Chapter Seventeen
Beau
It was after hours at the end of another very long day, and Beau and Tilly were sitting side by side at the bar in the saloon. He sipped his cold tea. Calling it iced would be too misleading. Calling it whiskey was Benny’s idea.
He couldn’t say for certain where Shanda was, nor did he care. He’d given up on that part of his role. What she did after hours was her business. She’d said she was going to bed, but when it came to escape, she could rival Houdini.
Meanwhile, he was antsy to get to Belle’s. He wasn’t about to give up one of the few nights they had left together. Making her smile was the highlight of his day. She liked the striptease he’d performed for her last night, and she’d like the encore he had lined up for tonight even more.
If only she wasn’t stuck in Burning Scrub.
But—
What if she wasn’t? Would Benny and Mavis really use the money they claimed she owed them to keep her in a place she no longer wanted to be? Did she want to be here? What did she want? He didn’t know, and he didn’t know how to find out. She was working through a few issues.
“How did you convince Belle to do it?” Tilly asked, her question in line with his thoughts.
Her coming out was two days ago now. Two very long days, in which Beau had been stuck in the saloon, clearing tables and breaking up fights. The residents of Burning Scrub took their roles seriously.
“Hey. Don’t blame me for it,” he said. “It was Belle. She came up with it all on her own.”
Tilly’s eyebrows were eloquent in their disbelief. “And you knew nothing about it.”
“I never said that.”
She spun her half-empty glass on the polished wood counter. “Belle is always so quiet and serious, I guess we kind of forgot that she’s related to Benny and Mavis.” Beau noticed she left Shanda off the family tree. “It’s good that she’s finally asserting herself. Otherwise, they’d crush her.”
He could easily see why Tilly believed that. But he’d also seen Belle in a temper. And frankly, he believed she could hold her own against anyone once she put her mind to it. All that she’d needed from him was a little encouragement.
“What are the odds that Shanda skipped out to meet up with the sheriff?” Tilly asked.
Beau was growing accustomed to Tilly’s squirrel-brained shifts in conversational direction, and he contemplated the question long enough to make her squirm with impatience but not lose interest entirely.
“Pretty good,” he finally said. “The lodge is the likeliest place for Benny and Adam to have hidden the money, and sleeping with him is the easiest way for her to get inside to find it.”
The glass in Tilly’s hand quit its spinning. “That’s brilliant. What brought you to that conclusion?”
“Common sense. They set up a conflict between her and the sheriff. Why forbid her to do something when they know she’ll turn right around and do it anyway?”
“Fair. What do you think of Sheriff Earp?”
“Not sure on that one.”
The sheriff came by the saloon once or twice a day, mostly to give Shanda a hard time, which they both seemed to enjoy. Adam, however, did not, meaning Beau enjoyed it, too.
But Sheriff Earp was here to be entertained, not to make friends, and he came across as standoffish. Part of it could be cultural. In Djitania, he was a member of the ruling class, so American friendliness might be foreign to him. Or he might just be an arrogant ass. Hard to say.
“I like him,” Tilly said. “If you’re worried about what songs to perform for him, I’d be happy to help pick them out.”
Beau eyed his guitar, which he’d left on one of the poker tables.
He had no worries about the upcoming performance.
He knew the playlist by heart, and he practiced his vocals every morning.
But the song he’d promised to write for Belle refused to come, and he kept the guitar close in the hope that inspiration would strike.
He’d assumed he would have a dozen new songs written by now.
When he arrived here, two months had seemed like forever.
Now the days were passing too quickly. He was going to miss Belle, but as hard as it was for him to believe, he’d miss Burning Scrub, too.
The town, while crazy, was peaceful, and everyone in it was so damned content, it was growing on him.
A series of yippings and howls outside broke up and stomped all over his peaceful thoughts.
He stared at Tilly. “What the hell is that?”
Her eyes had gone wide. Excitement exploded in them. “That’s Thundering Buffalo!”
She hopped off her barstool. She hadn’t changed out of her costume and her full skirt snagged on the seat.
Beau helped her unhook it. “There’s got to be more than just Dave out there.”
“He has friends with him. It’s an Indian raid. He plans them himself so that no one knows when they’re coming.”
The tongue ululations raised every hair on Beau’s body and a few on the soles of his feet he hadn’t known he possessed.
The sound was beyond creepy. Rifle shots followed.
Those shots sounded real—too real—and he changed his mind.
He was in no danger of indoctrination. Burning Scrub wasn’t peaceful. This place was nuts.
Tilly ran for the door. The feather tucked in her headband expressed jubilation.
Beau couldn’t believe it. “You aren’t going out there, are you?”
“I want to see the sheriff in action.”
If he’d been by himself, Beau might have hidden behind the counter to wait the raid out. But he could hardly let Tilly go outside alone. Not when he could use the chaos as cover to get to Belle’s. How was he supposed to write the song he’d promised her when she wasn’t around to inspire it?
He followed Tilly outside. She crouched against the wall.
“What are—” He heard a thunk. When he turned, his cheek bumped against a skinny stick of wood that protruded from the side of the building. He touched it. “Is this arrow real?”
The whirr of the fletching in movies was bogus. He hadn’t heard a thing until the arrowhead buried itself in the wood, and only then because it was right next to his head. He and Thundering Buffalo were going to have words.
Tilly tugged on his pantleg. “Get down. If you don’t stay low to the ground, you might get hit by accident.”
“There are rules to these raids?” If so, no one had explained them to him.
“Of course there are rules. We want everything to seem real, but we don’t want anyone to get killed.”
A shadow moved at the corner of the building. The shadow grew solid and turned into Adam, who carried a rifle. His shirt was untucked and only half buttoned, as if he’d dressed in a hurry. He dropped to one knee and aimed over Beau’s head.
Beau hoped it was over his head. He fought the urge to grab Tilly and use her as a human shield.
Adam fired into the air. The echo of the blast faded. For a moment, there was silence. Then, the creepy yipping resumed.
Thunder rumbled at the far end of town.
Adam swore. “Dammit, they’re stealing the horses. I told Dave to leave them alone.”
“What’s with the weird noises those guys are making?” Beau said. If he’d been a settler, that alone would have driven him out of Montana.
“Diversion,” Tilly replied. “While a few of Dave’s friends are at this end of town shooting arrows and making their presence known, the rest of them are at the stable, running off with our horses.”
The rumbling grew closer. “Five or six horses can make that much noise?”
“The raiders are on horseback, too. There’s probably a dozen of them altogether.”
Adam released another string of swear words. “They’re running them straight down the street.”
“Dave likes to put on a good show,” Tilly said to Beau. “It’s more exciting than disappearing into the woods with them.”
“Yeah, but the street is soft from the rain. They’re going to make a mess of it,” Adam complained. “Dave knows better than that. He’s just being lazy.”
Beau spared a brief thought as to how Buttercup was making out, then decided the horse was safe enough. No one was going to steal him, even for show.
“Where’s the sheriff?” he asked. “Shouldn’t he be doing something about this?”
“He’s tucked up in the lodge for the night, safe and sound. He can watch from his front porch and enjoy the performance,” Adam said.
A horse came barreling up the middle of the street from the opposite direction, heading toward the stampeding horses.
Sheriff Earp sat low in the saddle with a lot more skill than when Beau had made the same ride.
The sheriff wasn’t riding Buttercup, however, so he had that in his favor.
He carried a rifle as if he knew how to use it and wouldn’t think twice if he had to.
Beau watched him in awe. Sheriff Earp had prepped for this role.
“His rifle has blanks in it, right?” Tilly asked, sounding far too concerned for Beau’s liking. Things going wrong around here rarely worked out in his favor.
Before Adam could answer, the two opposing forces collided.
The sheriff was ready for it. He cut off the lead horse, forcing it to slam on its hind brakes and change course, which confused its equine companions.
The natives stealing the horses, not anticipating resistance, were equally confused.
They split from the herd and disappeared into the night.
The sheriff got the remaining horses calmed down and under control, then he turned them around and they headed for home.
The yipping and howling stopped. So did the flying arrows. The sheriff could be heard shouting commands at the horses, who had lost their enthusiasm for their role in the adventure by now.
Silence returned.
The moon peered out from behind a thick bank of clouds, checking to see if the excitement was over and it was safe to come out. Adam sat with his shoulders to the wall and his rifle resting across his knees. He was shaking his head.
Tilly looked at him. “Weren’t you supposed to be keeping an eye on the sheriff?”
“He was inside for the night when I left him.”