Free Gun-Shy Bride by B.J. Daniels

slinging hash as long as Ruby Bates Winchester. The two had worked together from the time they were teenagers until about the time McCall was born.
    Patty had gone to work at the Hi-Line Café and it was there that McCall found her after the lunch crowd had cleared out. Patty was the opposite of Ruby. While Ruby was skin and bone, Patty was round and plump with bulbous cheeks.
    She smiled as McCall came in and took a seat at one of the empty booths. “Just coffee, please, and if you have a minute, join me.”
    Patty glanced around the empty café and laughed before pouring two cups and bringing them to the table. She squeezed into the booth, kicked off her shoes, put her feet up on the seat and leaned back against the wall.
    “This is the first second I’ve had to put my aching dogs up all day,” Patty said, wiggling her toes. “So how you doin’, girl? How’s your mama? I never see her anymore. Hell, probably cuz we both work all the time.”
    “Ruby’s good.” As good as Ruby ever got, McCall thought.
    “She seeing anyone?” Patty was on her third marriage, this time to an elderly rancher. They had a place to the north of town on the road to Canada.
    “Red Harper.” This came as no surprise, McCall saw, since Patty would have already heard through the Whitehorse grapevine. McCall was the only one out of the loop apparently.
    “You know I always thought she and Red would end up together,” Patty said with a chuckle. “Sure has taken him long enough though, huh.”
    McCall’s thought exactly. “I was hoping you could help me with something,” she said, getting right to the point. “Were you working with Ruby the morning Trace disappeared?”
    Patty slid her feet from the booth seat and sat up, blinking. “My goodness, girl, that was so long ago.”
    “Ruby said she was working the early shift.”
    “That’s right. You know I do remember. It was a crazy day. We got in a busload of Canadians down here for a whist tournament.” She frowned. “Wow, how many years ago was that now?”
    “Twenty-seven.”
    “My memory is better than I thought.” Patty grinned. “I remember because your mama came in late. I really had my hands full. I knew she was sick, being pregnant with you and all, but I was so mad at her.”
    “Did she say why she was late?” McCall asked.
    “She was all rattled, you know how she gets. It was plain as her face that she and Trace had had another fight. I wondered if she’d been to bed at all the night before, everything considered, you know?”
    McCall didn’t know. “Such as?”
    “Well…” Patty looked uncomfortable. “The way she looked. She’d been crying and that old pickup she drove…It was covered in mud. I asked her where the devil she’d been since your mama wasn’t one for driving much, especially on these roads around here when they’re wet.”
    McCall thought of the road into the ridge south of town. “And what did she say?”
    “Said Trace borrowed her truck.” Patty mugged a face. “I knew that wasn’t true. He never drove anything but that pretty new black Chevy his mama bought him as a bribe to leave Ruby. He took a perverse satisfaction into getting that truck dirty and staying with Ruby just to show his mama he couldn’t be bought.”
    McCall had wondered where Trace had gotten the pickup. Now she knew. Her dear grandmother.
    “So where do you think Ruby had been in her pickup?”
    Patty shook her head. “You could ask her.”
    “She gets upset talking about Trace.”
    “I suppose so. Well, just between you and me, I think she’d been out looking for Trace after a big, ol’ knockdown, drag-out fight,” Patty whispered, although there was no one to hear. “She was upset that whole day. I felt bad for her. One look at her and you knew something big had happened. I think your mama knew he wouldn’t be coming back.”
     
    R UBY CAME HOME LATE smelling of grease and cigarette smoke. McCall had been waiting for her. Her mother looked tired