“Could what?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I was just thinking out loud, but I’ve got nothing. Anyway, I’ll be back in just a bit,” she added, carrying the container of food with four trays.
* * * *
“It’s me, everybody,” she called out as she unlocked the front door to the jailhouse. “Now. I know you can’t all see me right now, but I have your supper here. When I slide it under the cell, I am going to ask you how many ketchups you want. Your answer will be one or two. And don’t even think of reaching through the bars towards me or I’ll see you’re shot this very night. Understand, gentlemen?”
“Yes. Yes, ma’am,” came the response from everyone besides Judge Lowry.
“You okay, Judge? I don’t hear your response.”
“I’m here,” he said.
“Good, and I hope you’ve been a good boy since the last time we spoke.”
There was a pause before Ken broke the tension with “He has,” getting a look from the others.
“Well, now. That’s what I like to hear,” she responded. “One or two packets of ketchup?” she asked, starting with Ken.
“Ah, I guess… Well, ah…”
“Just answer her!” shouted James’ shooter. “I’m hungry over here.”
“Okay, okay,” said Ken, taking in a deep breath. “Two, please.”
“Good choice,” she replied, giving him a wink only he could see.
She moved down the hall with two cells side by side, housing Judge Lowry and Richard.
“One more to go,” she said, after sliding Richard’s plate under the door.
“Boo!” called out Richard, as he ran up to the cell door, slapping his large mitts on the bars in a slamming motion.
Kate was ready for some attitude or maybe a sexist remark, but not this.
She stumbled backward, like after the car wreck she had been in at age seven. The very same one that killed her mother and put Kate on a rollercoaster of physical and mental rehabilitation. As she grew older, a relationship developed with her father that no thirteen-year-old girl should ever have. Falling backward, she tried to turn and catch herself.
“Gotcha, darlin’,” said James’ shooter, reaching his arms through the bars, with one around her waist and another around her throat. His breath, hot and sticky, hit her neck like a firehose trying to cool off a midsummer Arizona sidewalk. One breath after another and another, as she squirmed to get free.
“You let her go now!” commanded Ken.
“Or what? the Sheriff will kill me? You intend to do just that, don’t you, Richard?”
“That I do, my fine opponent-to-be,” replied Richard.
“Stay calm,” Ken called to her intentionally, not using her name.
“Let me go, you bastard!” she screamed. Her heavy breathing slowed as she realized he was not squeezing her throat. Not yet, at least. But the breathing reminded her of everything wrong with her daddy before he left town, for the last time, when she turned fourteen.
“What do you want?” she asked, as calmly as her trembling voice would let her.
“You’re shaking, lady,” he said, laughing. “So, either you’re scared to death or mad as hell. Which is it?”
“Let me go, and you’ll find out quick, you poorest excuse for a human being.”
“We have a winner!” he announced to his audience, with the Judge now starting to pay attention.
“So, I’ll ask you again,” she repeated. “What do you want?”
“I just want to talk, darlin’…at least to start. I ain’t been this close to a woman in quite some time, and even longer since I was around a girl as pretty as you. Whatever you’re wearing, it’s working,” he said, inhaling deeply through his nose resting on top of her head.
Kate struggled to get free but could not.
Judge Lowry offered no support for either side but stood at his cell door, observing intently as Ken continued to scream, “Let her go!”
“Okay, you have options,” she stated calmly. “You let me go in ten seconds, and maybe we pretend this didn’t happen. And you, Richard—don’t forget you started this!
“Or you kill me right now, and when the Sheriff finds me he makes an example of you both for everyone here in this jail.”
“Let her go!” called out Richard. “Do it right now.”
“Or what?”
“Or come Saturday, I take my time with you, real slow like, with no mercy.”
The man hesitated for only a few seconds before loosening his grip, allowing Kate to slip away. Without a word, she ran up to the office, past the keys she would need to get to Ken, and grabbed her pistol.
The silence in the back was thunderous as they all strained to hear what was next. She racked the slide of her compact Ruger LC9 pistol. The snap echoed throughout the building.
“Hey now, wait just a minute,” the man who was in control only moments ago called out. “We had a deal!” he yelled.
Kate couldn’t hear him; she couldn’t hear anything. Never in her life had she felt such utter terror and blinding rage, at least not at the same time.
Without a word, she walked back, her hands shaking as she held her pistol out. Pointing it at the man she had come to hate deeply in a matter of only a few minutes, she steadied one hand with the other and pointed toward his chest.
“Ma’am, Ma’am!” called out Ken, again not wanting to say her name in front of the other men. She was unfazed, not hearing his pleas.
“Kate! Kate is her name,” called out Judge Lowry from around the corner, “but you know that already, don’t you, Ken?”
“Kate,” called Ken, not responding to the Judge.
“What?” she replied, without taking her eyes off the target.
“You don’t want to do this,” he continued. “It’s dangerous.”
“I think I’m good, and I’m ready to send this piece of crap back down where he came from.”
“What I mean is, it’s dangerous to fire a gun in here. If you hit one of the bars or miss him, there’s no telling where that bullet could end up.”
James’ shooter took six
