“I am,” the general said.
“A goddamned duel,” Virgil murmured to me. “The general’s got some sand.”
Callico glanced across the room.
“Sergeant Sullivan,” he said. “Take this man into custody. Use any requisite force.”
Virgil looked at me.
“ ‘Requisite’ means necessary,” I said. “Required.” Virgil nodded. Sergeant Sullivan and five policemen assembled in a small squad and pushed through the crowd to General Laird, standing in front of Callico. Chauncey Teagarden moved slightly to the side of the group and looked at General Laird.
“Chauncey takes them on,” I said. “We gonna help?”
Virgil stared at the scene silently.
Then he said, “Yes.”
I had begun to carry the eight-gauge again as tension had begun to develop in town. I nodded, picked up the eight-gauge from where it leaned against the wall, and moved slowly along the wall to get myself opposite Virgil, so we’d have a nice crossfire if we needed to shoot.
Chauncey saw me move. He nodded his head slightly and looked at General Laird.
“General?” he said.
Laird shook his head.
“Not yet, Chauncey,” he said. “It may come to that. But not yet.”
I think Callico saw me move, too. He looked at me for a moment and then at Virgil for a moment.
“You are charged with assaulting a police officer,” Callico said. “You will be taken to jail and held for hearing.”
I saw Chauncey move his shoulders slightly, as if to loosen them.
“My lawyer will bail me out in the morning,” the general said. “Not yet, Chauncey.”
59
CALLICO SENT one of his many policemen to invite us to come to his office in Reclamation Hall. With its ornate furniture and its dim light, the office had a solemn quality. Callico had lit no lamps, and the rain streaking the big windows filtered what light had made its way through the dark overhead. He sat behind a big desk in the arched bay that looked out over the length of Main Street. At the other end of the long office, two on either side of the door, sat four policemen.
“How many law officers you got now, Amos?” Virgil said.
“We have grown to twenty-five,” Callico said. “Including my personal team.”
“Palace guard,” I said.
Callico shook his head with a smile.
“You don’t see the chief of police in Chicago or New York strolling about without escort,” Callico said.
Virgil nodded slowly.
“What was it you wanted to see us about?” he said.
“Seen you at the saloon today,” Callico said.
“Yep.”
“Virgil,” Callico said. “Everett. You boys know this town never elected a mayor before.”
“Yep.”
“I’m not sure it’s ready.”
Virgil and I said nothing.
“You seen what it was today. I’m trying to tell the truth and my opponent is talking ’bout shooting me.”
“Or you him,” I said.
“It’s barbaric,” Callico said. “We cannot have an election when one candidate threatens the life of the other.”
“So, what do you do?” I said.
“I may have to cancel the election.”
“And who’d run the town?” Virgil said.
“I would,” Callico said.
Virgil looked at me and smiled.
“I’ll be damned,” he said.
“Where’d you get all that information on the general being a coward and a baby killer?” I said.
“Very reliable person,” he said.
“That being?” I said.
Callico paused, thinking about it.
“I can’t tell you,” he said.
“Figured you couldn’t,” Virgil said. “What was it you wanted from us?”
“Looked to me this morning, when the balloon was sort of getting ready to go up, that you boys was getting ready to side with Laird.”
“We was going to side with anybody, be Teagarden,” Virgil said. “He helped us out with your Indians.”
Callico stared at Virgil.
“For crissake, Virgil,” he said. “He’s here to kill you.”
“I know,” Virgil said.
Callico stared at Virgil some more. He didn’t get it. I did. We owed Chauncey for the Indians. And he wasn’t here to kill Virgil yet. But I’d been with Virgil a long time. Like so many others before him. Callico had never met anybody like Virgil Cole. No one said anything.
“I think this is going to get pretty bad,” Callico said finally.
“Sounds like it to me,” Virgil said.
“Meanwhile,” he said, “I’m prepared to make you boys special deputies reporting only to me. I’ll give the same deal to your friend Teagarden.”
“Everett?” Virgil said.
“Don’t want to be a special deputy,” I said.
“Me, either,” Virgil said. “Can’t speak for Chauncey, but it don’t seem probable.”
“Will you side with Laird?” Callico said.
“Don’t know,” Virgil said. “You know, Everett?”
“I don’t,” I said.
“He’ll lose,” Callico said. “I got twenty-five men. I’ll close Appaloosa down and run it like conquered territory until the town is mine and knows it.”
“Then what?” Virgil said.
“Then we move on.”
“What happens to Appaloosa?”
“Don’t know,” Callico said. “Won’t care. I won’t be moving on to something worse.”
Callico looked at both of us and shook his head slowly for a while.
“It’s sad, really,” he said finally. “You boys had a chance to get on board something important here, and you’re too dumb to see it.”
“Maybe it ain’t dumb,” Virgil said.
Callico gave a humorless laugh.
“What else could it be.”
“Aw, hell, I dunno,” Virgil said. “Probably dumb.”
He stood. I stood, and we walked down the long office past the palace guard and out the front door.
60
WHEN WE CAME back to Virgil’s house in the late afternoon, Chauncey Teagarden was sipping whiskey on the front porch and watching Allie flirt with him.
“Mr. Teagarden has been entertaining me with tales of New Orleans,” Allie said when we sat down.
“Entertaining fella,” Virgil said, and poured himself a little whiskey.
“He says he knew Mrs. Callico in New Orleans,” Allie said.
“The Countess,” I said.
“Did you know her, too, Everett?”
“Nope, just what Chauncey has told me.”
“Was she really a countess?”
Chauncey glanced at Virgil. Virgil shrugged faintly. And nodded even more faintly.
“Was a whore,” Chauncey said.
“A whore?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” Allie said. “Just because you’ve been a whore doesn’t mean you’re always a whore.”
“No,” Chauncey said.
“People can change. They can grow. And they do,” Allie said. “She’s turned into a fine lady.”
“Surely has,” Virgil said. “Also the one that says Laird ran from combat.”
“Amelia?” Chauncey said. “How the hell would she know.”
“Probably don’t,” Virgil said.
“You think she made it up?” Chauncey said.
“I do,” Virgil said.
“You think Amelia Callico is telling lies about the general?” Allie said.
“Yep.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Get her husband elected mayor,” Virgil said.
“You and Everett gonna have to take a side here ’fore it’s over. Too much shooting gonna be done, and you boys are too good at it not to get pulled in.”
“Callico’s got twenty-five policemen,” I said. “You got how man
y?”
“Me and Laird’s hands,” Chauncey said.
“How many gun hands?”
“Me.”
“What do you think, Everett?”
“Never liked Callico,” I said.
“Hard to like,” Virgil said.
“Pony’s in Buffalo Springs,” I said. “I could ride down and get him.”
“That’d be three of you,” Chauncey said. “And me makes all we need.”
I looked at Virgil. He nodded.
“I’ll ride on down and get Pony Flores,” I said.
Allie was listening to this as if a new universe was opening up. She poured herself some whiskey and drank it.
“Bring Laurel back, too,” she said. “For a visit.”
“No,” Virgil said. “He’ll bring you down there to stay with Laurel. I don’t want either of you around town for a time.”
“Just like that?” Allie said. “Go gallivanting off with Everett for a two-day trip.”
“You can make it in a day,” Virgil said. “And keep your hands off Everett.”
Allie blushed.
“Virgil,” I said. “You spoil everything.”
61
I LEFT ALLIE to stay with Laurel in the little shed next to the livery corral, where she and Pony lived while he wrangled the livery string and broke an occasional mustang.
“She talk?” I said.
“Some,” Pony said.
“Enough?” I said.
“Yes.”
It was cloudy and gray riding north, but there was no rain.
“She mind you going?” I said.
“When see you, she know why you here,” Pony said.
“She say she understand.”
“Does she?”
“Yes.”
“Wish Allie did,” I said. “She bitched the whole way down here yesterday.”
“Why she bitch?”
I did a high-voiced imitation of Allie.
“ ‘What if he’s killed? What happens to me? This isn’t his fight. . . . Why is he involved at all. . . . If he loved me, he wouldn’t . . .’ ”
Pony looked at the dark sky.
“Apache man warrior,” he said. “Apache woman proud.”
“I know,” I said.
Pony grinned.
“In land of Blue-Eyed Devil, not so simple,” he said. “Man can’t always be warrior. Man get to be cowboy and store man and saloon man. And man who sit in office. Not warrior, I just man who saddle horse. Pitch hay. Pick up horse shit. But I go with you and Virgil, I warrior.”
“Not everybody wants to be a warrior,” I said.
“No. But nobody want to be pick-up-horse-shit man, either,” Pony said.
“Some people like it ’cause it’s safe, I guess.”
“Life not lived to be safe. Safe make you weak,” Pony said. “Make you slow. Make you tired.”
We pretty much gave the horses their head, keeping them pointed north but letting them pick the trail. Half a day on the trail and it began to rain again. Not too hard but steady. The horses paid no attention. We put on our slickers and buttoned them up and pulled the brims of our hats down and hunched a little forward over the necks of the horses.
“Things turn out the way they heading,” I said, “you ain’t gonna be tired for a good while.”
62
ON THE FOLLOWING MONDAY, Callico declared a state of martial law to exist in Appaloosa, and called off the election.
The office of the chief of police is now the highest authority in Appaloosa, the proclamation read. It was signed Amos A. Callico, chief of police.
“Ain’t martial law supposed to be the Army?” Virgil said.
“Twenty-five policemen in a town this size is an Army,” I said.
“That’s a fact,” Virgil said.
The rain that had been coming down steadily for more than a week was tapering, and as we sat drinking coffee in Café Paris, it had stopped completely.
“Question is,” I said, “what’s the general going to do?”
“Yep.”
“Which,” I said, “will then lead to the question what are we going to do?”
“You didn’t go down and get Pony,” Virgil said. “’Cause we needed a fourth for whist.”
I nodded.
Chauncey Teagarden came in with his slicker unbuttoned. He hung his white hat on the rack and sat down at our table.
“Ain’t raining,” he said.
“Will again,” I said.
“Often does,” Chauncey said. “The general would like you boys to come out and see him, soon’s you can.”
“The election?” I said.
“You boys heard about that,” Chauncey said.
“We did,” I said.
“General says he can’t do that,” Chauncey said.
“He can do what people will let him do,” Virgil said.
“Think that’s what he might want to talk about,” Chauncey said.
“In fact,” Virgil said, “might just as well ride back on out there with you when you go.”
“That’ll be soon’s I finish my coffee,” Chauncey said.
“Okay,” Virgil said. “Everett, bring the eight-gauge. Looks impressive.”
63
THE RAIN had picked up again by the time we got to the Lazy L. We hung our coats and hats in the front hall and went into the living room to sit by the big stone fireplace and let the fire dry us out.
The houseboy poured whiskey.
“Fine-looking decanter,” Virgil said.
He loved learning a new word and tried to use it as often as possible. The results weren’t always pretty, but he got this one right.
“I’m going after Callico,” the general said.
“So I understand,” Virgil said.
“I employ cattle hands. Not gunmen. They were ready to fight the Indian raid, self-defense. They are not ready to fight Callico and his police force.”
“No volunteers,” Virgil said.
The general drank some whiskey.
“None,” he said.
“Bad odds,” Virgil said.
The general nodded.
“They’re cowboys,” he said. “That’s what they signed on for.”
“And what did you sign on for?” I said.
“You remember what they taught us at West Point about honor and duty and country.”
I smiled.
“Vaguely,” I said.
“I fought on the wrong side in the wrong war because I felt to do otherwise would have been dishonorable. I still think so.”
“That war’s over,” I said.
“I cannot let this bandit take over the town like some Mongolian warlord,” the general said.
“Not sure Appaloosa’s worth dying for,” I said.
“We’ll help you,” Virgil said.
“I will pay you well,” the general said. “And any men you can enlist.”
“This one’s free,” Virgil said.
“Our history will be put aside for the duration,” the general said.
I was looking at Virgil. He generally had the moral scruples of a tarantula. And he declined to work for free.
“You work for free, you’re just a gunman,” he always said. “You do it ’cause you like it.”
Which was maybe some kind of moral scruple.
“Chauncey,” Virgil said. “You’re in.”
“Surely am,” Chauncey said.
“Pony?”
“Sí.”
“Everett and me, that’s four.”
“I am five,” the general said.
Virgil almost spoke but held it back.
“You think Cato and Rose might come down from Resolution for this?”
“I’d say they owe us,” I said.
“That’d make seven,” Virgil said. “Anybody got anybody else?”
No one spoke.
“Okay, twenty-five to seven,” Virgil said. “And since the seven is us, odds ain’t bad.”
He
held his glass out.
“Reach me that there decanter, Pony,” he said.
Pony looked at him blankly.
“That there fancy bottle,” Virgil said. “Called a decanter.”
Pony nodded and poured Virgil a drink. Everyone else had a second.
“You have, I assume, engaged in this kind of operation before,” the general said.
“Yes, sir,” Virgil said.
“Do you wish my help in the planning?”
“No, sir,” Virgil said.
“I rather thought you wouldn’t,” the general said. “What’s the first step?”
“Pony’ll ride up and get Cato and Rose,” Virgil said.
“Do you have a plan?” the general said.
“Need to get an idea of Callico’s plan, and adjust to it,” Virgil said.
“A strategy, then?”
“Kill Callico and not get killed doin’ it,” Virgil said. “But first we gotta let him know we’re coming and see what preparations he makes.”
“How you going to do that?” the general said.
Virgil looked at me. I grinned.
“We’ll tell Allie,” I said.
64
WHEN PONY came back from Resolution with Cato and Rose, he brought them straight to the house. Virgil introduced Allie. She curtsied and went for the jug of corn whiskey.
“Pony tell you anything on the ride down?” Virgil said.
Rose laughed.
“Riding down here with Pony and Cato can be lonely business,” he said.
“Okay,” Virgil said. “What you see drinking whiskey at the table is what we go to war with.”
Cato and Rose both looked at Chauncey.
Rose said, “Frank Rose. This here’s Cato Tillson.”
“Chauncey Teagarden,” he said.
“Like your shirt,” Rose said.
Chauncey nodded.
“Like yours, too,” he said.
“Besides the six of us,” Virgil said, “there’s a general got to be in on it.”
“A general?” Rose said.
“From the Confederate states army.”
“Long-in-the-tooth general,” Rose said.
“Yes.”
“He think he’s in charge?”
“No,” Virgil said.
“He think you’re in charge?” Rose said.
“Yep.”
“No disrespect, Everett,” Rose said. “But Virgil ain’t in charge, me and Cato go back to Resolution.”
Appaloosa / Resolution / Brimstone / Blue-Eyed Devil Page 64
