Darlene Franklin - Dressed for Death 01 - Gunfight at Grace Gulch

by Darlene Franklin

  2

  September 1889

  Dearest Mary,

  I passed through Oklahoma Territory on the last cattle drive. An opportunity has presented itself to me. My good friend Ethan Hardy chose to seek an allotment in Oklahoma Town. He is doing a good business with his hostelry, and he has invited me to work with him.

  Tell me true, Mary. Can you see yourself the mistress of a small home in the new city? A community ten-thousand strong sprang up overnight. There is plenty of opportunity for a man who is willing to work hard. I know we dreamed of our own homestead on one hundred sixty sweet acres, but this may be God’s provision for us to begin our lives as husband and wife.

  Awaiting your reply.

  Your loving fiancé,

  Robert Grace

  ~

  Saturday, September 21

  The seconds dragged on. . .too long. Neither man got up from the ground. Dead silence fell on the crowd, as though they were collectively holding their breath. No one had died in the original gunfight. Falling to the ground carried the reenactment too far. What was happening?

  I found myself racing across the street. As much as a woman can run wearing a bustle. A figure dashed past me. Seconds later, I arrived at the place where the two men had fallen, a tableau from a movie where a hazy crowd shouts silent cheers and the camera zooms in on the star.

  Audie had reached them ahead of me and crouched beside the fallen men. No one else had moved.

  Cord stood up, dusted off his black Stetson, and looked down at Penn.

  Cord’s not hurt! Fake blood stained his shirtsleeve where the original Bob Grace had been shot in the arm. For a second, I felt nothing but overwhelming relief. Then reality clicked in. If Cord was okay, then what about—

  “Come on, Penn—er, Gaynor, you can get up now.” Cord grinned. Playing the part of Old Bob Grace had given him the thrill of a lifetime.

  “I think he’s. . .dead.” Audie glanced up, his face ashen.

  “What? Naw, you know it’s just fake blood.” Cord touched his own wet shirt where the blood bag had burst, creating the appearance of a nasty shoulder wound. Neither one of us wanted to believe Audie’s pronouncement.

  Cord bent down next to Penn’s body. I held my breath.

  “He’s—he’s really dead.” Cord affirmed Audie’s assessment.

  I tried to kneel next to Cord, but the bustle at my back got in the way. I settled for leaning over. A small hole had been drilled in the center of Penn’s worn leather vest. I pressed my hand to my thudding heart. I’d seen that type of wound before, but not like this. They always marred the beautiful skins of the deer my dad hunted each fall.

  I bent forward to see better and collided with Audie as he stood. My hat—today a red teardrop-style—flew off my head and landed at Audie’s feet.

  “Where are the police? We have to tell them that there’s been a terrible accident.” Audie picked up my hat and dusted it off before returning it to me.

  “Police? Accident?” Cord stared at the gun in his hand as if he didn’t know where it had come from. “No, Audie, you have it wrong. Whoever’s bullet did this, didn’t come from my gun. I was using blanks. You know that.”

  “We’ll figure that out, if you don’t mind.” Ted Reiner, chief of Grace Gulch’s four-person police department, joined us in mid-street, with female officer, Frances Waller.

  For the first time since arriving by Penn’s side, my mind registered the crowd. They remained frozen in place, looks of puzzlement on some faces, horror on others. Mothers with small children scurried down the sidewalks, hiding the all-too-real violence from their young eyes. Dina huddled by the swinging saloon doors, her eyes wide with fright. At least she hadn’t run out into the street to join us. I saw a few other familiar faces at the saloon. Suzanne Jay’s bouffant blond hair looked even stiffer than before, as if fear had frozen it in place. Ronald Grace, the mayor and Cord’s cousin, talked to Mitch Gaynor, the editor of the Sequoian. The tall newspaperman gestured widely to the bald, short mayor. I wondered what spin they would put on today’s events. Pastor Waldberg preached—really, that was the only word to describe his posture—to a small cluster of people I knew from church. He was probably lecturing them on the need to prepare to meet their Maker.

  I took a deep breath and looked once again at Penn’s body. Frances, surgical gloves covering her delicate pianist hands, watched Dr. Barber as he examined the wound on Penn’s chest. She and I knew each other from way back. “I’ll set up the perimeter,” she told the chief.

  Ted Reiner represented the worst of the police profession. Loud, obnoxious, a good old boy, he welcomed opportunities to throw his weight around. Like now. “Wonder how this happened. You put on a show, and look what happened.”

  “I believe it was an accident,” Audie responded to Reiner’s comment. Did I hear a trace of intolerance in his voice? Perhaps his director’s eye cast Chief Reiner in some Keystone Kops routine.

  Reiner turned his attention to me. “Why did you run into the street? Did you see anything suspicious?”

  “No, I was just afraid. . .” No, I couldn’t say that I was afraid Cord had been hurt. Two men had fallen, after all. Even though I didn’t voice the words, I felt heat coloring my cheeks. “I was afraid someone had been hurt. The two weren’t supposed to fall to the ground, you see, and—”

  “Humph.” Reiner turned the sound into an accusation. “I’ll need that gun, Cord.”

  “It wasn’t my gun that killed him. Look for yourself.” He held the gun in the palm of his hand but didn’t let go. “Why aren’t you canvassing the crowd, looking for the real shooter?”

  “We’ll do that. I still need your gun. And we need you to come down to the station.”

  “Why? I didn’t do anything!” Cord sounded desperate. Frances took the gun in her gloved hands.

  “We’ll need your fingerprints for comparison, Cord.” Frances interjected a note of reason to Reiner’s request. “What about you, Cici? Audie? Did either one of you touch anything?”

  I shook my head.

  “I checked for a pulse, that’s all,” Audie said. “I saw the blood. It was in the wrong place. He was supposed to receive a fake leg wound in the gunfight.”

  Reiner frowned. “You’d better come with us, too.” He turned accusatory gray eyes on me. “We’ll take your statement later today.”

  “Sure. But don’t you want to speak to the crowd? Someone must’ve seen some—”

  “I was just about to do that.” Reiner placed his hands on his hips. He’d probably dreamed all his life of getting to boss around a crowd of people like a real city cop. Not much in our small town had prepared him for the actual experience.

  “If I can have everyone’s attention!” he shouted. His announcement rippled through the crowd in waves, creating silence in its wake. “There has been an accident. Please stay where you are until one of our officers has spoken with you. The remainder of today’s play has been cancelled. The town barbecue will be held tonight as planned.”

  Noise whispered across the street. A few people shook their heads and drifted away, but most waited their turn to speak with the police.

  Cord remained in place, arms stiff as if a pair of handcuffs might materialize on his wrists. “Will I still see you tonight?” he asked me. “If they let me go, that is.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” I said. “This is just a formality.”

  Eventually Dr. Barber had Penn’s body moved to his office—which doubled as the medical examiner’s office—and the crowd disbursed. By the time I closed my shop at six that night—another banner day for sales, driven by people curious about the gunfight “incident”—I had tired of saying, “I’m not at liberty to talk about it right now.” At least later I could talk over the events of the day with Cord, my escort to the town barbecue.

  Cord was picking me up at seven thirty. I needed a full hour to change from the dress and bustle of the day to another period costume, a woman’s gym suit. What better
time to wear the athletic attire than an informal barbecue? The outfit, black bloomers popular in the 1890s beneath a black and red wool skirt, promised to be warm, and I could secure my hair in a braid. A lovely double cape completed the ensemble if it turned cold, although I didn’t expect it in September.

  Cord would be as eager as I was to discuss the day’s events. Sometimes—well, let’s be honest, most of the time—he accepted the Grace mystique. As a Grace of Grace Gulch, he considered himself above suspicion, even if only on a subconscious level. Chief Reiner’s grandmother on his mother’s side was a Gaynor. Today’s tragedy placed a Grace—Cord—in the power of a Gaynor—Chief Reiner. The feud was alive and well, over a century later.

  I was neither a Grace nor a Gaynor. My own great-grandfather arrived minutes after the famous pair during the land run. Wildes had ranched in Grace Gulch since the beginning and stayed neutral in the feud, profiting from both sides.

  Our neutral stance in business matters didn’t play a part in the friendship that sprang up between the Graces and the Wildes, and eventually, Cord and me. Our ranches shared a common border, although the Grace spread was much larger than ours. We’d done everything, from riding sheep at the rodeo as children to attending our senior prom together. Then Cord went to OSU while I traded in two years at the community college my sister now attended for two years at a fashion design school in Houston. People assumed Cord and I would tie the knot someday.

  I wasn’t so sure. I couldn’t marry Cord when Audie Howe also made my heart race. Cord was like my brother, a warm quilt when I wanted the comfort of the familiar. But Audie. . .

  No, I refused to think about Audie tonight. Cord had invited me to the barbecue first. I had accepted his invitation, and I intended to enjoy myself.

  Dressing in period costume gave me an excuse to avoid wearing makeup. Taming my wild dandelion hair into a single braid took all my time until Cord rang the doorbell.

  Cord dressed like he always did—in blue jeans and a plaid shirt, newly pressed in honor of the occasion, a jacket lined with sheepskin, and his favorite black Stetson on his head. “Your steed is ready, ma’am.” He had teased me about renting a “surrey with the fringe on top” in honor of the barbecue. I confess I felt a tad relieved to see his usual blue pickup in the driveway.

  He didn’t bother to help me into the truck. Good thing I had exchanged bloomers for the afternoon’s dress and bustle.

  “How long did they keep you downtown?” I asked.

  He smiled his melt-your-heart smile that made girls swoon. I wondered if it covered up insecurities tonight, as it often did.

  “Not long. They took my prints, like Frances said. Reiner thinks I shot Penn on purpose. Of all the muleheaded. . .” Thunderclouds darkened his eyes, erasing the smile.

  “Now, Cord, Reiner can’t help being Dick Gaynor’s great-grandson.” I hoped to bring that smile back to Cord’s face.

  “Maybe not, but he doesn’t have to be a mindless fool,” Cord muttered.

  We arrived at the park a couple of minutes later. Fresh paint shone on playground equipment, and the grass remained green thanks to a summer of watering. Plenty of people had gathered already. Small tents formed a square. The saloon, aka the Gulch, grilled hot dogs and hamburgers; two other restaurants offered brisket and ribs. Free drinks were served in the fourth tent. Families displayed their favorite barbecue side dishes on a center table. Beans, potato salad, fresh watermelon, and chocolate cake. I added my contribution, coleslaw with a bit of onion in it. Nothing like a community get-together to catch up with old friends. Unfortunately, today’s event had an extra edge, as townsfolk passed on gossip about Penn’s death.

  “We’re here,” Cord announced to no one in particular. As the current Grace of the Circle G Ranch, he sometimes expected events to be put on hold until he arrived. No one returned his greeting.

  With the unexpected developments over the noontime gunfight, I hadn’t eaten lunch. My stomach reminded me when we neared the barbecue pit and the scent of savory spices filled my nostrils.

  “Come on. I want a hot dog.” I pulled Cord in the direction of the Gulch’s tent.

  “I’ll go to the other tent for ribs later,” Cord said. He waited good-naturedly while I queued up to the tent.

  Suzanne Jay, the well-preserved blond from the saloon reenactment, took my order. The consummate professional, she smiled at everybody. “Anything for you, Cord? Too bad what happened today.” Clearly doing her best to dispel his dark mood, she put a couple of blackened hot dogs into buns and pointed to the condiments lining the shelf. “You have a great night.”

  Shoulders slumped, Cord didn’t respond.

  We walked across the grass to the opposite tent, my mind reeling with what I might say to convince Cord that Penn’s death was an accident—surely, no one held Cord accountable. But before I could form a thought, we passed two clusters of familiar faces, and nobody greeted us.

  Cord ordered his ribs and hurried through the line at the center table. I dawdled, debating which dishes to sample. By the time I finished, Cord had spread a blanket out in a corner of the grass. He fetched tall glasses of iced tea and sat. The thunderclouds had returned to his eyes.

  I finished the first bite of hot dog and swallowed. “Cord, you’ve got to stop blaming yourself for—”

  “Don’t you see how everyone is avoiding me?”

  I knew Cord liked to be the center of attention, but he didn’t usually carry things this far.

  “No one wants to talk to the murderer,” Cord said.

  Surely people didn’t think that about Cord! They couldn’t. “It is rather awkward, I suppose. Even if the bullet came from your gun—”

  “It didn’t.”

  “—it was still just a horrible accident.”

  Cord glowered at me.

  “Hey y’all!”

  I would know that voice anywhere, anytime. It had scolded me every day of life until I was thirteen. My older sister Jenna, popping in from out of state for one of her unexpected visits. She lived in Taos, New Mexico, where she made a living as a computer programmer and art dealer.

  Jenna squatted next to us on the quilt as if we had seen each other yesterday instead of eighteen months ago. She was everything I was not, her hair a perfect blond, aided by a bottle, I thought spitefully, and windblown into perfect curls around her face.

  “What is that outfit you’re wearing, Cici?”

  “I’ll have you know that it was the height of fashion for the athletically inclined lady.”

  “A hundred years ago.”

  “More like eleventy ten, 1894.” We giggled at the phrase we had picked up from Tolkein and hugged. Jenna had that effect on me. One minute she infuriated me, the next we chatted like friends at an all-night slumber party.

  “I didn’t know you planned to be here,” Cord said. Cord had known my sister all his life. “The last I heard, you were in New Mexico someplace.”

  “Taos,” Jenna said. “But I couldn’t miss out on all the excitement. I flew in today. The stupid car rental agency didn’t have my car ready; I asked for a Subaru, and they tried to give me a Ford. Can you imagine! By the time I got them straightened out, it was too late to get here for the showdown at noon, so I went ahead and ate lunch at this divine little Mexican restaurant I discovered the last time I was in Oklahoma City. Then I kind of lost my way wandering down Route 66. I just got to Grace Gulch an hour ago, and the first thing I hear is that Dina is in trouble. What happened?”

  It took a minute for Jenna’s words to register. She did tend to rattle off facts machine gun-style, and it took awhile for the important ones to sink in. “Dina, in trouble? What do you mean?”

  “Well, the police suspect her of substituting real bullets for blanks in the gun. As if she would do something like that.”

  “Where did you hear that?” How could my sister be in town for less than an hour and already know more about the investigation than I did? Trust Jenna to ride to Dina’s rescue when
I was here for Dina all the time.

  “Jessie Gaynor.” Jenna gestured with a bakery box from Gaynor Goodies. “She told me when I bought these cupcakes.”

  That explained it. The bakery storeowner ran the town’s gossip mill.

  “Do you mind if I join you?” Mitch Gaynor, Dina’s boss for the summer at the Sequoian after Hardy had turned her down at the Herald, towered over us. He sat without waiting for further invitation. “Jenna, welcome home.”

  Uh-oh. Business, not friendship—because frankly, we weren’t friends—brought Mitch to our corner of the picnic. Of course, the newspaperman wanted to talk to us.

  “I want to get your account of the accident this afternoon.” Mitch confirmed my suspicion. “For tomorrow’s paper. You were first on the scene, I understand?”

  You know perfectly well we were. You were there, too, standing right in front of the Gulch watching us.

  “The chief told us not to comment,” I said.

  Not discouraged, Mitch turned to Cord.

  Hand raised, Cord shook his head.

  “Can you at least tell me if you checked the bullets in your gun before you went out to put on the play?”

  “Don’t you go accusing Dina,” Jenna spoke hotly.

  “Of course I did. I’m no actor who relies on the props girl to get it right.” Cord shut his mouth, probably wishing he hadn’t spoken quite so openly. At least not where the family of the props girl could hear.

  Mitch grinned, and the saliva in my throat turned to molten lava. Fingers had started pointing at the two people with the best opportunity to kill Penn—my dear sister Dina and my old childhood friend.

  3

  June 1890

  My dearest Mary,

  God is good. I heeded your wise advice and did not accept Hardy’s offer of work. Rumors abound that the Cherokee Commission will negotiate a settlement with the remaining tribes located in Indian Territory. Once they agree on terms, additional land will be made available for settlement. Of course the natives may protest the sale, but they have little choice. Since Congress passed the Dawes Severalty Act three years ago, pressure on President Harrison increases almost hourly to open all Indian lands.