.

  Dulcie stared at the scr
een in horror. Jolene wasn’t the one writing this. She shot up out of the chair and ran to the door, praying she wasn’t too late.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Russell! Russell!” The wind tore away her words and lashed her hair around her face as Dulcie ran up the road toward the schoolhouse. Lightning flickered on the horizon. A soft boom sounded like gunfire in the distance.

  Up the road she could see the dim light in the building. A shadow moved in front of it, making her catch her breath. Jolene? Or Russell?

  The first cold drops of rain splattered on the dusty ground, pelting her as they began to fall harder. The rain mixed with her tears of fear as she topped the hill and, turning into the school yard, came up short.

  The door into the schoolhouse stood wide open.

  “Russell?” She mounted the steps cautiously. “Russell?” No answer and yet she’d just seen someone inside when she was coming up the hill.

  She stepped through the small cloakroom with its hooks and shelves for coats and boots. As she rounded the corner, she saw her sister.

  Jolene stood at the front of the classroom, her back to the wall. A large, bloody knife on the floor at her feet. Her sister didn’t seem to hear her come in.

  Oh, God, where was Russell? “Jolene?” Dulcie said cautiously.

  “Run!” Jolene yelled. “Run, she has a—”

  Gun. Dulcie saw the gun before Jolene got the word out.

  Ronda Carpenter stepped out from behind the door to the supply room, holding a semiautomatic in both hands, the barrel pointed at Dulcie’s chest. Her face was twisted into a nasty sneer and the left side of her blouse was soaked with what looked like blood.

  A trail of blood drops led from Ronda to the computer on the side of the classroom. Next to the chair was a small pool of blood where Ronda had apparently been sitting. Sitting typing the murder story, Dulcie realized.

  “Close the door and lock it,” Ronda ordered.

  “Where’s Russell?” Dulcie asked, her voice cracking as she closed the door and pretended to lock it. She was soaked to the skin and shivering, terrified for the man.

  “Now go over and stand by your sister,” Ronda ordered.

  Dulcie met Jolene’s terrified gaze and read more than fear in it. “Where is Russell?” she asked, this time of Jolene.

  Jolene looked as if she were in shock. “I’m starting to remember,” she whispered. “It’s my fault. I wished our mother dead. I—”

  “That’s right,” Ronda said. “You killed her.”

  “No, I loved her. I didn’t want her killed.”

  “You told my son you wanted her dead!” Ronda cried. “You told my son. My beautiful boy.”

  Jolene was crying now. “I didn’t mean it. I was angry at her for making me go with the rainmaker to live somewhere else. I knew things wouldn’t be better there. I knew.”

  Dulcie thought she understood now. Nine-year-old Tinker Horton wanting to help his little friend, wanting to protect his pregnant mother because he thought his stepfather was having an affair with Laura. Wanting to spare Angel from trying to take care of a self-absorbed mother.

  “Ben was having an affair with Laura,” Dulcie said. “Was he going to leave you, and Tinker thought he could keep Ben from going and you from being hurt by killing Laura?”

  Ronda laughed. “Ben hated Laura because she was encouraging me to leave him. I was the one leaving Ben—until he found out I was pregnant. He didn’t give a damn about me, but he wanted his kid.” Bitterness rimmed her voice. “Tinker thought Ben threw me down the stairs to get rid of the baby because he wanted to be with Laura. He’d seen Ben coming from Laura’s house. He didn’t know that Ben had gone over there to threaten Laura to stay away from me and quit putting fool ideas into my head.”

  “How could you stay with a man who threw you down a flight of stairs?” Dulcie asked.

  Ronda shook her head, anger and bitterness burning in her eyes. “I threw myself down the stairs. I knew if I had that baby, I’d never be free of Ben. Laura was my best friend. She promised to help me leave him.”

  Dulcie felt her blood turn to ice. This woman was crazy. Or maybe worse, completely sane and evil. “But you stayed with him.”

  “He was blackmailing me! He knew Tinker killed Laura. He was going to the sheriff unless I stayed with him. He said I owed him a baby.”

  Mace. Mace had been the baby she owed Ben? “Why would you make a bargain like that?” Dulcie demanded, horrified. “You had to know that one day it would come out. That Jolene would remember…” The rest of her words died away as she realized that Ronda was the one who’d gotten Jolene back to Whitehorse.

  RUSSELL CAME TO IN the dark to the sound of driving rain. At first he thought he must be dreaming, it had been so long since he’d heard rain like that.

  His head ached and he felt confused. He touched his temple and came away with blood on his fingers. It took a moment for him to remember what had happened.

  He sat up with a start, his head swimming. Dulcie! He’d left her at Jolene’s house but, knowing her, she wouldn’t have stayed there long. She would have come looking for him. She would have—

  He shoved away the thought as he remembered Jolene standing in the schoolhouse, a bloody knife in her hand.

  Rain pounded the tin roof overhead. He realized that he must be in the garden shed next to the schoolhouse because he’d seen the lawnmower and some garden tools in the flash of lightning.

  Staggering to his feet, he tried the door, not surprised to find it locked from the outside. He felt around in the dark shed until he found a hoe and using it as a lever was able to force it between the shed door and the wall.

  The cheap latch on the shed door gave with a snap. Still holding the hoe, Russell listened but could hear nothing except the storm. He’d been so wrong about who killed Laura Beaumont, he thought, as he shoved open the shed door and looked out into the rain.

  He moved quickly, the hoe in both hands like a bat in case he ran into the person who’d hit him. But there was no one outside the shed nor along the side of the schoolhouse. He reached the front, saw that the door stood open, just as before.

  Only this time, he was ready in case Tinker Horton was lying in wait for him.

  “WHY DID I STAY WITH BEN? Tinker was my baby,” Ronda said, choking on tears. “I would do anything to protect Tinker—”

  They all froze at the sound of a key in the schoolhouse lock. Dulcie realized that whoever was coming in didn’t realize that she hadn’t locked the door.

  Ronda smiled as Tinker came in, soaked from the rain. He didn’t bother to close the door, seeming in a hurry. “I took care of it for you, Mama,” he said, then saw his mother’s bloody blouse and staggered back. “Oh, no. What happened?”

  “It’s okay, baby. It’s just a flesh wound,” Ronda said. “I’m fine. We’re fine. But there are a couple more things you’re going to have to take care of for me, sweetheart.”

  Tinker seemed to see Dulcie and Jolene then. His eyes widened and he began to shake his head as he saw the bloody knife on the floor.

  “Now don’t get queasy on me, Tinker. Once we clean this up, it will be over,” Ronda said soothingly. “No one will ever know what you did.”

  “Tinker didn’t kill Laura,” Jolene said.

  Ronda’s gaze narrowed. “Ben saw him with the knife. He had blood all over him. He was crying. He—”

  “I startled the killer,” Jolene said, her eyes glazed, her voice sounding strange, as if she were back there in that room that night. “The killer dropped the knife. Tinker had followed me to the house. I saw him as I ran out. He must have picked up the knife.” Her gaze seemed to clear. “Tinker didn’t kill Laura.” She looked at the rodeo cowboy. “You didn’t kill her.”

  “Now don’t you go trying to confuse my boy,” Ronda said. “He knows what he did and he—”

  Dulcie saw Jolene swing her gaze to Ronda. “You killed her, Ronda. I saw you. I heard what you were saying. You’d found out
she was running off with the rainmaker. She’d lied about helping you when you left Ben. In fact, she’s the one who told Ben you were pregnant, wasn’t she?”

  “You let your son believe all these years that he—”

  “Shut up!” Ronda snapped, cutting Dulcie off. “Don’t listen to her, Tinker. She’s the one who told you she wanted her mother dead, remember? She’s the one who’s to blame for this.”

  Dulcie caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Russell had entered the schoolhouse and was sneaking along the cloakroom wall behind Tinker and his mother. Dulcie’s heart soared, then came crashing down. Ronda had a gun. She had to warn him. Or at least distract Ronda.

  “Once we take care of things,” Ronda was saying, “I can leave Ben for good, just like you’ve always wanted me to do, Tinker.”

  “You didn’t stay with Ben because of Tinker,” Dulcie said. “Ben must know the truth. That’s why you stayed with him. He was blackmailing you, but not about Tinker.”

  Tinker suddenly went pale. “No, tell me that isn’t why you had me…” His voice broke and Dulcie felt as if she might be sick.

  “Ben was a bastard,” Ronda said to her son. “You did the world a favor.” She glanced down at her bleeding side. “Look what your precious Angel did to me. She tried to kill me because of you.”

  “She’s lying, Tinker,” Jolene said, sounding more calm than Dulcie right now. “Your mother took the knife from me and stabbed herself in the side.”

  “That’s a lie,” Ronda snapped then laughed. “Why would I stab myself?”

  “She has a gun,” Jolene said. “Would I stab a woman holding a gun? She is going to blame all of this on you, Tinker. She’s going to let you take the fall for all of it.”

  Tinker looked to his mother. Like Dulcie, he must have seen Ronda’s hand holding the gun waver as she considered turning it on her son.