Unraveled

by Jennifer Estep

  “Fun? It’s not just fun,” Finn said, his green eyes bright with excitement. “It’s fantastic! I’m so glad we came down here this weekend. It’s the best Christmas vacation ever!”

  As if all the cowboy stuff weren’t cheesy enough, Main Street was also decked out for the holidays. Glittering strands of red, green, and silver tinsel wrapped around all the streetlights, making them look like giant candy canes. Still more tinsel adorned the iron benches that lined the sidewalks. Most of the storefront windows had been decorated with pinecones, mistletoe, and giant snowflakes that pulsed with bright white light. Even the cowboys and other costumed characters had small nods to the holiday season, like red bandannas patterned with Santa Clauses, reindeer, and snowmen tied around their necks. It was a weird mash-up of cowboy and Christmas, but I found it oddly charming.

  “C’mon,” Finn said, shooing us forward with his hands. “I want to get a good seat for the show.”

  We fell in with the stream of people heading toward the bleachers at the far end of Main Street. Space heaters were set up along the sidewalks, with several more clustered all around the bleachers, although they did little to drive back the harsh winter chill. Still, despite the cold, there was a full house for the show. I wanted to go up to the top row of bleachers, so that I had a bird’s-eye view of everything, but Finn insisted that we sit in the front row and so he elbowed a couple of people out of the way to make it happen. So that’s where we ended up.

  The crowd chattered, and several folks raised their phones, snapping photos of all the cowboys and other costumed characters who were cordoning off the street for the upcoming show. I pulled out my phone and snapped some pictures too. Not because I wanted any mementos, but just in case Hugh Tucker was lurking around somewhere. I hadn’t spotted the sneaky vampire during our stroll through the theme park, but maybe I’d get lucky, find him in a crowd shot, and reassure myself that I wasn’t going crazy and that my rampant paranoia wasn’t finally getting the best of me.

  “Isn’t this great?” Finn asked, bouncing up and down on the bleacher like a kid hopped up on sugar.

  “Yeah,” Bria said. “Great.”

  She sighed and stuck her chin down into the collar of her navy peacoat, trying to stay warm and obviously wishing that the show were already over. Owen’s lips twitched, as if he was holding back a laugh at Bria’s obvious misery. She gave him a dirty look, which only made his lips twitch again.

  Finn flagged down a guy selling concessions and bought a bag of caramel-apple popcorn for Bria and himself. Owen got a popcorn too, but I shook my head when he offered me some. Popcorn wasn’t my favorite thing. Besides, I was still too busy scanning the crowd to think about food.

  I didn’t spot Tucker anywhere, and no one seemed to be paying any attention to my friends and me. So I sat back and tried to relax, even though I couldn’t shake the feeling that the vampire was here somewhere, watching us.

  The earsplitting screech of a sound system’s being turned on filled the air, making everyone wince, and Ira Morris stepped into view, taking up a position on a small dais off to one side of the bleachers. The dwarf still wore his garish Christmas sweater, which he’d topped off with a red suit jacket and red suspenders that hooked into his black jeans. Black cowboy boots covered his feet, while a black bowler hat with a red ribbon around the brim perched on his head. He looked like he belonged in an old-fashioned barbershop quartet, but the odd outfit suited him.

  Ira made a big show of hooking his fingers through his red suspenders, then letting go of them, so that they snapped back into place. He gave the crowd a wide grin, looking far more cheerful than he had in his office, and grabbed a microphone from a passing saloon girl. A hush fell over the crowd, and Ira kept grinning until everyone had quieted down.

  “Why, hello there, ladies and gentlemen,” the dwarf drawled in his low, gravelly voice that would have been perfectly at home in a hundred old Western movies. “Welcome to our little corner of the world, Bullet Pointe. Or home, as we like to call it.”

  He let out a hearty chuckle. Bria looked at me and rolled her eyes, as if to say, Really? There’s more of this? Cheesy theatrics weren’t my thing either, but Owen seemed to be enjoying it, and Finn was completely enraptured, his gaze fixed on Ira, not even looking at the popcorn he was stuffing into his mouth. If Finn was focused on the show, then he wasn’t thinking about Deirdre and all her betrayals, so I supposed that was some progress. I’d take what I could get, even if I had to suffer through a corny show.

  “Now, since y’all are new here, you might not be aware, but we have some outlaws in these parts,” Ira continued. “Some of the meanest, nastiest folks you’ll ever come across. The infamous Dalton gang.”

  As soon as he finished saying the word gang, loud whoops, shouts, and hollers sounded, and a dozen men on horses erupted out of one of the alleys, riding straight into the middle of Main Street, firing their guns up into the air. The crowd gasped and ducked, even though they knew that it was all just part of the show.

  The Dalton gang kept circling their horses around and around, shooting off their weapons. Each of them was dressed like a typical cowboy in boots, chaps, and hats, but one guy was bigger and broader than all the rest, a giant who was well over seven feet tall. He was a handsome man, with wavy, dark brown hair and a heavy five o’clock shadow already on his chin. He was dressed all in black, from his boots, jeans, and shirt to the black-and-white paisley bandanna looped around his neck and the black Stetson on his head. He was also a bit more enthusiastic about firing his gun up into the air than the other gang members. Ah, the villain of the piece.

  Finally, the gang members lowered their weapons and marched their horses over to a long wooden rail outside the Feeding Trough barbecue restaurant. They dismounted, tied the animals to the rail, and ambled back over to the wide-open space in front of the bleachers.

  “Now, there’s a rumor going around that Brody Dalton, the leader of the gang, has a mind to rob the bank when the next shipment of gold comes into town,” Ira continued.

  The muscled giant in black spun his silver revolver around and around on his finger as he paced back and forth in front of the bleachers.

  “I’m tired of living out on the range with nothing but hardtack and stale biscuits to eat,” Brody Dalton said in a deep baritone. “I’m aiming to take what I want, and what I want is gold—and lots of it.”

  He didn’t look at the crowd, even though everyone knew that he was talking to us.

  He pointed his revolver in the direction of the Gold Mine jewelry store, which apparently also doubled as the town bank in this scenario. The other gang members gathered around, all of them eager to follow his lead.

  “But, Brody,” one of the other giants called out, “what about Sheriff Roxy?”

  On cue, the swinging double doors to the saloon opened, and Roxy Wyatt strode outside. She was still wearing the same cowgirl getup as before, with one notable addition—a bright silver sheriff’s star was pinned to her chest. Sheriff Roxy took off her white hat and waved it back and forth in front of her face, as though she were hot, despite its being all of twenty-five degrees outside. But I supposed in this little drama, it was always a hot, sunny day in the Old West.

  “I ain’t worried about Sheriff Roxy,” Brody sneered. “Why, I’ve got pet rattlesnakes bigger than she is. Ain’t that right, boys?”

  The gang members snickered. Sheriff Roxy magically seemed to notice Brody and his crew, and she stalked in their direction, her hands dropping to the pearl handles of the two revolvers strapped to her waist.

  Ira cleared his throat, his voice far less enthusiastic than before. “Sheriff Roxy had heard the rumors too, and she decided to give Brody one last warning about what would happen if he tried to rob the bank.”

  “Brody!” Roxy called out. “This is your last warning. Don’t go causing no trouble now. Or I’ll have to put you down quicker tha
n a cold sarsaparilla on a hot summer day.”

  The giant snickered and crossed his arms over his chest. “You talk big, but you couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with those fancy guns of yours.”

  Roxy glanced over her shoulder. I hadn’t noticed it until now, but a couple of guys were busy setting out glass bottles on top of one of the storefront roofs. As soon as they were done, the men skedaddled out of view, leaving the bottles behind, a good hundred feet from where Roxy was standing.

  Roxy turned back to Brody and grinned. “That’s where you’re dead wrong, Brody. I’m the best shot in this here county, and I’ll prove it to y’all, right here, right now.”

  Even though I knew exactly what was coming next, I still jumped with the rest of the crowd when Roxy pulled her revolvers out of their holsters, spun around, and started firing.

  Crack!

  Crack! Crack!

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  One by one, the glass bottles shattered. Not only that, but they actually exploded, with flashes of elemental Fire shooting up into the sky. Even across the distance, I could feel the hot blasts of magic rippling through the air. Roxy might have only moderate power, but she’d found a way to make it count.

  “Hey,” I whispered, “she’s using real bullets. Coated with real elemental magic.”

  Finn and Owen both shushed me, totally into the show. Bria muttered something about being cold and slouched down a little more. But I stared at Roxy, far more interested in her than before. Sure, she’d probably performed this act and had made those same trick shots dozens of times before, but it was still impressive. She was a sharpshooter in every sense of the word. And I’d never seen anyone use silverstone bullets coated with elemental magic before. Not just trick shots, but deadly ones at that.

  Roxy showed off more of her sharpshooting skills, hitting more glass bottles, tin signs, and even shearing several lassos in two. She didn’t just aim at things head-on and hit them like a normal shooter. She put her guns behind her back or over her shoulders or even down at her knees, twisting into more and more elaborate and impossible positions, with the targets getting smaller and smaller all the while. She even shot a cigar out of a gambler’s mouth using a mirror.

  The crowd was appropriately impressed, and Brody and his gang were appropriately slack-jawed, right up until Roxy put her empty guns away and told them to git out of town—or else.

  In return, Brody stomped around and made threatening noises that Roxy hadn’t seen the last of him and blah, blah-blah, blah-blah. The scene ended with Brody and the other gang members untying their horses from the rail and leading them away under Sheriff Roxy’s watchful gaze.

  Ira brought his microphone back up to his lips. “Sheriff Roxy was no fool, and she knew that Brody would be back, just as soon as a payroll shipment of gold came into the bank.” He paused. “And now, folks, we’re going to take a short break, so feel free to grab some more concessions while we set the stage for the final act of our little drama.”

  Ira disappeared, and the concessions people reappeared, offering another round of popcorn, boiled peanuts, hot chocolate, and the like. This time, Finn bought a candy apple, while Bria gave in and got a wad of cherry cotton candy. Owen sipped a sarsaparilla served in an old-fashioned glass bottle, but I raised up my phone and took some more shots of the crowd, still searching for Hugh Tucker, although I didn’t see him anywhere—

  Suddenly, a great whooping and hollering rang out, along with the crack-crack-crack of gunfire. A few seconds later, a stagecoach erupted out of one of the alleys and careened out into the middle of Main Street, with the members of the Dalton gang hot on its tail on horseback.

  The gang quickly overtook the stagecoach and forced it to stop, right in front of the bleachers. Gasps rang out from the audience, especially when the gang members tossed the driver off the stagecoach. But the guy did a beautiful pratfall onto what looked like a suspiciously soft patch of hay-covered dirt. Probably the same spot he’d landed on a hundred times before.

  The gang pried open the stagecoach door, and two of the members reached inside, then set a locked strongbox on the ground, which Brody dramatically busted open with the butt of his gun. The giant reached down and pulled out a fistful of fake gold coins, which he let slide through his fingers and trickle back down into the box.

  “Whoo-eee, boys! We’re set for life!” Brody yelled to the enthusiastic cheers of the gang.

  The crowd was completely caught up in the story, and pretty much everyone—even Bria—was perched on the edge of their seat, wondering what was going to happen next.

  Just as Brody and his gang were trying to figure out how to load the strongbox of gold onto one of their horses, Sheriff Roxy came running out of the saloon, along with several good-guy cowboys. She sprinted across the sidewalk, leaped up onto one of those long wooden rails, and flew through the air, landing perfectly on top of her waiting horse.

  Shock jolted through me. I recognized that smooth, graceful acrobatic style. Those were more or less the same moves that Ms. Fedora had used when she’d jumped the fence outside Jonah McAllister’s mansion a few days ago. I’d thought that Roxy might be up to something, but I’d never expected her to be an assassin for the Circle.

  “Son of a bitch!” I muttered.

  Several people shushed me, and Ira Morris gave me a particularly dirty look for daring to interrupt the show’s grand finale, especially with such bad language. Finn, Owen, and Bria all stared at me, but I shook my head, and they all went back to the show. Me too, with my gaze now firmly fixed on Sheriff Roxy.

  Roxy galloped down the street, threw herself off her horse, and whipped out her trusty revolvers. “Surrender, Brody!” she yelled, pointing her guns at the giant outlaw. “Don’t make me shoot you!”

  “You’ll never take me alive, Sheriff!” Brody shouted back, pulling out his own guns.

  After that, it was like an epic Western movie shoot-out, as everyone pulled out their guns and started firing at everyone else. All of them using blanks, this time, of course. Costumed characters poured out of the saloon, the jewelry store, and all the other shops to take part in the big showdown, with Brody Dalton and his gang facing off against Sheriff Roxy and the good folks of Bullet Pointe.

  I’ll give the performers their props. They went all out in selling the show, with exaggerated facial expressions, bloodcurdling screams, and several impressive swan dives from the second-story balconies and even the storefront roofs onto strategically placed hay bales and other soft surfaces below. A couple of dwarves even dropped down into a couple of conveniently placed water troughs and came up sputtering. I shivered. Even though it was all an act, that water had to be frigid today, no matter how many space heaters were in and around Main Street.

  The gang members were quickly overpowered by the townspeople, who loomed over them with shotguns, ­rifles, and pitchforks, and soon Brody was the only outlaw left standing.

  “Give it up, Brody!” Roxy shouted, slowly advancing on the giant, her revolvers still pointed at him. “You’ve got no place to go!”

  “Never!” Brody hissed back.

  The giant’s head whipped left and right, searching for an escape route. Then he did something completely unexpected—he sprinted directly at the bleachers. The crowd gasped, but Brody ignored their surprise and popped off a few more blank shots at Roxy, who gracefully rolled behind a water trough for cover.

  “You’ll never take me alive, Sheriff!” Brody repeated, still racing toward the crowd.

  He skidded to a stop right in front of the bleachers, as if just realizing that people were sitting there. His dark brown gaze locked with mine, and a smile spread across his face.

  Before I knew what was happening, Brody Dalton grabbed my arm, hauled me to my feet, and pressed his gun against my temple.

  10

  “You’re coming with me!” Brody yelled in my ear
.

  “I don’t think so, sugar.”

  I didn’t even think about what I was doing. I just reacted the way I normally did anytime someone shoved a gun up against my head and tried to take me hostage.

  Violently.

  I rammed my elbow into the giant’s stomach three times in rapid succession. Brody let out a loud oof! of pain and surprise and lost his grip on me. Before he could recover, I whipped around, yanked the gun out of his hand, and slammed it right back into his face.

  Crunch.

  The giant might have been shooting blanks during the battle scene, but his revolver was real and heavy enough to break his nose, especially with the force I put behind it. Brody yelped and staggered back, clutching his hands to his suddenly lumpy, swollen nose. Blood gushed down his face and soaked into the black-and-white paisley bandanna tied around his neck. The giant’s blood also spattered all over the revolver, which I was still holding up high, ready to slam it into his face again.

  For a moment, there was stunned silence.

  Brody stared at me with wide, shocked eyes, as did the rest of the performers and everyone in the audience. Even the horses looked at me sideways. I’d forgotten about everything else when I was taking down Brody, but now dozens of people and animals were eyeing me, the crazy woman who’d just ruined this grand Western show by being, well, me.

  Ira hustled over and plucked the revolver out of my hand before I could do any more damage with it. “Let’s give a round of applause to this little lady who, um, saved the day in Bullet Pointe!”

  Polite, scattered applause broke out, but everyone in the audience kept shooting me wary glances, and the cast looked particularly sour. Brody glared at me with hate-filled eyes, even as he ripped off his bandanna to wipe the blood off his face and his still-swelling nose.

  “Why don’t you give a nice wave to the crowd, little lady,” Ira said in a loud, pointed voice, jabbing his elbow into my side much the same way that I’d done to Brody.