When Bragg started talking about God’s help, I wondered about a thunderbolt myself. But none came. Instead, the audience began to clap and somebody stood up and cheered, and then everyone was on their feet, clapping and cheering. Bragg stood silently, his head bowed reverently, his hands clasped in front of him, and accepted the clapping and cheering modestly and gratefully.
He didn’t make clear exactly how he was going to accomplish all this, but nobody seemed to notice. They all liked the idea of working hard and getting rich. Bragg raised his eyes as the applause began to quiet.
“To any here whom I have ever offended, I beg you to forgive me. To all of you here, I thank you for having me back.”
Then he lowered his eyes again, and with his hands still clasped in front of him like some kind of friar, he walked down the aisle of the church to the door. He looked up a little bit as he passed me and nodded and smiled.
It was a hell of a performance.
53
The bull showed up in a boxcar in the dead heat of July. Two of Bragg’s hands met him at the train and began to haze him slowly though town on his way to the ranch. He was a squat, compact bull with a black coat and no horns.
“Ever see one looked like that?” I said to Cole as they moved the bull up Main Street.
“Nope.”
A few boys followed along, looking at the black bull. Some men came to the doors of shops. People stood in the doorway of Bragg’s two saloons to look.
“Olson told me Bragg bought it in Scotland. It’s a Black Angus.”
“Olson seems pretty snug with Bragg,” Cole said, “don’t he.”
“Olson says Bragg’s fixing to start a herd, got some Angus cows coming, too.”
“Sort of small bull,” Cole said.
“Olson says the steers make real good eating,” I said. “Says that some of the fancy hotels and restaurants back east will pay a lot more for them.”
The hands turned the bull at the foot of the street, and we couldn’t see him anymore. The boys trailed around the corner after them.
“Bragg’s busy,” Cole said.
“Fancy cows,” I said. “Saloons, hotels.”
“I hear Abner Raines left town,” Cole said.
“Going where?”
“I think back to Kansas, said he was going to farm a little.”
“Farm?”
“What he said.”
“Who’s running the hotel?”
“Bragg put a man in here,” Cole said.
“Be interesting to know where Bragg got his money,” I said.
“That ain’t as interesting as what he’s gonna do with it,” Cole said.
“You’re right,” I said. “Fact is, where he got it don’t matter much.”
Cole nodded.
We were quiet. From where we sat, we could see the bull again, small in the distance, kicking up some dust, going up the hill toward Bragg’s ranch.
“So that leaves Olson as the only alderman,” I said.
“Un-huh.”
“And he’s getting friendlier with Bragg every day.”
“Un-huh.
“Next June first,” Cole said, “town meeting’s gonna have to elect some new alderman in October.”
“Gives Bragg ’bout three months,” I said.
“Yep.”
“You think Bragg’s really a changed man?” I said.
“ ’Course not.”
“Me, either,” I said. “What do you think he wants?”
“I think he wants to own this town,” Cole said, “and everybody in it. “
“And then what?”
“I don’t know,” Cole said. “He probably don’t know, either.”
“Well,” I said. “So far, he ain’t buttin’ heads with you and me. Like he done last time.”
“Not yet.”
“So there’s nothing for us to do about him,” I said.
“Ain’t done nothing ain’t legal,” Cole said.
“But we know he’s going to.”
“We got to wait till he does,” Cole said.
“We know he killed Jack Bell and a deputy.”
Cole nodded.
“We know he hired Ring and Mackie to bust him loose.”
Cole nodded.
“We know Allie got kidnapped in the process.”
“He’s been pardoned,” Cole said.
“Not by us,” I said.
“We can’t be starting things like that,” Cole said. “Only way to stay clean is to stay with the rules.”
It was an old discussion. We’d had it before. The outcome never changed.
“Well,” I said after a while, “he seems to be going at it smarter, this time.”
“He’s got some money this time.”
“Money makes it easier to be smart,” I said.
“Never had none,” Cole said. “So I wouldn’t know.”
“I guess I ain’t, either,” I said. “So I guess I don’t know. But it seems like it would be easier.”
“Might be harder,” Cole said.
“Might be, I suppose. When you think of it, there ain’t that much a fella needs.”
“If he lives alone,” Cole said.
“If he lives alone,” I said.
“Allie likes things,” Cole said.
“She plays the piano. She gets paid,” I said. “And tips.”
“She wants more.”
“Got a nice house,” I said.
Cole didn’t say anything for a while.
“Always had enough,” Cole said.
I nodded.
“You got enough,” Cole said.
“I do,” I said. “I got a place to sleep. I can buy whiskey and food and feed the horse and purchase a pump from Katie Goode when I need one. I get cigars from you once in a while. I had more money, I don’t know what I’d do with it.”
“You could give it to Allie,” Cole said. “She’d know.”
I grinned.
“She wants me to get another job.”
“You want to do that?”
“I’m good at this,” Cole said.
Barely visible now, the black bull disappeared over the crest of the far hill. The hint of dust hung for a minute where the bull had gone, and then it dispersed and nothing moved on the hilltop.
“You are,” I said.
54
We had a miner in jail for beating up a whore named Big Ass Sally Lowe, and I had sat and listened to him all day. Now it was Cole’s turn, and I went up to the Boston House Saloon for supper and a drink.
The saloon at the Boston House was looking good. There was a big, new, dark mahogany bar, and a big, new, gilt-trimmed mirror behind it, and a big chandelier with a lot of cut glass in the middle of the room. There were four card tables in the back and a man to deal faro. Bragg had made a deal with Phil Olson, the lone remaining alderman, for a special deputy with powers limited to the hotel, who sat lookout with a shotgun in a high chair near the faro layout.
Allie had a new piano to play, which was a waste of money, and she was playing hard when I sat down near the bar. Bragg was there, dark suit, white shirt, gold chain, good cigar. He came to my table.
“Buy you a drink, Everett?”
“Got one,” I said.
Bragg turned his palms up.
“Fine,” he said. “Perfectly fine. Cigar?”
I shook my head.
“Fine,” he said again. “I understand why you boys are feeling hard about me. But I want you to know I ain’t the man I was, and I’m hopin’ we can work together once you boys come to see the truth of my statement.”
“That statement being that you’re a reformed man.”
“I am.”
“Who now owns two saloons, a hotel, and an expensive black bull,” I said.
“And six heifers,” Bragg said and smiled. “I’m going to raise beef that most folks have never tasted, and, when they do, they won’t be able to get enough of it.”
“With a bull and six cow
s.”
“My cows are just the start. I’m arranging for some other folks to start ranching Angus heifers, and my bull will do the service.”
“I thought you was already rich,” I said.
“I had some good luck,” Bragg said. “Now I want to give this town good luck, make up for all the bad luck I brought it in the past.”
“You’re going to bring us luck?” I said.
“I’m going to make Appaloosa famous for its beef. I want to develop the copper mines properly. It’s going to be a place where people want to come, where people can have a good time, where people will want to invest money.”
I sipped some whiskey and leaned my chair onto its back legs and put one foot against the edge of the table and teetered a little.
“Bragg,” I said. “Let’s you and me understand each other. I don’t believe a single fucking word you say. You want to turn Appaloosa into your private town, and you’re working your ugly ass off to get on the good side of Virgil and me, so we won’t stop you.”
I took another sip.
“Which we will,” I said.
Something moved just for a second behind Bragg’s face, then it was gone. When he spoke, his voice was the same jolly voice he was using these days.
“Sorry to hear you say that, Everett. I was hoping I could work with you and Virgil.”
I didn’t answer him.
“Well,” he said with his big friendly smile. “Time will tell.”
I didn’t say anything, and Bragg walked over to the piano where Allie was playing “My Old Kentucky Home.” I think.
“You know ‘Old Folks at Home,’ Allie?” Bragg said.
“Of course I do, Mr. Bragg.”
“Please call me Randall,” Bragg said. “Always did love that song.”
Allie began to play the tune, and Bragg stood listening, as if the song had captured him. To me, it didn’t sound too much different than “My Old Kentucky Home.”
“You like Stephen Foster, Randall?”
“I do.”
“I love him, too,” Allie said.
Bragg went to the bar and got a drink and brought it back and put it on top of the piano.
“I haven’t really had much chance to talk with you since the Indians almost got us.”
Allie nodded.
“I just wanted to tell you I admired your courage.”
“Oh, bless my soul, Randall, I was terrified.”
“Well, I thought you were very brave.”
He drank some of his drink.
“Could I buy you a small glass of something? We have sherry now, you know.”
“A glass of sherry would be lovely,” Allie said.
There was a sound in her voice I’d heard before. It wasn’t a good sound. Bragg went and got her a glass of sherry and brought it back. She sipped a little and put it down on the piano and began to play “Camptown Races.” Bragg leaned against the piano, listening, as if it was good.
Without looking up, Allie said, “I’m always embarrassed when anyone talks about that. I mean, Randall, you saw me all undressed.”
“I don’t mean to be forward, Allie,” Bragg said. “But I remember that moment happily.”
Allie giggled.
“Randall, you are making me blush,” she said.
Bragg laughed.
“Nothin’ to be ashamed of, Allie. Fact is, as I recall, there’s a lot to be proud of.”
“Oh, my,” Allie said.
I got up and walked over and leaned my forearms on the piano and didn’t say anything. Allie kept playing.
“We were just talking about that terrible time with the Indians,” Allie said.
“I heard,” I said.
“Randall just bought me a lovely glass of sherry, Everett,” Allie said.
I nodded. Bragg didn’t say anything. Allie begin to play “Oh! Susanna.” Bragg and I stood and listened.
When Allie finished, Bragg said, “Thank you for the nice recital, Allie.”
“Thank you, Randall,” Allie said. “For the sherry.”
Bragg nodded and walked away. I stayed. I was trying to think of what I wanted to say.
“Have to be nice to him, Everett,” Allie said. “Since he bought the hotel, he’s my boss.”
I nodded, took another drink of whiskey, and walked away. I knew what it was I wanted to say, but I knew there wasn’t a way to say it, and even if there was, it wouldn’t do no good.
55
Bragg had a good summer. He and some investors in Denver bought up the two copper mines, which had created Appaloosa in the first place, and began to rework them. The hotel was always full now, and the saloons. The gambling operations were expanding, and each one had a special deputy in the lookout chair. In late August, Bragg bought out Olson and added the livery stable and a general store to his holdings. His heifers were pregnant.
It was late in the day in the middle of September and rainy when a slim man with a young, smooth face came into the marshal’s office where Cole and I were drinking coffee and watching the rain through the open door. He was wearing a slicker unbuttoned and I could see that he had a .44 Colt with a pearl handle under it.
Cole looked at him carefully for a moment.
“Hayes,” he said.
“Hello, Virgil,” the man said.
He took his hat off and slapped it against his leg to shake off some of the rain, and put the hat on the edge of Cole’s desk. His hair was gray. Taking his hat off aged him.
“My deputy,” Cole said, nodding at me, “Everett Hitch. Hayes Hatfield.”
We said hello.
“Heard about you boys and the Sheltons,” Hatfield said.
“ ’Gainst city regulations,” Cole said, “to be carrying a gun in town.”
“Always is in your towns, Virgil. I figured you’d give a little slack on that.”
Cole nodded.
“I will,” Cole said. “How long you in town.”
“Be gone tomorrow,” Hatfield said.
“Appreciate you didn’t stroll around with the gun showing,” Cole said. “Sorta undercuts the law.”
“I’ll keep my coat closed,” Hatfield said.
“But not buttoned,” Cole said.
“Gun don’t do you much good buttoned up under your coat,” Hatfield said.
“No,” Cole said. “It don’t.”
“Mostly I’m just going to get some supper and go to sleep,” Hatfield said.
“You got business in Appaloosa?” Cole said.
Hatfield smiled a wide smile. Except for the gray hair, he looked about twenty.
“Fella came over to Yaqui to see me. I’m dealing cards there, in the Crystal Palace, doing a little work for Wells Fargo. He said he was going to be the first mayor in Appaloosa, and he wondered if I might like to be the city marshal.”
“Didn’t know the job was open,” Cole said.
“Said it was gonna be, soon as he was mayor.”
Cole didn’t say anything.
“Said the town was growing so fast that they’d be organizing a police department, and as soon as they did, I’d be the chief.”
“Hadn’t heard that,” Cole said.
“So I asked around a little,” Hatfield said, “and I found out that you was the marshal here, and I thought I might come over here and talk to you about it.”
“Who was the fella you talked to,” Cole said.
“Fella named Olson,” Hatfield said.
Cole looked at me.
“So he’s in with Bragg,” he said.
“In deep,” I said.
“Bragg the fella you didn’t kill up in Beauville?”
“He run,” Cole said.
“And he come back?” Hatfield said.
“He come back with money,” I said. “Bought out most of the town.”
“You boys stopping him from buying all of it?”
“Yes.”
“He don’t dare go up against you straight on,” Hatfield said.
“
Don’t seem to,” Cole said.
“And he thinks I would,” Hatfield said.
“You would,” Cole said, “if there was reason.”
“And if I hired on with this Olson fella . . .”
“There’d be reason,” Cole said.
Hatfield picked his hat up off the corner of the desk and held it against his left thigh while he stood in the doorway for a moment and watched it rain.
“Rainy fall,” he said.
“Startin’ out that way,” Cole said.
Hatfield put his hat on and adjusted it so that it tilted a little forward over his eyes.
“Sounds to me a fella took this job, he might be working for Bragg.”
“That would be correct,” Cole said. “Olson’s just the errand boy.”
Hatfield nodded, his back to us, still looking at the rain through the open door. Then he turned and looked around the little marshal’s office.
“Don’t seem like a place I’d care to work,” he said.
Virgil and I both nodded.
“If I was here,” Hatfield said, “wouldn’t let him run me off.”
“I got a house here,” Cole said. “And a woman.”
“Even if you didn’t. You wouldn’t let him run you off.”
“No,” Cole said, “I guess I wouldn’t.”
“However,” Hatfield said. “Since I ain’t here, I don’t see no reason to come here.”
“Correct,” Cole said.
Hatfield turned back from the door and put his hand out. Cole shook it. Then I did.
“I’ll be on the train back to Yaqui tomorrow,” Hatfield said.
Then he turned and walked out the open door, holding his coat closed, and walked toward the Boston House.
56
It was chilly and still raining when I walked down to the marshal’s office in the morning. Cole was sitting outside under the overhang, out of the rain. It didn’t seem like good sitting-out weather.
I said, “Morning, Virgil.”
Cole nodded, and I went in and got some coffee off the stove and poured it and brought it out, and sat in the other chair. Cole didn’t say anything. He didn’t seem to be looking at anything or thinking about anything. He seemed to be just sitting. I sat with him and drank some coffee. It had been raining three days now. Main Street was a slough of mud. A few saddle horses moved heavily through it, but there was no wagon traffic.
Appaloosa / Resolution / Brimstone / Blue-Eyed Devil Page 16
