Norman Partridge - Saguaro Riptide

Wyetta took one last swig from the JD bottle and threw it into the desert behind her house.

Three silhouettes waited among the towering saguaros. Three pairs of unblinking eyes were trained upon the sheriff of Pipeline Beach.

Wyetta stared them down. She was alone. Rorie had gone home. Said she needed some rest. Wyetta had said okay, because what she had needed was a drink and she didn’t want Rorie looking at her with sad puppy-dog eyes while she had one.

Or two.

The sun slipped behind the jagged horizon to the west, painting the desert with fresh shadows. Black shadows over white sand-the same palate of colors that had shaped the generation weaned on Have Gun Will Travel, Rawhide, and The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.

The three figures came clearer in the soft shadow of twilight. Standing stiff and straight, expressions set as if for eternity, waiting for the sheriff without a word.

No words were necessary. Wyetta knew why they were here.

A sawed-off shotgun lay on the picnic table to her left. Wyetta held her left hand aloft, smiled at the figures, then reached down slowly and took hold of the shotgun. Eased it off the table, aiming its barrel at the ground as fast as she could.

And then she came at them, not too fast, not too slow. Like a knight without armor in a savage land. Moving into range. And she didn’t blink once. Her gaze traveled everywhere. From their guns to their hands to their unblinking eyes.

Wyetta said what Wyatt had said a long time ago: “You sons of bitches have been looking for a fight.”

Not one mouth opened. The three of them stood there, waiting for her as if they were mystery contestants on some strange outlaw game show. Desperado #1, Desperado #2, and Desperado #3.

Wyetta closed the distance.

One last step. Quiet tread of Nocona boots over Arizona sand.

One last breath, a deep one.

And then the fingers of Wyetta’s right hand closed around the red cedar handle of her.44 American and she yanked the big pistol and opened fire.

The first bullet slammed Desperado #1 in the chest. The second opened a hole in Desperado #3’s belly. Neither man made a move; Wyetta hadn’t stopped moving. Again and again, she pulled the trigger.

Bone-colored splinters flew as a bullet carved a hole in the forehead of Desperado #3.

Wyetta’s next shot hit him in the belly. Her last two bullets drilled holes in Desperado #1 and then the.44 American was back in its holster and her free hand closed around the shotgun’s slide-handle and she fired left-handed, sending a load directly through the belly of Desperado # 2.

His legs did not move. But he toppled from the belly up, his plywood torso sending up a puff of incense-colored dust as it pancaked the desert floor.

Jack Baddalach, Kate Benteen, and Woodrow Ali Baba. It didn’t matter if the three of them had teamed up. Wyetta would finish them the same way Wyatt and his men had finished Desperados #1 thru #3 at the O. K. Corral.

Wyetta wandered over to the bisected figure of Frank McClaury. Turned over his torso and stared into his painted eyes. Part of her had hated to blow Frank in half, because he and his two plywood compadres had been a gift from a sheriff buddy of hers up north. He’d had them painted up special the year Wyetta won an award at a meeting of Arizona law enforcement officials. Giving Wyetta plywood figures of the badmen who had met their demise at the O. K. Corral was kind of a joke, but kind of an admiring tip of the hat, too.

Blasting Frank McClaury with a shotgun reflected Wyetta’s passion for historical accuracy. That was exactly what Doc Holliday had done to Frank at the world’s most infamous gunfight. Plus, blowing the plywood figure in half made Wyetta feel pretty damn good. Ventilating Billy Clanton and Tom McLaury had felt pretty good too. And, as with Frank, the placement of her pistol shots jibed with historical accounts of the gunfight at the O. K. Corral.

Wyetta grinned. Yep, she was one pretty tough pistol packin’ mama, and she wasn’t about to lay her pistol down. Not yet.

Not until this Komoko business was settled.

Boy howdy. If she could only figure out where Komoko had hidden the money. She and Rorie hadn’t had a bit of luck finding it the night they’d put the little Vegas pissant out of his misery. She was sure it wasn’t hidden in Graceland, because they’d damn near torn the place apart. Of course, their search outside had been tougher, because the sandstorm got in the way of things.

They’d checked Komoko’s car though. The money wasn’t there. They’d even checked to see if he’d registered over at the Saguaro Riptide before coming to Graceland. But Sandy said she hadn’t seen him in a month.

Komoko hadn’t made a reservation, either. Not that he’d need one at the Riptide. Still, Wyetta wondered if Sandy was telling the truth. Maybe Komoko had checked in. And maybe he’d left the money in his room. Sandy might have played dumb, got hold of that money herself. .

No. That was crazy. Sandy didn’t have a clue about Komoko.

Unless Priscilla had let something slip during one of her Riptide rendezvous. Unless-

Wyetta shook her head. This was crazy. If she wanted to worry about someone beating her to the money, she shouldn’t be worrying about Sandy. And if she wanted to speculate about who knew exactly what, she needed to think about Baddalach, and Benteen, and Woodrow Ali Baba.

And that bunch was making less sense every minute. Take for instance Ali Baba’s car being out at Graceland, and Ellis swearing that Jack Baddalach was the guy who’d driven it there. Sure, Ali Baba had reported the car stolen, but the question was why would Baddalach steal it? He had a rental car-that Range Rover he’d been driving when they’d arrested him at the five-and-dime.

Maybe Ali Baba and Baddalach were partners. And maybe there was a heaping teaspoon of dissension in the ranks. Maybe-

Wyetta swore. The pieces of the puzzle wouldn’t fit. Either that, or she had too many goddamn pieces. Or-

Frank McClaury stared up at her, refusing to blink. Suddenly, Wyetta did not like the amused grin the artist had painted beneath Frank’s bristling moustache.

God, she wanted another drink.

But another drink and she wouldn’t be thinking at all.

So she spit in Frank McClaury’s eye and kicked corpse-colored dirt over his face.

Wyatt would have done the same thing. If only she could talk to him about Komoko’s money. If only she could ask his advice.

And then, quite suddenly, she remembered that she could do just that.

As it turned out, Rorie was too upset to take a nap. She couldn’t eat, either. So she closed the drapes and settled in with the TV, hoping to take her mind off her troubles.

She channel-surfed for a while. Lots of news and game shows and even more talk shows. But what Rorie liked was show shows. Movies and that kind of stuff.

She found a pretty good one on HBO. She’d missed the beginning, so she didn’t know the name of it. But it was pretty cool. Some woman archaeologist had been kidnapped by Middle Eastern terrorists, and the terrorists were doing these awful Middle Eastern things to her. The archaeologist was trying to escape, but she wasn’t having any luck.

And then a chopper landed in the desert. A black one. And someone got out, all alone. Dressed in black leather, wearing a chopper pilot’s helmet with a mirrored face.

Man, it was too cool.

And then came the best part. Because the chopper pilot took off that helmet, and it turned out the pilot was a woman!

Way too cool!

The pilot shook out her auburn hair. Kind of a Louise Brooks look. Very tough. She backed a motorcycle from a compartment in the chopper’s belly and loaded it up with a bunch of guns and grenades and stuff.