The air inside The Rusty Nail was a mixture of stale cigarette smoke, cheap whiskey, and men damp with sweat from working farms or driving cattle under the desert sun. Occasionally the scent of sex would waft through the bar, from where the women upstairs worked hard at earning their living.

Sounds of arguing and laughter and everything in between was loud with the absence of music. Cheryl, the bartender, had trouble finding another piano player since Jo Cartwright was found dead in his bed with his right hand draped over his lips. He’d been the second victim, killed days after the first. 

GloryLand didn’t have much to entice a player from one of the bigger cities, and any other pianist were more comfortable in the chapel than the saloon. So The Rusty Nail remained musician-less.

I slid onto my normal stool in the middle of the bar and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. The room quieted for a moment as men looked up from their hands of seven card stud. When I didn’t move to arrest anyone, they all went back to their games. It had been like that for the past few weeks—everywhere I went I was under a microscope. The tense pressure to catch our killer ran high.

It wasn’t even like anyone cared about the dead, either. It was more about pride. How dare somebody think they can run around and kill our folks under everyone’s noses? What kind of coward does that, anyhow?  I didn’t drop my gaze until every last man was back to minding their own damn business.

Cheryl wasn’t behind the bar. Next to me, Tom’s mouth was slack and his brows raised. It was his confused face.

“Where do you reckon Cheryl ran off to?” He asked. Even as he said her name, I noticed the faint hue of pink seemed to brighten his cheeks.

Did Tom have a crush? On Cheryl? Poor guy—she was so far outside of his realm of possibilities.

I shrugged, then walked behind the bar. I poured two glasses of whiskey, slid one to my deputy, and then sauntered back to my stool.

“Beats me,” I said. “She ain’t far though, if she left this place open with nobody to mind the bar.”

We didn’t have to wonder long. Upstairs a man hollered Get out of here, at the same time a woman’s high pitched scream cut through the bar room noise.  A second later Leland Worst barreled down the stairs in nothing but his hat and his long-johns. He clutched his boots to his chest. Cheryl was behind him with her shot gun stuck between his shoulder blades. “You don’t pay your bar tab and you think you gonna spend money on pussy? You’d better think again.” She pushed him with the barrel of her gun. “Get your sorry ass out of here and don’t come back until you settle up your debt.”

The bar erupted into howls of laughter as Leland ran across the room toward the swinging saloon doors. He dropped one of his boots, and when he stopped to pick it up, Cheryl cocked her shotgun.

The man thought the better of it and left his boot behind as he quickened his pace.

Cheryl didn’t lower her weapon until Leland was outside and the laughter had died down. She picked up the boot and chunked it into a barrel in the cornet where she threw random trash that was left behind each night. The barrel held everything from bandanas to a pair of panties.

“That sorry good-for-nothing,” she mumbled. She walked behind the bar and hung the gun in its usual place on the wall behind the glass ware.

Next to me, Tom stared with dreamy eyes. His lips curled into a slow smile. “Ms. Cheryl,” he said. “That was...that...that was...”

“Spit it out, Tom,” the bar keep said, though there was no anger in her voice. “A woman don’t have all day.”

“That was...that was something else.’” The faint pink blossomed into full scarlet across Tom’s cheeks, but his smiled stayed put.

“Thanks, deputy,” Cheryl said. She winked at Tom, and I thought he was going to fall off of his stool.

Cheryl had creamy, light brown skin and brown eyes that shown with flecks of gold. Her black hair hung in loose ringlets to her corseted waist. Cheryl’s skirts and boots were plain, and she wore no jewelry, but the woman didn’t require adornment—she was beautiful on her own. She was also one of the few people in GloryLand who I wouldn’t want to get into a gunfight with, as well as one of the fewer people I considered a true friend.

“So what brings the law into my bar during lunch time, Sheriff? You here to scare my upstanding patrons?” She smirked as she propped her elbows on the bar and leaned forward. I noticed Tom as he tried his best not to notice the woman’s breast heaving from the top of her corset. I shook my head. Cheryl was messing with him and he was lapping it up.

Too bad she’d never give him the time of day. Tom was definitely handsome enough for my friend’s tastes, unfortunately Cheryl was as brilliant as Tom was dim. No, I could definitely not see the two of them together.

“Nah,” I said, my eyes rolling skyward. “Tom here thinks that we need a drink to loosen up our membranes.”

Cheryl’s nose wrinkled. “Your what?” She held up a palm and stood. “You know what? I don’t need to know. If you are spending money, you can loosen whatever you want.”

At that moment, a robust red head pounded down the stairs. “Cheryl? Cheryl honey?” The woman’s voice was deep and tobacco-roughened.

“Speaking of loosening things for money,” Cheryl said flatly and I snickered. Tom pretended not to know what she was talking about. Who was I kidding—it was Tom. He probably didn’t know what she was talking about.

The red head didn’t stop until she was standing next to me at the bar. She wore a gold dress and matching boa. Fine lines criss-crossed her ivory skin and two circles of rouge gave her the appearance of a harlequin clown. “Sheriff,” she drawled. “Tom.”

“What can I do for you, Jenny?” Cheryl asked the aging Madame.

“Cheryl, honey, I know you own the place now, but why’d you go and kick Leland out? He had almost an hour with Charlotte and didn’t pay. He owes me money.”

“Get in line,” Cheryl said.

“Well what am I supposed to do if you go around harassing my customers and kicking them out? It ain’t right.”

“Jenny, your girls are the only whores in at least a fifty mile radius. This town is sixty percent men. I’d say the last thing you need to worry about is business. When it comes to supply and demand—you hold all the cards.”

“But still—”

“I don’t have time for this.” Cheryl turned to the long table of glassware behind the bar and began to wipe down the already clean drinking glasses.

Madame Jenny threw her hands in the air and turned on the heels of shoes. Her scowl transformed into her usual, bright smile when one of the men from the nearest poker table walked over. She draped her arm over his shoulder and led him away. A moment later, I saw them head up the stairs.

“I don’t even know what that old biddy is complaining about,” Cheryl griped, turning back to me once the coast was clear. “She thinks she has a right to bring all her shit to me. Well, she don’t.”

“Yeah. It ain’t like she raised you or anything,” I said. It was a low blow. I’d meant it as a joke but as soon as I said the words—I knew I shouldn’t have.

Cheryl’s face clouded with anger. “She was no Mama to me. She made me earn my keep as her maid. So excuse me if I don’t get sentimental over the town pimp.”

I turned up my glass and finished my whiskey, then sat it neatly in front of me. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

In the corner, two men jumped to their feet and drew their guns on one another. Their chairs clattered to the floor. The rest of the men at their table didn’t bother stopping their game.

“Idiots,” I mumbled. I pulled my pistol and spun. “Take it outside, boys.”

Neither man moved. I pulled back the hammer.

“I said take it outside. Now.”

Slowly. Deliberately. The men made their way across the bar, neither lowering their guns. A few moments later, when they were no longer in the bar, but outside in the dirt street, the crack of gunfire sounded. Cheryl cocked her head to the side, her lips screwed into an annoyed scowl. “I guess I’d better send someone to fetch doc.”

“Don’t bother,” I said. “He’s at the Daigle’s place. I’ll send him over after I finish my whiskey. I’m going to give Mary-Belle’s room one more look around. I keep feeling like I missed something.” I typically kept my cards close to my chest—but Cheryl was a friend.

“Speaking of that.” Cheryl again leaned close across the bar. I holstered my pistol and leaned in, following her lead.  “There has been a rumor going around. About a masked man. Old Chester Murdock said he saw him. Said he hopped from roof top to roof top. Lithe as a cat.”

“Bullshit.” I pushed away from the bar, annoyed. Everyone talked in front of the bar tender, and Cheryl had a nose for gossip. I thought I was going to finally get a lead, but calling Chester Murdock the town drunk was an understatement.  “Chester wouldn’t know his asshole from his eyeball,” I said.

“Maybe.” Cheryl crossed her arms. “But what else do you have to go on right now?”

She had a point.

Tom’s eyes had rounded into two globes and I could practically see the wheels in his head turning—probably with some kind of cockamamie idea. “Did Chester say if he saw any red on the man? Like on his clothes or something?”

Me and Cheryl both looked at Tom and then turned back to each other.

What the hell is he talking about?

“I am serious, Sheriff. My Maw used to say that the witches on the mountain could give men the power to fly. Maybe this man—maybe he saw himself a witch. Maybe that is why he could hop on the rooftops. Maw also said you couldn’t ever visit the mountain without getting a little of that red dust on you. Said it don’t ever completely wash off either—no matter how hard you scrub.”

Nobody said a word. Tom was always spouting dumb shit.

But Cheryl was right. What else did I have to go on?

And Tom’s question was better than anything I could think of at the moment.

Red Soot Mountain was a place I tried to block from my mind—in my opinion anybody with a brain would pretend it didn’t exist. Getting mixed up with witches never worked out well. We’d all grown up listening to our parents and grandparents tell stories of the mysterious yellow-eyed women who lived over the mountain pass. They’d seduce anyone who made the trek up their mountain into doing their bidding. It was said that they used the promise of magic to use men up and spit them out. Everyone had heard of someone who’d disappeared over the mountain. And everyone’s maw or aunt or cousin had a tale about the red soot that stained skin and refused to wash out of clothes.

I knew there was truth to the tales. When I was a little girl, I’d had dealings with a witch, though I never talked about it. Not with Cheryl. Not with Tom. Not even with Jon, my lover.

I sighed and stood. There had been red dust on Mary-Bell’s. Had there been red dust at the other victim’s places? I couldn’t be sure—like I said before—it wasn’t exactly uncommon for red dirt to be found all over the place in GloryLand.

I dropped a few coins on the bar and picked up my hat. Tom was an idiot, but even an idiot was bound to have a half-good idea every now and then.

“Where you off too, Alyssa?” Cheryl asked, using my real name. Smugness swirled in her eyes and puckered her lips as she rested her chin against the back of her hand.

“Where the hell you think I am going? I am going to do another pass around Mary-Belle’s house to check for red dust.” I stopped and added, “I think this magic, flying, red-dust covered, masked man is about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of, for the record.”

“But there you go,” Cheryl said smugly.

“Dammit. Here I go.” I didn’t mention that I’d already noticed dust near the window. No need in letting Tom get a big head over the possibility of finally being right about something.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Tom beaming with pride.

“Wait up, Sheriff. I’m coming with you. What would you do without me?” His boots were heavy on the wood floor as he followed me through the saloon doors.

“I don’t know, Tom,” I said. “You’re genius is unmatched.”