Angels Fall

shattered when Reece saw Chuck's friends push up from the table.
    The small herd of cowboys playing pool stepped forward. Lo was, after all, one of their own. She was going to be in the middle of a bar fight, Reece thought with full amazement. About to be caught in a melee in a karaoke bar in Wyoming.
    Unless she managed to grab I inda-gail and run.
    She glanced around quickly to check the direction and distance to the exit. And saw, moving through the noisy, surged-to-its-feet crowd, a man wearing an orange hunters cap. Her breath hitched and tore. She lurched up, knocking her half-full beer to the floor, where the glass shattered with a sound like a gunshot. She stumbled, shoving into one of the cowboys as she tried to get clear, and sent him bumping hard into one of the fishermen.
    Fists flew. Onstage, the women screamed and clutched at each other. Bodies thudded against, or in some cases actually leaped onto, table and bar. Glassware, bottles crashed and shattered, wood splintered. She swore she heard someone yell "Yee haw!" before an elbow caught her along the cheekbone and sent her sprawling onto the floor and into spilled beer.

    REEKING OF BEER and smoke, holding an ice pack to her throbbing cheek, Reece sat in the sheriff's office. If she'd been more humiliated in her life, her brain wouldn't allow the previous incident to surface. "Last thing I expected from you was to pull you in here out of a bar tight."
    "It wasn't in my plans for the evening. It just happened. And I wasn't fighting."
    "You pushed Jud Horst into one Robert Gavin, inciting the incident. You threw your beer."
    "No, I didn't! I knocked my beer over when I tried to get up from the table, and I slipped into Jud. It was an accident."

    "You were drinking," Rick continued.
    "A half a beer. For God's sake. I was in a bar, of course I was drinking. So was everyone else. And I wasn't drunk. I panicked, okay. Fine. I panicked. I saw…"
    "You saw?"
    "I saw a man in an orange hat in the back of the crowd."
    Rick's weary, annoyed expression sharpened. "You saw the man you previously saw by the river?"
    "I don't know. I couldn't see that well. It all happened so fast. I got up. I wanted to get away. I wanted to see him better."
    "Which was it?"
    "Both," she snapped."I was scared. I knocked the beer over. I slipped That's all." He let out a windy sigh. He'd been pulled out of bed by a screaming call from one of Clancy's waitresses. He'd barely closed his eyes when he had to get up and dressed again, and go down to clean up the mess in the bar.
    Now he had property damage, bodily injuries, possible civil and criminal charges to wade through.
    "Min Hobalt claims you struck her. I got another statement here that says you shoved over a table, causing a beer mug to land on the foot of a Ms. Lee Shanks from San Diego. I've got a tourist with a broken toe."
    "I didn't hit anyone." Had she? "Not on purpose. I was trying to get clear. I got jabbed in the face. I was seeing stars. I was scared. I  fell  into a table, which is a hell of a lot different than shoving one over.  I  got hit in the face," she continued. "  I've  got bruises over most of my body." He puffed out a breath. "Who swung first?"
    "I don't know. The guy they called Chuck gave Lo a little shove; Lo gave him one back. Then I saw… I saw the hat."
    "You saw the hat."
    "I know how ridiculous that sounds. And yes, yes, I know a lot of men around here wear those damn hats. But I was jumpy because I could see a fight coming, then I saw the hat, and I freaked out a little. Big surprise."
    "Clancy said he was moving in to break it up when that glass hit the floor. Says it was like the bell going off in the boxing ring. And when that cowboy bumped the tourist, that's all it took."
    "So it's my fault," Reece said evenly. "Fine. Charge me with inciting a riot, or whatever you want. Just give me some goddamn aspirin before you lock the cell."
    "Nobody's going to lock you up. Crisssake." Rick rubbed his face, pinched the bridge of his nose. "The thing is, you've got a habit of stirring things up. You had some trouble down at the hotel laundry today?" 
    "I…" Of course he knew about it. Brenda was tight as spandex with Debbie, the sheriff's wife. Reece imagined she'd been the hot topic of conversation around the Mardson dinner table that night.
    "That was different. Someone played a joke on me. I didn't think it was funny." While he waited, brows lifted, for her to explain. Reece contemplated the