The Bridge

by Robert Knott

  “I ain’t armed,” a voice called back.

  “How many are you?” Virgil said.

  “Just me,” the voice said.

  “Step out,” Virgil said.

  Just then I saw the backside of a figure rise up from the rocks. He held his left arm up facing Virgil’s direction.

  “I don’t got no gun,” the man said. “I’m friendly, by myself, and hungry. I don’t want no harm to me or no one else.”

  “Who are you?” Virgil called.

  “Name’s Lonnie,” the man said. “Lonnie Carman.”

  Virgil lowered his Winchester some and looked over to me.

  “I’m just a worker from the bridge camp,” Lonnie said, “and I need help.”

  “Lonnie,” Virgil said. “If you are lying to me, you will die.”

  “Oh, hell,” Lonnie said. “I ain’t lying. I’ve been shot. I’m alone, cold, and real near dead like it is.”

  “Step out more,” Virgil said. “Keep your hands away from yourself.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I can barely move.”

  Lonnie stepped out slowly from the outcropping with one of his hands in the air.

  “I can only lift my one arm,” he said. “Barely.”

  Virgil nodded over to me and we moved slowly toward Lonnie.

  When we got closer, I could see Lonnie clearly. He had his one hand on top of his head and he appeared to be in bad shape, facing Virgil as he approached.

  “Lonnie,” I said.

  Lonnie turned, looking back to me. He squinted in my direction. He kept looking at me, as I got closer to him.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus. Deputy Hitch?” Lonnie said with a tremble in his voice. “That you, Deputy Marshal Hitch?”

  “It is.”

  Lonnie looked back to Virgil, as he got closer.

  “And Marshal Cole?” Lonnie said.

  “It is,” Virgil said.

  “Oh my Lord. My prayers have been answered. Oh, my. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you.”

  Lonnie looked back to me.

  “Thank you, Jesus.”

  Lonnie started crying.

  “It’s okay, Lonnie,” I said.

  “Deputy Marshal Hitch,” he said, then looked to Virgil. “And Marshal Cole. Oh, Jesus. Thank you, sweet Jesus. You fellas have no idea how goddamn glad I am to see the likes of you two. No idea.”

  —37—

  When Virgil and I got close we could see Lonnie was not lying. He had been shot. He was alone, hungry, dirty, cold, and in bad shape. He had been under a cavelike outcropping where he’d been able to keep a small fire going.

  Lonnie dropped when we got close. He’d obviously been living on sheer will, and the sight of us as reinforcement allowed him to give way to exhaustion.

  “Hang on, Lonnie,” I said. “Just hang on.”

  Virgil fetched our horses and I tended the best I could to Lonnie. I eased him under the dryness in the outcropping. I pulled back his coat and blood-soaked shirt and looked at his wound. He’d been shot in the back, just below his collarbone, and the bullet exited out the lower part of his chest. He had managed to somehow wrap the wound with part of his shirt he’d ripped up. He’d made a bandage with his belt. He’d wrapped it under one arm and over his neck and on the opposite side, holding the pieces of ripped shirt tight to his body.

  When Virgil arrived with the animals I retrieved the medicine kit from the panniers the deputies packed. We got the fire going good, and I cleaned Lonnie’s bullet wounds with hot water, doused them with carbolic acid, then wrapped his shoulder with bandages.

  We cooked some venison strap we’d got from the cook at the bridge camp and heated up some beans.

  Lonnie was hurt and weak, but he was hungry and had no trouble getting food down.

  “Wanna tell us what happened here, Lonnie?” Virgil said.

  Lonnie looked at us and shook his head a little.

  “I run into some shit,” Lonnie said.

  “You seen Sheriff Driskill and his deputies, Karl and Chip?” Virgil said.

  “No, I haven’t,” Lonnie said. “I sure wish I had, that’ve been a blessing.”

  “What kind of shit did you run into?” Virgil said.

  “I was riding from the camp, on my way back to Appaloosa, and Ruth, my mare of twenty years, spooked. There was a goddamn rumble from the earth or some such, blackbirds shot out of a thicket and Ruth jerked up and sidestepped. Next thing I know she was walking funny. I got off her and there was bone sticking out of her leg. Poor Ruth. I hated it, but I had to put her down.”

  Lonnie paused. He looked down, thinking of his horse. He blinked a few times and looked back to us.

  “I was on foot,” he said. “Weather was getting bad. Started raining. I’d been walking for, hell, a good three hours when some soldiers come riding up behind me.”

  “How many?” I said.

  “There was seven of them,” Lonnie said. “And they had a buckboard.”

  Virgil looked at me.

  “What happened?” Virgil said.

  “Well, hell, I thought, Thank God. Soldiers. The soldier driving the buckboard looked kind of familiar to me. I asked them if I could get a lift back to Appaloosa. He said nothing but nodded to one of the other soldiers. That soldier got off his horse, friendly like, and asked me if I was heeled. I told him I was. He asked me to show him my gun. I did, I didn’t think nothing of it. I didn’t think nothing of it until he told me to take off running. He said he was gonna give me a ten count. I asked him what he was talking about and he started counting and, well, I took off running and he shot me in the back with my own gun.”

  “Then what?” Virgil said.

  “They started laughing,” Lonnie said. “I heard one of them say, ‘Finish him off,’ but I did not move. I laid facedown like I was dead.”

  “Then what happened?” Virgil said.

  “I waited. I was just imagining he was gonna walk over and put a bullet in my head. I heard them talking, couldn’t really make out what they had to say, and then, thank God in Heaven, the fuckers rode off.”

  “Then what’d you do?” I said.

  “I laid there, afraid to move for ’bout an hour. But then I figured I better get up before I did die. It started raining harder and I found this place and took shelter. Thank God I had some jerky and matches or I’d be dead for sure. I started gathering wood and stashing it under here. I got a good bunch of it. I was able to find some fairly dry bark here and there and I finally got me a fire going. I gathered more and more wood and stayed hunkered down here outta the rain and tended to my wounds the best I could. I been here a long time, can’t say how long, exactly, but a long time. I drank as much water as I could from this creek behind me here. I kept thinking the weather was gonna clear, but then it just got worse and worse and all I could think about was I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die in this goddamn pile of rocks. Then y’all came and thank God. Thank God.”

  —38—

  Lonnie was too weak to be moved, so we kept him warm and let him rest up for the night. Through the evening the sky cleared a little and some stars came out.

  Virgil and I drank coffee by the fire. The night was bright with the opening skylight reflecting off the snow. With the exception of the golden glow of the campfire, our snow-covered surroundings were a glistening steel blue.

  “What the hell, Virgil?” It was a combination of a question, a query, and downright dismay.

  Virgil stared at the fire for a moment before he answered.

  “Them two men,” Virgil said, “the Cotter boys. They didn’t do this for shits and grins.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Somebody hired them,” Virgil said.

  I nodded.

  “Paid them pretty good, too, I figure,” I said.

  “Yep,” Virgil said. “They didn’t spend two weeks working on the bridge because they were honest bridge builders.”

  “Who are they, I wonder?”

  “Whoever they are,” Virgil said, “they
got hired by someone that wants the bridge gone.”

  “They hire on, get the lay of the land around the bridge,” I said. “Plan the attack.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “Those soldiers you saw riding into town,” Virgil said. “They have mules?”

  “No.”

  “Somehow they managed to get a shitload of dynamite,” Virgil said. “We ain’t talking about a little dynamite in saddlebags.”

  “No,” I said. “That was a massive structure. Took a bunch.”

  “More than what a few horseman carried,” Virgil said.

  We thought about that for a moment.

  “Then,” Virgil said. “They cut the telegraph line at the way station so they give themselves as much distance as possible.”

  “It was damn sure thought out,” I said.

  “Was,” Virgil said.

  “Then they get picked up by the five other riders and hightail it,” I said.

  Virgil nodded.

  “Get into Union uniforms,” he said.

  “They did.”

  “Like I said, gives them validation,” Virgil said.

  “Just like what happened here with Lonnie,” I said. “He thought Good when he saw blue. Bad never crossed his mind.”

  “Yep,” Virgil said, looking over to Lonnie, who was sleeping.

  “Till they goddamn told him to run, and shot him in the back,” I said.

  “Yep,” Virgil said. “And then they ride into Appaloosa for one night.”

  We thought about that for a bit.

  “Why ride to Appaloosa?” I said.

  Virgil looked at the fire for a long moment, then looked to me.

  “Get paid,” Virgil said.

  “Paid by who is the question.”

  “Why is the question,” Virgil said.

  “We find out why, we find out who,” I said.

  Virgil nodded.

  “You think this Swickey fella did this?” I said.

  “Maybe,” Virgil said.

  “Cox?” I said.

  “Don’t think so,” Virgil said.

  “Something about him, though,” I said.

  “There is,” Virgil said.

  “Why would he blow up his own bridge?” I said.

  Virgil shook his head.

  “Like you said,” Virgil said. “We look at the why and will find the who.”

  “’Spect we need to pay this Swickey a visit?” I said.

  “We do.”

  “Just need to figure out where his place is,” I said.

  “Him running a big cattle outfit,” Virgil said. “He shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

  We watched the fire for a moment, then Virgil looked around as if he was looking for something. After a moment he looked back to the fire, staring.

  “Should have come across something by now?” Virgil said.

  He didn’t say it, but I knew he was talking about Sheriff Sledge Driskill and his deputies Chip and Karl.

  “Damn should have,” I said.

  “You think maybe they run into them Cotter brothers and company,” I said.

  “Don’t know,” Virgil said.

  “Something,” I said.

  “Yep,” Virgil said. “Goddamn something.”

  “One thing for sure,” I said. “Somebody in the Cotter and company knew about this shortcut.”

  “They did,” Virgil said.

  “Maybe we’ll run into something on down the road here,” I said.

  “Maybe,” Virgil said, “maybe.”

  After a while Virgil and I got some blankets and prepared us a place to sleep. I let Virgil share the warm overhang where Lonnie was bedded, and I cleared a section of snow and lined it with wool.

  When I laid down the night sky was brilliant, bright and clear.

  I saw Orion’s Belt and thought about Séraphine. I wondered what she was doing tonight. I wondered if maybe she was looking at the same stars I was looking at. I thought about her, remembering her . . . her smell, her skin, her hair . . .

  —39—

  By morning the clouds were back over us and a light snow was falling.

  We got Lonnie situated as comfortably as we could on top of the mule between the panniers and traveled the shortcut the rest of the way back to the main road. We saw no sign of Driskill and his deputies on the route back to Appaloosa, but we arrived with Lonnie alive.

  Lonnie insisted we let his wife, Winifred, know he was okay. We did, we stopped by their place, and Winifred scolded Lonnie regardless of his condition or what he had to say.

  We left Lonnie and Winifred at Doc Crumley’s, then Virgil and I made our way over to the sheriff’s office.

  It was five in the afternoon when we entered the office. Chastain was behind the desk and sitting in a cell next to Bolger was Beauregard Beauchamp. Beauregard looked up at us when we entered.

  “There you are, gentlemen,” Beauregard said in his big voice as he got to his feet. “I was trying to explain to your illustrious deputy here we are friends and that there was no need to lock me up. No need whatsoever.”

  Virgil looked to Chastain.

  “He was drunk,” Chastain said.

  Beauregard laughed, shaking his head dramatically from side to side.

  “No, no, no,” Beauregard said.

  “Goddamn were, too,” Bolger said from the next cell.

  “A simple misunderstanding,” Beauregard said. “It was nothing more than a misunderstanding.”

  “Bullshit,” Bolger said.

  “One of the show people,” Chastain said, “came over, said they heard Mr. Beauchamp yelling at Mrs. Beauchamp in their trailer. Was scared for her. Book and me went over there. We knocked on the door and Mr. Beauchamp here came out with his fists up like he was a boxer and started swinging at me. I had no choice but to lock him up.”

  “It was just a misunderstanding,” Beauregard said. “My wife and I were rehearsing, you see, nothing more.”

  “You were drunk. Mrs. Beauchamp was frightened. And you, Mr. Beauchamp, were doing your best to hit me,” Chastain said.

  “Mrs. Beauchamp okay?” Virgil said.

  “She is,” Chastain said.

  “He sober now?” Virgil said.

  Chastain nodded.

  “Should be.”

  Virgil got the keys and walked toward Beauregard’s cell.

  “See,” Beauregard said to Chastain, “Marshal Cole and Deputy Marshal Hitch know all too well I am like them. I am a man of substance. A man of quick resolve.”

  Virgil unlocked the cell door.

  Beauregard put on his fancy gambler’s frock coat and meticulously placed his wide-brimmed hat on his head with a stylish sideways tilt to it.

  Virgil pulled open the cell door.

  “Why, thank you, Marshal,” Beauregard said with a bow.

  “I find you mistreating your wife or anybody else,” Virgil said, “I will personally put a knot in your ass.”

  Beauregard gulped.

  “Why, Marshal?”

  “Get,” Virgil said.

  Beauregard was stymied for a brief moment.

  Chastain stood up and opened the door to the street for him to leave.

  Beauregard was unsure just how to regain some pride, some dignity. He pulled back his shoulders, pointed his nose in the air, and walked out the door with one shoulder leading the other like the seasoned thespian he was.

  “Goddamn clown,” Chastain said, closing the door behind him.

  Chastain looked over us for a bit.

  “Look like you been through it,” Chastain said.

  “Any word from Driskill?” Virgil said.

  Chastain shook his head.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I was hoping he’d be with you or you’d know something.”

  Virgil shook his head.

  “We don’t,” Virgil said.

  “Not seen ’em,” I said.

  “Goddamn,” Chastain said.

  Chastain walked over and shut the door bet
ween the office and the cells.

  “I was here, got your wire,” Chastain said, “from the bridge camp way station.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “What do we do?” Chastain said.

  “Not much we can do with the weather like it is,” Virgil said. “Rough and slow going out there with this snow. Be like birds looking for seeds. Soon as it gives way we need to mount a posse.”

  Chastain nodded.

  “And the bridge?” Chastain said.

  “Gone,” I said.

  Chastain shook his head slowly.

  “My God,” he said. “Who done it?”

  “Know some of who done it,” Virgil said. “Just don’t know who had them do it.”

  “Who is the some of the who done it?” Chastain said.

  “The soldier fellas that come through town,” Virgil said.

  “Soldiers?”

  “They weren’t soldiers,” Virgil said.

  I nodded.

  “Who were they?” Chastain said, as he poured Virgil and me a cup of coffee.

  “We don’t know,” I said. “Know two names, most likely aliases. Brothers, or claimed to be brothers, last name Cotter.”

  “Never heard of them,” Chastain said, as he handed Virgil and me each a cup of coffee.

  “You ever hear of Walton Wayne Swickey?” Virgil said.

  Chastain squinted a little.

  “Name’s familiar,” he said. “Who is he?”

  “Big cattleman. Got a spread across Rio Blanco someplace,” I said. “He was the one that bid against G. W. Cox for the bridge contract.”

  Chastain nodded a little.

  “You think he’s behind this?” Chastain said.

  “Could be,” Virgil said. “We need to find out his whereabouts and then find him.”

  “Being a cattleman, he can’t be that hard to find,” Chastain said. “I’ll poke around.”

  “Do,” Virgil said.

  Virgil walked over to the window. He looked out for a moment as he sipped his coffee.

  “Money,” Virgil said.

  Chastain looked at me.

  Virgil continued staring out the window for a bit, then he said, “Swickey or not . . . It’s all about the money.”

  “Ain’t that always the case,” Chastain said.

  “Need to find out about this contract,” Virgil said, looking back to Chastain and me. “The bridge foreman said Cox was late on paying. Them boys that had Bolger and his brother delivering goods said the pay chain was broke.”