Craig Johnson: Cold Dish

I smiled. “Jules Belden?”

Her eyes returned to me, but her head didn’t move. “Yes.” She stayed like that. “He’s still around?”

“Yep, he’s still around.” I started formulating a plan to keep her talking. If I could get her to go long enough, then maybe I had a chance.

She was looking into my eyes when I focused on her again. “He gave me quarters.”

“Me too.”

She laughed the wispy laugh. “He used to drink when he was here, and that’s why Father finally fired him, but he was a good carpenter.”

I looked around. “So he and your dad built this?”

“Yes.” She glanced at the tack. “When I decided to have the arena built, I just didn’t have the nerve to tear it all down, so I left this part.” I waited. “I still see him, sometimes…”

I watched as her eyes dulled a little. “Your father?”

“Yes, I sometimes see him. I’ll be out riding in the arena and I’ll look over and there he stands by the door, waiting for me.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ve been having a little problem along those lines myself lately.”

The eyes narrowed. “I’m not being funny.”

“Neither am I.”

She continued to look at me but then broke it off to glance around. “You see him too?”

I shrugged. “No, I’ve been seeing Indians.” I placed my hands in my pants’ pockets, so she could see that I wasn’t going to try anything. Yet.

She gestured toward the buffalo rifle. “Is that their gun you’ve been carrying around?” She continued to study it. “The one you shot me with?” She didn’t show any signs of weakening, and I was beginning to think this was going to take awhile. “It’s beautiful. What was it you called it?”

“What?”

She continued to look at it. “The rifle?”

“Oh.” The barrel of her Sharps had shifted a little. “The Cheyenne Rifle of the Dead.” She nodded, and I smiled back. “It’s haunted.”

“By the Indians?”

“The Old Cheyenne.”

“Why?”

I studied her and tried to think if this was a good line for our conversation to take. “The Old Cheyenne stay near the rifle, and every once in a while they get the urge to take somebody back to the Camp of the Dead with them.”

“The Camp of the Dead.” It gave me time to look into her eyes. The pupils were dilated, but it was difficult to tell if it was from trauma or from the darkness of the room, or both. I watched her very carefully as I spoke and noted the continuing tremors in her long fingers. “So, the Old Cheyenne have come to get me, huh?”

“I started to leave the Old Cheyenne inside your door, but you said you didn’t allow guns in the house.”

I wondered how long it would take for her to get to the fact that her father had killed himself, probably in here. I looked at the wood behind her head, but the planks had been replaced. It had to be here, but I didn’t want to discuss her father’s suicide with her as she sat there with the loaded and cocked buffalo rifle in her hands. I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t move. She gestured gently with the Sharps. “This is the one he did it with.” I still remained silent. “They really are exquisite guns, aren’t they?”

It seemed safe enough. “Well made.”

“Yes, well made.” She looked back up from the barrel. “I was thirteen.” She puzzled for a moment, nodded, and then stared off into space as more blood dripped from the side of her face. “Did you ever wonder why it was he did it?”

I lied. “No.”

She was looking at me again. “You’re lying. You’re afraid I’m going to shoot myself.”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

“You ever wonder why he did it here?”

It seemed like an odd question, but as long as she was talking. “I think you said it was because he didn’t want to make a mess in the house?”

She looked around. “He didn’t, but this place had special meaning for him.”

“Because he built it…”

She was perfectly still. “More than that.”

I looked at her, and the pieces started to fall into place. “What happened, Vonnie?”

“You’re a smart guy, Walter. I bet you can figure it out without all the horrid details.” She took a deep breath. “Daddy’s little girl

… I was nine years old, I mean for the physical act. It started a long time before, though.” She looked back to me. “Can you imagine?” Her eyes welled. “No, I don’t suppose you can.” I towered there like a stacked-up wreck and watched as tears fell from her dull eyes, diluting the blood on her face. I could feel their heat from where I stood. “I hated him. How could you not hate somebody that would do that to you? Somebody you trusted, somebody who was supposed to protect you? Someone who was supposed to love you.” She paused, and some of the heat died. “I tried. I really tried to have a life with a husband, family, children, and dogs even… I tried, but no matter how long or how hard… No matter how much therapy… I couldn’t get past it. No matter how strong I’d be, I’d remember him. I’d remember this place and what he did.” She had run out of air with a hissing finality, and I listened as she breathed. I waited as she continued to look at the rifle that leaned against the wall. “He didn’t kill himself because of me… I didn’t even get that satisfaction.” She sniffed and winced in pain. “He did it because my mother was going to tell… I moved back after a lot of years to take care of her and to try and get my life back from him, from here..” Something struck her as humorous. “I came back so I could hate him with her.”

“Vonnie…”

“And then, when Melissa… When it happened to her? She’s a child, Walt, just like I was… I thought surely now, now there’d be some kind of punishment, some kind of justice. Something for her, something for me. But they got off. Hardly any time served.” Her eyes turned toward me. “I didn’t let him off… I couldn’t let them.” I started to move but the barrel of the rifle was still there, and I had to wait and make it count. After a moment, she spoke again. “So, do you think the Old Cheyenne can get me in here?”

I cleared my throat. “I don’t think they’re out to get you.”

She half-nodded. “That’s too bad, I rather hoped they would be. But maybe I just don’t make the cut, huh?”

I took a deep breath. I thought about how it is a woman’s lot to be dismissed by men. “I think they could hardly do better.”

Her voice was small and distant. “Thank you.” The little corner of her mouth kicked up again, and the barrel of the Sharps shifted a little and came back closer to her chin. I took my hands from my pockets and gauged the distance to be about eight feet. We looked at each other for a while, and it’s possible she was reading my intent. “I don’t think anything will ever get me here again.” She was learning to smile with the undamaged side of her face. “But I suppose they can get you anywhere.” She paused for a moment, and I thought I might have a chance. “You understand, don’t you? I mean, you said that a part of you wished you had done it?”

“I think that a lot of people feel that way.”

“You know, I have a hard time telling which part of you I like most: your smile, your sense of humor, or the fact that you lie so poorly.”

“What do you want me to say, Vonnie? I don’t think the county’s going to have a parade for you…” Her eyes stayed steady. “There’s a difference between talking about it and doing it.”

She looked sad. “I was hoping we were past the moral portion of the conversation.” I wanted to hold her, to patch the ear up, and to make it all better. “Please, let’s not talk about what people deserve.”