The Bridge

by Robert Knott

  Virgil nodded a little.

  “Was,” he said.

  “Well, maybe you two can just pick up where you left off?” Allie said.

  “Maybe,” Virgil said.

  —15—

  Ashley cornered me before I left the town hall only to let me know he was planning on being the new territory governor and he hoped to have Virgil and my endorsement come Election Day.

  Goddamn rain, I thought, as I crossed the street and headed back to my alley room above the survey office. The streets were now mud and the ruts were beginning to get deep. Got to let up sometime soon.

  When I left the boardwalk I walked across a single plank over the soggy narrow passage to the stairs. I took the first step leading up to my room and noticed lamplight in my window. I stopped before taking another step and drew my Colt.

  I took one slow step at a time. The stairs were solid. They didn’t creak as I ascended, and I made my footfalls cautious and quiet as I moved up. I stayed low, not showing myself as I passed under the window overlooking the rungs, then eased to the side of the opening and peeked in.

  Sitting on the bed was Séraphine. She was looking directly at me through the window as if she knew I would be peeking in.

  I was glad it wasn’t Bolger’s bad brother I’d heard about waiting on me.

  I opened the door.

  “Hello, Everett,” she said.

  I stayed standing in the doorway.

  She watched as I slowly slid my Colt back in its holster.

  I smiled at her. She smiled at me.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Her blue eyes were catching the light just right from the lamp fire. It was nice to see her looking at me, and it felt good to look at her back.

  “You didn’t show for the theatrical town hall presentation?” I said.

  “I’m here,” she said.

  “Yes, you are.”

  She was sitting on the bed with her back propped up on the headboard, looking casually at yesterday’s newspaper. She folded the paper simply and put it to her side. She was relaxed and calm. Her long legs were extended on the bed and crossed at her ankles. She was wearing a pair of Mexican cowboy boots with riding heels that were unusually clean, considering the weather.

  She was dressed different from when I saw her the night before. She was wearing a simple cream-colored muslin dress, like a long, thin sleeping gown. The flimsy fabric allowed the valleys, hills, and curves of her slender body to be revealed fully, and I appreciated the contours.

  “You look good,” I said.

  “Do I?”

  “You do.”

  “That’s good?” she said.

  “It is.”

  “Merci,” she said.

  “Merci back,” I said.

  The mysterious fortune-teller, I thought. I entered and closed the door behind me.

  I’d been all over. Met a lot of women in my time, some with taste and some without a lick of it. Some, through the many years, have been refined and some downright uncouth. Some smart and some not so smart, but I’d never run across anyone like this woman, Séraphine.

  She had a sense of herself. She was self-assured unlike any woman I’d ever met. Her strange and suspect profession was fitting for her in some ways. Might be the only way this sultry, unusual, almost otherworldly creature could exist.

  She had a horsehair belt around her narrow waist. Her long, dark hair was pulled up and concealed under a black bowler hat that was a few sizes too large for her. She was wearing her large gold hoop earrings but was without her long strings of beads and shells.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” she said.

  “That you look goddamn good?”

  “That I am here in your room.”

  “I’d mind if you weren’t.”

  “Good.”

  I took off my hat and slicker and hung them on some long nails next to her slicker.

  “I know what happened with you today,” she said.

  “Don’t talk,” I said.

  I walked over to her and stood, looking down on her.

  Her eyes looked slowly up my body and met mine.

  I reached for her just as she reached for me. I pulled her up to me, and our lips met but I did not kiss her. I just looked in her eyes and she looked in my eyes as I held her in my arms. She removed her bowler and tossed it. Her long, dark hair tumbled across my arms.

  I kissed her and she kissed me back like she was hungry and had not eaten for some time.

  I felt as though I was dreaming for an instant.

  I held her back away from me and looked in her eyes again. I wanted to see her. I wanted to make sure it was really her I was kissing. Her eyes were moist, almost as if she were crying.

  She was looking at me with a calm-but-desiring expression. I reached down and she helped me remove her belt. I slung it to the floor.

  She started unbuttoning my shirt and kissing my chest.

  I took her by her shoulders and pushed her back on the bed.

  I let her lie there for a moment as she looked up at me. Her chest was moving. She was breathing heavy.

  She reached up for me.

  Then I moved down on her. I put my hand behind her neck and pulled her lips to mine.

  —16—

  In the morning, we laid in bed listening to it rain.

  “This storm’s put a damper on the Beauchamp outfit getting the show under way,” I said.

  She nodded a little.

  “Such is the Moon of Mother Nature,” she said. “Not too much can be assured when it comes to the forces of Mother Nature’s Moon.”

  I was on my back. Her head was on my shoulder and her leg was draped over me. She was touching my chest with the tips of her fingers.

  Sonofabitch, I thought, as I looked at her. Séraphine. She was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. It felt like time had goddamn stopped or something. Who was this woman, where the hell did she come from?

  Nothing had been said for a long while.

  Then she said quietly, “You know, I’m much older than you.”

  I smiled to myself.

  “No,” I said. “You’re a good twenty years younger.”

  She continued to caress my chest delicately but didn’t say anything for a long moment . . . then: “I’m certain why I am here, Everett.”

  “Why?”

  “For you.”

  “I’m right here,” I said.

  “Oui,” she said. “You are.”

  “Oui,” I said.

  She looked up into my eyes and smiled.

  “Oui,” she said softly again.

  “In my time,” I said. “I’ve avoided asking women about most everything.”

  “You are smart,” she said.

  “I always figured it best to let sleeping dogs lie,” I said. “But I’m compelled.”

  “About?”

  “You,” I said. “Where do you come from?”

  She leaned up on her elbow and looked at me.

  “As you say, it’s best for sleeping dogs to lay.”

  “Looks like we’re beyond that,” I said.

  “It’s just better,” she said. “Just know I am here for you.”

  She sat up and turned to face me.

  “I know what you went through today,” she said.

  “Somebody tell you, word on the street? Or did you see it in your mind’s eye, the friends, guides, and such?”

  “I wanted to warn you,” she said.

  “You already did that, remember?”

  She shook her head.

  “You did,” I said.

  “What happened today was not what I saw before.”

  “There’s more to it?”

  “There is,” she said.

  “What?”

  “What happened was something altogether different,” she said. “That I’m clear on.”

  “That so?”

  “Oui,” she said.

  I smiled at her.

  “You don�
�t believe me?” she said.

  I didn’t, but I allowed.

  “You said you saw men running, scared,” I said.

  “Oui.”

  “Well, there you go, that is what happened today, two men came running by me, scared for their life; another man was shooting at them.”

  She shook her head.

  “What I saw was different,” she said.

  “I’m listening,” I said.

  “What I saw, with the men, was in water,” she said.

  “Water?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, it was raining and wet. I don’t know if we can stand much more water than what we have coming down.”

  She shook her head.

  “It was not here,” she said.

  “Not here in Appaloosa?”

  “Oui,” she said.

  “So,” I said. “How is it, if what you saw was not here in Appaloosa, but I’m here in Appaloosa, my life is in danger?”

  “I don’t have all the answers,” she said.

  “Well, I can’t do anything other than what I do,” I said.

  “Just watch out,” she said.

  “It’s what I do,” I said. “Watch out. I’m always aware, rest assured.”

  She nodded.

  “Can’t live in fear of the unexpected,” I said.

  “No,” she said sadly. “I know. I wish I could tell you more.”

  “Well, I appreciate the advice,” I said.

  I looked at my watch on the chair next to the bed.

  “I’ll be going,” she said.

  Séraphine removed her leg that was draped across me and sat up on the edge of the bed.

  “I’ll walk you.”

  “No,” she said, and then gave me a peck on the cheek. “Not necessary.”

  I stayed there on the bed and watched her dress.

  Her sharp-angled figure was strong and without blemish. She held her shoulders back and her chin high and all of her moves were elegant and languid. Something about her did make her seem as if she were older than me.

  Within a matter of minutes, Séraphine together and dressed, she leaned over, twisting her long hair into a tidy bale atop her head and crowning it with her bowler. She leaned down and kissed me again, sweet-like on the lips, then slipped on her slicker and walked out the door.

  I moved to the window and watched her descend the stairs. She walked across a single board leading to the boardwalk. She stepped up on the boardwalk, stopped and turned. She looked back up seeing me looking at her. She snugged her derby, continued on, and was gone from sight.

  Good Goddamn.

  —17—

  I dragged my straight razor across the concave belly of my seasoned whetstone and got the blade good and sharp. I heated up some water in a tin cup over the lamp, whipped up some pumice and goat-milk shaving lather with my boar-bristle brush, and then gave myself a proper slow shave. I thought about her as I worked the sharp steel across my face. I thought about how she smelled, how she felt, and the words she had spoken to me.

  Goddamn lovely she is, really nice, smooth and lovely. Hocus-goddamn-pocus.

  “Aha . . .”

  The straight razor I was working up my neck toward the corner of my jaw took a nick of skin and blood instantly showed through the lather and snaked down my neck.

  That’s what cogitating about a woman will get you, I thought. Hocus-goddamn-pocus.

  I finished up my shave, and after I stopped the bleeding I scrubbed my teeth good, dressed, and left the room.

  The rain had subsided for the moment, but it was dark out and for sure it was getting colder. As we had arranged, I met Virgil at the sheriff’s office at nine o’clock to collect the report for the DA that Book took from Grant and Elliott.

  Book was drinking coffee when we entered.

  “I sat with Bolger through the night,” Book said. “All he did was sleep. Skinny Jack’s there with him now.”

  “No sign of his brother?” Virgil said.

  “No, sir, no sign. Doc said we can get him over here and lock him up in a short-short.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “Any word from Sheriff Driskill from the bridge camp?” Virgil said.

  “Nope,” Book said. “Not a word.”

  Virgil looked at me.

  “That’s peculiar. They should have made it to the bridge by dark yesterday,” Virgil said.

  I nodded.

  “What about Deputy Chastain,” I said. “He still sick?”

  “Far as I know,” Book said. “I haven’t seen him.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “You boys keep alert,” Virgil said.

  “Yes, sir,” Book said. “We will, sir.”

  Virgil and I drank some coffee with Book for a bit, then we walked Grant and Elliott’s report over to the district attorney.

  We were waiting in the front room of the DA’s office when Carveth Huckabee, Appaloosa’s DA, walked in.

  He was a squat-figured man with a wide chest and a big voice. Carveth had a ruddy complexion, a bushy head of strawlike hair, and an easygoing attitude.

  “Nice weather for a duck,” Carveth said.

  “Is,” Virgil said.

  “Glad to see you’re still with us, Everett,” Carveth said.

  “Me, too, Carveth.”

  “I was abstracting money at five-card from pesky mining esquires last night and I heard about the whole thing,” he said. “The heralded subject of the said shoot-out was on the table.”

  “Figures,” I said.

  Carveth nodded.

  “It will most certainly make tomorrow’s untrustworthy newspaper,” he said. “Come on in.”

  Virgil and I followed Carveth into his office. He sat behind his big oak desk and Virgil and I sat across from him.

  “Haven’t seen hide nor hair of you fellas,” Carveth said.

  “Things have sure enough been good and peaceful here in Appaloosa,” Carveth said. “Think Sheriff Driskill puts the fear of God in most folks.”

  I handed Carveth the report and he looked it over.

  “Both the men Bolger Orsley shot at want to make sure he gets his due,” I said. “Gets locked up, stays locked up. They’re scared of him.”

  “He shot at you, too,” Carveth said.

  “Yes,” I said. “He did, but I’m not scared of him if he’s out or not.”

  “No, I wouldn’t think there’s much that would scare you, Everett, and you, Virgil, but make no mistake about Bolger,” Carveth said. “Him and that brother of his are both bad apples.”

  “So it seems,” I said.

  “I’m surprised these two men, Grant and Elliott, hired them in the first place,” Carveth said.

  “They don’t know much about the likes of Bolger and his kind,” I said.

  Carveth nodded.

  “I heard about those two, Grant and Elliott,” Carveth said. “They’re different.”

  “In some ways,” Virgil said, “I suspect they are, but it don’t give Bolger the right to pull on ’em.”

  “No, of course not,” Carveth said. “Bolger and Ballard both have been arrested on numerous occasions all over the territories. His brother, Ballard, is the one to worry about.”

  “We’ve heard,” Virgil said.

  “Any idea where he is?” Carveth said.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “He’s a hard case,” Carveth said. “I know he spent some time locked up down in Huntsville.”

  “What for?” Virgil said.

  “Don’t know,” Carveth said. “As far as whether Bolger stays locked up, that’ll be of course for Judge Callison to decide. Bolger will be held till his arraignment, and that’ll be a while.”

  “Why a while?” Virgil said.

  “Judge won’t be through here till the end of the month,” Carveth said. “Most likely, considering the nature of Bolger’s charges and firing on an officer of the law, well, he’ll likely stay locked up without bail till his trial.”

  Virg
il nodded.

  Carveth looked at the report for a moment, then set it on his desk and leaned back in his chair.

  “I heard there are some Union men in town,” Carveth said. “Know anything about that?”

  “I saw ’em,” I said. “Yesterday.”

  “Word is they’re on the hunt for a raiding party,” Carveth said.

  “What raiding party?” Virgil said.

  “I don’t know,” Carveth said.

  “Indians?” I said.

  Carveth shrugged.

  “Don’t know,” Carveth said.

  “How do you know what you know?” Virgil said.

  “More card talk,” Carveth said.

  “What, exactly?” Virgil said.

  “Not much gets by the esquires. A few of them were having some whiskey at Clancy’s Saloon, said one of the soldiers came in, bought some whiskey. They said he talked some, that’s all I know.”

  I looked to Virgil.

  “After the shooting with Bolger, I didn’t think too much about ’em,” I said. “I figured they were just passing through, maybe up from Fort Union.”

  “Know where they are now, Carveth?” Virgil said.

  “No,” Carveth said. “But I can tell you, the esquires told me all they know, that much I am sure of. They said the soldier told them they were on the hunt and would continue to hunt until they found the raiders.”

  —18—

  When we left Carveth’s office the rain had started up again. The wind had picked up some, too, and the day was dark.

  We buttoned up our slickers under the porch overhang as we watched some traffic moving slowly in both directions on the muddy street.

  “What do you think about the unit?” I said.

  “Don’t make good sense,” Virgil said.

  “Us not knowing about no raiding party?”

  Virgil nodded.

  “No,” I said. “It don’t.”

  “We got no wire.”

  “We didn’t.”

  “If something has happened in these whereabouts,” Virgil said, “it’s our jurisdiction.”

  “We should know,” I said.

  “Should,” Virgil said.

  “Whether the military is on the hunt or not,” I said.

  “Yep,” Virgil said. “We goddamn sure should have been notified.”

  We watched a team of mules pulling a buckboard. They passed us carrying a heavy load covered with a tarp. The skinner hawed the team around the corner in front of us and moved on up Third Street.