Brimstone

by Parker, Robert B.

  Virgil introduced himself and me.

  “New deputies,” Percival said.

  “We are,” Virgil said.

  “Here on the Lord’s business?” Percival said.

  “Sort of all the Lord’s business, ain’t it?” Virgil said.

  “Suppose it is,” Percival said. “But some of it is Satan’s business, too.”

  “Well, we’re all opposed to that,” Virgil said.

  “I hope so,” Percival said.

  Virgil surveyed the church.

  “Heard you had an organ,” he said.

  “In the choir loft,” Percival said. “The Lord has yet to send us someone to play it.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “I’m sure,” Virgil said, “that he’ll send someone soon.”

  “As am I,” Percival said.

  There was a quality of ironic artificiality in his bearing that was hard to figure. It was like we all knew he was a fraud and it amused him to pretend he wasn’t. . . . Or maybe he wasn’t a fraud.

  “Lotta deacons,” Virgil said.

  “We are not lambs,” Percival said. “Ours is a leonine Christianity.”

  Virgil looked at me.

  “Leonine,” he said, as if he were tasting the word.

  “Like a lion,” I said.

  Virgil nodded.

  “Leonine,” he said again. “I like it.”

  He looked at the deacons some more, then he walked to the line up along the right-hand wall and stopped in front of the first deacon, and looked at him closely.

  “Choctaw,” Virgil said. “Choctaw Brown.”

  The deacon looked at him impassively.

  “Lemme think,” Virgil said.

  Nobody moved. The deacon remained impassive. He was about Virgil’s size, and flat-faced.

  “Lambert, New Mexico,” Virgil said. “You was with Char-lie Dyer’s bunch.”

  “You must have Deacon Brown confused,” Percival said,

  “with someone else.”

  “Pretty good gun hand,” Virgil said, “as I recall.”

  “As I say, Brother Cole,” Percival said, “you must have Deacon Brown confused with another.”

  Virgil nodded and walked back to Percival.

  “So,” Virgil said. “Your lee-o-nine business causing any trouble for you with folks in town?”

  “None that we cannot handle,” Percival said. “We are doing God’s work.”

  Virgil smiled.

  “I’m sure He’s pleased about that,” Virgil said.

  “God exists in each of us,” Percival said.

  “Sure,” Virgil said. “How you get along with the folks at Pike’s Palace.”

  “Pike’s is a stew of corruption,” Percival said.

  “Got a plan for that?” Virgil said.

  “We are guided by the Lord,” Percival said.

  “Damn,” Virgil said. “Makes me kind of envious, seeing as how me and Everett are mostly on our own.”

  “You are both welcome at services,” Percival said.

  “Thank you,” Virgil said.

  “Ours is a militant Christianity,” Percival said.

  “Me and Everett are kinda militant ourselves,” Virgil said.

  “But despite our militancy,” Percival said, “we are brothers to every Christian person.”

  Virgil looked at me.

  “We like that, Everett?” he said.

  “Not always,” I said.

  And we left.

  16

  WE WALKED BACK to the sheriff’s office past the railroad station. Six new cattle pens were nearly finished, and there was enough lumber stacked to suggest that there’d be more.

  “Be a lot of drovers,” I said. “All loose and looking for trouble.”

  Virgil grinned at me.

  “Wait’ll they get a look at us,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Wait’ll,” I said.

  Morrissey had gone back to Del Rio. And the sheriff’s office was ours. There was a cell block behind the office, with four cells, none of them at the moment occupied. There was a desk, at which Virgil sat, and a couple of straight chairs, and an odd-looking bow-backed couch with some faded red pillows on it against the left wall. I sat on the couch.

  “Choctaw Brown,” I said.

  “Yep,” Virgil said. “Quick, likes shooting. I killed his partner back in Lambert, a long time ago. ’Fore I met you.”

  “J.D.,” I said.

  “J.D. Sisko,” Virgil said. “He can shoot.”

  “So they both got one,” I said.

  “One?” Virgil said. “They both got about twenty, way I see it.”

  “You don’t think the deacons are godly?” I said.

  “ ’Bout as godly as you,” Virgil said.

  “How you know I ain’t godly,” I said.

  “Are you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “That’s how I know,” Virgil said. “I happen to know one of the shooters on each side. I’m betting they ain’t the only ones.”

  “Probably not,” I said.

  Allie came into the office carrying an iron pot of something. She looked well-scrubbed and neat. There was some color in her cheeks now, and she seemed to have put on a few pounds.

  “Brought you boys some lunch,” Allie said. “Just made it this morning.”

  She put the pot on the desk, went to a cupboard on the right wall, took out a couple of tin plates and two spoons, and set them out beside the pot on Virgil’s desk.

  “Can’t stay and eat with you,” she said. “I got some errands to run. I’ll come back in a while, though, and clean up.”

  “Thank you,” Virgil said.

  “That’s very kind of you, Allie,” I said. “No need to come back, though. We can clean up.”

  “No,” she said. “Won’t hear of it. You got your job and I got mine. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

  She smiled, blew us both a kiss, and went.

  Virgil and I sampled the stew. It was bad. Virgil made a face as he swallowed.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  I tried a small sample.

  “I see what you mean,” I said.

  “You want any more?” he said.

  “No,” I said.

  Virgil picked up the pot and went to the door and looked out. Allie was not in sight. He went out and around to the back of the cell block and dumped the stew, and came back in with the empty pot.

  “You gonna tell her we ate it all?” I said.

  “Sure,” Virgil said.

  “Won’t that encourage her to make more?” I said.

  “I suppose,” Virgil said. “But at least we’ll know what to expect.”

  I nodded.

  “Otherwise, she might try something else,” I said.

  “She ain’t gonna quit,” Virgil said.

  “At least she’s trying,” I said.

  “Might be better if she weren’t,” Virgil said. “She’s been washing and ironing my shirts. Now half of them got a burn mark, where she gets the iron too hot or leaves it in the same place too long.”

  “She’ll learn,” I said.

  “Maybe. Maybe I don’t even want her to. Maybe I liked her better when she was singing in saloons.”

  “Except when you didn’t,” I said.

  “Don’t need to be delicate with me, Everett,” Virgil said. “I didn’t like it when she was fucking the patrons.”

  “Most folks wouldn’t,” I said.

  “Why you suppose she was like that?” Virgil said.

  I shook my head.

  “Don’t know,” I said. “I’d guess she was scared. Been on her own most of her life, and the only way she had to . . . you know . . . get anything . . . get anyone to do anything was to pull up her skirt.”

  “I suppose,” Virgil said. “But when she was with me?”

  I shrugged.

  “She was with you,” I said.

  “And when I wasn’t around?” Virgil said.

  �
��She was with somebody else. Somebody to take care of her.”

  “Like Ring Shelton,” he said.

  “Like Ring,” I said.

  “Would you stay with her?” Virgil said.

  “No,” I said. “Probably wouldn’t.”

  “I ain’t touched her since I got her back,” Virgil said.

  “Not ready?” I said.

  “Not yet,” he said.

  “Why do you hang on to her?” I said.

  “Don’t know,” Virgil said.

  “Never seen you,” I said, “not know what you needed to know.”

  “Except Allie,” he said.

  “Must be scaring hell out of her,” I said. “Not having any sex with you.”

  “She got hold of a Bible someplace,” Virgil said. “Been reading it a lot.”

  “Anything that keeps her from cooking,” I said.

  Virgil nodded.

  “Lemme ask you something about the Bible,” he said.

  “Don’t know much about the Bible,” I said. “Never got much past the ‘begets’ stuff.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “Adam and Eve were the first humans, right?” he said.

  “I guess.”

  “And they had two sons, Cain and Abel, right?”

  “I guess,” I said again.

  “And all the rest of us descended from them.”

  “Far as I know,” I said.

  “So who’d Cain and Abel mate with?”

  “Check with Allie on that,” I said.

  Virgil grinned.

  “Or Br’er Percival,” he said.

  “Even better,” I said. “Want to go get something to eat ’fore Allie comes back and catches us?”

  “Be fools not to,” Virgil said.

  17

  A SHORT, THICK MAN with a big hat and a two-day growth of beard came into the sheriff’s office.

  “Which of you boys is the sheriff,” he said.

  “Both deputies,” Virgil said. “Sheriff’s in Del Rio.”

  “Name’s Lester,” he said. “Abe Lester. I’m trail boss for an outfit with quite some number of cows milling around at the moment about a day outside of town.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “Virgil Cole,” he said. “This here’s Everett Hitch.”

  “Pleased,” Lester said. “We’ll bring ’em in tomorrow, and I just wanted to give you boys a little notice.”

  “How many cows?” Virgil said.

  “ ’Bout four thousand,” Lester said. “Won’t know exact till we tally.”

  “How many drovers?”

  “Forty-eight,” Lester said. “Plus one wrangler, the cook, and me.”

  “Can you control ’em?” Virgil said.

  Lester smiled.

  “Cattle? Sure,” Lester said.

  “How ’bout the cowboys?” Virgil said.

  “They’ll drive the cattle into town tomorrow and herd ’em into the pens,” Lester said. “That’s what they signed on for. When they’re done I pay ’em off.”

  “You control them until you pay ’em?”

  “Always have,” Lester said.

  “And after?”

  “Ain’t mine anymore,” Lester said.

  “Guess they get to be mine,” Virgil said. “And Everett’s.”

  “I’d say so,” Lester said.

  “Why they pay us,” Virgil said.

  “You the same Virgil Cole was in Abilene a while back?” Lester said.

  “I was in Abilene.”

  “So I guess you know how,” Lester said.

  “We do,” Virgil said.

  Lester looked at me and nodded.

  “One other thing, I guess you should know,” Lester said. “Two, two and a half days ago, we run into a few Indians.”

  “Comanche?”

  “Probably,” Lester said. “They slaughtered a couple of cows.”

  “You see ’em?”

  “Nope.”

  “How you know it was Indians.”

  “One of the drovers is a breed,” Lester said. “Can read sign. Says the horses weren’t shod. Actually, said it might be only one horse.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “So it might be only one Indian,” he said.

  “Maybe. Either way. Somebody left an arrow stuck into one of the dead steers,” Lester said. “Like some kind of sign.”

  “Your breed know what?” Virgil said.

  “Garr don’t know. Says it looks like a Comanche arrow, but he don’t know why it’s there.”

  “Didn’t kill the steer with it?” Virgil said.

  “Nope. Shot the steer with a rifle.”

  “Everett?” Virgil said.

  “Sounds like somebody wanted you to know something,” I said.

  “Sign?” Virgil said.

  “I was here,” I said.

  “Why would somebody want us to know?” Virgil said.

  “Don’t know,” I said. “Fella who left it wouldn’ta known you had a tracker. Maybe he wanted you to know it was Comanche that slaughtered your cows.”

  “You go after them?” Virgil said.

  “Nope, let ’em have the beef. Figured it would keep them from bothering us anymore.”

  “And it did?”

  Lester nodded.

  “Guess so,” Lester said. “There wasn’t many of ’em, Garr says.”

  “And there’s fifty-one of you,” Virgil said.

  “Yep, all with Winchesters.”

  “That mighta kept them from bothering you,” Virgil said.

  “Coulda been a factor,” Lester said.

  “You staying around after you pen the herd?” Virgil said.

  “Nope. I’ll stay for the tally. Then I’m on a train to Fort Worth. Take a bath, get drunk, find a woman, and do all of it by myself.”

  “Thanks for stopping by,” Virgil said.

  18

  “FELLAS BRINGING four thousand head a cattle into town tomorrow,” Virgil said.

  Pike nodded. He was leaning his elbows on his big, elegant bar. The heel of one boot hooked over the brass rail. It wasn’t J.D. in the lookout chair today.

  “Leave ’em at the station?” Pike said.

  “Yep.”

  “Pay off the drovers?” Pike said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Pike looked over at the lookout.

  “Looks like you and J.D. gonna be busy, Kirby.”

  “Might be,” Kirby said.

  Kirby was a big man with a thick, dark mustache and a bald head.

  “Thought me ’n Everett would come by, let you know, see if you had a plan for dealing with any trouble might arise.”

  “Kind of you,” Pike said. “You boys want a beer, or something with more muscle?”

  “Beer’s good,” Virgil said.

  “On the house,” Pike said, and nodded at one of the bartenders.

  “Any plan?” Virgil said.

  “I’m grateful for your concern, Virgil.”

  “Well, there’s fifty-one of them and two of us, so I’m making a, whatcha call it, Everett, what we’re doing.”

  “We’re making a tactical assessment,” I said.

  Pike nodded.

  “See who can protect themselves,” he said. “And who needs you two boys to do it.”

  “There you have it,” Virgil said.

  “ ’Course, there may not be any trouble,” Pike said.

  “Maybe not,” Virgil said.

  “Not a lot of cowboys gonna cross Virgil Cole,” Pike said.

  Spec set beer on the bar in front of us.

  “But I don’t want to take no chance that some drunken vaquero with cow shit on his heels comes in here and busts up my beautiful Palace.”

  “Be a shame,” Virgil said.

  “Well, we’ll have J.D. in the chair, and Kirby at the door. Spec here can do a little more than draw beer. I’ll be here. And some of my other associates’ll be draped around the room here, ready to, ah, intercede if the revelers get too lively.”
r />   “Called away from their normal duties,” I said.

  Pike grinned at me.

  “Those are their normal duties,” he said.

  “Left over from the old days,” I said.

  “Some,” Pike said.

  “Okay, Pike,” Virgil said. “You do what you need to do to protect yourself and your place.”

  “Be my plan,” Pike said.

  “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do more than you had to,” Virgil said.

  “Don’t see no reason to,” Pike said.

  19

  ALL ALONG ARROW STREET it was pretty much the same. They’d had trail drives before.

  “But nothing this size,” I said to the manager at a saloon called The Cheyenne Gentleman’s Bar.

  “No,” he said. “That’s true. But we got Roy here.”

  He nodded at a hugely fat bouncer near the door.

  “And I hear tell you boys know how to keep order.”

  We moved on.

  “They don’t get it,” I said to Virgil. “They ain’t never experienced forty-eight or so soused cattle drivers with cash in their pockets, blowing in all at once, with a big thirst and a fearsome hard-on.”

  “May not turn out to be so proud of all them extra cattle pens,” Virgil said.

  At a woman’s clothing store, the owner spoke to Virgil.

  “I believe I’ll be closing,” she said, “while those cowboys are loose in town. I don’t sell things cowboys want anyway.”

  “Might have wives or girlfriends at home,” Virgil said.

  “They won’t be buying things for the wife on their first night off the trail,” the woman said. “Maybe the night they leave.”

  “Guilt?” I said.

  “Guilt,” she said.

  Aside from the dress-shop lady, most of the places along Arrow Street were thinking less about damage and more about profit. Virgil’s reputation probably accounted for a lot of that. None of them could imagine somebody standing up to him . . . assuming the standee knew his reputation.

  We paused in front of The Church of the Brotherhood.

  “Suppose Brother Percival got the same right to know as anybody else,” Virgil said.

  “ ’Less God already told him,” I said.

  We walked up the steps and in through the pen doors. Inside, it was dim in its flint-blue way, and the organ was playing. We walked forward toward the altar and turned and looked up into the choir loft. It was Allie.