His voice was hoarse and strained. Vince was hatless, and there was a pale line on his forehead. He was smallish, with big hands and a big blond moustache stained with something. Tobacco juice, maybe. Maybe coffee. He sat on a blue roan gelding that looked like a runner, and he held a Winchester in one hand, the butt resting on his thigh. We kept walking our horses toward the ford. The sun was up now, still low, and the western edge of the sky still dark purple, but everyone could see clearly.
As we reached them, Bragg’s riders parted, half to one side, half to the other, and the three of us rode slowly between them. No one spoke. I could feel the pressure of the silence all through me. The only sound was the horses’ hooves and their breathing, and the creak of saddle leather. The horses hesitated at the water, but Cole and I kicked ours forward and the three of us went in. The line of riders that had parted to let us through closed ranks behind us and turned toward the river. It was as if I could feel them looking at us. It made the muscles across my back tighten. The water was higher than the stirrups; my boots and the lower half of my pants were wet. The river smelled very fresh in the early morning air. The horses climbed the far bank, and we stood for a moment on the other side. Without lowering his gun, Cole turned in the saddle and looked back across the river.
“Tell them not to follow,” he said to Bragg.
Again, Bragg was silent. I could see the flush of redness on his cheekbones.
“I’d like you dead, Bragg,” Cole said quietly. “I’m taking you in legal, like a law officer, but if you attempt to escape or impede me in my duty, I got every right to shoot you dead, and no one will say no.”
“If you kill me,” Bragg said, “then there ain’t no reason for my men not to chase you down and kill you.”
“If they can,” Cole said. “Either way, won’t make no difference to you.”
Bragg was silent. Cole was silent. The horses stood quietly, tossing their heads every once in a while for reasons of their own.
“Tell ’em not follow us,” Cole said to Bragg, “or I’ll shoot you dead right here. Right now.”
Again, there was silence. Cole’s face showed nothing. I could hear Bragg’s breathing. He looked at me.
“You?” he said.
“Both barrels,” I said.
He turned his head slowly away from Cole’s gun and looked back at the line of riders back across the river.
“Vince,” he hollered.
“Yessir, Mr. Bragg.”
“Don’t follow us. You understand.”
“They making you say that, Mr. Bragg?”
“They are. But I mean it. Stay put.”
“You say so, Mr. Bragg.”
We moved the horses forward again. A half mile from the ranch, Cole holstered his Colt, and I slid the shotgun back in the saddle scabbard.
“Do hope you’ll make a run for it,” Cole said to Bragg. “Save us all a lot of time and trouble.”
“I’m riding in with you,” Bragg said.
Which he did.
19
There were two jail cells along the right wall of the marshal’s office as you entered. Both cell doors stood open.
“You prefer one to another?” Cole said when we brought Bragg in.
“Don’t matter,” Bragg said. “I won’t be here long.”
“Circuit judge don’t come through for two and a half weeks, if he’s on time,” Cole said.
“I won’t be here long,” Bragg said again.
He went into the first cell and pulled the door shut behind him. I locked it and took the key. The rest of the office was very plain: a stove for winter, a big old table that Cole used for a desk, two straight chairs against the wall opposite the cells, a spittoon in the corner, and a wooden water bucket and dipper sitting on one of the chairs. Bragg sat on the cot in the cell and looked at us.
“Need to be on him all the time,” Cole said to me. “Round the clock.”
I nodded.
“I’ll stay here,” Cole said. “You go down, get something to eat, and come back. Bring him some.”
“I’ll be at the Chinaman’s,” I said. “Won’t take long.”
Cole sat down at the big table and laid his Winchester on it. I leaned my shotgun against the wall next to Cole and handed him the key to Bragg’s cell. He tossed it on the table, put his feet up, and tilted his chair back. I went to lunch.
When I came back with boiled beef and navy beans on a tin plate for Bragg, Cole was in the same position. As far as I could tell, he hadn’t moved. Except that his eyes were open, I’d have thought he was asleep. There was a small pass-through in the cell door. I passed the food in. Bragg took it silently and sat back down and set it on the cot beside him.
“I’m goin’ to have lunch with Allie,” Cole said. “Be back before suppertime. Any trouble, you fire off a couple of rounds and I’ll hear you.”
“ ’Less you’re riding at a hard gallop,” I said.
Cole stopped at the doorway and turned.
“We known each other a long time, Everett,” Cole said. “But I don’t care for them kinds of remarks, ’bout Allie French.”
“No, and you shouldn’t,” I said. “I apologize.”
Cole nodded.
“Apology accepted,” Cole said. “You meant no harm.”
He paused for a moment on his way out. Then he gestured for me to join him and stepped out onto the boardwalk. I went out with him and left the door open.
“I figure,” he said to me quietly, “that we’re going to need to keep an eye on Whitfield.”
“We’ll need him,” I said, “when the judge gets here.”
“And we have to watch Bragg,” Cole said.
“Maybe we can keep him a secret,” I said.
Cole shook his head.
“Town’s too small,” he said. “Half the people in town already know he’s back.”
“We could put him in the other cell,” I said. “Then one of us could watch them both.”
Cole was quiet for a minute.
“Yes, we’ll do that,” he said. “I’ll bring him down soon as I’ve seen Allie.”
He turned without saying anything else and started toward the hotel. I went back into the office and sat in the chair he’d vacated and turned and looked at Bragg. He looked back. Neither of us said anything. He hadn’t touched the food. After a while I put my feet up on the desk and tilted the chair back the same as Cole had and tilted my hat down and closed my eyes and had a nap.
20
We kept Whitfield in one cell and Bragg in the other, the only difference being that Bragg’s cell was locked. Bragg spent much of his time looking at Whitfield like a hangman looking at a felon. It made Whitfield nervous, but there was nothing to be done. He spent a lot of time sitting outside the office with me, watching whatever was happening on Main Street. When I sat out there, I left the office door open and held the eight-gauge across my lap.
“When’s that judge coming through here, now?” Whitfield said.
“Ten more days.”
“You think they’ll put Bragg in jail?”
“Ain’t my department,” I said.
“What happens to me after the trial.”
“You ride on back to wherever you rode on to the first time,” I said.
“You think they’ll try to get me?”
“You ain’t sleeping in the jail for comfort,” I said.
“Even after the trial?”
“Straight on,” I said. “We’ll ride you out away, give you a head start, and you can disappear. You done it before.”
“Why the hell am I doing this?” Whitfield said.
“The right thing to do?”
“Get my ass shot,” Whitfield said. “That’s what I’ll do.”
From where I sat, I could glance back through the open door and see Bragg’s cell. He was lying on his bunk, staring at the ceiling.
“Me ’n Virgil will prevent that,” I said.
“I run off once,” Whitfield said.
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Across the street, two women in bonnets and long dresses walked past. One of them walked with a beguiling wiggle. We both watched until she turned into McKenzie’s Store. And then we both watched the store, waiting for her to come out.
“I run off before,” Whitfield said. “I couldn’t stop myself. I seen Jack go down and the other deputy-hell, I don’t even remember his name-and I was running ’fore I even knew it.”
“It can happen,” I said.
“Ever happen to you?”
An eight-horse team pulled a lumber wagon past us, kicking up the dust in the street. I watched them go past.
“Did it?”
“Did it what?” I said.
“Ever happen to you?”
“You mean did I ever run off in the heat of battle?” I said.
“Yeah.”
I shook my head.
“Nope, can’t say I ever did.”
“I done it.”
“I know,” I said. “And I ain’t saying I won’t. Men break when they break, mostly.”
The two women came out of McKenzie’s carrying parcels. They headed back the way they had come. The one with the wiggle was walking closest to the street. Her dress was tight.
“Good-looking ass,” Whitfield said.
“I noticed that, too,” I said.
We watched her move away from us. At the corner of Second Street, she glanced back over her shoulder at us and then turned the corner and disappeared.
“I’m bettin’ Virgil Cole never run.”
“Be a good bet,” I said. “I honestly don’t think Virgil’s ever even been afraid.”
“What kind of man ain’t afraid,” Whitfield said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I been with Virgil Cole a long time, and I don’t know much of anything about him.”
“You ever afraid?”
“I am.”
“But you don’t run.”
“Not yet,” I said.
“I was all right with the drunks and the sodbusters,” Whitfield said. “But first time it got tough, I run.”
“And you’re afraid you’ll do it again,” I said.
A lone rider came around the corner from First Street at the far end of town and began to ride down Main Street. Tilda scuttled past us on her way to work, furtive as a small desert animal.
“I guess maybe I am,” Whitfield said. “I hope I don’t. I don’t want to live like that all the rest of my life.”
The lone rider came closer. He was smallish, with big hands and a thick, unsightly blond moustache. He was chewing tobacco. Now and then he would lean out in the saddle so as to spit and not get it on the horse. I recognized him. It was Bragg’s foreman. He stopped when he came opposite the marshal’s office and sat his horse and looked at us.
I nodded.
He didn’t respond.
I said, “Howdy, Vince.”
He didn’t say anything. He looked at me briefly, and at Whitfield for a long time. Then he surveyed the office and the street and the buildings on each side of the office.
I could hear Whitfield’s breathing.
Vince leaned out away from the horse and spit his chew into the street. Then he straightened, took a large plug out of his shirt pocket and a jackknife out of his pants pocket, and cut off a chunk and fed it off the knife blade into his mouth. He folded the plug back up in its paper, closed the jackknife, and put it back in his pants. He sat straight now in his saddle, both hands resting on the saddle horn, and chewed the fresh cut of tobacco until it felt right to him. Then, without a word, he turned the horse slowly and rode on down Main Street and turned out of sight onto First.
Beside me, I heard Whitfield exhale.
“Know him?” I said.
“No, but he’s a gun hand,” Whitfield said. “I ain’t seen ’em like you have. But I seen enough to know.”
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s a gun hand.”
“He with Bragg?” Whitfield said.
“Un-huh.”
Whitfield didn’t say anything else. We both sat quiet. But I could hear the breath go in and out of him, and I could hear him swallow.
21
I spent more time guarding Bragg and protecting Whitfield than Cole did. Cole was building a house, and he spent a lot of time at it while I minded the store. He and Allie had picked out a lot on the corner of First Street and Front Street, which put them at the very edge of town and would give them a back-window view of the easy upslope of the hills. It was raining one day when Cole came into the marshal’s office, his hat pulled down, the collar up on his slicker.
“Allie’s been chewin’ on me like a young dog,” Cole said. “I don’t spend enough time with her. All I do is be a marshal and sit around with you, minding prisoners. She says I care more about marshalin’ than her. That I ain’t even brung you down to see the house.”
“House ain’t finished, is it?” I said.
“Nope.”
“I was figuring to come down when it was,” I said.
“Go on down and take a look at it,” Cole said. “Calm Allie down a little. Tell her you like it.”
“It’s raining like hell,” I said.
“Go ahead,” Cole said. “I’ll mind the prisoners.”
“I ain’t a prisoner,” Whitfield said.
“No, a ’course you ain’t,” Cole said. “I wasn’t thinkin’. I’m sorry about sayin’ it.”
“Got a roof on it yet?” I said.
“Sure has,” Cole said. “Tight one, too. I got me a carpenter used to build boats in Rhode Island.”
“Long as I don’t get a soaking while I’m admiring the work,” I said.
“You go on down there,” Cole said. “Allie’s down there with an umbrella, planning the furniture.”
Cole sat at his desk with his coat and hat still on. I put on my hat and slicker and went out into the rain. I stayed on the boardwalk. The street was mud by now, probably deep above my ankles. Enough to suck the boot right off your foot. I was all right until I got to Front Street. Cole’s house was on the other side, and I had to drag through the mud to get across. At the building site, I mucked a few more yards to the house and stepped up onto the first-floor decking. Allie was there, with her skirts tucked up, wearing a pair of men’s boots that was much too big for her, and carrying an umbrella, still open, even under the in-place roof. Cole had been right. It didn’t leak.
“Everett,” she said. “Oh, my God, look at me.”
She bent over and untucked her skirt, letting it fall over the big, wet boots.
“You look fine to me, Allie.”
“I must look like a drowned cat,” she said. “My hair all wet, and these boots…”
“You always look good, Allie.”
“You’re too kind, Everett.”
“House is hurrying right along,” I said.
“Yes,” Allie said. “It’s going to be very grand. If Virgil ever bothers to come live in it.”
“Pretty sure he will,” I said.
“Don’t pay no attention to the house,” she said. “Hell, Everett. He don’t pay no attention to me. Just sits up there in the jail with his gun, being marshal.”
“Well,” I said. “Been sorta lively of late.”
“It’s his job,” Allie said. “It’s not his damn life.”
“Well,” I said, “show me around. I’ll tell him about it.”
She had, as we talked, moved closer to me. Now she took my hand and began to lead me around the various rooms that had been studded off.
“We’ll have our parlor here,” she said, “where we can look out and see who’s coming to call. And this will be the kitchen.”
There’s always something sort of dreamish about being sheltered on a rainy day. The rain drummed pleasantly on the roof. And, as it fell outside, it formed a kind of silvery curtain around the open sides of the unfinished building. There was coziness inside under the roof, even though there were no walls. Allie still held the hand with which she’d led me t
hrough the small framing. Her shoulder touched my arm.
“You think it will be nice, Everett?”
“It’ll be elegant,” I said.
She rubbed her cheek against my shoulder.
“Will you come often and visit us?”
“Every time I’m invited.”
“I can cook, you know,” Allie said.
She had put her hand on my back and was beginning to move it up and down my spine.
“I never thought you couldn’t,” I said.
She turned in toward me and put both arms around my waist. She looked up at me, and her eyes looked sort of dazed, as if she wasn’t focusing too well.
“Do you think I’m pretty?”
“Yes.”
I sounded hoarse. I felt as if my throat had closed up a little. She tightened her arms around my waist and pressed herself against me, arching her back a little to look up at me. The movement made her pelvis press against me, and caused me some excitement.
“Allie,” I said.
“I want you to kiss me, Everett.”
“Allie,” I said again. “I think we ought to stop here.”
She slid her hands up my back and behind my neck and pulled herself up on tiptoes and bent my head down toward her a little and kissed me hard with her mouth open. She smelled good. I kissed her back. Then I forced her away from me and held her there at arm’s length.
“I’m with Virgil,” I said. “And so are you.”
“Virgil’s not here,” she said. “Mostly, Virgil’s never here.”
She was trying to press back against me.
“Ain’t true, Allie,” I said. “But even if it was, we ain’t with each other. We’re both with him.”
She was silent; her face had turned white. She was pressing hard against my hands as I held her away.
“Allie,” I said. “For Christ’s sake, we’re right out in the open here.”
“Let me go,” she said.
Her voice was harsh and unlovely.
“Let me go, goddamn you,” she said.
“I’m leaving, Allie,” I said.
“You bastard,” she said. “You sonova bitch.”
The words came out slurred and almost hissing with rage. Her face was perfectly white and twisted with anger. There were tears in her eyes, though she wasn’t crying yet. I gave her a little shove that set her back for a moment and turned and ran.
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