Brimstone vcaeh-3

by Robert B. Parker

  We rode northeast all the rest of the day. Laurel stayed close to her mother, and her mother stayed close to Virgil. As far as they were concerned, it was as if me and Pony were along to carry Virgil’s ammunition.

  When it was dark, we made camp and sat around the fire with the whiskey jug.

  “When we get to Brimstone,” Virgil said, “you gonna be able to handle the farm by yourselves?”

  “Oh my God,” Mary Beth said. “My cow. She has to be milked. What happened to my cow?”

  “She’s okay,” Virgil said. “Got somebody looking after her.”

  Mary Beth nodded and looked at Laurel. Laurel looked blank. She had a little whiskey in a tin cup and sipped it now and then. Otherwise, she was still. Mary Beth drank some of her whiskey.

  “You asked me something,” she said to Virgil.

  “Can you work the farm by yourself?”

  Mary Beth took another swallow of whiskey and let it rest in her mouth for a time before she swallowed.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I can cook and sew and milk the cow and grow vegetables. I don’t know about plowing and digging and hauling. My husband always did that.”

  “Got any money to hire a hand?” I said.

  She seemed startled that I was there. She looked at me long enough to say “No.” And then looked back at Virgil.

  “Maybe Brother Percival would donate somebody,” I said to Virgil.

  “But we can’t be alone,” Mary Beth said.

  “Maybe we can arrange a hand,” I said.

  “No,” Virgil said. “She means she can’t be alone.”

  “Anywhere,” I said.

  Mary Beth nodded. Laurel was still.

  “Anywhere,” Virgil said.

  “That makes it a little harder,” I said.

  I handed the whiskey jug to Pony; he took a pull and passed it on to Mary Beth. She fastidiously wiped the mouth of the jug with the bottom of her skirt, and poured some whiskey into her cup.

  “Can’t be alone,” she said.

  34

  THE NEXT DAY WE CAME to the Paiute, and a day later, riding up the low rise from the river, we saw the Ostermueller farm. The draught horses that had followed us all the way broke into a trot and went past us, heading for the stock shed. We paused. Virgil glanced at the women. As we sat, tears started down Mary Beth’s face.

  “Want to stop off here?” Virgil said.

  Mary Beth shook her head.

  Laurel suddenly kicked her horse in the ribs and hung on to the saddle horn as he broke into a gallop. Pony went after her and caught her as her horse, getting no instructions from its rider, slowed to a walk. He caught the bridle and they stopped. Laurel stayed hunched over the saddle horn, her face turned away from the farmhouse. Pony looked back at Virgil. Virgil gestured toward town. Pony shrugged and let go of the harness, and rode beside her as they went toward Brimstone. As soon as we were past the farm, Laurel slowed her horse until Virgil came up.

  “The horses,” Mary Beth said.

  “Everett’ll take care of them, for now,” Virgil said. “Till we get you settled.”

  Mary Beth nodded. They kept riding.

  The horses were standing blankly in the stock shed. I tethered my horse, gave the draught horses more food than they needed, and filled the drinking trough. One of the horses paused while he was eating and put his head over into the empty stall where the milk cow had stood. He stood for a moment like that. Then he went back to eating. I put some fresh hay on the floor, hooked the stall gates, and rode after the others.

  I caught up with them at the edge of town. We rode in before noon, tied the mule and the horses to the rail in front of the sheriff’s office, and went in. Virgil put two chairs out for the women. Then he went and sat at the desk. Laurel sat in the chair nearest Virgil. I took my usual chair, and leaned the eight-gauge against the wall next to me. Pony leaned on the wall by the door.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Virgil said. “We’re going to get you a nice room at the hotel. They…”

  “No,” Mary Beth said. “No. Not alone. You can’t leave us. Don’t leave us. He’ll come back. He’ll come right into town.”

  Virgil waited. Laurel sat stiff in her chair. Mary Beth started to cry.

  “No, please, no…” And then the sobbing overcame her and she couldn’t talk.

  “We won’t leave you alone,” Virgil said quietly.

  She was too committed to crying to stop all at once. But she cried more gently.

  “We get you a room,” Virgil said, “that looks out on the lobby. One of us, me, Everett, or Pony…”

  He looked at Pony. Pony nodded.

  Virgil continued.

  “… be sitting right there in the lobby.”

  “He’ll sneak in on us. He’ll come in while we’re sleeping,” Mary Beth said.

  “Be on the second floor,” Virgil said. “You keep your window locked. And we’ll give you a bell.”

  “Bell?”

  “Cowbell,” Virgil said. “He ain’t gonna know what room you’re in. If he does, he ain’t gonna climb up the side of the wall. If he could, he’d have to break the window and you’d hear him and ring the bell and we come running.”

  “What if he kills you?”

  “We been doing this kind of work for a long time,” Virgil said. “Nobody’s killed us yet.”

  Mary Beth was shaking her head.

  “Won’t be for long, just while we arrange something for you,” Virgil said. “I’ll have my… I’ll have a woman I know come in and see to you. Bring you clothes, things like that. She been through some of what you been through.”

  “She has? Can she be alone?”

  Virgil and I looked at each other.

  “She’s managing it,” Virgil said.

  “Well, I can’t manage it,” she said. “And neither can Laurel.”

  “Mary Beth,” I said. “No such thing as perfect safety. You are as safe now as you have ever been in your life. Or ever will be.”

  Mary Beth looked at her daughter. Laurel was stiff, and her body was all angles. She registered nothing.

  “Lady,” Pony said softly from the doorway. “He will not hurt you. I promise he will not.”

  “What if they don’t have a room that you can see the lobby?” she said.

  “They will,” Virgil said.

  Mary Beth had stopped crying.

  “This is as safe as I’m ever going to be,” she said.

  “Or ever were,” I said.

  “What Everett means,” Virgil said, “is safe is more how you feel than how things are. You’re safe. You just don’t feel it.”

  Mary Beth nodded.

  “Two weeks ago,” I said, “you felt safe in your house. And you weren’t. Now you don’t feel safe with us. And you are.”

  “Safe and not safe is mostly in your head,” Virgil said.

  He stood and put out one hand each to Mary Beth and Laurel. Mary Beth took it. Laurel didn’t. Virgil didn’t seem to notice, except that I knew he did, because Virgil notices everything.

  “Here we go,” Virgil said.

  The women hesitated.

  “Bring the eight-gauge,” Virgil said to me. “Make everyone feel safer.”

  “Including you?” I said.

  Virgil grinned.

  “ ’Specially me,” he said.

  The women stood. Mary Beth first, then Laurel. And we went out of the sheriff’s office and walked down to the hotel, Laurel holding on to Virgil’s left sleeve. The chances of Buffalo Calf coming into town were very small. The chance that he even knew the women weren’t in Mexico was very small. But the women were so scared I found myself keeping an eye out.

  Just in case.

  35

  “THESE WOMEN NEED OUR HELP,” Allie said to Brother Percival.

  Mary Beth and Laurel sat in the front row of pews beside Allie, wearing some clothes that Allie had given them. Brother Percival stood in front of the altar rail, facing them in his
white robe, with his long blond hair spilling onto his shoulders, and his thick arms folded across his chest.

  “He thinks he’s Jesus,” I whispered.

  “No beard,” Virgil said.

  Pony stood in the back of the church, by the door. Choctaw Brown stood near him. Choctaw and Pony were studying each other. A couple of other deacons stood against the far wall. There was no one else in the church.

  “What is your name?” Percival said.

  “Mary Beth Ostermueller.”

  “Tell me your story, Mary Beth,” Brother Percival said.

  “An Indian killed my husband and took us,” Mary Beth said. “He sold us to some men who were taking us to Mexico when Mr. Cole came and saved us.”

  “All by yourself,” I said.

  Virgil ignored me. He was looking at Percival.

  “What happened to the men?”

  “Mr. Cole killed them.”

  “Wish I coulda seen it,” I whispered.

  Virgil shrugged.

  “Were you despoiled?” Percival said.

  “Despoiled?”

  “Did these men do things to you.”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  Mary Beth shook her head.

  “We can’t talk about it,” she said.

  “And the young lady?” Brother Percival said.

  “My daughter, Laurel.”

  Percival nodded and spoke to her.

  “What do you have to say, Laurel?”

  Laurel’s silence was like a boulder.

  “Does she speak?” Percival said.

  “Hasn’t spoke since this happened to her,” Allie said.

  “That right?” Percival said to Mary Beth.

  “Yessir,” Mary Beth said. “And when we passed our farm she tried to ride off.”

  “Do you know why?” Percival said.

  “It’s where her father got killed,” Mary Beth said. “Figured it was something about that.”

  “You own that property?” Percival said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Can you work it without a man?” Percival said.

  “No, sir,” Mary Beth said. “We can’t even live there.”

  “They are afraid,” Allie said. “After what happened. They are frightened of being alone.”

  Percival nodded.

  “I understand,” he said.

  “I thought perhaps that they could live in the single woman’s dormitory in the church compound,” Allie said rapidly. “I been seeing them every day, you know, and I been thinking about it a lot, and I thought maybe the church could work the farm for them. Sort of as a way for them to pay for their keep here.”

  Percival stood silent for a while, then looked at Virgil.

  “Do you have a thought, Deputy?”

  “I believe it is your Christian duty,” Virgil said.

  “Of course,” Percival said.

  36

  VIRGIL AND I SAT IN two straight chairs tilted back against the wall on the front porch of the sheriff’s office.

  “Where’s Allie?” I said. “Ain’t seen her in a while.”

  Virgil grinned.

  “Miss those lunches?” Virgil said.

  “God, no,” I said. “She ain’t doing your shirts no more, either.”

  “Nope, taking them to the Chinaman again.”

  “So she’s out closing down saloons?” I said.

  “She’s at the church, mostly,” Virgil said. “I think she adopted them two women.”

  “Mary Beth and Laurel?”

  “Yep.”

  “Laurel talk yet?” I said.

  “Allie says no.”

  “Seen a doctor?”

  “Both of them. Nothing wrong with them but a few bruises.”

  “He look at their, ah, private parts?” I said.

  “Don’t know what he looked at, Everett,” Virgil said. “Didn’t ask.”

  “Just thought, since they’d been misused…”

  “Doctor says they are okay,” Virgil said.

  “So why don’t the girl talk?” I said.

  “Don’t know.”

  There were some clouds so that the sky was a pretty even gray, and it looked like it could rain in a while. But it was warm, and the weather still was pleasant.

  “How ’bout Mary Beth?” I said.

  “She’s drinking a lot,” Virgil said.

  “Can’t say I blame her.”

  “Ain’t helping the kid,” Virgil said.

  “Probably not,” I said.

  “Allie says that the mother told her they can’t be mother and daughter no more,” Virgil said.

  “So you and Allie are talking ’bout things,” I said.

  “Yep.”

  “They can’t be mother and daughter because of what happened?” I said.

  “Allie said that Mary Beth said that she and the kid seen each other do things that no mother and daughter should ever see.”

  I nodded.

  “Wasn’t like they had a choice,” I said.

  Virgil shrugged.

  There was a lot of traffic on Arrow Street. Carriages, buck-boards, freight wagon, men on horseback. There were a lot of people walking along the boardwalks and going in and out of shops. From the blacksmith shop across the street and around the corner, I could hear the clang of his hammer.

  “How they getting on with the Reverend Brother Percival?” I said.

  Virgil grunted.

  “He has them in for pastural counseling, every day,” Virgil said, “whatever that is.”

  “Pastoral,” I said. “Like a pastor.”

  “Sure,” Virgil said.

  “Both of them together?”

  “Nope, one at a time,” Virgil said.

  “Must be an interesting time with the kid,” I said.

  “Who don’t talk,” Virgil said.

  “I don’t like Brother Percival,” I said.

  “Me neither,” Virgil said.

  “I think he’s got something going on we don’t know about,” I said.

  “Me too.”

  “How come Choctaw’s with him and with Pike?” I said.

  “ ’Cause Percival’s got something going on with Pike.”

  “Pike ought to love him,” I said. “Percival’s closing down all Pike’s competition.”

  “Maybe that’s what they got going on,” Virgil said.

  “Nice for Pike,” I said. “What’s Percival get?”

  “Maybe money,” Virgil said. “Maybe the joy of doing God’s work. Maybe both.”

  “Thing wrong with folks like the holy Brother Percival,” I said, “is that they think they got a right to do anything. Because they doing God’s work.”

  Virgil let his chair tip forward a little and then bumped it back against the wall. He was so balanced, so exact in all his movements, that I figured he could probably balance in that chair if there wasn’t any wall.

  “Kinda like to know what he’s telling those ladies in them pastoral sessions,” Virgil said.

  “Probably telling ’em they’re going to hell,” Virgil said.

  “For getting raped?” I said.

  “Maybe Percival don’t see it that way,” Virgil said.

  “No, maybe he don’t,” I said.

  “Bet God would let that go,” Virgil said.

  “Yeah, but you don’t know,” I said. “Percival knows.”

  “Sure,” Virgil said. “Sure he does.”

  37

  I WAS UPSTAIRS IN PIKE’S PALACE, lying on a bed with a whore named Frisco. I never knew the rest of her name. But she was a nice girl, except for being a whore. She was clean, and sort of smart, and sort of pretty, and fun to talk to. When I could I’d been keeping company with her since I got to Brimstone.

  “Chasing that Indian around didn’t wear you down none,” Frisco said.

  “I’m a lively fella,” I said.

  “Yes, you are,” she said. “I hear those women ain’t doing so well.”

 
“They had a rough time,” I said.

  Frisco grinned.

  “Fucking a bunch of men?” she said. “Hell, I do that pretty much every day.”

  “One of them is fifteen,” I said.

  “How old you think I was when I started?” Frisco said.

  “Soon as you could,” I said.

  “I wasn’t so willing the first few times, either,” she said.

  “Hard to imagine,” I said.

  “Well, it’s true, and I got over it. Didn’t turn into a drunk. Didn’t stop talking.”

  “How you know so much about these women?” I said.

  “Whores know a lot,” she said.

  “You surely do,” I said.

  “I mean we know a lot about what’s going on, lotta men visit with us. Lot of ’em get kind of drunk and kind of excited and they talk about things.”

  “Why do they get excited?”

  “You know damn well why,” Frisco said. “Some of the holy church deacons stop by.”

  “No,” I said.

  “They ain’t as holy as you might think,” Frisco said.

  “Ain’t it a shame,” I said.

  “Anyway, they tell me that Virgil Cole’s woman friend is taking a special interest in them.”

  “Allie,” I said.

  “Yep, and that even His Holiness the Reverend Brother Bullshit is talking to them.”

  “So I hear,” I said.

  “You like her?” Frisco said.

  “Allie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Allie ain’t someone you just like or don’t like,” I said. “You kinda do both.”

  “Virgil feel that way?”

  “He probably likes her more than he don’t like her,” I said.

  “I hear she’s had a little something with Brother Bullshit,” Frisco said.

  “Percival?” I said.

  “While you and Virgil was off after that Indian.”

  “How do you know?”

  Frisco smiled.

  “I told you, whores know stuff.”

  “You know if it’s true?” I said.

  “No,” Frisco said. “Not really. Just heard it said.”

  “Let us agree on something right now,” I said.

  “I won’t say nothing to Virgil,” she said.

  “Or anybody else,” I said.

  “Promise.”