“I’m just a sick woman who is sick of dying,” her mother continued. “And sick people do terrible things when they’re not in their right minds, like protecting what is theirs.” She coughed until her eyes watered; it was the closest she ever got to crying. “And paying people to lose fights. So they’ll come home where they belong. I never thought you’d turn the money down and take a beating. Just look at you.”
Carla stared at her as thunder rattled the windowpanes and the electricity flickered. The Lewis Mansion creaked and groaned as wooden joists settled like the timbers of an old sailing ship heaving in the wind.
Alyce wiped her eyes without a hint of apology. “I’m dying but I’m not above trying to make amends. And I couldn’t wait any longer. I’m too old for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and even if I wasn’t, I doubt they’d fulfill my desire to put an end to your philandering stepfather. With Arnold gone, when I’m laid to rest, everything will be yours. And you can fix that broken nose.”
She stubbed out her cigarette and lit another, coughing as she puffed away.
Carla went to close the drawer. Hesitated. She picked up the revolver and felt its weight. It didn’t seem real until she opened the cylinder and saw the gun was loaded. She trailed her fingers along the oiled barrel while her mother kept talking, wheezing, lecturing, until her voice became the sound of a drunken fight crowd throwing plastic cups of beer, screaming for Carla to step forward, to press on, to walk through the punishment. She heard Sturgill shouting from outside the ring, urging her to circle to her left, away from the gloved fist that kept coming out of nowhere. Carla closed her eyes and smelled her stepfather’s aftershave amid the smelling salts. When she opened them she saw a trail of dust out the window as Arnold turned down the lane toward the house. Her knuckles were white, laced around the grip. Her finger was on the trigger.
Her mother was smiling.
The room fell silent except for the soft hiss of the oxygen tank.
Carla sighed and her shoulders sagged. “That was a very nice speech, Mother. I bet you practiced it for days. But you should have just come out and asked. Instead of pretending you were going to do something noble for a change.”
Carla’s mother tried to look insulted. But she never had been an actress.
“I almost believed you,” Carla said. “Almost.”
She put on her sunglasses, popped her neck, and walked outside, gun in hand, as a stray dog barked in the distance.
Carla walked into the stubble field where her father had taken his own life. Where his body had been found at sunset, arms and legs akimbo.
She heard gravel spray as Arnold pulled up in his Cadillac.
She heard the car door slam as he began shouting for her to come inside, telling her that her mother needed her and it would soon be raining, hailing, or worse. She kept walking as lightning flashed on the horizon. She stared ahead at the furrowed ground, remembering how she used to wander these fields in the spring as a little girl, spending long afternoons looking for dinosaur bones and meteorites. But all she ever found were gophers and jackrabbits, tumbleweeds and the occasional rattlesnake.
Carla heard her stepfather stumbling behind her, babbling threats about legal precedents and powers of attorney. Reminding her that she’d run away and telling her she’d never wanted any of this to begin with. He finally stopped talking when Carla turned around and he saw the gun tucked into her waistband. Where his hands had once been.
Carla enjoyed the long moment of silence. She needed a moment to clear her head. To feel this place again.
She licked her lips and drew the pistol. She stepped forward and touched the barrel to the bridge of her stepfather’s nose. She closed one eye and cocked the hammer with a satisfying click, like the sound of an ambulance door closing, the latch of a coffin lid, or an expensive fountain pen snapping in two, splattering red ink all over the page.
Arnold froze. He sucked air past clenched teeth. He swallowed and his Adam’s apple rose and fell. “Look,” he whispered, “we can make a deal. I’ll give you anything you want. You don’t have to do this.”
“I don’t have to do anything anymore,” Carla said as she slowly lowered the gun. “And you have nothing to give.” She looked over her stepfather’s shoulder, toward the house. Her feeble mother was on the porch, mouthing the words, Do it.
She offered the gun to Arnold. “My mother wants you dead.”
Her stepfather hesitated, not trusting her. She lifted the Colt slightly. Take it.
“But I’m not my mother.”
He took the revolver in his trembling hands, quickly pointing the business end at her as his face showed fear, confusion, and relief. He chewed his lip while dust from the field settled into the beads of sweat on his forehead.
“You won’t get off that easy.” Carla reached out, placed her hand over Arnold’s, and squeezed his trigger finger.
Carla didn’t hear the gun go off. But she heard the ringing in her ears, her mother’s shouting. She thought she saw her stepfather smiling as her body bent in half and she tumbled to the ground. She closed her eyes and waited for the bell.
Two months later Carla limped back into the state liquor store.
The Liquor Store Lady was reading the morning paper and Carla couldn’t help but smile when she saw her stepfather’s face on the front page. The headline read: ATTORNEY GETS 15 YEARS IN DEER LODGE FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER. FRAUD TRIAL PENDING.
Carla owed the boys in the field for stopping the bleeding and saving her life. Especially for testifying that they’d heard a single shot that stormy afternoon and seen Arnold Chivers, Esquire, standing over Carla’s body with gun in hand.
Her stepfather swore that he’d been set up, of course. But the dying testimony of Alyce Lewis, a heartbroken woman so in love with the man she’d put her entire estate in his name, removed all doubt from the jurors’ minds.
“Nice to see you walking around under your own power,” the Liquor Store Lady said. “I’m sorry you couldn’t be there for your mother’s funeral.”
Carla shrugged. She felt the loss. But she had a bottle of Percocet to dull the pain from two surgeries and her memories of this town that she loved and hated. A place where you could buy shotgun shells along with chewing gum at the local diner. Where second-graders visited a museum featuring dinosaurs and Noah’s Ark side by side. Where poaching applied to mule deer, elk, and the occasional person.
Her family’s estate was in turmoil, and probably would be for years, but Carla didn’t care. She had better things to do.
“Back to the old standby?” the Liquor Store Lady asked.
Carla shook her head and placed an unopened bottle of Roughstock on the counter. “I don’t need it anymore. Figured I’d just return it to the source.”
The Liquor Store Lady nodded her head. “Given up drinking, have you?”
“I’ve given up losing,” Carla said as she left.
Driving east, she thought about the redheaded lefty who was out there somewhere. Along with the ex-manager who owed her.
And Carla “Gut Shot” Lewis was looking for a rematch.
Bad Blood
by Carrie La Seur
Downtown Billings
The elders lined up in ergonomic conference-room chairs, birds on a wire, careful not to touch the sleek ash table that made Jimmy Beck so proud. Elbow to canvas elbow, braids down their backs like a fringe on the row, they watched the court reporter set up her machine and did not look at Vera. She was free to study their faces, which were the color of ripe acorns, and the river drainages mapped across their cheeks.