Charlie Rose

Second Chap

Charlie needn't to look very far. It was the middle of the day and every man in this town was at the bar. She didn't even have to look for him at the bar, the second she entered she saw him. He was sitting there, all high and mighty, with some whores and a couple of men. They were sitting at the table in the middle of the room. The way he laughed with the others, made jokes and drank liquor really frustrated Charlie because while she had been living almost her whole life in misery, the man who gave her this misery was having the time of his life. The attractive blond haired man Charlie had seen before was sitting by that table and looked like a close friend to the murderer of her parents.  

She wanted to turn around and walk back out of the bar, to run away as far as she could and only hope and pray her demons won't catch up with her. But she couldn't and she knew it. She had come so far and spent so much time that she had no choice but try to find a way to get close enough to him to kill him. As Charlie elbowed her way to the bar, she tried to figure out a way to do her deed. She wanted - and planned to - just walk up to him, draw her pistol and shoot him. But, that would make everyone start shooting her and that wasn't so good because she wanted to see the life in his eyes fade away before she could let herself die. So now, she was going to have to come up with a plan to get close to him - friendly even - and when he least expects it, kill him. Yeah, she nodded with herself, I like that plan. 

Charlie had been so busy staring at the murderer of her parents as she made her way to the bar that she didn't notice him staring back until she almost walked into a drunk man. She quickly looked away and hoped that he didn't see through her disguise. His blue eyes felt more like a carnivore's than human. A shiver went down her spine and she started to become jittery. She felt like his eyes were back on her but she was too scared to check. 

"Hey, you" He called out. She was halfway to the bar and ten feet away from the stairs that led to her room. She didn't want to stop moving. He's probably not even calling me. She turned her head anyway to his direction. He was indeed looking at her. "Yes, you, son. You got a reason for staring?" His voice was so chilling. He didn't even raise his voice, but still it reached all through the room. Some of the men stopped being so loud and looked and Charlie, the others continued like it was no big deal. 

Charlie was at a loss for words. Her tongue was so tied that she couldn't even get herself to stutter up a weak excuse. But she couldn't stay quiet... Or could she? 

Before anyone could say anything a glass was thrown and headed in her direction. Time stopped. She had to make a decision. But she didn't think. Instinctively, she reached for her gun and shot the glass before it got twenty inches close to her. She hit it right in the middle so it splintered into tiny pieces. Everything got real quiet. Nobody moved. Everyone stared at her. Charlie slowly put her gun back in its holster before anyone could pull their guns at her. Fu-

"Carry on" The mayor - the murderer - ordered loudly. Slowly everyone complied and continued their laughing and drinking. Charlie had decided that she was going to stay not far from him, but now, after this, all she wanted to do was go upstairs and sleep in that bed - which looked so comfortable right now. She turned on her heel and started to walk towards the stairs. She feared having to walk past that table, with the murderer of her parents' sitting there, but she swallowed her fear and kept on walking.

Halfway past them and then she was stopped. "That was some shootin'." Charlie grunted a 'thank you' under her breath and hoped he didn't hear the feminine in her voice. He made one of the whores stand up and offered Charlie the seat. She was hesitant, but knowing this was the only chance she was going to get this close to him, she had to take it. She sat down. "You know, there's an annual event held right here that I take much pride on. It's where men with nice-enough abilities on a firearm challenge each other. Have you heard of it?"

"Yeah, it's called Shoot-Out Week " Charlie answered. 

Someone laughed. Charlie looked at the person and saw it was the handsome man she had watched earlier. "That's what the niggers call it" He told her. "Yer not a nigger lover, ain't ya?"

Charlie opened her mouth and was about to answer when her parents' murderer spoke up. "Jeremiah, this young man is just as new in this town as you were three years ago. No one terrorized you when you didn't know anything and had to learn from the niggers, so you'll pay your dues by returning the favor." 

The handsome man, Jeremiah, severed the intense stare with the older man and glanced at Charlie. "Sorry" He muttered under his breath. Charlie ran her tongue around her mouth and then shrugged when he looked at her again, silently telling him 'no matter'. 

The night continued and her parents' murderer, or Carlton White, as he had introduced himself, ordered more and more drinks for the table, getting everyone at the table drunk with him. Charlie was hesitant and reluctant to drink as them, as she had heard her mother once say that it took a smaller amount of alcohol to get a woman drunk rather than a man. She was also afraid of blowing her cover if she got drunk. She thought she might get violent as she saw some of the men in the cities get when she traveled around, she had always had the unfortune to be out in these cities at night, when the men were at their worst. And she knew if she got violent that would just mean the same as blowing her cover. But the more she drank, the more she wondered if that would be such a bad idea. 

*

Charlie Rose awoke by a searing pain in her head the second sunlight touched her face. It was so horrendous that words could not describe the pain she felt. At first, too dazed to know anything, she thought she was reliving the murdering of her parents, and this time her pain was actually physical. Then the events of last night flooded her mind and she realized the cause of this pain. Though she had been right at some point, her parents' murderer had been the one who encouraged her to drink, thus he being the source of this unbearable headache. So she also blamed the alcohol. 

She turned around in her bed and clasped her eyes shut. She reached for the blanket and drew it over her head, hoping if she'd sleep for long enough the next time she'd wake up the pain would have dwindled. But then the blanket was ripped from Charlie with such force that it made her sit up, her eyes wide open. For a moment, a wave of dread washed over her as she thought the one who had done that was Carlton White. But then she saw Marsha's face and she let herself relax again. She sighed in relief and slumped back down. 

Marsha stood there in front of the bed, holding the blanket Charlie had hidden under only moments ago in one hand and in the other she held a wet cloth. "Time to wake up, Missy" She told the younger girl and walked over to her side of the bed. "You comin' home at dawn, stinkin' drunk. Whaddya gotta say for yourself? Thought you were goin' to keep it low until you got the man killed." She threw her scolds at the girl as she put the cloth on her forehead and then telling her to keep still and that this will decrease the ache. "Aren't you afraid you've gotten yourself caught? That the people you were with figured out who you really are?" 

As Charlie lay there in the bed with the cold cloth on her forehead, feeling the pain slowly fade, she felt the memories from last night come back to her. When she woke up she only remembered sitting down at White's table, but now she remembered much more. 

"You're good at shootin', kid. Why don't you?" Carlton asked. Charlie curled her lip. For hours he had been trying to get her to do it, asking politely, giving her drinks for it. Finally she gave in. 

"Yeah, sure," She answered. "What do I got to lose?"

"That's the spirit!" He cheered. 

A shiver ran down Charlie's spine as this ran through her mind and repeated itself again and again. She sat up, pushed Marsha out of her way and threw the cloth off her forehead. "Fuck!" She exclaimed loudly. What the fuck am I going to do?  She jumped to her feet and started pacing the floor. She was so anxious that she was on the verge to start pulling her hair out.

"What's wrong, Missy?" Marsha asked and furrowed her brow as she watched the girl suddenly go from calm and being taken care of to fussing and practically ripping her hair out of her head. Before she could answer, her name - the name she had given out last night - was called out. Charlie stopped dead cold and stared at the window. Her stupidity had dragged her into worse trouble than getting caught.