Brimstone vcaeh-3

by Robert B. Parker

  “Virgil Cole.”

  “You are not with Pike,” the Indian said.

  “Nope.”

  “How many are you?”

  “Everett up in the rocks,” Virgil said. “Pony Flores over to your left.”

  The Indian nodded.

  “Everett has a shotgun,” the Indian said. “I heard both hammers cock.”

  “Eight-gauge,” Virgil said.

  The Indian nodded.

  “I had planned to kill you,” he said. “You and Pike.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “Now, maybe, you will kill me,” the Indian said.

  “Maybe,” Virgil said.

  “I would wish to have killed Pike first,” the Indian said.

  “Why?” Virgil said.

  “Things from our past,” the Indian said.

  “Put down the Winchester and we’ll take you back to Brimstone,” Virgil said.

  “To a white-face jail,” the Indian said.

  “Yes.”

  “To be hanged by a white-face judge,” the Indian said.

  “Probably,” Virgil said.

  The Indian nodded.

  “Virgil Cole,” he said.

  Virgil said nothing. The Indian bent over slowly and laid the rifle on the ground. Then he straightened and there was a big bowie knife in his hand. He came straight at Virgil. Virgil never moved, until, with no apparent hurry, he drew and fired and hit the Indian in the chest. The Indian kept coming. Virgil shot him twice more before he went down, the knife still in the Indian’s hand. He crawled forward a little farther, then stopped. His whole body seemed to convulse with effort, and then it was still. He was dead at Virgil’s feet. Virgil opened the cylinder, ejected the spent cartridges, and reloaded the Colt. Then he put the gun back in his holster and squatted on his heels and looked at Buffalo Calf.

  49

  WE LAID THE INDIAN SIDEWAYS over the back of his horse, and tied him in place. We got our own animals and went down the slope, leading the paint horse with Buffalo Calf’s body. We rode for maybe half an hour on the flat plain before we came up to the posse. Pike was riding in the lead. When he saw us he stopped the posse and sat waiting for us, peering at us through the rain, until we got close enough for him to make everything out.

  “You got to him first,” Pike said to Virgil.

  “We did,” Virgil said.

  Pike swung off his horse and walked to the dead Indian. He took hold of the Indian’s hair and raised his head and looked at his face.

  “Buffalo Calf,” Pike said.

  “Buffalo Calf,” Virgil said.

  Still holding the Indian’s head up, Pike reached behind him and took a knife from his belt.

  “No,” Virgil said.

  I never did understand how Virgil got that sound in his voice. But when he said “No,” it was like the closing of an iron valve. Everything stopped.

  “I want his scalp,” Pike said.

  “No,” Virgil said.

  Pike stepped back away from Virgil. I eased my eight-gauge out of its scabbard and rested it across my thigh. On Virgil’s left, Pony looped his reins over the horn of his saddle. Pike looked at Virgil and then looked back at his posse.

  “Virgil,” he said. “There’s twenty of us.”

  Virgil said, “Anybody puts a hand on a weapon, Pike, and I’ll kill you.”

  “For a dead fucking red nigger,” Pike said, “stole two women, killed three men, we know of?”

  “Four,” Virgil said.

  “You’d fight all of us for that?”

  “Be my plan,” Virgil said.

  Pike looked at me.

  “Everett?” he said.

  “I’m with Virgil,” I said.

  He looked to Virgil’s left.

  “You, Pony?” he said.

  “Virgil,” Pony said.

  Pike backed off another step.

  “You think you’re good enough to kill me?” he said.

  “Yes,” Virgil said.

  The rain was still coming down. Not hard but steady. The horses all had their heads down so it wouldn’t get in their eyes and nostrils.

  “You think you can kill us all?” Pike said.

  “Be some of you left when we go down,” Virgil said. “But you won’t be one of ’em.”

  Virgil scanned the posse.

  “Rest of you can try to figure which ones’ll be left,” he said.

  We all sat our horses, except Pike, who still stood in front of Virgil. He took off his hat and held it at his side. The rain began to bead on his bald head. It might have been kind of a pleasant rain if I hadn’t been wet since yesterday. Then, very deliberately, Pike put the knife back in his belt. He shook the water off his hat and put it back on. He grinned.

  “Just a damn Comanche buck,” Pike said. “No need for white men to die over him.”

  Virgil didn’t speak.

  “Hell, Virgil,” Pike said. “We’ll all ride back together.”

  “We’ll trail along behind you,” Virgil said.

  “You don’t trust me, Virgil?”

  “Never did,” Virgil said. “You’re too damned jolly for me.”

  Pike laughed.

  “I don’t think you can beat me anyway,” he said.

  “Never know till we’ve tried it,” Virgil said.

  Pike laughed again and swung his bulk up onto his horse.

  I put the eight-gauge back in its scabbard. Pike turned the posse. We fell in behind it.

  And we headed back to Brimstone.

  50

  IT WAS HARD TO SAY if the Ostermueller girls, mother and daughter, had a reaction to Buffalo Calf’s death. Mary Beth was drunk now, nearly all the time. And Laurel still didn’t speak, except, now and then, in a whisper, to Virgil. Virgil didn’t report what she said.

  Laurel did, however, take to hanging around the sheriff’s office, first only when Virgil was there, but after a time, when either of us was there. She’d come in and sweep up, and make fresh coffee, and sit quietly on the old couch and look out the window. She never spoke. But when Virgil was there, she watched him nearly all the time.

  Mary Beth, when she was sober enough, was making a living on her back in Pike’s Palace. It wasn’t much of a living because she wasn’t taking very good care of herself, so she was the whore of last resort most of the time. She was often too drunk to perform. What little money she did make went for booze.

  Virgil and I were sitting on the front porch in the bright morning, drinking some of Laurel’s fresh coffee, while she swept up inside. The sun was warm after days of rain, and the town was full of energy.

  “What’d you do with the Indian’s horse?” I said.

  “Gave him to Pony,” Virgil said.

  “What’d Pony do with him?” I said. “Damn thing was barely broke.”

  “Pony shot him,” Virgil said. “So Buffalo Calf would have something to ride in the spirit world.”

  “Pony believe that?”

  “Don’t know,” Virgil said.

  “But Buffalo Calf probably did,” I said.

  “I guess,” Virgil said.

  “Pony ain’t so far from the wickiup himself,” I said.

  “ ’Pears not,” Virgil said.

  We were quiet while we watched a team of red-and-white Ayrshire oxen pull a big freight wagon up Arrow Street.

  “Nice-looking team,” I said.

  “Me and Allie been talking ’bout Laurel,” Virgil said.

  I nodded.

  “She ain’t getting no mothering that’s worth anything,” Virgil said. “ ’Cept what she gets from Allie.”

  I nodded.

  “We want to take her in with us,” he said.

  “And put her in my room,” I said.

  “Figure you can bunk in one of the cells,” Virgil said.

  “Fine with me,” I said. “You talk to Laurel about it yet?”

  “No. Thought I better clear it with you first.”

  “Girl that age shouldn’t be on her
own,” I said. “ ’Specially after the things happened to her.”

  “Allie can sort of look after her,” Virgil said. “Might be good for Allie, too.”

  “Kid makes good coffee,” I said. “Maybe she can cook.”

  “Be like finding gold, if she can,” Virgil said.

  “Percival been bothering her?” I said.

  Virgil didn’t say anything.

  “You promised her you wouldn’t tell nobody what she told you,” I said.

  “Yep.”

  “You promise anything else?”

  “Yep.”

  “You promised her you wouldn’t do nothing,” I said.

  Virgil shrugged.

  “So, if Percival’s been poking her, and she told you about it, you can’t say nothing about it, and you can’t shoot him.”

  Virgil shrugged.

  “I didn’t make no promise,” I said.

  “You give your word,” Virgil said, “you don’t weasel on it.”

  “You mean you can’t let me do nothing.”

  “I don’t want no one bothering Brother Percival,” Virgil said.

  “Okay.”

  “Time comes to bother him,” Virgil said, “I’ll do it.”

  “You can bother hell out of someone, you really set your mind to it,” I said.

  “I know,” Virgil said, and went into the office to talk with Laurel.

  51

  WE DEVELOPED A ROUTINE. Every morning Allie would drop Laurel off at the office, leave me some biscuits for breakfast, and then hustle away on God’s business. Or Brother Percival’s. Or one and the same. The biscuits would have stopped a bullet. Laurel would make coffee, sweep up the office, and sit on the couch. I would soak the biscuits in the coffee until they had softened up enough to eat. When the weather was good, I took my breakfast outside. Virgil usually saddled up and did a sweep of the town to start the day, so for a while it was just me and Laurel.

  The third week we did this, Laurel brought some corn cakes for breakfast. They were still warm. It was worth sleeping in the jail.

  “Allie make this?” I said.

  She shook her head.

  “Virgil?”

  She shook her head. She didn’t smile, but I thought for a moment she might. I picked up the corn cakes and a cup of coffee and went out onto the porch. It was early, and the streets were still empty. I sat down. A coyote came out of the alley between the sheriff’s office and the bank next door. He paused in the middle of Arrow Street and looked at me. I looked back. Then he turned and trotted on across the street and into the alley across the street. Always good forage in a growing town. I sipped some coffee. There was a lot of sugar in it. Behind me the office door opened and Laurel came out and sat in the chair beside me.

  “Want a corn cake?” I said.

  She nodded. I held the plate toward her. She broke off a piece of one cake and held it in her hand. I took a piece and set the plate on the floor of the porch beside my chair. She took a very small bite. I ate some of mine.

  “You cook better than Allie,” I said.

  She chewed her corn cake.

  “ ’Course, so do I,” I said.

  She took another small bite. She sat straight in the chair with her feet flat on the floor and her knees together.

  “Your mother teach you to cook?” I said.

  I wasn’t looking at her, so I didn’t know if she nodded. I proceeded as if she had.

  “Did a good job,” I said. “Taught you how to sit like a lady, too.”

  I glanced at her. She was looking straight ahead.

  “Hard now,” I said. “That she’s having so much trouble. Hard for you. Hard for her.”

  Laurel was silent. Up the street a wagon pulled up outside of Pike’s Palace. The driver jumped down and tied up at the rail outside. There was a piano and a piano bench on the back of the wagon. In a minute Brother Percival came around the corner with Allie. Behind them came Choctaw Brown. Percival helped Allie into the wagon and she began to play loudly, some sort of unrecognizable church music. He climbed in beside her and rested his elbow on the piano. A few early drunks wandered out of the Palace and stared at the wagon. Virgil rode around the corner of Sixth Street and came down behind them and stopped and sat his horse to listen.

  “Pike’s Palace,” Percival bellowed. “A palace of debauchery, a stench of whores and poisonous whiskey, a stench of sin, like rotting flesh, odious to God and to all who love Him.”

  Allie played some more. Choctaw leaned against the wall next to the door of Pike’s Palace and looked faintly amused. Pike made no appearance. After a while, Percival stopped shouting. Allie stopped playing. They climbed down from the wagon and headed up Fifth Street with Choctaw trailing behind them. The wagon driver untied from the rail and climbed up on his wagon and drove back down Fifth Street. Virgil turned his horse and walked him down the street toward us.

  I looked at Laurel.

  “Allie don’t play the piano so good, either,” I said.

  Laurel nodded almost vigorously.

  When Virgil arrived and dismounted, Laurel jumped up and went in and got him some coffee.

  “Thank you,” Virgil said. “You sit in the chair, Laurel.”

  She shook her head. Virgil nodded as if to himself.

  “There’s a chair beside my desk,” he said to Laurel. “Would you go get it and bring it out here?”

  She nodded.

  When she came out with it, Virgil said, “Put it there, between my chair and Everett.”

  She did.

  Virgil sat in the chair she’d vacated for him. He looked at Laurel and pointed at the chair she’d just brought out.

  “Now sit in it,” he said to her.

  She stared at him. Then she sat down between us.

  52

  “BIG DOINGS up at the Palace,” Virgil said.

  I nodded.

  “Surprising,” I said.

  “Uh-huh,” Virgil said. “Kinda thought there was something going on between Percival and Pike.”

  “Looks like there is, but it ain’t what we thought,” I said.

  “Or it was what we thought, and now it ain’t,” Virgil said.

  “Choctaw’s still trailing along,” I said.

  “Yep.”

  I watched a cluster of sparrows fluttering around the dried horse manure in the street. Virgil drank his coffee. A fancy little carriage went down the street past us, pulled by a sorrel horse with a black mane and tail. The sparrows flew up as it went by and settled directly back to breakfast when it was gone.

  Laurel leaned over and pulled at Virgil’s sleeve. He put his head down, and she whispered to him. He nodded. She whispered some more. He nodded again and whispered to her. She looked at me for a moment. Then she nodded.

  “Laurel says Pike and Percival had a big argument. I asked her if I could tell you about it, and she said yes.”

  “Thank you, Laurel,” I said.

  “Percival and Pike got together pretty often, Laurel says. Pike would come over to the compound, and he and Percival would have a drink together in Percival’s office, and they’d talk awhile…”

  Virgil looked at Laurel.

  “Can I tell the next part?” he said.

  Laurel looked at me silently for a moment, then nodded her head.

  “Then Pike would visit with Mary Beth.”

  Laurel was watching me. There wasn’t anything to say. I nodded and looked at her and smiled. She kept looking at me.

  “Just before Laurel moved in with Allie and me,” Virgil said, “Pike came over, they went to the office, and after a while there was a lot of yelling and the door yanked open and Pike came out. He said a bad word to Percival, and Percival says, ‘My kingdom is not of this earth.’ ”

  He looked at Laurel again.

  “That right, Laurel?”

  She nodded.

  “ ‘ My kingdom is not of this earth,’ ” Virgil said.

  I shrugged.

  “Taking this God t
hing pretty serious,” I said.

  “Probably more than Pike does,” Virgil said.

  “Probably,” I said.

  “And Pike speaks another bad word,” Virgil said. “And walks off without visiting Mary Beth.”

  “And now Percival is outside his place preaching against him,” I said.

  “Worked on the other saloons,” Virgil said.

  “I kinda thought that was the deal,” I said. “Percival closes down all the other saloons. Pike gets all the business.”

  “I kinda thought that, too,” Virgil said.

  “And Choctaw?” I said.

  “Kinda thought he was Pike’s man,” Virgil said. “Keeping an eye on Percival.”

  “Or keeping somebody from killing him while he put them out of business for Pike,” I said.

  “Job might be changing,” Virgil said.

  “Might.”

  “Guess we’ll see,” Virgil said.

  “We got a side in this?” I said.

  “Depends on what this is,” Virgil said.

  “Say this is some sort of battle between Pike and Percival,” I said.

  “Well,” Virgil said. “We the law.”

  “Yeah, and one law knows a lot more about this than the other law,” I said. “Why I’m asking.”

  “Let’s await developments,” Virgil said.

  He stood.

  “Can’t sit here all day,” he said.

  He took his coffee cup and walked into the office. Laurel stood up at once and walked in behind him. I looked after them and smiled.

  I was good enough only when Virgil wasn’t around… sorta like with Allie.

  53

  THE PIANO MOUNTED on the wagon expanded Allie’s horizon. She’d taken to driving it herself and parking at every hitching post in town. She’d climb back, sit on the piano bench, and play hymns and sing by herself, without Percival. Today she was doing it right across from the sheriff’s office.

  “That’s a painful noise,” Virgil said.

  “Can’t you do something ’bout it?” I said to Virgil.

  “Keeps her from cooking,” Virgil said.

  We were sitting on the porch, Virgil, Laurel, and me.

  “Yes,” I said. “I s’pose it does.”