by Robert Knott
“What’d you do?”
“I gave them some money,” he said.
“How much?”
“At first it was not a lot.”
“At first?” Virgil said. “How long have you been paying them?”
“Three months.”
Virgil glanced to me, then looked back to Hal.
“Do you know who these men are?” he said.
“Not by name I don’t.”
“You seen them around?” I said.
He shook his head.
“Only when they come in here.”
“Do you know or got an idea where they are?” I said.
“I do now,” he said, looking back and forth between Virgil and me. “That’s why I sent for you.”
“Where?” Virgil said.
Hal got to his feet and paced a few times.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “I come to y’all cause y’all ain’t necessarily who they told me not to talk to. They said Sheriff Chastain and his deputies, don’t say nothing to them, but they never said nothing about no marshals, don’t know they even know you live here in Appaloosa.”
“We been in here four or five times since this has been going on,” I said. “Why haven’t you said nothing to us before now?”
“I figured this would go away, plumb blow over. What I was hoping for, anyway.”
“But it ain’t,” Virgil said.
“Nope. They come tonight, and they’d been drinking, I could tell. They demanded double what I gave them before.”
“You pay ’em?”
He frowned.
“I did.”
“Where are they?” Virgil said.
Hal twisted his big hands together.
“They down at a gambling place, over on the north end of town.”
“There’s more than one,” I said.
“I know which one and they there now,” he said. “I had Felix follow them. That’s what he was talking ’bout. He said they looked to be holed up there just doing what white men do.”
12
Virgil and I got our horses saddled in case something went afoul and we needed to give chase. We quickly got them ready to ride in the dry of my barn. I did not have a house yet in Appaloosa, but I managed to have a place to keep our animals. It was a nice big barn I rented from the widow of a farrier who passed away a few years back, and currently she had no use for it other than to rent it to me.
I figured since Virgil had Allie to take care of and I really didn’t have anybody I needed to look after, I’d take care of our horses. We had a good lot to choose from, too. Virgil still had his stud Cortez and I had big Ajax, but I had found some good horses of late, and with the exception of doctoring a few problem areas here and there, they were all in good shape to ride. We had twelve in all, and depending on the various tasks at hand, distance, weather, terrain, and surefootedness, it was normally an easy decision which horses we saddled up.
I had two fleet bay horses I’d bought from a rancher I knew who was a good horseman. We had ridden them a lot and they both had a solid step and were easy to maintain, but mainly we felt comfortable with them in rainy weather and the dark.
“How we going to go about this?” I said.
Virgil tightened his cinch and looked over the top of his saddle to me and shook his head.
“Well,” he said. “Don’t make sense two toughs here in Appaloosa set out to collect from a local business.”
I nodded.
“Don’t really,” I said.
“They’re just the collectors,” Virgil said.
I thought about that for a moment.
“For who?” I said.
“Hard to figure.”
I nodded.
“So many shits in this town these days,” I said. “Could be any of ’em.”
“Figure the main thing is we get to the root.”
“Most likely they’re not gun hands,” I said. “More than likely they are just hired hands, acting big.”
“Leave your eight-gauge,” Virgil said. “See if we can take a friendly approach.”
It was raining even harder than it was when we departed Hal’s. We left the barn and rode winding through the streets of Appaloosa to Meserole’s, the place Hal told us the two grifters were located. Hal gave us a good account of what each man was wearing and their physical description.
We found a place across from Meserole’s to tie our horses, where they were somewhat sheltered from the rain. We covered the saddles with oilcloths and walked across the street to the gambling establishment.
There were a good number of horses hitched out front as well as a few buggies parked on the side. Most of the horses had a poncho or oilcloth covering the saddle.
Meserole’s was a gambling saloon that catered to silver miners but was also known for having plenty of ladies working there. It was popular with the younger crowd and, like it appeared to be tonight, it was usually busy.
When we entered, the parlor was noisy and crowded. I did not notice the men we were looking for, not right away, anyway, mainly because it was dark. Virgil and I shook the water from our mackintoshes and hung them by the door and waited for our eyes to adjust some. Like most places that sported hustling women, Meserole’s was dimly lit.
Once our eyes adjusted, we walked to the bar. It was an L-shaped bar with the long side facing the main barroom, where a crowd of men and women sat drinking, smoking, and playing cards and grab-ass. We found two empty stools on the short side of the L so we could have a good look at the gathering and ordered some whiskey. As I was watching the bartender pour the whiskey, Virgil nudged me in the ribs.
I looked to see a fella playing cards with two women in the corner under the landing that led to the second floor.
“That look like one of them Hal described?” he said.
“Might be.”
Virgil nodded a little, then turned away from the man so as not to draw attention. But I could look at him as clearly as if I were looking at Virgil.
“He’s big,” Virgil said. “Wearing a bowler. You see a feather in his hat?”
I watched him for a moment or two, and when he turned his head I saw the feather.
I nodded.
“Do,” I said. “He’s the older of the two Hal described, I’d say. Looks to be mid-fifties or so.”
“Don’t see any other big-chested fifty-year-old fellas wearing a bowler hat with a feather, do you?”
“Don’t,” I said.
13
“What about the other fella?” Virgil said. “The young one, real tall, skinny, long hair, scraggly beard?”
“No . . . don’t see him,” I said. “Just the older one.”
Virgil nodded a little, glancing up to the second floor.
“What’s upstairs?” he said.
“I think Meserole has his office up there, but I don’t know for a fact.”
Virgil nodded a little and glanced around some.
“They ain’t whoring here?” he said.
“No,” I said. “Just saloon girls, flirting and hustling whiskey.”
“We wait?” I said.
Virgil nodded a bit.
A small woman came walking in from a door near the bar and glanced around some, then looked over to me. She nodded a little to me—the friendly “buy me a drink, paying customer” nod. Then she tilted her head and casually meandered her way over and settled between Virgil and me.
“Wet enough for you?” she said.
Virgil turned toward her a little. The move put his back even more to the big-chested guy with the feather in his hat.
“Is,” he said, then smiled.
“How y’all doing this evening?”
“Better ’an most,” I said.
Virgil nodded a bit and looked to me.
“Real good,” I said.
“That’s good,” she said. “That’s good.”
“And you?” I said.
“Peachy.”
She was attractive
for a woman who barely filled her dress and shoes. Every part of her was thin: her fingers, her face, her figure, everything.
“What’s your name?” Virgil said.
“Betty,” she said with a smile as she twirled a strand of her hair with her finger.
“Betty,” Virgil said with a nod. “It’s a pleasure.”
“Likewise,” she said as she twirled the strand one way, then twirled it in the other direction.
“You been in here most the evening?” Virgil said.
“I have,” she said. “And I’ve yet to have a single drop, if you can believe that?”
Virgil glanced to me.
“Whiskey,” I said to the bartender.
She looked to me, smiled. “Why, thank you,” she said.
“Got a few questions for you, Betty,” Virgil said.
She smiled and looked down at her skinny body.
“Let me see if I can find the answer you are looking for,” she said, then looked back to Virgil with pouty lips that turned into a coy smile.
“I’m Virgil and this fella here is Everett. Everett and me are here on official business.”
“I’m about as official as they come,” Betty said with a laugh.
Virgil smiled.
“What could be more official than little ol’ me?” she said.
Virgil slyly pulled back his jacket and showed her the star pinned on his vest.
“Right now we have some marshaling business to attend to.”
She looked back and forth between Virgil and me.
“Am I under arrest?”
“No,” Virgil said. “The official business we are here to conduct has to do with two fellas we are searching for.”
Her demeanor changed and she stood a bit taller, as if she were in trouble.
“I want you to smile and enjoy your whiskey,” he said. “There is no reason you need to do otherwise. Don’t want you to draw attention to nothing out of the ordinary, okay?”
She glanced to me then cut her eyes back to Virgil and nodded.
“Okay.”
“Just over my shoulder,” Virgil said. “There is an older fella. He’s a big fella sitting with a couple of gals under that stairway landing.”
She leaned a bit.
“That’s Debbie and Ellen.”
“Just look at me,” Virgil said. “Like I said, I don’t want you to get anyone’s attention.”
She nodded.
“Smile,” he said.
She smiled.
“So, real casual-like,” Virgil said. “You got a good look at the man I’m talking about, sitting with Debbie and Ellen?”
“I do,” she said.
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
“Seen him in here before?”
She nodded.
“I’ve seen him before, yes, but I don’t know him, honest.”
“He have a friend, too?”
“He does.”
“Big, tall young fella with long hair and a scraggly beard.”
“That’s right,” she said.
“Any idea where he is?”
She nodded.
“He’s walking down the stairs as we speak.”
14
Just as Virgil turned, a shot was fired from someone upstairs and we heard a scream. The shot was a loud shotgun blast and the load hit the tall, skinny man just as he got to the landing. The blast knocked him forward into the railing. He turned in one swift motion with his gun and fired upstairs, then slumped and doubled over on the rail. A moment later a body tumbled down the stairs and slammed into the tall man and the two men busted through the railing and fell onto a table below, which collapsed under their weight.
The whole place erupted in a clamor as everyone moved toward the door.
Virgil and I had our pistols out and moved through the people toward the man with the bowler and the other two men who’d just crashed through the railing.
After people made it by us, trying to get out, we determined that the older fella with the bowler was now nowhere to be seen and the tall, young man with the long hair appeared to be dead, with another man laying facedown on top of him, who, by quick observation, also appeared to be dead.
Just behind the table where the man with the bowler had been sitting was a window in an alcove, and it was open.
“Front,” Virgil said.
I moved quickly and Virgil was right behind me, trying to get through the crowd of people struggling to get out the front door, and just as we made it out, we briefly saw the man with the bowler. He was hightailing it away in the pouring rain and within a moment was around a corner and gone.
“I’ll be goddamn,” I said.
“I’ll deal here,” Virgil said. “See if you can catch the son of a bitch.”
I ran across the street into the alley where our horses were tied, swung up on the bay, and followed in the direction the man rode in hopes I might get lucky. I made the corner he’d turned and rode at a steady clip. The rain was coming down in my face, making it hard to see, and so far I’d seen nothing. I rode till I got to an intersection, and in every direction I looked I saw nothing, no one moving, no one on horseback. I rode on forward for a bit to where the road dead ended at the railroad tracks. I turned and rode up the tracks a bit, then stopped.
I looked around and saw nothing but darkness all around except in the direction of town, where the hazy light from it shimmered in the falling rain. I sat there for a while thinking I just might get a glimpse, but I saw nothing. I rode back through the streets of Appaloosa, turning down one street and then another, and after a half-hour or so I rode back to Meserole’s.
When I got back to the place there was already an ambulance parked out front. Two men who worked for the hospital were loading up one of the men as Doc Burris stood on the porch under the awning, puffing on his pipe.
“Everett,” Doc said.
“What do we got?”
“Two dead men,” he said.
I dismounted and tied the bay to the hitch.
“One was alive for a moment, but no longer.”
“Know who they are?”
Doc nodded.
“One we know is Meserole, the owner of this place,” Doc said. “Shot through the heart. Don’t know who the other man was.”
“He say anything?”
“Not that I know of. Virgil is in there right now trying to figure out who he is and what happened.”
When I entered Meserole’s, Sheriff Chastain and Deputy Book were now with Virgil. They were sitting with Ellen and Debbie, the two women the fella with the derby had been sitting with, and Betty, the skinny gal that sat with Virgil and me for a bit. The bartender was sitting nearby, too. All of the employees looked as if they’d been crying. Virgil met my eye.
I shook my head.
“No such luck,” I said.
Chastain leaned back in his chair.
“Virgil gave us a description,” Chastain said. “I got a handful of deputies out searching.”
I nodded and looked to Virgil.
“What do we know?”
Virgil shook his head.
“What we know is their boss, Michael Meserole, the owner of this place, is dead, and the other tall man nobody knows. Well, the ladies here said he called himself Charlie and the other one, the older one with the bowler, was Dave, but that is all they know.”
“You figure the same situation was happening here that was happening at the café?”
Virgil nodded.
The bartender, noticing I was soaking wet from the ride I took without my slicker, went behind the bar, gathered up some towels, and handed them to me.
“Mr. Meserole was like a father to me,” the bartender said.
Then he looked to the three women sitting with Virgil.
“Them, too, to all of us,” he said. “He was generous and kind to us. He was tough as hell and ran a tight ship around here and put up with no shit from any of us, but he was a good man.”
The women all nodded as they held back tears.
Willoughby from the Western Union office came in and removed his hat when he saw the three young women crying.
“Um . . . excuse me, Marshal Cole, but Sheriff Stringer from Yaqui asked me to find you and have you come by so to let you know what was what regarding Cibola.”
15
We left Sheriff Chastain to deal with the situation at Meserole’s, and Virgil and I went to the Western Union office with Willoughby and Book.
Virgil had Willoughby tap out a note on the key to Stringer, letting him know we were present. Within a few minutes the sounder started clicking and Willoughby started to write. After, he sat back and read. “Start transmission: From Sheriff Stringer, Yaqui—No additional news from Cibola or from the support city Wingate—However, the doctor here in Yaqui operated on the wounded escapee, removing two bullets—According to the doctor, he is going to pull through just fine—He is weak, but we were able to talk with him and this is what we know as follows—According to the escapee, there were eight convicts who escaped.”
“Holy hell,” Book said.
Virgil looked to me and raised his eyebrows.
“Bunch,” I said.
Virgil looked to Willoughby. Willoughby continued.
“—Escape happened in the middle of the night—far as we know none of the escapees were immediately caught—Captured escapee is a young man, twenty-one years old—wound not critical—says his name is Bernard Dobbin—claims he was not directly responsible for the deaths of the two mill workers—After some necessary handiwork dealing with Dobbin—making certain he was telling the truth, we believe him—every word he uttered.”
“Handiwork?” Book said
“Persuasion,” I said.
Willoughby continued. “—Dobbin said those escaped, separated into two groups—He believes the other convicts, in group opposite his, headed east out of Cibola—The other three that were with him, here in Yaqui, are now headed to Vadito—least that is where they had discussed going, for the obvious reasons—we’ll wait to see what you want to do, Virgil—Vadito is, of course, closer to you there in Appaloosa—Ready to put posse together to find others in the morning—but will await your instructions—One other detail, the eight men who escaped were all from compound C—According to Dobbin, compound C is Murderers Row—houses the most notorious of the Cibola inmates. All inmates in compound C are serving time for murder—including Dobbin.”
