Death at the Black Bull by Frank Hayes

Remember, you can’t shoot a rusty gun.”
    â€œClara, you are a caution.”
    â€œC’mon, boy, I’m not telling you something you don’t know. You can’t dwell in the past.”
    Virgil didn’t say anything.
    â€œShe was a pretty girl, that Rusty. So was her mother.”
    â€œStill is,” he said. “Her mother, I mean. Still hates the sight of me. Which I don’t really understand. I loved Rusty, every bit of me. Pretty much finished me when she died.”
    â€œShe don’t hate you. She hates what she lost and what she never got to have. You just remind her of that.”
    The glider rocked slowly beneath them. The smell of sage was strong in the night air. What was left of the sun barely broke the horizon. Shadows blended into dark as the night settled.
    â€œI didn’t realize you knew her that well,” he said.
    â€œShe’s not that hard to figure out, Virgil. Audrey married Micah Hayward more for what he represented than for who he was. It didn’t take long for the bloom to come off the rose. Of course, she came to meet the man she should have married for all the right reasons, but by that time she had two sons.”
    She stopped and looked at him.
    â€œThat man she really loved, Virgil . . . that was your father. But the affair was doomed from the start. Your father could never break up a family. There was a lot of damage, nevertheless. By the time the smoke cleared, alcohol had become Micah’s sole profession. Then, when your father married an Indian, I think Audrey probably took it as the ultimate denial.”
    The sun had vanished. It was a moonless night. They were barely visible to each other. The quiet crowded around each, alone with their thoughts. They sat that way a long time.
    â€œI kinda forgot about your history in Hayward,” Virgil finally said.
    â€œIt was a lifetime ago,” she said, “but sometimes it seems like yesterday. You’re probably too young to have experienced this, but sometimes, when I look back, it almost seems like somebody else’s life.”
    Virgil nodded.
    â€œI was a girl back then,” she said. “In Hayward. The town was little more than a wide spot in the road. Main Street was the only paved road and that was only because it was part of the county highway. Mavis Tillson and me were the first librarians.”
    â€œI didn’t know that. Mavis Tillson . . .”
    â€œYou never met Mavis. She drowned in a gully washer, right after a freak storm. That was before you were born. But anyway, Mavis took a particular interest in Audrey whenever she came into the library. Said she was smart as a whip, but didn’t have hardly any friends. Guess that’s why she spent so much time in the library. Mavis told me Audrey’s father was a rodeo cowboy who didn’t come back to town once he found out Audrey’s mother was fertile. It was an old story. Audrey’s mom worked in the school cafeteria. They didn’t have much. I thought I’d seen the last of Audrey once she went away to college. Figured she’d put Hayward in her rearview mirror.”
    â€œI thought I’d do that, too,” Virgil said. “Once upon a time.”
    â€œSmall towns can be suffocating. There’s got to be a good reason for young people to stay. Guess Rusty was yours. For Audrey, I guess it was Micah. And your father.”
    â€œThat’s why she came back from college? To marry Micah?”
    â€œNo . . . no. I think she only came back because her mother was dying. But let me tell you, when she came back, every man in town, from sixteen to sixty, took notice. She had become a real beauty. Micah Hayward, in particular, took notice. And he was at the top of the food chain.”
    â€œSo that’s when she decided to stay.”
    â€œWell, I heard this from Mavis, whose father was the only undertaker in town. He told her that he had