The Widow's Revenge (35 page)

Unsteady, she had no option but to lean against the tall, lean man.

Which Moon did not mind. Indeed, the tribal investigator began to think that things might just turn out all right after all, and decided to take the situation firmly into hand. (What a man.) He put his arm around her slender form. “Soon as your legs feel like walking into the parlor, I expect you’ll want to arrest Mr. Smith.”

Annie Rose looked up at the Ute’s craggy face. The question she dared not ask,
could
not ask, was in her eyes.
Will you keep your mouth shut?

Charlie Moon understood. Perfectly. But the delicate subject had to be approached in a roundabout way, which is to say—a circuitous path. “I might as well admit it, Special Agent Rose. I’ve made a fool of myself tonight,
treating you like I did. I’d sure appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything about it.”

The FBI agent also understood. Perfectly. Annie gazed at Moon with an expression that spoke of gratitude. And trust. And also just a touch of . . . No. That shall remain between the man and the woman.

Suffice it to say, he returned the lady’s gaze.

The deal was done.

But, as is so often the case, there was One Last Thing.

Special Agent Rose glanced toward the dark hallway that tunneled through the darkness to the headquarters parlor. “There’s something I’d like to ask you.”

“Ask away.”
She sure does have pretty eyes
.

“This Mr. Smith—does the Code of the West apply to him?”

“Yes it does.” The Ute’s face hardened.
And one way or another, I’ll make sure he gets what’s coming to him
.

Charlie Moon had no way of knowing that
what was coming
to Mr. Smith was—in a literal sense—just around the corner. And approaching rapidly.

THE GRAVITY OF HIS SITUATION WAS NOT LOST ON THE GRITTY FELLOW
who had gnawed the heads off writhing copperhead snakes, wrestled twelve-foot alligators, and fought men half again his size with his bare hands. The simple act of pressing a letter opener through a chair cushion would be the scariest thing Bill Smith had ever attempted.

As he tried to find the courage to do what was necessary, Smith’s hand trembled.
If I don’t poke a hole in that pie pan at just the right spot, the damn thing’s liable to detonate and blow off both of my legs and mangle my butt and . . .
The full extent of the hideous injuries were too horrible to contemplate. But, try as he might, Smith could not evict the haunting images from his mind. He shuddered at the bloody memory of a terrified victim who had panicked and attempted to jump off the Family’s improvised explosive device
before it could detonate
. And, like that terrified unfortunate . . .
I wouldn’t die right away
. Thirty seconds of such suffering would seem an eternity.
But if I don’t get away from here, I’ll be arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced
. This was a now-or-never situation.
I’ve got to chance it
. Trying to look on the bright side, Moon’s prisoner had to squint to see just a tiny flicker of light.
With a little luck, this’ll turn out all right
.

But, unlike courage, luck cannot be summoned up.

And there was another factor that might muddy up the waters. Chief of Police Scott Parris.

If Mr. Smith had been aware of the silent, shadowy form lurking behind his chair, the edgy assassin might have concluded that the Angel of Death had come to snatch his miserable soul.

Parris was no angel. Moreover—and this was perhaps the most unsettling
aspect of the situation—the lawman was virtually oblivious to the painful drama being played out within arm’s length. Whether his mental state was the result of simple stress or could be attributed to sinister machinations in some murky dimension of Reality that lies beyond mortal understanding, Granite Creek PD’s top cop was experiencing the singular sensation of
slipping out of his body
. Whether this condition was actual or imagined is neither here nor there. What matters is that for all practical purposes—his conscious self was
elsewhere
.

More specifically, hovering in the midst of that sparsely populated cemetery atop Pine Knob.

While Smith prepared himself for his dangerous task, the lawman behind him dreamed.

Or so it seemed . . .

Episode Seven
His Crime Revealed

Scott Parris stood by the mound of earth whereunder his moldering corpse slept that long, dreamless sleep. As before, it was the graying slab of wood at the head of his grave that fascinated the visitor. The self-mourner mouthed the words as he read them:

SCOT PARIS

U.S. MARSHAL

1822–1877

HUNG FOR

BACK-SHOOTING

It was bad enough that the Indian hadn’t spelled his name right
. But Hung for Back-Shooting—what a helluva thing for Charlie Moon to write on my grave marker.
And not only that—
Who did I back-shoot?
The marshal figured it might’ve been the judge’s favorite brother, who was a notorious horse thief and card cheat
. Or maybe it was that Sandwich Islands ukulele player over at the Tennessee Saloon that I never did like.

But maybes and mights were distinctly unsatisfying—like slurping up
muddy ditch water when you craved a mug of cold beer. What Marshal Parris craved right now were answers. And, though they didn’t put it this way in 1877—closure. This business of insulting epitaphs and not knowing who he’d back-shot was enough to make a fellow bite tenpenny nails in half and spit ’em in somebody’s eye!

As it happened, there was a shortage of both nails and somebodys in the immediate vicinity
.

No, that is only half right
.

Parris realized that he was no longer alone on the Knob. He glared hatefully at the dark, sinister form of a man. What was so offensive about this uninvited guest? The brazen fellow was sitting on the U.S. marshal’s grave maker. And, as if that that affront were not sufficiently insulting, the newcomer was showing his backside to the marshal
.

A man can take only so much guff before push comes to shove. But that is mere metaphor. Parris was way beyond either pushing or shoving. The marshal pulled his sidearm from a leather holster
.

As they are apt to do at such moments, faraway on the prairie, a lonely coyote yip-yipped
.

Parris aimed his weapon at the man’s back
.

In a lightning-scarred ponderosa on Pine Knob, a sooty-black owl hooted
.

The lawman’s gristly finger tightened on the trigger and—

TIME OUT
.

It is necessary to raise an issue that may prove to be pertinent.

As he is subjected to his unsettling out-of-body experience, Parris’s finger tightens on the trigger of
what
firearm?

An imaginary 1870s-era six-shooter? No.

The marshal’s finger is tightening on the actual trigger of an
ivory-gripped .44 caliber Magnum revolver
. Right. The sidearm that Charlie Moon confiscated from Bill Smith, and subsequently passed to Chief of Police Scott Parris on the Columbine headquarters porch. The deadly weapon is aimed directly at Mr. Smith’s spine.

UNAWARE OF
the full extent of the trouble he was in, Bill Smith made up his mind to get on with the job. His teeth literally
on edge
, the felon placed the slender letter-opener blade at his crotch and began the nerve-jangling task of pressing it oh so gingerly through the cushion. The process was exquisitely agonizing. No one could see the assassin’s pained grimace when the tip of the blade suddenly completed its path through the innards of the pillow and touched the pie pan.
Okay
. Sweat dripped from his nose.
So far, so good
. Also from his chin.
All I got to do now is pierce the thin aluminum pan, and drive the letter opener through the IED—without hitting anything that’ll trigger the detonator—and short the pie pan to the steel plate
. He grinned.
Then I’m outta here
.

The hardened criminal set his jaw.

Clenched his yellowed teeth.

Ditto for an unmentionable orifice situated very near the cushion.

Well, here goes nothin’
.

Bill Smith held his breath, made the fateful plunge, and—

—
A DEAFENING EXPLOSION JARRED THE COLUMBINE PARLOR.

ANNIE ROSE
gasped, and clutched at her companion.
The IED has exploded!

Charlie Moon held her close for a little longer than the situation called for. “I guess we’d better go see what happened.” But he knew well enough.
Scott has shot him dead
.

Moon assisted the lady, whose sleeping legs were still dozing, into the parlor to see—

A punctured aluminum pie pan rolling merrily along the parlor floor.

Scott Parris standing behind Smith’s overturned chair. In his hand, nothing less than the proverbial
smoking gun
. Bill Smith’s .44 Magnum.

The victim?

Mr. Smith was facedown on the hearth. Silent as Death itself. Annie shook her head in stunned disbelief. “He’s
shot
the suspect!”

SCOTT PARRIS
is no longer evening-dreaming about his grave marker atop 1870s Pine Knob, or that ill-mannered stranger sitting on his grave marker who needed shooting. The chief of police is wide awake, cold sober, and well aware of where he is and what he’s done and would not have denied that the act was wholly intentional and had been carried out with considerable malice aforethought. Moreover (as can be seen by the satisfied grin on his face), the GCPD chief of police is quite pleased with himself.

Scott Parris has not shot Bill Smith in the back, or in any other part of
his anatomy. Here’s what happened: At that instant when the letter opener in Smith’s hand had penetrated the pie pan, which event had been signaled by a nervous “eeep!” from the chair-bound assassin, the chief of police (who has a mischievous streak) had fired the thunderous shot into the
floor beneath Smith’s chair
.