“I’m not running for anything, General,” Chauncey said.
“You are with me,” General Laird said.
“Yessir,” Chauncey said. “I am.”
He smiled at the two hecklers.
“’Nother reason to vote for General Laird,” Chauncey said. “He just saved your lives.”
56
VIRGIL AND I were having breakfast in Café Paris when Allie came in with a tall woman in a fancy dress.
“Since you’re not willing to eat my cooking in the morning,” she said, “I decided to join you.”
Virgil and I both stood.
“Please do,” Virgil said.
“This is Amelia Callico,” Allie said. “Her husband, as you know, is chief of police here. She’s been dying to meet you.”lay
We both said we were pleased. Mrs. Callico tipped her head slightly and made the faint hint of a curtsy, and we sat. She looked around.
“How charming,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Virgil said.
“Do many women come in here?” she said.
“Mostly men,” Virgil said.
“We ladies lead such sheltered lives,” Amelia said. “Unless the men take us, we never go anywhere.”
“Lady can’t be too careful,” I said.
“Virgil and I met here,” Allie said. “I was alone and they wouldn’t give me biscuits, and he stepped in.”
“How gallant,” Amelia said, stressing the second syllable.
“Virgil was the marshal here then,” Allie said.
“I understand that he was,” Amelia said. “And what do you do now for work?”
“Odd jobs,” Virgil said.
“For some of the local saloons,” I said.
“How nice,” she said.
“Covers the cost of breakfast,” Virgil said.
“I’m sure,” Amelia said.
“That’s a beautiful dress, Amelia,” Allie said.
“Yes, thank you. I had it made for me in New Orleans.”
“You from New Orleans?” Virgil said.
“Yes,” she said. “I am. What’s good here.”
“I’d stick with the biscuits,” Virgil said.
“That’s all?” Allie said. “Why do you come here when all you eat is biscuits? I can make biscuits for you.”
Virgil’s face didn’t change expression, but something in the set of his shoulders shifted, and I stepped in.
“We eat food that ladies wouldn’t like,” I said. “Sow belly. Fried pinto beans.”
“So, for lady food,” Amelia said, “biscuits is what they offer.”
“’Tis,” I said.
“Then that’s what I’ll have,” she said.
The Chinaman took our order and went to get it.
“I never understand why they are so silent,” Amelia said.
“It’s as if they hate us.”
“Mostly don’t speak much English,” Virgil said.
“Well, they should,” Amelia said. “They’re going to come here and live and take our money.”
“Sure,” Virgil said.
“I wanted to meet you, of course, because of my friendship with Allie,” Amelia said. “But also I wanted to suggest an opportunity for you and your friend to make money, and do yourselves some good.”
“Open a lady-food café?” Virgil said.
Amelia smiled. She had a very convincing smile.
“Perhaps,” she said.
She was a good-looking, full-bodied woman with a mass of reddish-brown hair piled on her head.
“As you know,” she said, “my husband, Amos Callico, is running for mayor of Appaloosa. I am convinced that it is only a first step. Indeed, I am utterly convinced that it is the first step on a path that will lead him, ultimately, to become the President of the United States.”
I could see that Virgil was trying to look impressed, and I could see that it wasn’t working.
“You will certainly make a grand first lady,” I said.
“Thank you, kind sir,” she said. “I am hoping that you both would wish to join us.”
“How would we do that?” Virgil said.
“Help us get the truth out,” Amelia said. “There are facts about our opponent that need to be known.”
“He ran in combat?” Virgil said. “He slaughtered women and children?”
“Yes, that and more,” Amelia said. “There is much in General Laird’s past that is shameful.”
“And you want us to tell people?”
“The truth must be the basis of any election,” she said.
“Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am,” Virgil said. “But how do we know it’s the truth?”
“No pardon needed,” she said. “You have my word that anything we tell you is the truth.”
“Fellas that fronted up to the general outside Reclamation Hall yesterday?” Virgil said. “They get their information from you.”
“Yes, and it is good information. But Laird has a man working for him…”
“Chauncey Teagarden,” Virgil said.
“Yes. He is quite intimidating.”
Virgil nodded.
“From New Orleans, too, you know that?” Virgil said.
“I did not,” she said.
“Small world,” I said.
Allie smiled at me nervously. No one else paid any attention.
“You figure Teagarden won’t intimidate me ’n Everett,” Virgil said.
“I’m told that nothing does,” Amelia said.
“And if you helped them now, think what it would mean to us,” Allie said. “As Mr. Callico moved on up the ladder.”
Virgil looked at me. I shook my head. He nodded.
“Nope,” he said.
“We will pay you well,” Amelia said.
“Nope.”
“Why not?” Amelia said.
“Me ’n Everett don’t like your husband,” Virgil said.
She sat silently for a minute. The she stood.
“He will be disappointed to hear that,” she said, and stalked out of the café.
Allie looked as if she might cry.
57
I HAD A BEER with Chauncey Teagarden in a small saloon called Rabbit’s, near the new red-light section of town.
“You’re from New Orleans,” I said.
“Ah surely am,” he said, broadening the accent.
“Did you know that Callico’s wife is from New Orleans?”
Chauncey grinned.
“Amelia,” he said.
“You do know her,” I said.
“Know her,” Chauncey said. “She don’t know me.”
“Tell me ’bout her,” I said.
“Queen of Storyville,” Chauncey said. “Worked three, four cribs there, ’fore she met Callico and gave up honest labor.”
“Ever go to one of her establishments?”
“Hell, when she was first starting out she used to work the bedrooms herself,” Chauncey said. “I been to her.”
“Callico know that?” I said.
“No, she don’t even know that. She was a busy girl when I was going to her. And I didn’t shave yet.”
“But he knew she was a whore?”
“Oh, sure,” Chauncey said. “He went to her, too. Called herself the Countess. That was her trick, always wore a fancy dress. Nothing under it.”
“How’d she meet Callico?”
“Don’t know,” Chauncey said. “Don’t know too much about Callico. For a while, I know, he was a trick shooter at a carnival, used to play around New Orleans. Saw him once. Man, could he shoot.”
“Clay pigeons?” I said.
“Yep. Fancy ones sometimes. Made of glass.”
“Pigeons ever shoot back?”
“Nope.”
“Unlikely to,” I said.
“God, he was fast, though. And accurate.”
“She work the carnival?” I said.
“Doubt it,” Teagarden said. “Mighta been a bouncer in one’a her joints and th
en something clicked and they went off together. ’Cept I heard she took up with a fella by that name, I never thought anything about either one of them until I got here. I recognized her. And when I seen him, I remember him shooting. Ain’t all so many fellas named Callico you’re gonna run into.”
The doors to the saloon were open, and outside the sky was low and dark and there was a sense of something coming. Most people were off the street.
“Something coming,” Chauncey said, looking out at the dark street.
“A lot of it,” I said.
We carried our beer glasses to the doorway and stood, looking out at the empty street where the wind was beginning to kick a little trash around.
“This thing between Callico and the general is going to turn into something bad,” Chauncey said.
“If it does, you’re with the general,” I said.
“I am,” he said.
“You and the general against Callico and his policemen,” I said. “He’s got a fair number of hands.”
“Yeah, but mostly cowhands,” Chauncey said.
“You’re not a cowhand,” I said.
“No,” Chauncey said. “I am not.”
“So, he needs you to run the tactical command, so to speak.”
“I’d say so.”
“You didn’t come here to fight a war,” I said.
“Things change,” Chauncey said.
“Forever?” I said.
“Till after the war.”
“Then?”
“I do what the general hired me to do, if he still wants it done.”
“He don’t seem like a man changes his mind much,” I said.
“No.”
“General’s kid required it of Virgil,” I said.
“I’m sure he did,” Chauncey said. “Virgil Cole don’t go around shooting people ’cause he can.”
The wind was picking up as we stood, watching in the doorway. It pushed tumbleweed up the street past us. Far to the west, lightning flashed, and in a moment the sound of thunder came to us. No rain yet, but the tension of its pending arrival filled the air.
“Soon,” I said.
“I have to go against Virgil,” Chauncey said. “I assume that includes you.”
“Does,” I said.
“Still got that eight-gauge?” Chauncey said.
I smiled.
“Do,” I said.
“Won’t make it easier,” Chauncey said.
“I’ll come straight at you,” I said. “I don’t back-shoot.”
“Well, never lost yet,” Chauncey said.
“Neither has Virgil,” I said.
A single raindrop splattered into the still-dusty street in front of us.
“I know,” Chauncey said. “Sorta what makes it worth trying.”
58
THE RAIN when it arrived was everything it promised to be. It came down, slanted by the wind, hard and cold and steady. The Callico election rally that had been scheduled for Main Street was moved inside the saloon at the Boston House, with Callico standing on a chair near the bar and half the Appaloosa police department ranged along the outside walls.
“I promise you safe streets in Appaloosa, and open saloons, and more of the same kind of money and development that has been flowing in through my efforts these last months.”
Wearing a slicker buttoned to his neck and a confederate cavalry hat pulled down over his eyes, General Laird pushed into the saloon. Chauncey Teagarden came behind wearing a slicker, too. He kept his unbuttoned, holding it closed with his left hand until he got out of the rain. The two men stood in the crowd toward the front of the room.
“My opponent, who, incidentally, has just arrived in the room,” Callico said, “will tell you he is qualified to lead because he has been a military man, a commander. Albeit of a rebel power? Don’t we then have the right to ask what he commanded his soldiers to do? Would that not tell us what kind of civic leader he might make? Recently some of my supporters spoke publicly of his pusillanimity at Ralesberg. Of his brutality toward woman and innocent children, as he fled the field of battle.”
Beside me, Virgil said, “‘Pusillanimity’?”
“Cowardice,” I said.
“My supporters,” Callico said, “decent, honest men, both of them, were confronted by General Laird’s hired gunman in an attempt to repress the truth.”
“Ain’t that ‘suppress’?” Virgil said.
“I’d use ‘suppress,’” I said.
“And you went to the U.S. Military Academy,” Virgil said.
“So I must be right,” I said.
Virgil nodded.
“But the truth will not be repressed,” Callico said. His voice was loud now, and up a pitch. His face was red.
“The commander was a coward at Ralesberg,” he shouted,
“and a coward at Tyler Creek. His victories were against unarmed women and children who had the misfortune to be in the path of his retreat.”
As Callico talked, the general worked his way through the crowd until he stood right in front of Callico. He’d taken off his gloves and held them in his right hand.
“You lie,” he said.
His voice sounded like the crack of a bullwhip.
He stepped one step closer and reached up and slapped Callico across the face with the gloves in his right hand. It almost knocked Callico off the chair he stood on. He made a move toward his shoulder holster and stopped himself and got stabilized on the chair.
“Mr. Teagarden is my second,” the general said. “I will meet you anywhere. Pistols or sword.”
“A duel?” Callico said. “You’re challenging me to a fucking duel?”
“I am,” the general said.
“A goddamned duel,” Virgil murmured to me. “The general’s got some sand.”
Callico glanced across the room.
“Sergeant Sullivan,” he said. “Take this man into custody. Use any requisite force.”
Virgil looked at me.
“ ‘Requisite’ means necessary,” I said. “Required.” Virgil nodded. Sergeant Sullivan and five policemen assembled in a small squad and pushed through the crowd to General Laird, standing in front of Callico. Chauncey Teagarden moved slightly to the side of the group and looked at General Laird.
“Chauncey takes them on,” I said. “We gonna help?”
Virgil stared at the scene silently.
Then he said, “Yes.”
I had begun to carry the eight-gauge again as tension had begun to develop in town. I nodded, picked up the eight-gauge from where it leaned against the wall, and moved slowly along the wall to get myself opposite Virgil, so we’d have a nice crossfire if we needed to shoot.
Chauncey saw me move. He nodded his head slightly and looked at General Laird.
“General?” he said.
Laird shook his head.
“Not yet, Chauncey,” he said. “It may come to that. But not yet.”
I think Callico saw me move, too. He looked at me for a moment and then at Virgil for a moment.
“You are charged with assaulting a police officer,” Callico said. “You will be taken to jail and held for hearing.”
I saw Chauncey move his shoulders slightly, as if to loosen them.
“My lawyer will bail me out in the morning,” the general said. “Not yet, Chauncey.”
59
CALLICO SENT one of his many policemen to invite us to come to his office in Reclamation Hall. With its ornate furniture and its dim light, the office had a solemn quality. Callico had lit no lamps, and the rain streaking the big windows filtered what light had made its way through the dark overhead. He sat behind a big desk in the arched bay that looked out over the length of Main Street. At the other end of the long office, two on either side of the door, sat four policemen.
“How many law officers you got now, Amos?” Virgil said.
“We have grown to twenty-five,” Callico said. “Including my personal team.”
“Palace guard,” I
said.
Callico shook his head with a smile.
“You don’t see the chief of police in Chicago or New York strolling about without escort,” Callico said.
Virgil nodded slowly.
“What was it you wanted to see us about?” he said.
“Seen you at the saloon today,” Callico said.
“Yep.”
“Virgil,” Callico said. “Everett. You boys know this town never elected a mayor before.”
“Yep.”
“I’m not sure it’s ready.”
Virgil and I said nothing.
“You seen what it was today. I’m trying to tell the truth and my opponent is talking ’bout shooting me.”
“Or you him,” I said.
“It’s barbaric,” Callico said. “We cannot have an election when one candidate threatens the life of the other.”
“So, what do you do?” I said.
“I may have to cancel the election.”
“And who’d run the town?” Virgil said.
“I would,” Callico said.
Virgil looked at me and smiled.
“I’ll be damned,” he said.
“Where’d you get all that information on the general being a coward and a baby killer?” I said.
“Very reliable person,” he said.
“That being?” I said.
Callico paused, thinking about it.
“I can’t tell you,” he said.
“Figured you couldn’t,” Virgil said. “What was it you wanted from us?”
“Looked to me this morning, when the balloon was sort of getting ready to go up, that you boys was getting ready to side with Laird.”
“We was going to side with anybody, be Teagarden,” Virgil said. “He helped us out with your Indians.”
Callico stared at Virgil.
“For crissake, Virgil,” he said. “He’s here to kill you.”
“I know,” Virgil said.
Callico stared at Virgil some more. He didn’t get it. I did. We owed Chauncey for the Indians. And he wasn’t here to kill Virgil yet. But I’d been with Virgil a long time. Like so many others before him. Callico had never met anybody like Virgil Cole. No one said anything.
“I think this is going to get pretty bad,” Callico said finally.
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