Buckskin

by Robert Knott

  “What sort of things did you make and sell?”

  “Everything. Foods, leather goods,” she said, “and jewelry, and potions.”

  “I know about your potions.”

  “You do?”

  She looked to the kid and he tapped his temple.

  “Loco cactus?” he said. “I know about that cactus stuff.”

  She shook her head.

  “No . . . what I make comes from Angel’s wings,” she said, “and Devil’s dues.”

  He laughed.

  “What is funny?” she said.

  “I know,” he said. “They are healing potions to make people not be . . . what’s the word? . . . comfortable.”

  She nodded.

  “In part,” she said.

  “What is the other part?” he said.

  “To take you on a journey.”

  “Where to?” he said.

  “Into your soul.”

  “I have never tried any of that sort of thing,” he said.

  “You have,” she said.

  He shook his head.

  “No,” he said.

  “But you have,” she said.

  “I ain’t.”

  She pulled her horse to a stop and he came alongside her.

  “I gave it to you when we rested back there.”

  “You did?”

  She nodded.

  “Your tea.”

  “Well, I’ll be goddamned.”

  “Are you angry?”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t feel nothing.”

  “Not yet,” she said.

  Then she nudged her horse on.

  “. . . By the time we get to Appaloosa, you will. You will go on a journey.”

  “Think I’ll come back?”

  “That depends,” she said.

  “On what?” he said.

  “On where you go,” she said. “And what is revealed.”

  They rode in silence for a long time, then the kid said, “Hell. I am a traveler. Fact is, uncertainty and journey is all I know.”

  She nodded.

  54

  There were a few routes between McCormick’s office and James and Bernice McCormick’s home. Virgil and I walked both. The first walk provided nothing in the way of a refreshment stopover. But the second path crossed Raines Street, and on the corner of Fifth and Raines there was a café and card house called the Crow’s Nest. It was a small place that catered to an older crowd and was named after its yackety old peg-legged owner, Simon Crow. He ran the place with his wife, Maureen. She did most of the work, cooking and serving, and Crow did most of the talking.

  Crow had been a captain in the Army, and he was not shy about talking to anyone who’d listen to his war stories. He’d talk about everything from current events to currents in the creek. And because he was also hard of hearing, he talked a lot louder than needed. Like me, Crow was a West Point graduate, so every time he saw me he felt inclined to reminisce about things I never really cared to think about.

  The only customers that were in the Crow’s Nest were two dapper old-timers playing gin and drinking gin. Crow was sitting backward in a chair, watching them. He was talking when we entered. He was filling them full of something about Thomas Edison. He perked up when he saw us.

  “Everett Hitch,” he said with a salute. “And Marshal Cole. How do?”

  He got out of the chair and moved quickly behind the bar. Even though Crow was not young and had a peg leg, he got around just fine.

  “What can I get you fellas?”

  Virgil pointed to the pot sitting atop the stove.

  “Got coffee in that pot?”

  “I surely do.”

  “Worth drinking?”

  “It ain’t bad.”

  “Two cups,” I said.

  “You bet. You bet. Want something to eat?”

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  He got two cups and poured us some coffee.

  “Not seen you for a while, Everett. Lots to catch up on. I was just telling my friends here.”

  “I’m no friend of yours,” one of the old-timers said without looking over.

  “Shut up and mind your own goddamn business,” Crow said.

  “Always do,” the old-timer said, “but that never stopped you from minding mine.”

  “Anyway,” Crow said, “the newest electricity generators being made that are in all the headlines recently are going to change life as we know it. I’m sure you have read all about them. Damnedest thing—”

  “Let me interrupt you,” I said.

  “Well . . . well, sure.”

  Crow set the coffees in front of us.

  “Sugar?” he said.

  “Please,” I said. “Got a question or two for you.”

  “Okay,” Crow said as he set the sugar bowl on the bar.

  “You know James McCormick?” I said.

  “I did, sort of,” Crow said, “but he passed away.”

  “That is true,” I said.

  “Yes, I read about it in the paper and was sorry to hear. Paper said he died of natural causes at his home. Hard to figure, him being so young and all.”

  “He come in here?” Virgil said.

  “He did,” Crow said.

  “Often?” I said.

  “You asking me this ’cause you maybe think it wasn’t maybe so natural after all?”

  “He come in often, Crow,” I said.

  “No. Not often, but once in a while. He would come in here, his brother sometimes, too. Very smart fellas, knowledgeable, the both of them. James knew interesting facts about a good deal of fascinating things.”

  “He in here the day he died?” Virgil said.

  “Let me think,” Crow said. “Let me think . . .”

  “He was,” the old-timer playing cards said.

  He was peering at us over the top of the cards he held in front of him.

  “You weren’t here, Crow, so you would not know.”

  “How do you know?” Crow said.

  “’Cause I was sitting in the very chair I’m sitting in on that day, when he came in. Maureen was minding the place and minding her own business while you was off whittling on that wood leg.”

  “You saw James McCormick in here on Friday?”

  The old-timer placed his cards facedown on the table.

  “I did,” he said.

  “What time?” I said.

  “Oh . . . four o’clock or so, I think.”

  “He drunk?” Virgil said.

  “Don’t know for sure,” the old-timer said. “Didn’t seem so.”

  “He drinking?” I said.

  “Don’t know that, either.”

  “He would drink a little,” Crow said. “A beer. Or nurse on a whiskey, but I never saw him inebriated. He was a quiet kind of guy, really. He’d have something to read and was never really interested in conversation.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” the old-timer said.

  “No, not so, he talked with me. We visited about all kinds of stuff.”

  “Ha,” the old-timer said. “One-sided prattle yack.”

  “You see him leave?” I said to the old-timer.

  “No . . . can’t say I did. I was playing cards and didn’t really pay him much attention. I just saw him. Just for a periphery really. There was a good amount of fellas in here and things was kinda busy. Maureen was moving about, taking care of everybody.”

  “He by himself?” Virgil said.

  The old-timer squinted at his card partner.

  “Don’t look at me,” his partner said. “I wasn’t here.”

  “I think there was someone with him,” the old-timer said. “Maybe a couple of fellas, but I’m not sure.”
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  Virgil glanced at me.

  “You think?” Virgil said. “Or you’re not sure?”

  He shook his head.

  “Pretty sure there was.”

  “His brother?” I said.

  “No, don’t think so.”

  “One man or two men?”

  He gritted his teeth and swallowed like his throat was sore.

  “What’d he, them, look like?” I said.

  He thought, then shook his head.

  “I don’t rightly remember. Hell, Maureen would know.”

  “Where is she?” I said.

  “Is there some reason you are asking about him on that day? Was there some kind of foul play, is that it?”

  “Where is she?” I said again.

  Crow pointed.

  “She’s not in town. She went with her brother to Dover to help out with his daughter’s newborn.”

  “When will she be back?”

  “Oh, a week or so. I got the nigra girls doing the cooking and cleaning. If there was a wire in Dover I’d say you could get a telegram to her, but there is not, of course. Closest town for that is Fletcher, and that is thirty miles. Then their place is up in the hills where the logging is. That’s where her brother works. Makes a living up there. Hard goddamn work.”

  I turned to the old-timer.

  “You sure you don’t remember?” I said. “Think. Can you remember? Tall men, short, fat, skinny, old, young, one or two, or three?”

  “Kind of important,” Virgil said.

  “Think,” Crow said.

  The old fella crinkled his nose at Crow like he was something that had soured. Then he put his chin to his chest, trying to remember. After a few seconds, he shook his head.

  “Damn sorry about my sieve of a brain. Or what’s left of it. Like I said, it was kind of busy in here. And I was winning money. Not to mention I’m afraid I’ve slept a few nights since then. I just do not recall.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Virgil and I spent the rest of the day trying to find a witness who might have seen James but came up with nothing. No one we spoke with had a clue.

  55

  The kid was concerned. He’d been concerned for a while. He had the goat cornered. But the curly-haired black doe with wild eyes was getting the best of him. She moved back and forth, staying out of the kid’s reach. The kid sure wanted to catch her. He wanted to eat her, too. He wasn’t hungry, but his blood lust was up and racing through him. It was pumping hard from just watching the dark and clever doe staying an arm’s length out of his grasp.

  “You better stay put,” he said. “Just stay put.”

  But the goat had other ideas and kept one eye on the kid at all times. She never took him in square on as she moved. Walking brazenly to one wall, then the other. He tried to quickly reach for her a few times, but she was fast like a cat and managed, ever so easily, to stay a step out of his reach.

  But, fuck, he thought, he was moving so goddamn slow, feeling sluggish. Slower than he was used to moving, and he was beginning to feel uneasy.

  “You best stop, you damn goat, ’fore you get my temper up,” the kid said. “And you don’t want that.”

  “That is exactly what I want,” the goat said.

  The kid froze, thinking he’d heard the goat speak.

  “Wha . . . what did you say?”

  “That’s just what I wanted to see,” the doe said. “You get your temper up.”

  Then the goat stood up on her back legs. And when she did, the kid pulled his knife.

  “That is what I want,” the doe said.

  The kid took a step away from her and squinted, trying to focus on the goat.

  “Goddamn you,” he said.

  Then the goat turned slightly, and when she did the kid could see the goat was really the teamster’s wife. She was smiling at him with a wicked smile.

  “It’s you,” he said.

  “Who did you think it was?”

  “A goat,” the kid said, and he turned around the room. “A fucking goat.”

  He turned one way, then the other. Everything seemed unfamiliar. It was a big fancy room with high curtains, flowered wallpaper, and a bathtub in the corner.

  “Where are we?”

  He’d never seen anything like this before. There was a pair of matching chairs with gold-painted wood and velvet cushions.

  “That’s the biggest bed I have ever seen,” he said. “Need a running jump or a ladder just to get up in it.”

  He took a step back.

  “Whoa,” he said.

  “What? What is it?”

  “It’s breathing.”

  He turned, looking around the room. Everything seemed to be alive.

  “Damn.”

  He stared at her then turned and turned again, looking around the room.

  “Why do you figure that everything is alive?” he said. “It shouldn’t be, but it damn sure is.”

  The kid laughed as he reached out and touched the curtains. Then he touched the flowered wallpaper.

  “They are growing.”

  He snapped a look at the big chairs as if they’d said something.

  “What?”

  He moved toward one of the chairs. He held his knife out at the chair.

  “Don’t you move,” he said. “Not another muscle.”

  “I’m over here,” the teamster’s wife said.

  He turned to her.

  “Where are we?” he said.

  “I’m happy you got to see me,” she said. “The goat is strongest of all animals in the stars.”

  “Bullshit?”

  “Yes,” she said. “That is me, a Capricorn. And you wanted me?”

  “I still do.”

  “What do you want with me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The kid reached out trying to touch things moving about in the turning room.

  “Where are we?”

  “Your mother’s earth,” she said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I can feel her.”

  “This is Appaloosa?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  He held up his hands. He stared at the knife in his hand and shook his head hard.

  “I feel like a . . . a thing?”

  “You have been moving about like a mouse.”

  He pointed the knife at her.

  “I could have killed you.”

  “You still could, I suppose.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you are a killer.”

  The kid sat in the huge chair and rested his head in his hands.

  “This is good,” she said.

  She was the goat again. He blinked and shook his head.

  “What? What is good?”

  “You. As you are.”

  He leaned forward, resting his head in his hands again.

  “When was your first time?” she said.

  “What?”

  “Killing?”

  “I never killed nobody that did not deserve killing.”

  “Everyone deserves death,” she said. “It is part of living.”

  She crawled up on the bed, then turned to him.

  “Make love to me,” she said.

  “Love?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He got out of the chair, moved close to the wall, and stared at the wallpaper.

  “Come,” she said.

  He turned and walked slowly to the bed.

  She reached out and pulled him up by his hand.

  “Lay back,” she said.

  “No,” he said. “You lay back.”

  She did as he asked. Her face was pulsating. Changing from a goat to her
natural self.

  “Look, I got no problem killing the marshal that did what he did to your daddy,” he said.

  “I know you don’t.”

  “None at all.”

  “Good.”

  “But I think you are going to do it,” he said. “Take that Sharps and put him to rest.”

  She shook her head.

  “I know what is best,” she said. “And I know all of what you can do best, too. So let’s take one adventure at a time.”

  She lifted up and pulled her dress off. She tossed it, then dropped back on the bed, looking up at him.

  “Have you ever fucked a goat?” she said.

  56

  With Simon Crow’s wife, Maureen, being away, we had nothing else solid to go on. So Virgil had Book send two of his deputies, Hank, one of the older, more experienced men, and Skeeter, on a ride over to Dover to speak with Maureen to see if we could get an identification of the man or men last seen with James when he was alive. It was a three-and-a-half-day trip to and from Dover.

  While we waited, I spent a good bit of time with Martha Kathryn. I saw her show again. And each evening spent with her I was getting more and more comfortable with her. And she was getting more and more comfortable with me, it seemed. The evenings after the show we’d sit on the porch of the hotel and share a bottle of wine and visit about all things, relative and not. Her past was a subject she continued to avoid, but her knowledge and understanding of business and politics allowed for continued lively discussions.

  After a dry period, a second round of clouds moved in, and this time the temperature dropped and it rained hard. The soggy days that followed gave Virgil and me no new direction as to what happened to James McCormick. Our thoughts that Baptiste or his partner, Eugene, had a hand in it were still foremost on our minds, but finding proof was another thing altogether.

  On Martha Kathryn’s next night off, Allie insisted Virgil and I take her and Martha Kathryn to dinner, and thought it would be a good gesture to include Bernice. Allie had not had a chance to get to know Bernice well, but said since she became a member of the social, not to mention had contributed to the Appaloosa Days event, she had truly connected with her. Virgil figured he’d make no more bones about it, and Allie wasted no time extending a dinner invitation to Bernice, and she accepted.

  Virgil and I escorted the three of them, Allie, Martha Kathryn, and Bernice, to the newest and supposedly best restaurant in town. It was a small place at the far end of Appaloosa Avenue called Ann Marie’s, and it was fixed up to look like one of the lush and stylish places you’d find in Boston or New York City.