Boots and Bullets

by B. J Daniels

  A mixture of alluring scents floated along the street: burgers, chocolate, coffee, hot apple cider, barbecue, cotton candy. But one scent in particular drew him until he found the booth where women were making frybread.

  He breathed in the delicious aroma, remembering another fall when he was five and his father brought him and Cordell into town for the Fall Festival.

  “Two?” the woman behind the counter asked.

  Cyrus started. Did he look as if he needed two frybreads? That’s when he noticed Kate had come up beside him and was doing the same thing he’d done, breathing in the wonderful aroma.

  Her eyes were closed as she breathed in the scent of the frying bread, her expression one of unmitigated pleasure. He smiled to himself, guessing he’d had the same look on his face just moments before.

  “Two,” he confirmed as Kate Landon opened her beautiful green eyes. He couldn’t believe how happy he was to see her and that happiness had nothing to do with his reason for coming to Whitehorse. “I take it you like frybread,” he said with a grin. “I love frybread. This is why I wasn’t about to miss the Fall Festival or miss seeing you again.” She seemed to blush as her last words came out. As he handed her one of the confections covered with sugar and cinnamon, she said, “Thank you, but you didn’t have to buy mine.”

  “My pleasure,” he said, taking his own and motioning to one of the picnic tables in the small park by the railroad line that still took passengers as far as Seattle or Chicago and all points beyond.

  “How is the haunted house coming along?” Cyrus asked as he took a seat across from her.

  “Slowly but surely. I’ve been so busy with getting all the furnishings out of the old hospital and opening my shop that I’m behind.” She took a bite of her frybread, emitting a soft satisfying groan.

  He watched her, smiling as she licked the sugar and cinnamon from her lips, making it hard for him to concentrate on the questions he wanted to ask her.

  “So are you a Whitehorse native?”

  She opened her eyes and shook her head. “West Yellowstone.”

  “That’s quite a change, from a tourist town surrounded by mountains to a prairie town on the Hi-Line just miles from Canada. How did you end up here?” he asked. It was an odd place for a single woman to open a business—unless she came with a husband or a lover, or had family here, he thought.

  She chewed for a moment. “You know how some people spin the globe, close their eyes and pick a spot at random?”

  He nodded. “I understand that’s how a lot of towns along the Hi-Line got their names—Malta, Zurich, Glasgow.”

  “Well, it wasn’t quite that impulsive, but close.”

  “So you don’t have any family here?”

  “I didn’t know a soul when I arrived four months ago, but people are friendly here and I’ve settled in fairly well.”

  “You must like it if you started a business.”

  “Now that was impulsive,” she admitted with a laugh. “I just happened to hit town during an auction. As you might guess, I’m a sucker for auctions and garage sales. When I saw that old library building was being auctioned off, it was love at first sight and the price was dirt cheap. Of course it needs work….” She shrugged, her cheeks dimpling as she smiled.

  He thought she couldn’t look cuter with a few grains of sugar and cinnamon at the corner of her mouth, her emerald eyes sparkling and that smile on her lips.

  “How about you? Other than visiting your former hospital room, what brings you to Whitehorse?” she asked.

  He realized she’d just been waiting for her turn to ask him questions. He figured she hadn’t been kidding earlier about knowing his life history and wondered what in particular she wanted to know. “Originally, it was because of my grandmother. She’d been a recluse for twenty-seven years so I haven’t seen her since I was seven. I got a letter from her lawyer, saying she wanted to see me and the rest of her family.” He shrugged. “Pepper Winchester is…well, there is no one like her. She’d make a great wicked witch for your haunted house.”

  Kate laughed, a wonderful, light sound that made the night feel even more magical. “Was she really that bad when you saw her?”

  “I haven’t seen her yet. I got waylaid in June when I drove up to see her.”

  “The coma,” Kate said, sobering. “What happened?”

  He gave her an abbreviated version of what he’d been told by his brother and had read in the local paper. He got the feeling she might have already heard some of it. What he didn’t tell her was that he now knew why his grandmother had asked him and the rest of the family to come back to Winchester Ranch.

  It had to do with his uncle, Trace Winchester. Trace was the youngest son of Pepper and Call Winchester and Pepper’s favorite. Just recently it was discovered that Trace was murdered twenty-seven years ago.

  Before that he was believed to have taken off, running from a pregnant wife and a poaching charge.

  Cyrus’s grandmother, it seemed, believed that a member of the family might have been involved in Trace’s murder. She was getting everyone back to the ranch to question them.

  She particularly wanted to question her grandsons after discovering they might have witnessed something from a third-floor room at the ranch—a forbidden room that had once been used as punishment.

  “It sounds like trouble has a way of finding you,” she said, studying him. “My instincts tell me to give you a wide berth. Tell me I’m wrong about that.”

  “I’d listen to your instincts,” Cyrus said, sounding and looking serious.

  Kate wished she could. But her instincts also told her that this man knew something about her mother.

  Not just that. She’d noticed when he told about how he’d ended up in a coma, that he’d left out the part about how he’d saved Raine Chandler’s life.

  After helping Jasmine finish the ghost costumes, Kate had made a point of reading the article about Cyrus her friend Andi had been kind enough to print out for her. She’d remembered most of the articles about the child molesters from several months ago, but hadn’t put the names together.

  Cyrus had almost lost his life. As it was he’d lost three months. The man was a hero, an honor she saw he didn’t wear comfortably.

  Was that why she feared—even though the odds were against it—that he really had seen a murder at the hospital? But how could that have anything to do with her mother or her bracelet?

  She finished her frybread, wiped her fingers on the napkin and dabbed at her mouth. She knew she was taking time to screw up her courage and it wasn’t like her. She thought of herself as being fearless—at least most of the time.

  “I need you to tell me why you reacted the way you did earlier when you saw my mother’s bracelet,” she said bluntly.

  Just as she’d expected, she caught him flat-footed. He didn’t seem to know what to say.

  “I know you think you saw a murder at the old hospital the night you were a patient there,” she continued quickly. She’d heard concern in his voice, and when she looked into his dark eyes now she saw worry for her there. There was a connection, just as she’d feared.

  “It has something to do with me, doesn’t it?” she said. “That’s why you looked as if you’d seen a ghost when you saw me at the old hospital, why you came by the shop and why you were so upset when you saw my mother’s silver bracelet.”

  He stared at her in surprise and maybe a little awe and she knew she’d connected the dots correctly. Her heart hammered in her chest. She’d hoped he’d ask her what the devil she was talking about. Or at least try to convince her she had gotten it all wrong.

  “Are you sure you want to hear about it?” he asked quietly.

  Her pulse thundered in her ears at the gravity in his voice. “Yes.” She’d gotten this far in life by meeting obstacles head-on. She couldn’t stop now. Taking a breath, she asked the one question she feared the most. “Does this have something to do with my mother?”

  “Why would you
think what I have to tell you might involve your mother?”

  She shook her head. As far back as she could remember, she’d had a feeling that her mother hadn’t died the way her grandmother had told her.

  “I have my reasons,” she said.

  He just looked at her. She could tell he didn’t want this to be about her mother any more than she did.

  “Do you have a picture of her?” he asked finally.

  “Back at the shop.” As she pushed to her feet, her legs felt weak as water. After all these years, was she finally going to find out what really had happened to her mother? Or was it just as her grandmother had told her and everything else was nothing but a child’s overactive imagination?

  She hated questioning the stories her grandmother had told. Would she be questioning her mother’s death now if it wasn’t for that postcard she’d found in her grandmother’s jewelry box?

  ON THE WALK BACK, Cyrus asked about her mother and the bracelet.

  “My grandmother told me she died of pneumonia just after I was born.”

  “You don’t believe that?”

  She shook her head, clearly not wanting to get into her reasons.

  “What about your father?”

  “He was in the military, killed before I was born in some training exercise that went wrong. They were to be married when he came home on leave. He didn’t even know my mother was pregnant with me when he died.”

  She’d never known either of her parents? Cyrus thought about his own mother, who’d hung in with his father just long enough to give birth to her twin boys before she’d split. He’d never gone looking for her, though sometimes he thought about it.

  “My grandmother, Dimple, raised me.”

  “Dimple?”

  She laughed. “A nickname. She had these wonderful deep dimples when she smiled and she smiled a lot.” Her own smile faded. “She passed away four months ago.”

  Four months. Right before Kate had come to Whitehorse.

  “So Landon was your mother’s name as well as yours.” He could see that talking was taking her mind off the reason they were walking back to her shop. “Yes.”

  Cyrus was as nervous as she was about seeing photographs of her mother. Kate’s resemblance to the woman he’d seen murdered was too much of a coincidence, then throw in the bracelet… Still, he reminded himself that everyone in town swore there had never been a murder. But for his own sanity, he desperately needed to know why he’d dreamed all of this.

  THEY HAD ALMOST REACHED Second Hand Kate’s when Cyrus asked, “How old were you when your grandmother gave you your mother’s bracelet?”

  “She didn’t.” Kate still felt the betrayal. Why hadn’t her grandmother given it to her? “I found the bracelet after my grandmother died. It was hidden in the back of her jewelry box.” Along with the postcard. “Hidden?”

  “I don’t think my grandmother could bear seeing it.” Or didn’t want Kate to see it for some reason, she thought. Just like the hidden postcard.

  They stopped at the bottom of the wide concrete stairs that led up to the front door of the shop. Suddenly Kate was afraid to go inside. All these years she’d told herself she wanted to know the truth. But did she? What if her mother had simply run off and her grandmother’s story was only to protect her?

  “I don’t see what any of this has to do with the bracelet or my mother. She couldn’t be the woman you saw in your dream. How would that be possible?”

  “I’m sure you’re right.”

  So why was she so frightened? She knew the reason. “The woman you saw in your dream resembled me, didn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  She took that news like a blow even though she’d suspected as much given his reaction to her at the hospital. She looked into his handsome face and saw real concern for her. He was as scared as she was that somehow the murder he’d seen involved her.

  “Let’s get this over with.” Kate pulled out her keys, her fingers trembling as she tried to get the key into the front-door lock.

  Cyrus gently took the key ring from her and opened the door.

  “Thank you.” He handed the keys back. She stepped past him to turn on a light and heard him close and lock the door behind them. A car went by with a burst of teenagers’ laughter. In the distance, Kate could hear the low hum of activity at the festival, but the deeper they moved into the old library building, the more deafening the quiet became.

  “If you’ll wait here, I’ll go up and get the photograph album,” she said and hurried up the stairs. She hadn’t invited him up because she needed a moment to herself. At the top, she had to stop and catch her breath. The weight of what was about to happen sat like a boulder on her chest.

  The album was where she’d put it in the hall closet. Taking it down carefully, she hugged it to her. These were the only photographs she had of her mother and like the bracelet, they were priceless to her.

  When she felt a little steadier, she headed back downstairs. She told herself that Cyrus Winchester’s dream couldn’t possibly be about her mother. Because her mother hadn’t been in Whitehorse three months ago. Because in her heart, she knew her mother was dead. But what scared her was that she also knew her mother hadn’t died the way her grandmother had told her.

  As she came down the stairs, she found him waiting where she’d left him. She motioned to a Victorian velvet couch and carried the album over to it to sit down.

  Cyrus joined her. He looked as nervous as she felt as she opened the album to the photographs of her mother taken thirty years ago.

  “This is Elizabeth, my mother.” Carefully, she slid the album over to him and held her breath.

  CYRUS GLANCED DOWN at the young woman in the snapshot. She was holding a baby in her arms and smiling at the camera. She had auburn hair and wide green eyes and her resemblance to Kate was disturbing—Elizabeth Landon had looked just like her at about the same age.

  He could practically hear Kate holding her breath next to him. “She’s not the woman I saw murdered.”

  Her breath came out on a sob. She stumbled to her feet and stood with her back to him for a moment. He thought about going to her, trying to offer her some comfort, but feared it would not be welcome. He was the one who’d put her through this pain. And for what?

  Cyrus looked down at the photo album in his lap, studying the woman and baby for a long moment before turning his attention to the other photographs.

  He felt his heart drop to the pit of his stomach and must have made a sound because Kate turned to look at him.

  “Who is this woman?” His voice sounded odd even to him.

  Kate made a swipe at her tears as she looked from him to the album in his lap. His tone must have warned her because she stepped almost cautiously back to the couch and stood looking down at the open photo album.

  “What woman?” she asked in a desolate voice.

  “That one.” He pointed to another young woman. In the photograph she sat in a corner chair holding a baby. Kate, he assumed. What was haunting was that her features were nearly identical to Elizabeth Landon’s, but he had known at a glance that they were not the same woman.

  Her hair wasn’t auburn but bleached blond. The wide blue-green eyes were unmistakable, although there was a sadness in them as well as in her expression.

  “That’s Aunt Katherine, my mother’s older sister,” she said in barely a whisper. “I was named after her. People used to say they looked so much alike they could have been twins.” Kate raised her gaze as she said it. She bit her lip, her eyes flooding with tears as she lowered herself to the couch. “Aunt Katherine is the woman you saw.”

  He hadn’t had to answer. She’d seen his expression and was already shaking her head. “That’s not possible. Katherine’s been dead for thirty years. She died just before I was six months old. She’d always had a weak heart…”

  Cyrus stared down at Aunt Katherine’s photo, wondering what in the hell was going on. This was the woman he’d seen lying in a po
ol of blood in the old hospital nursery. This was the woman who’d switched the babies just moments before her death and what had weakened this woman’s heart was the scalpel that had stabbed her in the chest.

  Chapter Six

  Kate couldn’t catch her breath.

  “Look, everyone keeps telling me it was just a bad dream and obviously it must be,” Cyrus said. “I don’t understand any of this, like why I dreamed about this woman or that bracelet or why when I saw you and realized how much you looked like…” His eyes widened in alarm as he seemed to realize how much distress she was in. “Kate, I’m so sorry. I—”

  “Please,” she managed to say as she stumbled to her feet again. “I need you to leave.”

  “Kate—”

  “I just need to be alone.”

  He shot to his feet. “Of course. I’m sorry. I should never…” For a moment, he looked as if he might reach for her to try to comfort her.

  She took a step back. She knew that if he took her in his arms she would break down completely.

  “I’m staying at the Whitehorse Hotel, room 412. If you need to get hold of me just to talk or…”

  Kate could see how sorry he was for upsetting her, but right now she couldn’t deal with any of it. She felt as if her world was crumbling around her. She ushered him out, then stood with her back against the locked door, shaking so hard she had to hug herself to keep from falling apart.

  She’d thought she wanted to know the truth. But she’d been so sure he would say he didn’t recognize her mother. And he had. She’d been so relieved.

  Until he’d asked about her aunt Katherine, the woman she’d been named for. She’d never dreamed the woman he’d thought he’d seen murdered would be her aunt.

  All the doubts she’d had her whole life shot to the surface. Kate had lived on the stories her grandmother had told about her mother and her aunt. Even as a child, she’d known her grandmother had exaggerated many of the stories.