Chewing Rocks (25 page)

She could hear gasps of surprise around her. She knew this was the first time some of the crowd had heard these charges.

She spat at the man. She had the strange thought that spitting was not very princess-like, but she was so angry it hurt to swallow.

She said coldly, “I invoke my right to self defense and to face my attackers. You want a fight with me
? Right here. Right now. Fair duel in front of these witnesses.”

Franklin had
not stepped out of the jail compound. He looked around hesitantly.

Deputy Kramer put the sole of his boot against Franklin’s butt and pushed the man sprawling into the street. “I told you not in my jail, Franklin. Face her in the street. Fair fight, you hear?” He pulled his weapon. “Or I will burn you down myself. That goes for you too, Sno.
A fair duel. You hear, Ben?”

Sno looked over at Ben, “My fight. You watch for anyone else. Franklin is all my problem.”

Ben nodded.

Franklin sputtered and climbed to his feet. “Wait. You said I get the choice of weapons?”

Before anyone could answer, Evelyn Queene shouted from just inside the compound. “Sheriff Bob, you have got to stop this. This is barbaric.”

Sheriff Bob shook his head. “
It would be more barbaric to let a murderer walk free. I could not stop this if I wanted to. This is her right to demand a duel. And frankly Miss Queene, if she did not fight this piece of filth of yours, then I would have to. I cannot condone his conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder in my jail compound.”

Queene sputtered, “But, she is just a girl. You can’t let her fight that man.
He may not be as tall as she is, but he is still twice her size.”

Sheriff Bob nodded, “Right.” He looked over at Sno. “Miss Whyte, do you want to appoint a champion to fight this duel for you.”

A voice in the crowd shouted, “I’ll fight him for you, Sno.”

The crowd laughed as Johnson slapped Norm on the back of his head. Sno shook her head.

Sheriff Bob looked back at Queene. “Nope. I don’t guess she wants a champion at this point.”

Franklin shouted, “Hey! What about me? Don’
t I get to get someone to fight for me?”

Sheriff Bob said, “No. She is the aggrieved party
, you are the accused. She can have a champion, you can’t. If you can’t handle the consequences you shouldn’t have tried to kill her. You can call for arbitration, but that will only determine whether you are guilty or not. If you are found guilty you would find yourself right back here. Do you claim to be innocent of her charges?”

“No
,” Franklin said. “You know I ain’t innocent. But neither is Cooper, McNally or Hunter. Hell, for that matter,” he pointed at Queene, “neither is she. Queene put us up to it. It was her and that assistant of hers, what’s his name.”

Queene shrieked back, “I don’t know what you are talking about
, Franklin. You can consider yourself terminated by Queene Mines. We disavow ourselves of you and your actions.”

Sheriff Bob looked puzzled, “I thought you already fired them? Back before they ‘stole’ your ship?
”

Sno interrupted, “Enough, Bob. All in good time.
Cooper is dead or he would be first.”

Franklin said, “Hey! She killed
Cooper. Doesn’t she have to answer for that?”

Hunter
said quietly, “No. I killed Cooper; not Miss Whyte or her bodyguard. Me. And I will answer for it anyway I have to.”

Franklin looked at Sno. “I thought you killed
Cooper in a knife fight?”

Sno shook her head, “How did you know
Cooper was coming after me with a knife? I think you just proved that you were in on the attempt to ambush and kill me. What did the Sheriff call it: conspiracy to commit murder?”

Franklin looked thoughtful. “Just you and me? No interference from anyone?”

Sno shook her head, “No one will stop us. It is just you and me. I set the time, the place and the terms. You can choose the weapons. You want to go back to throwing rocks at me?”

“I knew you couldn’t take
Cooper with a knife,” Franklin snarled. He glanced at Hunter, “And that coward probably had to sneak up on him from behind. Cooper may have been a fat man, but he was the second best blade handler I ever knew.”

Sno
’s smile was a tight lipped, teeth bared, cold kind of grin. “And you’re the first?”

Franklin grinned. “Knives.”

Sno nodded, “Knives. My terms are…only until first blood is drawn.

Franklin said, “First blood only. I thought you were tough?

Sno smiled, “First blood is enough to satisfy me. After that we are quits. I will hold no more complaints over you.”

Franklin said, “I cut you and then I go free? This just keeps getting better all the time.” He looked around the crowd. “Someone got the loan of a knife?” A dozen hands held out a variety of weapons. Franklin chose a butterfly knife and flashed it a few times, flicking his wrist, opening and closing the blade.

Ben stepped between Sno and Franklin. He stared into Sno’s eyes. “You okay with blades?”

Sno shrugged, “I have never been in a knife fight in my life. But, you still have to stay out of this, rule of law. Whether you are my bodyguard or not, you can’t interfere.”

Ben nodded, “At least you had sense enough to quit at first blood.”

Sno smiled, “I will admit that it was not my first inclination, but it seemed that call
ing for first blood was more princess-like.”

Without a
nother word he opened the short jacket he was wearing. There were half a dozen knives strapped to the inside.

Sno pulled one loose. It was a medium sized blade, sharpened on both edges with a leather bound handle. She held it loosely in her left hand and g
ave the point a few tentative flicks through the air. She moved toward Franklin and dropped into an awkward imitation of his crouch.

She shrugged, “This ought to work. Now you get back to work, Ben. You are supposed to be watching the crowd, remember?”

Franklin laughed and stepped close. “Come on, girlie. If I have to quit at first blood, let’s see if we can make it a good one. What do you want cut? How about I put a slice across that pretty little face of yours?” With each phrase Franklin twirled the knife, tossing it from one hand to the other. “How about I cut off one of your little boobies? They are small, but I think I can get one or the other.”

Sno stood up and lowered the point of her knife. “What are you going to do? Try to talk me to death first. I though
t you were some kind of expert knife fighter not an expert bullshit artist.”

Franklin lunged at Sno, aiming a backhand slash across her stomach. Sno slipped sideways and twisted, but she felt the knife blade slide across her left arm.

Chapter
22.0

Sno felt Franklin’s knife blade slide across her
arm, but it was a fraction of a second too late. Her sideways twist caused her to turn into the man’s thrust. By the time his steel met her skin the point of her borrowed blade was jabbing up under his chin and driving deep into his brain.

For a second, Franklin looked at Sno with a startled expression on his face.
Sno gave a slight twist of the blade and pulled it loose from Franklin’s skull. The bald man dropped in a loose heap onto the pavement.

“Frak me
,” Someone in the crowd said into the silence.

She thought, “ ‘Frak me’ is right. That was too easy.”
Sno leaned down over Franklin’s body and wiped the knife blade clean on the dead man’s clothes. She straightened up wondering to herself why she wasn’t feeling ill or upset. She thought, “In the movies, when people kill for the first time they vomit or cry or…or…or something. Me? Damn. I feel, well, not good. Just nothing.” She shook her head, “Maybe I am going to need to visit a shrink or something.”

She slid the knife back into Ben’s jacket. “Thanks.”
That was all she could manage aloud.

Ben nodded, “I get it. Just because you’ve never been in a knife fight doesn’t mean that you d
on’t know how to use one.”

Sno nodded, “Yeah, you saw that
old movie, too?” She gestured with her head towards Franklin’s body, “I guess he hadn’t. It seemed to make him a bit over confident.”

Ben pointed at her arm, still not taking his eyes off the crow
d. “You need a doctor, maybe stitches?”

Sno shook her arm, “I don’t know
, maybe just a bandage. I’ll check it in the medical tent.” She turned, grabbed Hunter by the arm and pulled him back into the jail compound. “Come on, buddy. It has been a rough day for both of us.”

Hunter
replied, “Yeah, but harder on Cooper and Franklin.”

Sno answered, “Not really. They are out of it. We are
the ones who have to live with killing somebody for the rest of our lives.”

Hunter
looked pale. “Oh, my God! I killed Cooper.” He pulled away from Sno’s grasp and dropped into the grass on all fours. He began to dry heave on an empty stomach.

Sno patted his back and said, “Hang in there,
Hunter. You did the right thing.” She wanted to tell him she knew how he felt. She had just taken a life. She had killed a man. She did not even feel anything about it. Sno thought, “If I felt something then I could at least say that I was in shock or traumatized or something. How do I feel? Crap. I can’t even tell how I feel.”

“Come on,
Hunter. Maybe you should go over to the kitchen and put something in your stomach.”

Hunter
stood and shook all over like a wet dog. “Food! I couldn’t keep anything down. I’ll bet you couldn’t eat anything either.”

Sno thought to herself, “Actually, I am kind of hungry. Pizza sounds good.” But she smiled at
Hunter, “Yeah, you’re right. Maybe later. I’ve got to go look at this arm. Maybe you can give me a hand bandaging it.”

Hunter
nodded. He looked a little better now that he had something to do. “Come on. McNally is still in there, but your guy can watch him.”

Sno immediately had a vision of Prints Chalmers. “My guy? He’s…” Then she realized who
Hunter had been referencing. “Ben. Yeah okay.”

“Killer!” Queene’s voice shrieked at Sno. “You killed that poor man. He didn’t stand a chance and you know it.”
Queene had followed behind them as Kramer relocked them all in the compound.

Sno held up her left hand. The blood from the cut had been running down her arm and was dripping off her finger tips. “He had more chance than I gave him credit for. This is not a threat Miss Queene, just a warning
: this isn’t over.”

Queene turned pale and fled across the compound to
the women’s tent.

S
no turned and stepped into the medical tent.

McNally looked up at her
from his seated position in the med-box. His glance slid over to Hunter then to Ben and onto Sheriff Bob. He looked at Sno as Hunter helped her peel out of the top half of her coveralls exposing the gash across her left arm.

Finally, McNally spoke. “I heard Queene say you killed Franklin. But, it looks like he got to you first.”

Sno smiled. “Not really first. This was kind of a dying twitch. You might want to remember this when you and I meet in our duel.”

McNally looked stricken. “What do you mean, ‘our duel
’?”

Sheriff Bob said
. “Where did you think this was all going?”

McNally replied, going pale. “I didn’t have nothing to do with what Franklin and
Cooper just tried. I’ve been in this tent ever since I got locked up.”

Sheriff Bob laughed. “
Great guns, McNally! This last little dust up is the least of your worries. You’ve got other charges as big as conspiracy to commit murder to worry about.”

McNally said, “I am injured. I can’t fight back.”

Sno shrugged. “I will wait to kill you until a doctor certifies you’re healthy enough to be killed.”

Hunter
said, “Speaking of doctors, you need to get one in here to stitch this up.”

Kramer
had just stepped into the tent overhearing Hunter, replied, “A doctor is already on the way. Sno, you have only been locked up for…what? Half an hour and already I got two dead bodies. And please young lady, cover up, would you? I am a married man and all.”

Sno laughed, “Come on, Kramer. I’ve still got my bra on. Besides everybody this side of Mars
remembers how you met your wife Mabel at Tammie’s Topless Tittie Bar and Grill.”

Kramer snorted, “Everybody remembers except Mabel.
But even in her best days she didn’t look like you. In any event, there are too many men in here for you to be sitting around half naked.”

Hunter
was packing gauze around Sno’s arm trying to staunch the flow of blood. He glared with defiance in his eyes at Kramer. “I am not leaving until you get a doctor in here to fix Miss Whyte’s cut.”