“Hey, come on, shoot it out!” someone cried from the audience.
“No! Enough violence. We’ve already had a lynching,” Jane said. “Think how cool it would be if Congress actually talked with one another.”
She was grateful that those words brought more laughter; she was swaying the crowd. “Now you guys...neither of you is really mean and vicious. You just need a hug, right?”
She smiled at the laughter she received.
“All in favor of a peaceful discussion, raise your hands!”
She was still afraid she was going to lose. She might be entertaining the crowd, but they’d come to see a duel.
To her astonishment, she got help from an unexpected source. Valerie came bursting onto the scene. “No shooting, gentlemen! How will the play go on tonight if we lose one of you?”
Not to be upstaged, Alice Horton, vamping it up, ran out, as well. “And we all know that a good bad girl loves a bad boy with a story—the strong but silent type, you know?”
“Talk it out, talk it out, talk it out!”
Jane was grateful when the crowd took up the chant.
“Give me your weapons, boys!”
They handed them over. She didn’t dare take a chance on looking at them then; she had to make sure her improvised charade went on.
“Now say you’re sorry for flying off the handle, Mean Bill Jenkins!” she told Cy.
His blue eyes touched hers with curiosity and a surprised admiration. She smiled at him, silently thanking him for playing his part.
“Oh, all right! I’m sorry, Savage Sam. I think you got you a fittin’ girl now, and I’m going to get me one, too.”
“Oh, yes!” Valerie said, running to throw herself into Cy’s arms.
“Well, there you go!” Henri said. “The gunfight that wasn’t. Damned good thing we’re not at the O.K. Corral! Hey, everyone, take a gander at all the activities out back. Kids, you can mine sand for silver. Ladies, you can buy some great jewelry. And don’t forget that while you’re in town, you can catch these fine folks performing for you every night at the Gilded Lily!”
Jane stood still in the street for a moment, feeling grateful on the one hand, ridiculous on the other.
A little boy walked by saying, “I thought there was going to be a gunfight!”
He wasn’t happy.
But a cluster of twenty-something young people walked by and the tallest among them was talking excitedly, “See, I told you. It’s great to come out here. They’re not stupid, they keep changing it up!”
“Who would’ve figured?” Henri Coque said, walking up to her. He shook his head. “Never saw you as a drama queen, much less someone who’d be so quick with improv.”
“Seemed like a fun thing to try. As a law enforcement officer in the twenty-first century, of course,” she said.
“And it was good!” Valerie said enthusiastically, coming up beside her. “Jennie still hasn’t shown up. She usually screams and cries and falls down in tears, saying she’s Jenkins’s mother.”
“There’s something wrong if Jennie isn’t here,” Henri said, frowning. “Valerie, will you run in there and see if she’s in her room?”
“I’m not going in the Gilded Lily by myself!” Valerie said. “Even our staff is all out on the street now. I can’t go in there alone.”
“I’ll go,” Jane said. “Which room is Jennie’s?”
“She’s next to Brian and Brian is next to you,” Henri explained. “You don’t mind? Thank you! I hope she’s okay.” His voice was worried.
Jane nodded and hurried into the Gilded Lily. It did seem strange to be in the theater when it was so silent. The main doors behind the old Western slatted doors were open; apparently, Henri wasn’t worried about break-ins, but then it was true that everyone who belonged in the theater was pretty much right in front of it.
Jane ran up the stairs and realized she was still clutching the antique guns Cy and Brian had been about to use for the duel reenactment. Before going to Jennie’s room, she went to her own and inspected the guns. They were replica Colt 45s, also known as Peacemakers, each with a cylinder that held six metallic cartridges. She opened the cylinders, and the cartridges fell out. The bullets from the one gun were obviously blanks.
From the other...
She had learned to shoot; she knew the action of her own gun. She also knew the most important thing about any gun—when loaded and in the wrong hands, it beat brawn every time.
She wasn’t sure about the cartridges. She left both guns, emptied, on her bed, and stashed the blanks and the questionable cartridges in tissues and then in one of her shoes.
Then she ran down the hall and knocked on Jennie’s door. There was no answer. She called the woman’s name. Still no answer. She tried the door—which was open. Hesitantly walking in, she continued to call the woman’s name.