Kathleen Creighton - The Sheriff of Heartbreak County

Monday night of Boomtown week wasn’t the best time to be in Buster’s Last Stand. Roan expected it to be a madhouse and it was, noisy and crowded with a whole lot of people dressed up like cowboys, a few of them maybe even the real kind.

Buster had hired some temporary help to handle the crowd, so when he saw Roan come in he stopped what he was doing to come over and talk to him. Roan asked if he had a minute, and the big man said “Sure,” and flung his bar towel over his shoulder and followed him outside.

“Sorry to take you away from your Boomtown business,” Roan said as soon as he didn’t have to shout to make himself heard.

Buster shrugged. “Ah, hell, I’m glad to get away from the racket. What can I do for you, Sheriff?”

Roan told him what he was doing and why. “I know there must be someone else Jason pissed off besides Mary,” he concluded. “I want you to think back a ways, try to recall if there was anything else Jason said or did that might have got him killed.”

Buster looked at him sideways and rubbed a big meaty hand over the lower half of his face, fidgeting like a schoolboy. Roan’s scalp began to prickle. “Come on, let’s have it. You’ve obviously thought of something.”

“Ah, hell. I been thinkin’ about this-didn’t want to tell you, didn’t think it could have anything to do with Jase’s murder, on account of…well, because the only person it might give a motive to is you, Sheriff.”

Roan narrowed a stare at him and growled, “Tell me.”

Buster held up a hand. “I…all right, look, don’t shoot the messenger, okay?” He shifted, looked over his shoulder, then cleared his throat. “Happened awhile back. Jase was drunker than usual…got to bragging to a bunch of the regulars about how the law in this town couldn’t touch him. He was hinting-more than hinting-about all the things he claimed he’d done and gotten away with. One of them-ah, Christ, Roan-he said he’d had the sheriff’s wife.”

Roan’s world went cold and dark and scary. Somewhere in it he heard his voice quietly asking Buster why he’d never mentioned any of this. And Buster’s voice, nervous and tinny, saying, “Shoot, I thought you already knew, Sheriff. Figured Boyd woulda told you.”

For an instant everything stopped. Then the cold and the blackness began to whirl around him. “Boyd?” he croaked.

Buster nodded, looking miserable. “Yeah, he was in here that night. Couldn’t help but hear what Jase was saying. Thought Boyd might go for him then and there, you know? But the old man just finished up his beer and walked out without sayin’ a word.

“I never did think you had anything to do with killin’ Jason,” Buster called after him. Roan was already striding across the parking lot, the keys to his sheriff’s-department SUV gripped in his ice-cold hand.

It was late. He knew he had to go home sometime. Knew he’d have to talk to Boyd…sometime. Instead he found himself driving aimlessly through the streets of the town he’d lived in all his life, streets as familiar to him as his own backyard. Right now it seemed like an alien planet. His world had blown apart, everything he’d trusted and believed in turned upside down.

He kept going over it in his mind-even though his mind cringed and rebelled against the images playing through it like some grim movie flickering on an old-fashioned screen.

The way Jason was with women. The way Erin had been acting, those few days before she died. She was upset about something. Worried. Or afraid. What Jason did to Mary. A fire deliberately set, started in the master-bedroom wing, on a night when I was working late.

Was it possible? Could Jason have tried to hit on Erin, the way he’d gone after Mary? What if she’d fought back, threatened to tell Roan…what would Jase have done then? If what had happened with Mary was any indication, could he have tried to rape her? Even succeeded? Then, scared, set the fire to cover up what he’d done?

With a screech of brakes, Roan pulled over to the side of the road. He barely got the door open in time before he was violently, wrenchingly sick.

Although Susie Grace had been grounded for a week for her horseback-riding escapade, the way Mary saw it, being grounded meant no TV or Internet or playing with friends-or in Susie Grace’s case, kittens. It didn’t include books. So that evening when Susie Grace pouted about missing her favorite TV shows, Mary offered to read to her instead. She’d found a well-thumbed copy of Charlotte’s Web in a bookcase in Roan’s bedroom, with a hand-written inscription on the flyleaf that read: To Erin Elizabeth on your ninth Birthday. Love, Mama and Pop.

She was sitting on Susie Grace’s bed with the child snuggled up next to her, her small scarred chin nudging against Mary’s arm. Susie Grace had her arm around Cat, who was curled up on the other side of her, softly snoring. They hadn’t gotten far into the book-a frightened and bewildered Wilbur had just been banished to the barnyard-when Cat lifted his head and gave a low growl. For a moment he froze there, big yellow eyes staring intently at the dark windows, the growl rising in pitch and volume. Then he jumped off the bed, landed with a heavy thump, and vanished under it.

Mary felt herself go cold. She closed the book and put a finger to her lips to tell Susie Grace to be quiet, then reached to turn off the lamp. With her heart beating fast and hard, she crept to the window and looked out. At first she didn’t see anything unusual. Then something caught her eye-the glint of moonlight on the hood of a car. Not the pale buff of Roan’s SUV, but a dark sedan, coming slowly along the lane with its headlights off.

“Where are the dogs?” she whispered, and jumped when Susie Grace answered her from close behind.

“They’re probably at Grampa’s. He lets them come in the house sometimes before he goes to bed. To keep him company.”

Mary put her hands on Susie Grace’s shoulders and bent down so her face was close to hers in the darkness. “Susie Grace,” she said, her voice low and urgent, but calm, “I have to ask you something. Do you know if your daddy keeps guns in the house?”

Susie Grace’s head moved emphatically back and forth. “He only has guns at work. Grampa Boyd has guns, though. Lots of them. They’re at his house.”

“Okay…sweetheart, here’s what I want you to do.” Mary’s fingers tightened on the little girl’s shoulders. “I want you to run to your grampa’s house as fast as you can. Tell Grampa Boyd somebody’s here-tell him it’s a car you don’t know. Then you stay there, you understand? No matter what happens, you stay there. Got it?” She gave Susie Grace a tiny shake, and the little girl nodded. “Okay-off you go. Quickly-go through the kitchen. And don’t turn on the lights.”

Halfway out of the room, Susie Grace turned. Mary could see that her hands were on her hips and her head tilted with indignation. “I don’t need lights, I know my way blindfolded.”

Mary gave a little spurt of laughter, went to her and bent to gather her into a hug. She could feel the little girl’s heart beating, a slightly lighter and faster cadence than her own. “Go now-scoot. Hurry. ” She kissed her, and Susie Grace slipped into the dark hallway.

After a moment, Mary went back to the window.

Empty and clammy, Roan drove the SUV through the darkness while more images flickered across the movie screen of his mind.

Jason lying in the morning sunshine with a bullet hole in his head and another one in his heart, and no fear at all on his face. Bullets from a Colt 45…the Gun that Won the West. Frontier justice. Boyd’s collection of Old West memorabilia. Boyd, marching with his gun club in past Boomtown Days parades.