Ironhorse

by Robert B. Parker

Virgil took another pull of the whiskey.

  “One thing to remember,” I said. “Allie’s a pretty good hand at pinochle. Bidding, melds, and tricks of the game, she’s a good hand.”

  “Pony’s telegram said this has been going on night after night.”

  “Just cards and a little music, Virgil.”

  “Pony said he wanted to make sure the rumors were rumors, like you say. He went up there and peeked in the keyhole.”

  I really did not want to ask, and I had a pretty good idea what was on the other side of that keyhole, but I asked anyway.

  “And?”

  “They weren’t playing pinochle,” Virgil said. “Pony said it was noisy and he really didn’t need to look in the keyhole, but he looked in anyway, just to make sure they weren’t playing pin the tail on the donkey or something.”

  “Damn,” I said.

  Virgil took another nip and passed the flask back to me, and I took a pull.

  “I’m sure this is just a situation she’s going through, Virgil. You know how she gets lonely. Widow Callico, I’m sure, is also a bit lonely herself, with her husband being dead and gone ’n all.”

  Virgil nodded a bit.

  “And who knows, hell, maybe Pony wasn’t seeing so good,” I said. “Maybe Allie was not involved. Maybe she was just, I don’t know, watching.”

  “Watching?”

  “Could be. Maybe it was just Teagarden and Widow Callico getting into their grits, and maybe Allie was . . . just in the room. You know, like watching a rodeo, or an opera.”

  Virgil looked at me as if I were an idiot, and I kind of felt like an idiot for saying something that was stupid and frankly far-fetched.

  “Allie and Widow Callico started up a side business, too,” Virgil said.

  “Side business? You mean another business besides the music duo?”

  “Yep.”

  “What kind of side business?”

  “You know the Callico place, the big two-story on Second Street?”

  “Sure. What about it?”

  “With the mines reopened, and Appaloosa being full with miners, Widow Callico and Allie turned the place into a rental,” Virgil said.

  “Well, there you go,” I said. “That’s a big house; doesn’t sound like a bad business renting to miners.”

  “They’re not renting to miners,” Virgil said.

  “Who they renting to?”

  “The miners just stop by ’n visit.”

  “Visit who?”

  “Working ladies,” Virgil said. “Widow Callico and Allie turned the place into a whoring establishment.”

  “A whoring establishment?”

  “Yep,” Virgil said.

  I took another drink and thought about what Virgil was telling me some more. I wished I hadn’t asked about the telegram now, but it was too late to turn back.

  “What’s the name of it?”

  “The name of it?” Virgil asked.

  “The establishment?”

  “Hell, I don’t know, Everett,” Virgil said. “What difference does that make?”

  33

  “QUEEN OF STORYVILLE was where Widow Callico worked when she was the Countess.”

  “Queen of Storyville?” Virgil said.

  “Yep, that’s where Widow Callico worked before she was Mrs. Callico,” I said. “I was drinking a beer with Chauncey Teagarden in the Rabbit Saloon. He told me Widow Callico was the Countess at the Queen of Storyville, a big whore palace in New Orleans.”

  “Countess?”

  “That’s what Chauncey said. Said she wore fancy dresses with nothing underneath. No pants on her queen.”

  “She called herself the Countess?” Virgil said.

  “Chauncey used to visit her, he said, before he was old enough to shave. Said she was a busy Countess. Said that was where she met Amos Callico. Amos took away the title of Countess and gave her the title of Mrs. Callico before you took away the title of Mrs. Callico and gave her the title of Widow Callico.”

  The coach slowed up some; I turned the wheel and released some of the friction I had on the brakes so we would not slow up too much.

  “So, are Allie and Widow Callico selling pieces, too, or are they just running the business side of things?”

  “I’m not real sure of the particulars about that,” Virgil said. “But with Widow Callico’s background as the Countess and Allie’s history of whoring, I wouldn’t put it past them.”

  “Pony didn’t say?”

  “No,” Virgil said. “He did say she was living there.”

  “Living there?”

  “Yep.”

  “You mean she moved into Callico’s place?”

  “According to Pony’s telegram, she did,” Virgil said. “She moved in after our house burnt down.”

  “What? Damn, Virgil, your house burnt down?”

  “Allie was cooking some fat belly, pan caught on fire, the curtains took to burning, and the whole place went up.”

  I looked at Virgil. Virgil was looking down the track, and he did not look at me.

  “Damn, Virgil. Appaloosa burnt up something good after our fight with those renegade Chiricahuas, and it took a long while and a lot of money to put the town back together. Your house was one of the few places that did not get burnt and now this?”

  “Yep,” Virgil said.

  “And all because Allie was cooking fat belly?”

  Virgil nodded.

  “Allie’s never been much of a cook, you know that, Everett.”

  “Fat belly?” I said. “Pony said she was cooking fat belly?”

  “According to the telegram,” Virgil said. “Fat belly.”

  I turned the wheel ever so slightly, keeping us from slowing some more.

  “Allie doesn’t eat fat belly,” I said.

  “I know,” Virgil said. “She don’t like it.”

  “So who was she cooking the fat belly for?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Virgil said.

  A gust of wind swirled the rain around a bit more. We were on a wide, fairly flattened curve, and the coach slowed. I thought we might stop, but there was no sign of the back end of the train cars with the bandits that had drifted away from us. I knew there would not be a possibility of stopping as we slowly rolled on.

  “Is that it?” I asked.

  “It what?” Virgil said.

  “Is that the all of the telegram?”

  “Yes,” Virgil said. “That’s all the telegram said.”

  “Damn,” I said. “That’s one helluva telegram.”

  “Yep, Pony wrote the code himself. He wrote it after the telegrapher left the office, on account he didn’t want to spread the news around town any more than the news was already spreading,” Virgil said. “I imagine it took him all night. Pony’s coding wasn’t really up to snuff. Western Union fellow in Nuevo Laredo deciphered it the best he could. I picked up a copy of the World-Wide Travellers’ Cipher Code book at the Western Union office there when we crossed the border and went through the whole thing myself just to make sure the telegram was deciphered correctly.”

  Virgil stopped talking.

  34

  I POCKETED MY flask, and we rode the rail in silence for a long while as I worked the brake regulating our speed downhill.

  “I suppose it could be worse,” I said.

  Virgil looked at me.

  “The telegram,” I said. “Not sure how exactly, but it could.”

  “No matter,” Virgil said. “Don’t change the fact Chauncey Teagarden can go about town doing as he pleases while we’re out marshaling.”

  “No, it don’t,” I said, “especially since you left him in charge of peacekeeping duties.”

  “Especially,” Virgil said. “Not much peaceful about the whole of it, though.”

  “Not,” I said.

  “But it’s just the way it is, it’s the way things go. Some things are certain and some uncertain,” Virgil said. “Most being uncertain. You know that, Everett, and it’s
an uncertain thing we do.”

  “Is,” I said.

  “So,” Virgil said. “We keep one eye open on the certain things and the other open on the uncertain.”

  I thought to myself about the certainness of what to expect from Allie French as we coasted in the dark. There wasn’t much uncertain about Allie. Fact being, Allie French was as predictable as sundown.

  “But,” Virgil said, “‘what lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us.’”

  “Emerson?”

  “Yep,” Virgil said. “Ralph Waldo.”

  After that, Virgil stopped talking. We rode in silence for the next few miles.

  I understood the nature of Virgil’s dismay. When Virgil’s mind was set, it was granite. He believed in Allie. His mind was set on that simple fact, and he cared for her deeply, whether she was whoring or not. It was never actions that shackled Virgil’s interest, but more to it, the nature behind the actions.

  Virgil was more capable than anyone I ever saw in a struggle, but Virgil always valued strategy over struggle. I always thought if Virgil had fought with the Army he would have made a hell of a general. There would be no other place for him besides the top. In a way, Virgil maneuvered as a general in everything he did. Not all generals, but the ones who were fearless and thoughtful. Virgil was selfless, matter-of-fact, always knowing there was nothing more to the future than the present, and that fact made him stand taller than most.

  “Dead hand,” Virgil said, almost quiet-like.

  Virgil was signifying the fact we were rolling past a dead gunman tossed off the train.

  “Not much of a burial,” I said.

  “No, it’s not,” Virgil said.

  “Not much of a life, either.”

  “Not,” Virgil said. “There’s another.”

  “Seen a lot of dead men, especially in the Army,” I said. “Never comfortable with the fact, really.”

  “Killing a man is one thing,” Virgil said. “Getting comfortable with it is another thing. Living among the dead is altogether something else.”

  “Never was much for religion. Or really considered such a thing as living forever, but seeing crumpled dead men always makes me think there’s got to be something more to it. Especially if the poor bastard was just that, a poor bastard, which most of the time are the dead people we come in contact with.”

  “You live,” Virgil said. “You die.”

  “Indians seem a bit different, for some reason.”

  “Indians got a foot in and one foot out of life from the get-go,” Virgil said.

  I thought about that. That seemed right. We rode for a bit and Virgil was quiet.

  “What do you figure happened with the men that were traveling with the governor,” I said.

  “Lassiter,” Virgil said, “and Hobbs?”

  “What do you think?” I said. “Slow as the train was going, unless they landed in a deep gully, I don’t think the jump would have hurt them.”

  “Hard to know,” Virgil said.

  “Maybe they took a road, made it to a farm or ranch or one of the other places the yard hand Whip was talking about.”

  “Might have,” Virgil said.

  35

  THE RAIN STARTED to let up some. There was an opening in the thunderclouds, and we could see moonlight on the tracks. Far away to the east there was lightning. We rode in silence as the coach made a wide switchback loop following the bend in the river. We were rolling very slowly, with no applied pressure to the brakes.

  I was about to offer a few words of encouragement about Allie and the pinochle situation when I heard the window in the back of the coach shatter, followed by a loud report in front of us, an obvious sound delay, rifle shot.

  “Down!” Virgil said.

  The bullet had traveled between where Virgil and I were standing, through the open door behind us, down the aisle, blowing out the glass in the front door. The fact it was a bullet was confirmed when a second bullet exploded the window just behind where I had been standing. I was already down and low to the platform floor.

  “Inside!” Virgil said.

  I hurried behind Virgil through the door to the interior of the coach. Virgil was off to one side of the aisle, and I was on the other.

  “Who the hell is shooting,” I asked.

  Another shot pinged loudly on a piece of iron.

  “Somebody,” Virgil said. “That’s a fact.”

  “Why?” I said. “A single coach rolling quiet could not be expected by Vince and his gang or anybody, for that matter.”

  “Those shots sounded the same,” Virgil said. “Sounded like the same rifle.”

  “Hell, and it’s dark,” I said.

  “It is.”

  “Doesn’t make good sense,” I said. “To just shoot in the dark when they got no idea what or who they’re shooting at. It’s not like we are expected.”

  “That’s a fact,” Virgil said.

  “No good sense at all.”

  Another shot rang out. The bullet ricocheted through the car and busted out another window.

  “Good sense or not,” Virgil said, “got a feeling sense don’t have nothing to do with this situation.”

  “Maybe it’s just some Indians don’t like train coaches,” I said. “Shooting at the little houses on wheels.”

  “Might be.”

  “Some superstitious Comanche, thinking this coach is some kind of bad sign,” I said.

  “Don’t know,” Virgil said. “Seems like maybe we’re dealing with a lone shooter, though, Comanche or otherwise.”

  “Yeah, there’d be more bullets coming, that’s for sure.”

  “There would.”

  Another shot rang out, followed by another.

  “Same rifle, all right,” Virgil said.

  Another shot hit the platform rail.

  “Whoever it is,” I said, “they’re peppering the hell out of us.”

  We coasted for a bit longer, and there were no more shots being fired.

  “Maybe they’re done,” I said.

  We were traveling slow, so slow I thought the coach was going to stop.

  “Maybe we passed them by, maybe—”

  Virgil gave me a sharp nudge to my shoulder; he heard something.

  “Uphill platform,” Virgil said quietly.

  I turned around and trained my attention to the door between the platform and us. I did not say another word. I listened. Except for the sound of the wheels on the track, it was quiet. I heard nothing, but Virgil had heard something, and it appeared there were some others, or somebody, now on board with us.

  36

  THE DOOR ON the uphill end of the coach was closed shut, and if there were now others aboard, we could not see them. We could not see much of anything. Even though the clouds had for the moment parted and some moon was out, the coach was dark. I could make out only vague outlines: the seats, the windows, and the dark movement of the land passing by the windows. I stayed down low to the floor with one eye peeking around the coach seats, focused toward the darkness up the aisle. The coach was starting to roll faster. We would need to work the brake or we could, and most surely would, get rolling too fast downhill, too fast out of control.

  I whispered, “Need to get on that brake, Virgil.”

  Just as I finished speaking, the door opened. Virgil did not react by taking a shot, and neither did I. Virgil would never shoot into the dark. He would shoot only when he knew whom, or at least what, he was shooting. Regardless, whoever opened the door did not step into the door frame; the open door was just that, an open door, and whoever opened it remained—at least for the moment—off to the side. We continued to pick up speed. A breeze was now moving through the open doors as the coach leaned slightly on an eastward turn downhill.

  “Who goes there?” a deep, raspy voice called out.

  We knew that voice. The voice was that of Bloody Bob Brandice. Bob caught a piece of lead in his throat prior to going to pri
son in Huntsville.

  “Virgil Cole.”

  There was a long pause before Bob replied. His voice was low and quiet.

  “Virgil Cole?” Bob grumbled.

  “That’s right.”

  There was another long pause.

  “Bullshit.”

  “No bullshit, Bob.”

  Bob paused again, even longer than the time before. He had heard Virgil say his name out loud, and this gave him pause.

  “Virgil Cole,” Bob said slowly. “I heard it was you. When I heard it was the great and mighty Virgil Cole, that you were the lawman aboard, I thought, well, if it ain’t my lucky day.”

  “I wouldn’t be too reliant on luck, Bob,” Virgil said.

  “Looked around for you for a spell, Cole, when I got out. Never laid eyes on ya,” Bob said, “and now this.”

  “Now this,” Virgil replied.

  “Now this,” Bob said again.

  “Last I heard you was west in mining country, suckled up with some lilac whore.”

  Virgil did not reply.

  Bob laughed, a raspy, snarly laugh.

  “I’ll be go to hell,” Bob said.

  “I don’t believe you have a choice, Bob,” Virgil said.

  Virgil stood center aisle with his shoulders facing squarely toward the door.

  There was a long silence, and Bob said slowly, “Fuckin’ Virgil goddamn Cole.”

  “That’s right,” Virgil said, “and Everett Hitch.”

  Bob laughed again, this time a loud, booming, raspy laugh.

  “What the fuck you two tamers doing?” Bob said. “I heard there was some law on this night train, but I’d’a never figured it’d be a couple a right-minded saddle tramps the likes of you two. But it goes to figure, lilac bubble-bath do-gooders would be sitting on velvet seats, ’specially you, Cole.”

  Virgil whispered to me, “Any second now.”

  37

  BOB LAUGHED LOUDLY again. He was enjoying himself. I suppose this encounter had been a long time coming for Bob, considering Virgil was the one responsible for the lead in Bob’s throat and his however many years spent in Huntsville.

  “Yeah, you got soft,” Bob said. “Probably eating cakes and candies, too.”