The Bridge

by Robert Knott

  “What are you thinking?” Chastain said.

  “Just need to figure out what’s at stake here,” Virgil said. “Maybe Cox was in trouble with money. Maybe he has been doing something else with the money. Need to know how and when he was paid. Maybe there’s a policy he’s collecting on or something. Maybe he’s broke. Maybe Cox and Swickey are in on this together.”

  “Together?” Chastain said.

  Virgil nodded a little.

  “Gotta be something else. Everett, let’s work up a letter, have Chastain send it, notifying the governor’s office, let them know what happened and find out all we can.”

  —40—

  Oh, my goodness,” Allie said. “I can’t believe Beauregard was arrested. Here in Appaloosa. How embarrassing.”

  “He didn’t seem all that embarrassed,” Virgil said. “Did he, Everett?”

  “Didn’t,” I said.

  “I’m not talking about him being embarrassed,” Allie said. “I’m talking about me, about Appaloosa.”

  “What are you embarrassed about?” Virgil said.

  “This man, this renowned performer, has come here to Appaloosa to give us some culture, some entertainment, and he gets arrested?” Allie said.

  “He did,” Virgil said.

  “It’s just awful,” Allie said.

  “Not sure I’d call scaring the daylights out of his wife culture or entertainment,” Virgil said.

  “If he said he was practicing, he was practicing,” Allie said. “You don’t understand entertainment. You know nothing about practicing theatrical performance, Virgil Cole.”

  “Sure I do,” Virgil said. “It ain’t practicing, it’s got its own special name, don’t it, Everett?”

  “Rehearsing,” I said.

  “That’s right,” Virgil said. “Rehearsing.”

  “Well,” Allie said. “I’m downright embarrassed over this, Virgil. Appaloosa is embarrassed.”

  “Pretty sure Appaloosa don’t give a shit,” Virgil said.

  “They do,” she said.

  Allie turned sideways in her chair with her right elbow on the dining table and her shoulders slumped. She looked like she was gonna cry.

  “Well, Allie,” I said, as I got out of my chair and gathered plates off the table. “If it’s any comfort to you, I really enjoyed this dinner you fixed tonight.”

  Allie wobbled her head a little and offered a slight smile.

  “Why, thank you, Everett,” Allie said. “At least one of you is grateful of me.”

  “Oh, goddamn, Allie,” Virgil said. “I’m grateful of you, Allie.”

  “Are not,” she said.

  “I am, Allie,” Virgil said. “I wasn’t the one that arrested him. Hell, I was the one that let him out.”

  “He was, Allie,” I said from the kitchen.

  “Really?” Allie said.

  “He was,” I said, coming back from the kitchen to gather more plates.

  Allie smiled a little. I think that made her feel better.

  “Well,” she said. “I know it has to be hard for them with this weather, the whole troupe cooped up in those trailers, going on days now.”

  Virgil nodded. He reached over and grabbed Allie’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

  “I love you, Allie,” he said.

  She smiled at Virgil.

  “I love you, too, Virgil.”

  Virgil got up from the table. He walked to the mantel and got a cigar from his cigar box.

  “You’re not gonna smoke that in here, are you, Virgil?” Allie said.

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” Virgil said.

  Virgil put on his coat and stepped out the front door.

  Allie got out of her chair and helped me finish cleaning off the table.

  “I don’t think Virgil really has a real bone to pick with Beauregard,” I said.

  “I’m not so sure,” Allie said. “I think he’s jealous.”

  “Virgil don’t get jealous,” I said. “You know that, Allie. Fact is, if there’s one thing he personally don’t know nothing about, it’s jealousy.”

  “Oh,” Allie said. “I suppose you’re right, Everett. Maybe that’s wishful thinking, what I miss.”

  “What you miss?”

  “A woman likes to know her man is so interested in her he don’t like to think about her having any other interest.”

  “You got other interest?” I said.

  “Of course not,” Allie said. “I’m speaking theoretically.”

  “Theoretically?”

  “Yes,” she said, then leaned her hip on the counter. “You know, a woman needs attention, Everett.”

  I poured some hot water that was heating on the stovetop in the dirty dishes into the washbasin.

  “Virgil just don’t like to see a woman, any woman, treated with disrespect. Whether she’s practicing or rehearsing or what,” I said.

  Allie was just looking at me. Watching me.

  “Most important, though,” I said. “Right now, we got bad dealings. A no-good bunch of business we’re dealing with, Allie, far more important business than Beauregard getting himself locked up and you needing attention. We got a two-hundred-foot bridge, no telling how many tons of iron that spanned the Rio Blanco River, blown up by somebody, somebody that is out there on the loose, and we got three Appaloosa law officials, good men, out there somewhere, missing.”

  —41—

  I walked the streets of Appaloosa. The city was quiet. The evening was cold, and most every business, even the saloons, was shut down. The snow had stopped, but it was deep and I couldn’t see where the boardwalks stopped and the streets began.

  The newly installed street lamps were not lit and there was no traffic moving about on the boardwalks or streets. It was cold, dead still, and silent out.

  I stopped in at the sheriff’s office and paid Chastain, Book, and Skinny Jack a visit.

  The three men were sitting around the warmth of the potbellied stove, playing blackjack on a crate, when I opened the door.

  “Howdy, boys,” I said.

  I kicked the doorjamb, freeing my trousers and boots of snow before I entered.

  The three of them looked at me with somber expressions.

  “You get some word?” I said.

  They shook their heads.

  “No,” Chastain said. “We just keep thinking they’ll walk through the door any minute.”

  I nodded.

  “Just me,” I said, and closed the door behind me.

  I walked over to the men and looked down at the card game.

  “Who’s winning?” I said.

  “I am, of course,” Book said.

  “Chubby shit’s a card counter,” Chastain said.

  “I can’t help it if I’m a good thinker,” Book said.

  “Shit,” Skinny Jack said. “Just luck.”

  I put my eight-gauge in the gun rack behind the desk. And hung my shell belt next to it on a hook.

  “Find out any news of Walton Wayne Swickey’s whereabouts?” I said to Chastain.

  Chastain sat back and shook his head.

  “Not as of yet,” Chastain said. “Got a number of wires out. The office said they’d let me know first response.”

  “Need to find him,” I said.

  “I will,” Chastain said.

  “Like Cole asked, I contacted the governor’s office with his wire,” Chastain said. “I let them know about the bridge. ’Spect they will know something shortly.”

  “’Spect they will,” I said.

  I walked back over near the desk. I could see Bolger through the open door between the cells and office. He was looking at me. I looked back at him.

  I nodded to him and he looked to the floor. I continued to look at him sitting there on the bunk and then something occurred to me, something that I’d not thought about.

  Could by God be . . . I thought, as I walked over to the door and looked in on him.

  “Bolger?” I said.

  He looked up.
/>   “Hum?”

  “Let me ask you a question,” I said.

  “You can ask,” Bolger said. “Can’t guarantee you any answers, though.”

  “Tell me about the buckboard,” I said.

  “What buckboard?” he said.

  “The one you used to take the goods up to the bridge camp,” I said. “That buckboard.”

  “What about it?”

  “It yours?” I said.

  Bolger just looked at me.

  “Is it?”

  “Is,” he said. “Why?”

  “Where is it?”

  “Got stoled.”

  “Somebody took it?”

  “Yep.”

  “Your brother?” I said.

  Bolger looked away from my eyes.

  “He the one who took it?”

  “Now, why would my brother steal my buckboard?”

  “You tell me?” I said.

  “He didn’t,” Bolger said.

  “You and him got into it?” I said.

  “He’s gonna find you,” Bolger said.

  “Didn’t you?” I said.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” Bolger said.

  “You and your brother?” I said. “When you traveled back and forth to the bridge camp, did you use the shortcut?”

  Bolger just looked at me.

  “Not a trick question,” I said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Did you?”

  “Shortcut?” Bolger said.

  “Yes.”

  “What if we did?” he said.

  “I’m just wondering,” I said.

  “We ain’t stupid.”

  “So you did?”

  “Like I said, ain’t stupid,” Bolger said. “Saved over an hour on the road. Why?”

  “Just curious,” I said.

  “’Bout what?”

  “You know some men that worked at the camp,” I said. “Brothers, named Cotter?”

  Bolger just looked at me with a blank expression on his face.

  “Do you?”

  Bolger shook his head, but I could tell he knew something of what I was talking about.

  “Your brother? He know them?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Your brother cut you out of the deal?” I said.

  Bolger just looked at me.

  “Did he?”

  “What deal?”

  “You know goddamn good and well what deal I’m talking about,” I said.

  “I don’t,” he said.

  “You do,” I said.

  Bolger looked down and spit on the floor, then looked up to me.

  “I don’t,” he said. “You done?”

  “Almost.”

  “Good.”

  “It was just Ballard who hauled the dynamite,” I said. “Wasn’t it?”

  “Dynamite?” Bolger said.

  “Yep.”

  “I don’t know nothing about no goddamn dynamite,” he said.

  “You got into a fight and he cut you out of the deal, didn’t he?” I said.

  “You’re pissing in the wind,” Bolger said.

  “Am I?”

  “You are.”

  “He don’t give a shit about you, Bolger,” I said. “Does he?”

  Bolger didn’t say anything.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “You think about it. If you come up with any information, you let me know. I will talk to the judge when he gets here and let him know how you are interested in not going to prison for attempting to kill a law officer.”

  Bolger just stared at me.

  “Night, Bolger,” I said.

  I closed the door on him.

  —42—

  I walked back to my room. I thought about returning to Virgil’s place and talking with him about Bolger and my summation about Ballard’s involvement about the buckboard and the men at the bridge, but I figured it could wait until morning.

  When I got back to my room I found a note lying on the pillow of my bed. Hot bath? Windsor Hotel. Room 12. Séraphine.

  I was tired but only thought about the invitation for the amount of time that it took for me to hear the door of my room above the survey office close behind me.

  Next to the Boston House, the Windsor Hotel was supposedly the nicest hotel in Appaloosa. An English couple that had made a successful go of it in the textile business back east operated the hotel. It was a classy establishment next to the depot that catered to stopover train travelers.

  When I got to the hotel, a bell dinged above the door. The lobby was dark and empty. There was some light coming from a room behind the counter and a young man stepped out as I neared the front desk.

  “Deputy Marshal Hitch, I presume,” he said with a distinct British accent.

  “I am.”

  He retrieved a key and held it out for me.

  “Been expecting you,” he said. “Top of the stairs. To your right, down the hall.”

  I walked up the steps, and when I got to the top and turned right, I saw her standing at the far end of the hall.

  “I heard you,” she said.

  I removed my hat as I walked down the hall to meet her.

  She was wearing a nightgown that hung to the floor, covering her feet. The light coming from the open door of her room lit one side of her body like an old-world painting. Venus, I thought, as I walked toward her.

  Her long, dark hair was pulled up on top of her head with errant strands falling free, as if the whole of it were about to give way.

  I moved close to her without saying anything. I could smell her intoxicating perfume. Her eyes were looking up at me. It was like before, like she was seeing into me, into my soul.

  For a long moment we just stood looking at each other, then she said softly, “Bonsoir.”

  I leaned in and kissed her. She put her hand on the back of my neck and pulled me tight to her as she kissed me back. I leaned on her slightly and she moved back to the open door of her room. She slid her free hand up under the back of my coat and pulled my body to her. We kissed, hungry, like long-lost lovers. Then I pulled back and looked at her. Her eyes glistened with a haunting, otherworldly fire.

  This felt like a dream to me. Everything felt as though I was on the outside looking in. The journey Virgil and I been through, the hour of the evening, the coldness of the weather, the deep snow outside, and her, here in my arms. Goddamn.

  “What’s this about a hot bath?” I said.

  “This is a fine establishment,” she said. “Look.”

  I looked into the room. There was a fancy claw-foot tub in the corner.

  “How about that?” I said. “And water?”

  “It’s all here,” she said. “Let me show you.”

  She led me into the room and shut the door.

  The room was small but elegant. There was an ornate cast-iron-and-brass stove in the corner opposite the tub. Two brass five-gallon buckets sat next to the stove full of water.

  “I’ll be damned,” I said.

  “No,” she said, “never. This much I know.”

  She put one of the buckets on top of the stove, then looked back to me and nodded for me to . . .

  “Undress,” she said.

  I just looked at her a moment.

  She looked at me back; she smiled and nodded again, looking to my clothes.

  “You won’t get any argument from me,” I said.

  I took off my coat and vest and hung them on a coatrack next to the door, then I sat in a chair in the corner and took off my boots.

  “I’d ask you how you knew I was back, but I guess I don’t have to,” I said.

  “No,” she said, “you don’t, but I will tell you.”

  “Friends, no doubt?”

  She shook her head and smiled.

  “I saw you and your partner come in, with the wounded man,” she said. “I was walking the boardwalk and I saw you.”

  I stood up and undi
d my trousers and let them drop to the floor.

  “Where were you walking to?” I said, as I unbuttoned my shirt. “Or from?”

  “No place,” she said.

  —43—

  I sat in the hot-water tub as Séraphine bathed me. She scrubbed my head with some special soap laced with rose, ginger, and rosemary. Then she lathered a wood-handled scrub brush with some other sweet-smelling soap and commenced to clean me. She scrubbed my arms and chest, then leaned me forward and scrubbed my shoulders and back. She moved to the other end, and starting with my feet, worked her way up my legs. I leaned back in the tub and closed my eyes.

  “Best goddamn bath I’ve ever had in my life,” I said.

  She smiled and worked her way up my calves past my knees and scrubbed my thighs.

  I looked at her.

  She set the scrub brush aside, slid her hands under the water, and worked her hands up my thighs.

  “I believe I’m pretty clean.”

  She smiled.

  “I believe you are indeed.”

  She moved up and kissed me and I kissed her back.

  She stood and got me a towel as I lifted myself from the water. I reached for the towel, but she held it back.

  “I clean,” she said, “and I dry.”

  She dried me some and I stepped from the tub. I took the towel from her and dropped it. I reached for her and pulled her to me. I kissed her, then turned her around and lifted her nightgown up. She raised her arms and I pulled the gown up and over her head. She turned and faced me.

  “I will remember you,” she said.

  “Remember me?”

  “Oui,” she said.

  “Where are you going?” I said.

  “No place.”

  “Then why do you say you will remember me,” I said.

  She moved, taking my hand and leading me to the bed. She pulled back the covers and slid her slender body between the folds. I moved in beside her.

  “You see something else?” I said.

  Her blue eyes were moist. She said nothing. She just stared at me.

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m the one that’s going?”

  “What I know is what I told you.”

  “Nothing else?” I said.

  She shook her head.