“I’m in charge,” Virgil said.
“Got a plan yet?” Cato said.
“We’re developing one,” Virgil said. “Tell ’em, Everett, if you would. You being a West Point graduate.”
“Allie here is a close friend of Callico’s wife, Amelia, the Countess of Storyville.”
“Storyville,” Rose said.
“Yep. But Allie don’t care—they are pals. So she lets it slide that we’re coming after Callico and tells her to warn Callico but not tell who we are.”
“And she thinks the Countess will do that?”
“No,” I said. “Allie’s playing dumb. We know Mrs. Callico will give us away.”
“But then,” Virgil said. “He got two choices: comes right after us or, two, he sets up for us to come after him.”
“Either way we’re setting ourselves up,” Rose said.
“’Cept they don’t know we know they know,” Virgil said. “So we watch them watching us.”
“You think they’ll come for us?” Cato said.
“No,” Virgil said. “Man wants to be president. Looks better if he defeats a bunch of ruffians who attacked him.”
“How ’bout the wife?” Rose said.
“Lady Macbeth,” Chauncey said.
“Who?” Rose said.
“Bad woman in a play,” I said. “She wants him to be president, too.”
“How good are his constables?” Cato said.
“Don’t know yet,” I said. “Pretty sure not as good as us.”
“But pretty sure twenty-five to six,” Rose said.
“Seven,” Virgil said.
“The general,” Rose said.
“Yeah.”
“Twenty-five to six, and a geezer,” Rose said.
“He’ll carry his weight,” Virgil said.
“He better,” Frank said.
“He will,” Chauncey said.
65
IT WAS LATE. Chauncey went back to the Lazy L. Cato and Rose went to sleep in Virgil’s shed. Allie was cleaning up, and Virgil and I sat on the porch and looked at the first clear sky we’d seen in two weeks. There were stars.
“Allie,” I said.
“Odd,” Virgil said. “Ain’t it.”
“She worships Amelia Callico,” I said. “She thinks Amelia Callico is the Queen of New Orleans.”
“She gets faint if the Countess looks at her,” Virgil said.
“And she don’t want this fight to happen,” I said.
“She don’t,” Virgil said.
“But she sets the trap on her ’cause you asked her to.”
“Allie loves me,” Virgil said.
“Except when she doesn’t,” I said.
Virgil sipped his whiskey.
“She always loves me,” he said. “Sometimes other stuff gets in the way.”
“She wants to be more than she is,” I said. “She cheats on you. She gets so sucked up into her self that she can’t see you for a while. She gets lost. You go find her. She strays off. You bring her back. You love her.”
“I do,” Virgil said.
“Why?”
“Don’t know,” Virgil said.
We poured ourselves more whiskey.
“But you do,” I said.
“Yep.”
“You ever spend time thinking about it?”
“Nope.”
I grinned.
“No,” I said. “You wouldn’t.”
“I like it,” Virgil said. “It works for me. Why fuck around with it.”
“Don’t spend much time figuring yourself out, either,” I said.
“Same thing,” Virgil said.
“You like yourself,” I said.
Virgil grinned.
“So, why fuck with it?” he said.
“You know why you’re getting into General Laird’s fight?” I said.
“Killed his kid,” Virgil said.
“Feel guilty ’bout that?”
“Nope,” Virgil said. “Kid gave me no choice. Don’t mean I can’t help his old man out.”
“And we don’t like Callico, do we?” I said.
“No,” Virgil said. “We don’t.”
“And we do kind of like putting together a little fire-fight like this.”
Virgil drank some corn whiskey and held it in his mouth and looked up at the stars. He nodded slowly.
“We do,” he said.
66
NEW MOON,” General Laird said. Six of us sat our horses back from the ridgeline in the near-perfect darkness above Appaloosa.
“Yep,” Virgil said.
“Knew that when you planned this,” the general said.
“Did,” Virgil said.
Almost noiselessly, Pony Flores guided his horses up from the right slope and in beside Virgil.
“How’s he do that?” Chauncey said to me. “I know he’s quiet, but how’s he make the horse quiet?”
Pony heard him.
“Chiricahua,” he murmured to Chauncey.
“Or Mex,” Chauncey said.
“Or both,” Pony said.
“How is it down there?” Virgil said.
He never got nervous, but he did focus sometimes, and this was one of those times.
“Done what you say he do, Jefe,” Pony said.
“Set up an ambush,” Virgil said.
“Sí.”
Downslope a ways five extra horses were tethered. They would blow softly now and then in the darkness.
“Where’s he got ’em?” Virgil said.
“I show,” Pony said.
We moved down slope a little and dismounted. I got a lantern going, and we crouched together, watching, while Pony scratched out a sort of map in the dirt.
“Have two on second floor, Boston House,” Pony said, and marked it.
“One on roof of Golden Palace.” He drew an X.
“Three in livery corral. Behind wagon.” He drew three X’s.
When Pony was finished Virgil counted the X’s.
“I get fifteen,” he said.
“Five alone,” I said.
“We can take them out?” Virgil said to Pony. “Quiet?”
“Sí,” Pony said. “The one’s alone. Maybe two on roof at jail.”
“You think you can take out two men in the dark without making any noise.”
“Chiricahua,” Pony said. “Kill many men on roof.”
“Chiricahua better not fuck this up,” Virgil said. “Blow the whole goddamned project if there’s noise.”
“Sí.”
“On the jail roof,” I said.
“Sí.”
“I won’t tell you how to do your work,” Virgil said.
“We pull it off, he’ll have a lot fewer men than he thinks he’s got,” I said.
“Where’s the rest?” Virgil said.
“Jail,” Pony said.
“Right below Pony,” I said.
“With Callico?” Virgil said.
“Sí.”
Virgil studied the sketch in the dirt for a bit. Then he stood and remounted and rode to a spot just below the ridgeline. It was too dark to be seen, but Virgil was always careful. He sat and looked down at Appaloosa for a while.
“We get the first part cleaned up and settle in,” Virgil said. “Then just before dawn the horses go in.”
“Somebody gotta drive them,” I said.
“I’ll do that,” General Laird said.
“Good chance you don’t survive,” Virgil said.
“No need,” the general said. “I’m seventy-seven years old. My son is dead. I’m the one you can spare for this. No need to survive.”
Nobody said anything.
“I’ll stick here with him,” Teagarden said.
“Okay,” Virgil said. “Just before dawn. We pull this off and we’re all in place. You bring the horses in, bunched up together so they can’t really tell if there are riders. When they start shooting, you get down in the saddle and get the hell out of there.”
�
��Okay,” he said. “We may as well start. Who wants the Golden Palace?”
“I know the place,” Cato said. “I’ll take it.”
“Before you begin,” Laird said.
We waited.
“I am seventy-seven,” Laird said again. “All I have left in the world is my ranch. I was going to leave it to my son. But Virgil Cole killed my son. Because I was a powerful man, I told my son he was a powerful man. I was a soldier all my life. Power, I told him, comes from the muzzle of a gun. He took it to heart. Because I was powerful, my son thought he was powerful. Because I was powerful, people treated my son as if he were powerful. I thought he was. He thought he was. And it got him killed by Virgil Cole.”
Nobody spoke in the darkness. The horses stood quiet, waiting, the way they did.
“That is my fault,” Laird said. “Virgil Cole did what he had to do.”
We were still.
“Chauncey, I don’t want you to kill him,” Laird said.
“Hell, General, Callico probably gonna kill us both, anyway,” Chauncey said.
“I want you men to witness this,” Laird said. “My only connection to my son is through the man who killed him. And he’s a good man. If I die here, or when I die somewhere, I want Cole to have the ranch.”
“Virgil?” I said.
“Yes.”
“You understand what you’re doing?”
“Yes,” Laird said.
There was a moment more of silence.
Then Laird said, “And so does Virgil Cole.”
In the darkness, Virgil said, “I do.”
“We’re all witness,” I said.
“Then let’s get to it,” Virgil said. We all dismounted, took our spurs off, and began down the hill toward town. Being silent in the dark made it slow going.
My man was behind the Chinese laundry, barricaded behind some big wash cauldrons, with, in daylight, a clear line of sight at the open space in front of the jail.
I remembered moving in on a Comanche camp through a dark Texas night. The horses held by squad back from the scene, the troopers spread out on each side of me, the silence so pressing that you didn’t want to breathe. Except this time I was alone. I stashed the eight-gauge on the far wall of the laundry. It would be in my way for what I had to do now. But it would be very handy later.
I took the bowie knife from its scabbard. I don’t enjoy knives much, but there didn’t seem any other way. I went very slowly, feeling my way with the toe of my boot through the littered laundry lot. It took so long that I was afraid dawn would arrive before I got to him.
But it didn’t.
And I cut his throat soundlessly before he ever knew he was dead, and took his place behind the wash pots.
67
SO FAR NO NOISE. The silence was as thick as the darkness. I edged my way back to the side wall of the laundry and retrieved my eight-gauge. Then I inched back to my spot next to the dead man behind the laundry kettles. Somewhere off to my right, out a ways on the incipient prairie, some sort of night animal snuffled for a moment. Then, again, nothing. To my left, I knew, in Chester Hamlin’s Dry Goods were two of Callico’s riflemen. Across the street were two more on the roof of Rockenwagner’s Hardware.
I listened to my own breath going in and out softly. In the east the sky was less black. I heard the horses. In the first dim light of morning they came, bunched up tight together, little more than a dark, moving mass as they came up Main Street toward the jail. And paused. A shot exploded from the jailhouse, and one of the horses reared and screamed and went down. I waited, watching the muzzle flashes as Callico’s men opened up from their rooftops and storefronts. The jail doors opened, and the rest of Callico’s men poured into the street, shooting into the cluster of surging horses fanning out around them.
I felt bad about the horses.
From the roof of the jail, Pony Flores started shooting down into the crowd of policemen in the street below him. The rest of us, from our own storefronts and rooftops, began firing. Callico’s people were confused, then panicked. They didn’t know who was shooting or where it was coming from. On the roof of the dry goods store the two shooters stood up, looking to see what was happening. I picked one off with each barrel of the eight-gauge. It’s easy to hit things with an eight-gauge shotgun.
In front of me, the street was littered with struggling horses and fallen men. Thick smoke drifted over them. From somewhere, one of us picked off the two men on Rockenwagner’s roof. The sound of gunfire was steady. Some of the horses screamed. Some of the men screamed.
And then it stopped. The chaos was too much for Callico’s men. They broke and ran, and in barely a minute, the street in front of the jail was empty of fighting. It wasn’t silent. Too many men and animals were hurt. But there was no gunfire, and it seemed almost still because of it.
It was daylight.
Virgil Cole walked out of the alley near the bank, and in his almost stately way walked down to the jail. In the middle of the wounded horses and men, he paused and squatted down. With the eight-gauge loaded, I walked out and joined him. He was sitting on his heels beside Chauncey Teagarden, who was sprawled protectively over the body of General Laird, with both Colts still in his hand.
“Couldn’t get him down in time,” Chauncey said, and sat up, and rolled back on his heels and stood. “Not sure he wanted to.”
He put both of his fancy handguns back into their holsters.
“You did what you could,” Virgil said.
Chauncey nodded.
“I did,” he said.
Pony came down from the jail’s roof and stood with us. Cato and Rose appeared. There was a thin line of blood on Rose’s cheek, as if a bullet had kicked up a splinter.
He looked around at the street.
“Damn,” he said. “We’re good.”
Virgil walked to the open door of the jail.
“Callico,” he said.
From inside Amos Callico said, “I’m not shooting with you, Cole.”
“Come out here,” Virgil said.
“I’m not shooting,” Callico said. “My hands are empty.”
He came through the door with a gun in his hand and got off one shot at Virgil before Virgil killed him.
Callico had a clean shot from a short distance, and he missed. I have always thought it was because he was shooting at the great Virgil Cole.
“Blue-Eyed Devil,” Pony said, “not speak from heart.”
“Sometimes they don’t,” Virgil said.
68
VIRGIL AND I sat alone on his porch in the thick darkness, drinking corn whiskey.
“Think the general wanted to die?” I said.
“Don’t think he cared,” Virgil said.
“Whatcha gonna do with that ranch?” I said.
“Give it to Pony and Laurel,” Virgil said.
“The whole fucking ranch?” I said.
“I ain’t no rancher,” Virgil said.
“And you think Pony is?”
“Chance to find out,” Virgil said.
“What if you give it to him and he loses it?” I said.
“Be his to lose,” Virgil said.
“Laurel might help him keep it,” I said.
“Might,” Virgil said.
There was a lamp lit inside the house, and it was enough for us to see each other. Virgil drank some corn whiskey.
“Pony’s going down to Buffalo Springs tomorrow to get her,” I said.
“Allie, too,” Virgil said.
“Think Allie’ll want the ranch?” I said.
“Sure,” Virgil said.
“But she won’t get it.”
“No,” Virgil said.
I poured a little whiskey from the jug. Above us there was still no moon, but the clouds had moved away and there were stars. I looked at them for a while.
“Couldn’t be with Allie,” I said, “could you? If you paid too much attention to what she wanted.”
“Allie wants everything,” Virgil sai
d.
“Be jumping around like a grasshopper,” I said. “In July.”
“Would,” Virgil said.
“She’ll get over it,” I said.
“She will,” Virgil said.
Virgil sipped some more whiskey. I liked whiskey. I didn’t like how it tasted. But I liked the way it made me feel, unless I drank too much. Virgil, on the other hand, never seemed to feel different when he drank whiskey. It was as if he just liked the taste.
We didn’t want to sleep. A big gunfight is exhausting. Even if it’s short. And we were exhausted. But we didn’t want to let it all go yet. So we sat in the starry darkness with each other and the whiskey.
“Wonder if that stallion’s still up in the hills with his mares,” Virgil said.
“The Appaloosa?”
“Yeah.”
“Suppose he is,” I said.
“Strutting around stiff-legged with his tail up and his ears back.”
“If you come near the mares,” I said.
“Think he loves them mares?” Virgil said.
“They’re his,” I said.
“Likes to fuck ’em,” Virgil said.
“Sure,” I said.
“Think that’s all of it?” Virgil said.
I shrugged.
“They’re his,” I said.
Virgil nodded silently. He poured some whiskey, took a sip, then held the glass up and looked through the clear whiskey for a time at the lamplight from the parlor.
“So,” I said. “We ain’t gonna be ranchers.”
“Nope.”
“Don’t see no future to the barroom protection service,”lay I said. “Now that Callico’s gone.”
“Nope.”
“So, what do we do now?” I said.
“Figure the town might need couple of experienced lawmen,” Virgil said.
“Since we shot up the previous,” I said.
“Yep.”
“And we know how to do that,” I said.
“We do,” Virgil said.
“So, we sit tight,” I said. “See what develops.”
“Be my plan,” Virgil said.
He stood and carried his whiskey to the far corner of the porch and looked into the darkness.
“Remember the general talking ’bout power coming from the end of a gun?” Virgil said.
“Yep. Taught his kid that. I guess he wished he hadn’t,” I said.
Virgil was silent. Far out on the prairie, a coyote barked. Then silence.
Appaloosa / Resolution / Brimstone / Blue-Eyed Devil Page 65
