Mercy Kill

by Lori Armstrong

  “Then explain last night at Stillwell’s? What the fuck were you doing going after Benji Bad Wound? Showing him up in front of an entire bar full of witnesses?”

  “I had no freakin’ clue who he was. But it doesn’t matter, because I’m not the type to sit around and let a bully have free rein to beat the shit out of someone. No one else stepped in, so I did.”

  “Why do you think no one else got involved?”

  It occurred to me, for the first time, that everyone in the bar probably knew Benji was Saro and Victor’s nephew. The reason no one—including Steve Stillwell—had stepped in? Nobody wanted to incur the wrath or attention of the reservation bad boys. But I’d heard that blasted “Underdog” theme song inside my head and jumped in, fists flying.

  Great plan, Mercy. Maybe the logic center of your brain has been rattled by too many IEDs.

  But Agent Turnbull wasn’t done railing on me. “And to make matters worse, you threatened Saro and Victor when they showed up at Stillwell’s to talk to you about humiliating Benji.”

  “They threatened me, Agent. I told them the truth—I’d derive great pleasure in taking them down if I was elected sheriff. Oh, and that was after they’d dropped hints about what a tool my father was.”

  “Now, thanks to your macho behavior and the chip on your shoulder about your dearly departed dad, Saro and Victor have closed ranks and holed up on the reservation where we can’t get to them.”

  “Get to them for what?”

  No response.

  My jaw popped I clenched my teeth so hard. “You have proof one of them killed Jason Hawley?”

  Agent Turnbull stared at me blankly.

  “Goddammit. Tell me.”

  He offered me a snakebite smile. “I don’t have to tell you a thing, Sergeant Major.”

  “Is he bothering you?”

  Startled, I glanced up to see Sheriff Dawson. His face was pure business, his posture pure agitation as he braced a hand on the back of the booth above my head and loomed over Agent Turnbull.

  Yikes.

  “Or am I interrupting something?”

  “No. Agent Turnbull and I were finished.”

  At my use of his title, Turnbull scowled.

  “Would you like to join us?” I asked Dawson politely.

  “I’ll pass.”

  But Dawson didn’t move. Agent Turnbull didn’t move. I didn’t move. A machete couldn’t have hacked the thick air.

  Agent Turnbull’s curious gaze winged between Dawson’s impass-ive face and mine. A knowing smile upturned the corners of his lips. “I’m not interested in muscling in on your territory, Dawson.”

  “You’ve been on my territory since the second you stepped foot in this county. I’ll cooperate with the feds because I’ve got no choice, Agent Turnbull, but I don’t gotta like it.”

  Dawson was purposely being obtuse. Again, I was reminded of his fierceness. Of his sweetness. He’d rather take an insult than allow one to be directed at me.

  You’re such a sucker, Mercy. Maybe you oughta pucker up, bat your eyelashes, and squeeze his big biceps, too.

  Turnbull, being a nosy asshole fed, didn’t let it slide. “Tell me, Sheriff. Does knowing what she’s capable of make it hard to fall asleep next to her some nights?”

  I ground my teeth at hearing Turnbull voice the question I’d asked myself.

  Dawson flashed his teeth. “Have a nice day, Agent.” He looked at me, no differently than usual, and said, “You, too, Miz Gunderson.”

  After Dawson swaggered off, Turnbull asked, “How many people know about you and Dawson?”

  I pretended to give the question serious thought. “Probably everyone, with the exception of the folks in the Restful Acres Nursing Home. Most of them have limited recall, and I doubt they even know who’s in the sheriff’s race. But everyone else knows I’m running against him.”

  He rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”

  I know. “Excuse me.” I ducked out of the booth. I didn’t run, but with his long-legged stride I didn’t catch Dawson until we were in front of Pete’s Pawnshop. “Dawson. Wait.”

  He seemed surprised to see me. Surprised and wary. He glanced over his shoulder. “If you’re gonna chew me out, I’d prefer you did it in private.”

  “I didn’t chase you down to rip into you.”

  “Then why did you chase me down?”

  Because I’m just as much a tool and a fool as I feared. “To ask why you didn’t tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “About Shay Turnbull. Who he is, who he works for.”

  The angry muscle ticked in Dawson’s jaw. “Why does it matter now?”

  “It just does.”

  “That’s a bullshit answer, and I don’t have time for this.” Dawson spun and started to walk away from me.

  Frustrated by his dismissal, I grabbed the back of his shirt to stop him.

  Within two seconds he’d snagged my wrist and strong-armed me into the alley. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “I’m pissed off.”

  Dawson snorted. “Like that’s news.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me Turnbull was a fed? God, Dawson, if I’d known the feds had taken over the investigation, and you had no choice but to let the Hawley case drop, I never would’ve agreed—”

  “To run against me for sheriff ?” he supplied. “It’s a little late for that now, doncha think?”

  The full brunt of my mistake knocked the breath from my lungs.

  “Answer me, Mercy.”

  I could barely work up enough spit to swallow, let alone speak.

  He crowded me against the brick building. “Do you know what’s the worst part of this situation?”

  Too many awful reasons surfaced. It was hard to shake my head in response, when it was so damn hard to hold it up.

  “Realizing how little you think of my professional abilities.”

  Direct hit. “Dawson—”

  “Let. Me. Finish. Last summer I chalked up your distrust of me to your replacement issues about your father. I chalked up your skepticism of my investigative skills to the personal stakes when your nephew was murdered. But when you automatically accused me of not doing my job again? That jab hurt worse than a knee to the balls. Or so I thought, until I started to wonder if you’d kept our personal involvement your dirty little secret because professionally you consider me no better than Barney Fife.”

  The haunted look in his eyes made me want to hide my face in shame. But he was wrong about how I’d treated him … wasn’t he?

  “I thought I could count on you to understand. You, of all people, Mercy, know what it’s like when the government forces you to keep your mouth shut, forces you to turn a blind eye, forces your compliance at any cost. You’ve lived that life. Hell, as far as I can tell, you still embody that unquestioning code of military ethics—personally and professionally. Yet here you are, judging me as lacking, for sticking to that exact same set of standards.”

  A hot wash of shame burned as the words hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite sliced through me as sharp and painful as barbed wire.

  My God. Talk about being sanctimonious. How many years had I been forced to follow protocol without question? Why had I questioned Dawson’s methodology? Because I was accustomed to being highest on the pecking order? Because my timetable, my way of doing things, and the answers I demanded should always be priority number one?

  Delusions of importance much, Sergeant Major?

  I squeezed my eyes shut.

  Why hadn’t I considered that as sheriff, Dawson would be held to rigid rules and legal standards? Why hadn’t I realized my father hadn’t talked about his duties as sheriff, not because he didn’t want to but because he couldn’t?

  I hoped for Dawson’s warm, rough fingers to nudge my chin up even as I steeled myself against his recriminations.

  But his footsteps faded as he walked away from me and I was left with nothing but regret.

  NINETEE
N

  I hated slapping on a happy face, and hitting the happy trail, after the shitty start to my day. What was the point? I should just withdraw from the race.

  And become a quitter? No.

  Cowgirl up, Mercy.

  I preferred solitude to socializing, so it was ironic that the door-to-door aspect of my campaign duties had become my favorite part. Even when folks told me to my face they planned on voting for Dawson, I couldn’t hold it against them because it was rarely said with malice.

  Older community residents, who’d known my family for generations, delighted in revealing my parents in a different light. The stories they shared were new to me, even if the tales were forty years old.

  At the first stop, Maxine Crenshaw plied me with homemade doughnuts and recalled the night my father pulled over her husband for erratic driving. Milt Crenshaw, in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, had left the house without his eyeglasses or his pants. He’d also forgotten the state had revoked his driver’s license. Rather than toss Milt in jail, my father escorted Milt home and advised Maxine to hide the car keys.

  Simple. Direct. I could visualize the scene, the amused set to my father’s mouth upon finding Milt in his boxers. Would I ever overcome the need for more time with Dad to hear his stories of life behind the badge?

  Over sweet tea and pecan cookies, Esther Beecham told me about my parents getting tossed out of Barb and Joe Jorgen’s wedding dance. Apparently my mother instigated a hair-pulling fight with another bridesmaid. When the man who tried to separate the drunken women got a little too friendly with Mom, Dad beat the crap out of him. The aggressive side of my dad didn’t surprise me—cowboys liked to express opinions with their fists. But the ever-proper Sunny Gunderson, in a knock-down, drag-out, girl fight? In public? That’d shocked me.

  Maybe I was as much a chip off Mom’s block as I was Dad’s.

  I only made those two stops. In my gut I knew I was done actively campaigning. I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d become a poseur of the worst sort and continuing this charade would dishonor my father’s memory.

  The drive to the ranch was a blur. I ignored the ranch hands as I marched through the barn. ATV keys in hand, I climbed aboard my escape vehicle and took off like the hounds of hell were chasing me.

  Shoonga loped by my side as I navigated the muddy grooves forming a path across the field. Damn dog loved getting sloppy. His antics lightened my load as he tried to hurry me along, as if he knew where we were going. By the time I reached my destination, the tightness in my chest had loosened somewhat.

  Years had passed since I’d last traversed this rough terrain in the spring. An abundance of rain meant mud, mud, and more mud. I abandoned the ATV and hiked the incline, my boots weighted with wet earth, which made skirting the delicate ferns and clumps of grasses near impossible. A decade of drought forced plants into dormancy. But months of spring rain coaxed them out, including four species I’d never seen.

  At the top of the plateau, the damp wind lifted my hair, whipping strands back across my face with stinging force. I tipped my head to the gloomy sky. Billows of white and gray skittered across the endless horizon. Patches of pale blue appeared fleetingly, punch holes of sanity beneath the roiling storm clouds.

  I know how the sky feels.

  I spun a slow circle so I could take in the vista. From here I spotted deciduous trees lining the river’s gouge across the land. The differences a little moisture brought to the color palette in the valley were astounding, representing every green hue from jade to mint.

  From here I could locate the weather-beaten mounds of desiccated earth known as the Badlands. Hauntingly beautiful in its barrenness. Its isolation. Its monochromatic fortitude.

  I closed my eyes and listened to the music of the wind. The dissonant changes in pitch. The harmonic whistling tones. The melodic ferocity of the gusts. The wind ebbed and flowed like the tides, but wind wasn’t tied to the moon. Its power was absolute. And wind raced and raged across the prairie as if it were its due.

  Through the mournful squalls, I heard the rumble of an ATV in the distance. Then closer. Then it stopped.

  Shoonga rose from his resting spot, tail wagging, chippy little barks telling me who’d disturbed me.

  I kept my face to the wind, zeroing in on the musky scent of wet mud, the pungent sage, the occasional hint of sweet floral, and now the whiff of gas and machine oil.

  The dog settled, content with the attention from two masters.

  Once he’d leveled his ragged breathing, Jake spoke. “Pretty spot. One of my faves.”

  “Mine, too.”

  Wind blew. Time passed.

  Finally, Jake said, “You okay?”

  “Not really.”

  “You left the ranch in an awful damn hurry.”

  He waited for me to speak. To confess.

  I’ll admit it took me a while to admit, “I’ve done a dumb thing, Jake.”

  “I doubt that.”

  A fresh gust of air, laden with moisture, churned around us. I wanted to scream my frustration to the sky to see if the wind would carry the sound away. But the scream remained lodged in my throat, burning me. Choking me. Unvoiced. Unwanted.

  “Storm’s coming,” he said.

  “It’ll pass.” How I knew that, I don’t know. I just did.

  I wished for thunder, lightning, howling wind, and driving rain. When I focused on angry external elements, I could keep angry ones raging inside me at bay.

  As the wind gentled, three things became clear.

  One: the J-Hawk I’d known, the man I’d been so determined to find justice for, had been long gone before I’d found him dead.

  Two: I’d made the wrong choice, running against Dawson instead of running to him.

  Three: out here, on top of this bluff, was the only place I didn’t feel like I was drowning in the enormity of my mistakes.

  “You’ll find it, Mercy.”

  “Find what?”

  “Whatever it is you’re looking for.”

  Jake squeezed my shoulder and left me to my demons.

  I dreamed of Levi.

  We were sitting side by side on the bank of the Cheyenne River. The water was low; the sun was high. Big black clouds of gnats zigzagged above the water in an oddly beautiful insect ballet. The heat-baked scent of clay lingered beneath the stagnant stench of the river. The late-summer levels of the Cheyenne had turned the water into reddish-brown sludge. The mud spatters on the stones resembled blood.

  “Why are we here?” Levi asked, skipping a piece of shale across the murky surface. “There’s nothin’ to do. Can’t swim. Can’t fish.”

  I slapped a mosquito on my thigh and a bloody bump welled. “Can’t we just hang out? Enjoy spending the day together? It seems like I never get to see you anymore.”

  Surly, he stared across the unchanging landscape, keeping his face in shadow. “All we ever do is sit around the stupid ranch.”

  “I’d think you’d act happier since we’re not there right now.”

  Splash. Plunk. More stones met the river bottom. “How come you never take me anyplace cool? Like to the waterslides or to the lake?”

  Heat fried my scalp. Insects swarmed me, biting my sweat-slicked skin, angrily buzzing in my ears. “Because your mom won’t let me. She worries about you. She wants to keep you safe.”

  Levi leaped to his feet, graceful as a young antelope. He walked into the river.

  “Levi, come back here.”

  “Why? The water is ankle deep. You think I’m gonna drown? Or maybe a mud hole will open up and swallow me?”

  Fear lanced me, sharp as a spear. “Don’t say that.”

  He took two more steps in, water sloshing into his ratty-assed athletic shoes. His head whipped around, his hair glinting in the sun like a piece of dark amber. Levi grinned at me. That cocky, boyish grin that buoyed my spirits and broke my heart.

  “Please. I’ll take you to the damn waterslide. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. Just
come back … okay?”

  His smile faded. “I can’t come back, Aunt Mercy. You know that.”

  Then Levi shimmered away like a heat mirage and receded into nothingness.

  And the scream I’d been holding inside me all day finally broke free.

  TWENTY

  I tossed and turned for two hours after the freakish dream about my nephew. Finally, I got out of bed, rolled out my yoga mat, and worked through four repetitions each of asanas A, B, C, and D. When I stretched out for savasana, my muscles were pliant, my thoughts calmer. I closed my eyes.

  Synchronicity between my mind and body vanished when my cell phone shattered the solitude. Geneva had insisted on giving out my number to everyone to prove my accessibility as a candidate, so I felt compelled to answer. “Hello?”

  “Is this Mercy Gunderson?”

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “Cherelle Dupris. I don’t know if you remember me.”

  “I remember you. We met in the back room at Clementine’s. You’re the one—”

  “With the scar. Yeah, I know, I should change my name to Scarface.”

  Not that I blamed her, but being snippy with me wasn’t a good way to start the conversation. “So you calling to volunteer for my campaign?”

  “No. I’m, ah …” A beat passed. “You’ll think this is really weird.”

  “Probably, but it fits with my life. What’s on your mind?”

  She blurted, “Victor is missing.”

  I bit back my immediate response of So what? “Victor Bad Wound? As in your … ?” Tormentor came to mind, but again, I kept the smart-ass answer to myself.

  “Yes.”

  “If Victor is missing on the reservation, the tribal police have jurisdiction. Did you call them?”

  “What for? They ain’t exactly gonna break out a search party for him.”

  No kidding. I could give a rip about a missing criminal who’d carved Cherelle up, beat her up, and dealt in thugs and drugs on a daily basis. But if I was elected sheriff, I’d have to put aside my prejudice about lowlifes like Victor and remain neutral. No time like the present to put it into practice. “Where’d you get the idea to call me?”