Lori Armstrong - Mercy Kill

“To run against me for sheriff?” he supplied. “It’s a little late for that now, doncha think?”

The full brunt of my mistake knocked the breath from my lungs.

“Answer me, Mercy.”

I could barely work up enough spit to swallow, let alone speak.

He crowded me against the brick building. “Do you know what’s the worst part of this situation?”

Too many awful reasons surfaced. It was hard to shake my head in response, when it was so damn hard to hold it up.

“Realizing how little you think of my professional abilities.”

Direct hit. “Dawson-”

“Let. Me. Finish. Last summer I chalked up your distrust of me to your replacement issues about your father. I chalked up your skepticism of my investigative skills to the personal stakes when your nephew was murdered. But when you automatically accused me of not doing my job again ? That jab hurt worse than a knee to the balls. Or so I thought, until I started to wonder if you’d kept our personal involvement your dirty little secret because professionally you consider me no better than Barney Fife.”

The haunted look in his eyes made me want to hide my face in shame. But he was wrong about how I’d treated him… wasn’t he?

“I thought I could count on you to understand. You, of all people, Mercy, know what it’s like when the government forces you to keep your mouth shut, forces you to turn a blind eye, forces your compliance at any cost. You’ve lived that life. Hell, as far as I can tell, you still embody that unquestioning code of military ethics-personally and professionally. Yet here you are, judging me as lacking, for sticking to that exact same set of standards.”

A hot wash of shame burned as the words hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite sliced through me as sharp and painful as barbed wire.

My God. Talk about being sanctimonious. How many years had I been forced to follow protocol without question? Why had I questioned Dawson’s methodology? Because I was accustomed to being highest on the pecking order? Because my timetable, my way of doing things, and the answers I demanded should always be priority number one?

Delusions of importance much, Sergeant Major?

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Why hadn’t I considered that as sheriff, Dawson would be held to rigid rules and legal standards? Why hadn’t I realized my father hadn’t talked about his duties as sheriff, not because he didn’t want to but because he couldn’t?

I hoped for Dawson’s warm, rough fingers to nudge my chin up even as I steeled myself against his recriminations.

But his footsteps faded as he walked away from me and I was left with nothing but regret.

Ihated slapping on a happy face, and hitting the happy trail, after the shitty start to my day. What was the point? I should just withdraw from the race.

And become a quitter? No.

Cowgirl up, Mercy.

I preferred solitude to socializing, so it was ironic that the door-to-door aspect of my campaign duties had become my favorite part. Even when folks told me to my face they planned on voting for Dawson, I couldn’t hold it against them because it was rarely said with malice.

Older community residents, who’d known my family for generations, delighted in revealing my parents in a different light. The stories they shared were new to me, even if the tales were forty years old.

At the first stop, Maxine Crenshaw plied me with homemade doughnuts and recalled the night my father pulled over her husband for erratic driving. Milt Crenshaw, in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, had left the house without his eyeglasses or his pants. He’d also forgotten the state had revoked his driver’s license. Rather than toss Milt in jail, my father escorted Milt home and advised Maxine to hide the car keys.

Simple. Direct. I could visualize the scene, the amused set to my father’s mouth upon finding Milt in his boxers. Would I ever overcome the need for more time with Dad to hear his stories of life behind the badge?

Over sweet tea and pecan cookies, Esther Beecham told me about my parents getting tossed out of Barb and Joe Jorgen’s wedding dance. Apparently my mother instigated a hair-pulling fight with another bridesmaid. When the man who tried to separate the drunken women got a little too friendly with Mom, Dad beat the crap out of him. The aggressive side of my dad didn’t surprise me-cowboys liked to express opinions with their fists. But the ever-proper Sunny Gunderson, in a knock-down, drag-out, girl fight? In public? That’d shocked me.

Maybe I was as much a chip off Mom’s block as I was Dad’s.

I only made those two stops. In my gut I knew I was done actively campaigning. I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d become a poseur of the worst sort and continuing this charade would dishonor my father’s memory.

The drive to the ranch was a blur. I ignored the ranch hands as I marched through the barn. ATV keys in hand, I climbed aboard my escape vehicle and took off like the hounds of hell were chasing me.

Shoonga loped by my side as I navigated the muddy grooves forming a path across the field. Damn dog loved getting sloppy. His antics lightened my load as he tried to hurry me along, as if he knew where we were going. By the time I reached my destination, the tightness in my chest had loosened somewhat.

Years had passed since I’d last traversed this rough terrain in the spring. An abundance of rain meant mud, mud, and more mud. I abandoned the ATV and hiked the incline, my boots weighted with wet earth, which made skirting the delicate ferns and clumps of grasses near impossible. A decade of drought forced plants into dormancy. But months of spring rain coaxed them out, including four species I’d never seen.

At the top of the plateau, the damp wind lifted my hair, whipping strands back across my face with stinging force. I tipped my head to the gloomy sky. Billows of white and gray skittered across the endless horizon. Patches of pale blue appeared fleetingly, punch holes of sanity beneath the roiling storm clouds.

I know how the sky feels.

I spun a slow circle so I could take in the vista. From here I spotted deciduous trees lining the river’s gouge across the land. The differences a little moisture brought to the color palette in the valley were astounding, representing every green hue from jade to mint.

From here I could locate the weather-beaten mounds of desiccated earth known as the Badlands. Hauntingly beautiful in its barrenness. Its isolation. Its monochromatic fortitude.

I closed my eyes and listened to the music of the wind. The dissonant changes in pitch. The harmonic whistling tones. The melodic ferocity of the gusts. The wind ebbed and flowed like the tides, but wind wasn’t tied to the moon. Its power was absolute. And wind raced and raged across the prairie as if it were its due.

Through the mournful squalls, I heard the rumble of an ATV in the distance. Then closer. Then it stopped.

Shoonga rose from his resting spot, tail wagging, chippy little barks telling me who’d disturbed me.

I kept my face to the wind, zeroing in on the musky scent of wet mud, the pungent sage, the occasional hint of sweet floral, and now the whiff of gas and machine oil.

The dog settled, content with the attention from two masters.

Once he’d leveled his ragged breathing, Jake spoke. “Pretty spot. One of my faves.”

“Mine, too.”

Wind blew. Time passed.

Finally, Jake said, “You okay?”

“Not really.”

“You left the ranch in an awful damn hurry.”

He waited for me to speak. To confess.

I’ll admit it took me a while to admit, “I’ve done a dumb thing, Jake.”