Sunlight and Shadows

by Christine Cross

  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.

  “Shoot,” said Mack. She gave him a pointed look. She wasn’t one for beating around the bush.

  Colin and Mack were sitting just outside of the sheriff’s office, watching the sun go down in relatively amicable silence. Colin had been surprised at how quickly he’d been let off. He supposed he oughtn’t have been surprised – there had been no tangible proof of his murdering Beth.

  It hadn’t cleared him from the list of suspects, though, and Sam had been watching him like a hawk the last few days. Sam had instantly grown cold towards Colin. No matter how many times he tried to convince the man otherwise, Sam simply wasn’t having any of it.

  Mack, however, had been a bit more open-minded about the murder. Though he was still under watch, she didn’t mind taking the time to talk to him outside of investigation. Although Colin couldn’t be sure if it was because she was genuinely interested in him as a person, or simply very invested in her job.

  They had met a few times, always at Mack’s request, but the questions she asked had always been informal, and she’d generally been more than willing to share about herself with him. They had grown to know each other relatively well, perhaps more than either cared to admit.

  “How’d you get into sharpshooting?” said Colin.

  She nodded thoughtfully. He imagined it was a topic she was quite familiar with – he could understand if it was a question she had grown tired of answering. But she was silent for a while, perhaps contemplating how much she wanted to share with him. He could almost see the cogs in her mind turning.

  “My pa was killed,” she said finally, purposely keeping her gaze faraway and her body angled away from him.

  “I’m sorry.” Such useless words, but the only comfort he could offer her. At that, Mack did turn to look at him, though it was with a small, sad smile.

  “So am I.”

  She turned away from him then, his question having no doubt reopened a floodgate of memories and unwanted emotions. He didn’t know what to say, so he kept silent. And it was just as well – Mack seemed to find the silence comforting and encouraging. When she next spoke, Colin was initially uncertain as to what she was talking about – there had been quite a pause after she had last spoken.

  “It happened when I was about eight. Not much more than a little mite.”

  “You were close with your father then?” Colin observed.

  Mack nodded. “Grew up roughhousing with him, chasing any little thing that we could chase on horseback. He was the one who taught me how to shoot, despite my ma just about fainting, bless her. That caused quite a ruckus in our household for sometime,” she chuckled.

  Colin laughed a little at the thought – an eight-year-old little girl armed with a rifle. “I would imagine so,” he said.

  Mack shook her head, a fond smile adorning her face. “I suspect he always wanted a boy, but ma wasn’t having any of it – she wanted a girl and that was that. Tried to get me in dresses and petticoats, be a proper gal, you know?” Colin wrinkled his nose; he couldn’t imagine Mack in a dress.

  “But I guess pa always won that side of the argument – been handling guns like a pro since I was half my height,” she said proudly.

  “Never been one for dresses then?” Colin teased her lightly. How different she was from the girls he had known back home. She didn’t care for fine clothing, whereas the ladies at home were quite particular about their daily outfit. She could shoot a gun, while the mere sight of one was enough to start a flurry of panic back at home.

  Well, Colin conceded, Brianna – his fiancée – was a little different. But even she couldn’t hold a candle to Mack – tough, determined Mack.

  “Nope,” Mack said instantly. “Well,” she conceded. “On occasion, when there isn’t work to do and I’m needed in my Sunday best. But in general flannels, jeans, and a good pair of boots work swell. Can’t very well run around chasing outlaws and scouting in a petticoat.”

  She laughed a little, reminiscing over fond memories. “He did love his moonshine, though.” She shook her head. “Could hold his own like no one else – never got drunk at the saloon, never got in a fight with another wrangler.”

  “Is that the reason for your name then?” Colin was curious.

  Mack nodded the affirmative. “Moonshine
Mack,” she said with much pride.

  “Is Mack really your name?”

  “Short for Mackenzie,” she explained. She clammed up after that, clearly finished with the conversation. However, it wasn’t but a short while when she spoke again. This time, it was to ask Colin a question.

  “Why are you here?” she asked. It wasn’t meant offensively; he could hear the curiosity in her voice.

  “My mother and father are in the trade business,” he explained, “and we came out to America to see if business would do as well here as it did in Europe.” Mack had a thoughtful expression on her face.

  “And how’s Copper Creek been treating you all?”

  “Pretty good,” Colin replied, thinking back to the steady sales they’d made. “Not much compared to what we have back home, but better than we’d anticipated.”

  “So you’re planning on staying here long?”

  And here was a topic where Colin was often uncertain about. “Maybe a few months, maybe longer. My mother wants to go back.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I–” Colin started, then stopped. He didn’t quite know how to articulate his words. “I don’t know yet,” he said truthfully. Part of him wanted to stay, but there really was no strong reason for him to stay. And yet, he wanted to. Perhaps it was the adventure, the freedom he possessed here. Perhaps it was the allure of starting over.

  “You don’t have a family to go back to? No relatives? No family?”

  “I do,” Colin dragged out reluctantly. “Everyone is there. Relatives, family – my older brother and–” There was a short pause.

  And Brianna. But he didn’t want to add her name to the list. “And Brianna,” he added reluctantly.

  At that, she tilted her head, looking over at Colin. “Who’s Brianna?” The question was phrased lightly, almost as a casual conversation opener. But she gripped the wooden post beneath her just a little tighter.

  Colin pretended not to notice. “A…close family friend.” He didn’t want to say anything more, already having regretted telling Mack about her at all. Mack didn’t say anything, but Colin almost felt that the silence was worse than if she had said something.