Smokin' Six-Shooter

She took the dirt road out of town. Old Town White-horse had been the first settlement called Whitehorse. It had been nearer the Missouri River and the Breaks. That was back when supplies came by riverboat.

Once the railroad came through, five miles to the north, the town migrated to the tracks, taking the name Whitehorse with it.

As Jolene drove, she mentally replayed the conversation with the women of the sewing circle and was even more curious why they had been so reticent to talk about the murder.

RUSSELL FOUND HIS FATHER waiting for him when he returned to the ranch. Grayson Corbett was a large man with graying hair and an easygoing smile as well as attitude. Grayson had raised his five sons single-handedly from the time Russell was small and had done a damned good job.

Actually there was little his father couldn’t do. That’s why seeing him like this was so hard on Russell.

Worry lines etched Grayson’s still-handsome face and seemed to make his blue eyes even paler. Russell knew what he wanted to talk about the moment he saw his father and felt his stomach turn at the thought.

“We have to make a decision,” Grayson said without preamble. “We can’t put it off any longer.” Clearly his father had been thinking about the problem and probably little else since they’d last talked.

“You already know how I feel,” Russell said. “It’s a damned-fool thing and a waste of money as far as I’m concerned. What did the other ranchers and farmers have to say at the meeting?”

“Some agree with you. But there are more who are ready to try anything if there’s a chance of saving their crops.”

Russell shook his head, seeing that his father had already made his decision.

“If some of these farmers and ranchers don’t get some moisture and soon, they’re going to lose everything,” Grayson said. “I don’t think we have a choice.”

“So what did you tell them?”

“I told them I had to talk to my son,” his father said. “This is your ranch as much as mine, more actually. You get the final word.”

Russell could see that his father was worried about the others, who had the most to lose. “What choice do we have?”

If he and his father didn’t go along with the rest, he doubted the fifteen thousand dollars needed to hire the rainmaker could be raised. “I’ll go along with whatever decision you make.”

Grayson looked relieved, not that the worry lines softened. They were throwing good money away, Russell believed. But if the ranchers and farmers wanted to believe some man could make rain, then he wasn’t going to try to stop them.

“Thank you,” Grayson said as he laid a heavy hand on his son’s shoulders. “At least by hiring a rainmaker, they feel they’re doing something to avert disaster.”

THE MILK RIVER EXAMINER was the only newspaper for miles around. It was housed in a small building along the main street facing the tracks.

Andi Blake, the paper’s only reporter, a friendly, attractive woman with a southern accent, helped Jolene.

“What date are you looking for?” Andi asked.

Jolene told her it would have been this month twenty-four years ago. “I’m not sure of the exact date.”

“I wasn’t here then, but you’re welcome to look. Everything is on microfiche. You know how to use it?”

Jolene did from her college days. She thanked Andi, then sat down in the back of the office and, as the articles from May twenty-four years ago began to come up on screen, she began to roll her way through.

She slowed at the stories about the drought conditions, the fears of the ranchers and farmers, talk of hiring a rainmaker to come to town. A few papers later, there was a small article about a rainmaker coming to town and how the ranchers were raising money to pay him to make rain.

With a shudder, Jolene thought of the murder story and her feeling that the weather conditions were too much like this year.

The headline in the very next newspaper stopped her cold.

Woman Murdered in Brutal Attack

An Old Town Whitehorse resident was found murdered in her home last evening.

Heart in her throat, Jolene read further, then backtracked, realizing that the article didn’t say who found the body.

The sheriff was asking anyone with information in connection to the murder of Laura Beaumont to come forward.

If this Laura Beaumont was the same woman that the author of the murder story was writing about, she had at least one lover.

Their DNA would have been in the house. But had law enforcement even heard of DNA testing twenty-four years ago? It wouldn’t have been widely used even if they had. Certainly not in Whitehorse.

Jolene continued to read, halting on the next paragraph.

The woman was found upstairs in her bed. She had been stabbed numerous times.

Had her lover found her? Or—

Sheriff’s deputies are searching for the woman’s missing young daughter.

Missing?

Angel Beaumont is about four or five years old with brown hair and eyes. It is unknown what she might have been wearing at the time of her disappearance.

Jolene quickly flipped to the next weekly newspaper and scanned for an article about the murder. The girl was still missing a week later?

Searchers are combing the creek behind the farmhouse for the girl’s body, but with no sign of the daughter. If anyone knows of the child’s whereabouts or has information about the killing, they are to contact the sheriff’s department at once. All calls will be confidential.

A few issues later, Jolene found the news article about the daughter.

DULCIE GRABBED SOMETHING to eat at a small café downtown and debated if she should call this Arlene Evans woman or drive out to her place. She opted to drive out unannounced and talk to her face-to-face.

As she was leaving the café, her mind on what she would say once she reached the Evans place, Dulcie bumped into a young woman coming out of one of the local businesses.

“Pardon me,” Dulcie said as the woman, slim, dark-haired and pretty, dropped the folder she’d been carrying. Papers fluttered across the sidewalk. “I’m so sorry.”

Dulcie hurried to help her pick up the scattered sheets, noticing that they were copies of newspaper articles. One headline caught her eye. Investigation Continues in Murder Case.

“Thank you,” the young woman said, clearly upset as she hurriedly stuffed the copies back into the folder and rushed to her compact car parked at the curb.

Murder? Dulcie wondered how many murders they had in a town like this and what were the chances the article could have been about Laura Beaumont. She told herself that when she had more time and information, she’d come back and have a look at some old newspaper stories.

As she climbed into her rental car, she put the incident out of her mind and drove south to the Evans place outside of Old Town Whitehorse.

Like everything else in this part of Montana, the houses were few and far between, with a lot of prairie and gullies and sagebrush to fill the spaces.

It was late and Dulcie wasn’t sure what approach to use when she knocked on the farmhouse door.