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  Brimstone

  ( Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch - 3 )

  Robert B. Parker

  New York Times-bestselling author Robert B. Parker takes aim at the Old West with this brilliantly crafted follow-up to Resolution and Appaloosa, again featuring guns-for-hire Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch.

  When we last saw Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch, they had just put things to right in the rough-and-tumble Old West town of Resolution. It's now a year later, and Virgil has only one thing on his mind: Allie French, the woman who stole his heart from their days in Appaloosa. Even though Allie ran off with another man, Virgil is determined to find her, his deputy and partner Everett Hitch at his side. Making their way across New Mexico and Texas, the pair finally discover Allie in a small-town brothel. Her spirit crushed, Allie joins Everett and Virgil as they head north to start over in Brimstone. But things are not the same between Virgil and Allie; too much has happened, and Virgil can't face what Allie did to survive the year they were apart. Vowing to change, Allie thinks she has found redemption through the local church and its sanctimonious leader, Brother Percival. Given their reputations as guns for hire, Everett and Virgil are able to secure positions as the town's deputies. But Brother Percival stirs up trouble at the local saloons, and as the violence escalates into murder, the two struggle to keep the peace.

  As sharp and clear as the air over the high desert, Brimstone proves once again that Robert B. Parker is 'a force of nature' (The Boston Globe).

  Robert B. Parker

  Brimstone

  For Joan: Well worth the pressure

  1

  IT’S A LONG RIDE SOUTH through New Mexico and Texas, and it seems even longer when you stop in every run-down, aimless little dried-up town, looking for Allie French. By the time we got to Placido, Virgil Cole and I were almost a year out of Resolution.

  It was a barren little place, west of Del Rio, near the Rio Grande, which had a railroad station, and one saloon for every man, woman, and child in town. We went into the grandest of them, a place called Los Lobos, and had a beer.

  Los Lobos was decorated with wolf hides on the wall and a stuffed wolf behind the bar. Several people looked at Virgil when he came in. He wasn’t special-looking. Sort of tall, wearing a black coat and a white shirt and a Colt with a white bone handle. But there was something about the way he walked and the way the gun seemed so natural. People looked at me sometimes, too, but always after they looked at Virgil.

  “Think that wolf might’ve exprised of old age,” Virgil said.

  “A long time ago,” I said.

  “Exprised ain’t right,” Virgil said. “You went to West Point.”

  “Expired,” I said.

  “Means died,” Virgil said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Virgil believed in self-improvement. He read a lot of books and had a bigger vocabulary than he knew how to use. He sipped his beer.

  “Mexican,” he said. “Mexicans know how to make beer.”

  “How much money you got?” I said.

  “Got a dollar,” Virgil said.

  “More than I got,” I said.

  Virgil nodded.

  “Guess we got to get some,” he said.

  I grinned at him.

  “We got sort of a limited range of know-how,” I said.

  “Least we know it,” Virgil said.

  “Lotta saloons, lotta whores,” I said. “Not much else.”

  “Railroad station,” Cole said.

  “Why?” I said.

  “No idea,” I said.

  A tall, thin young man in an undershirt stood up from a table near us and walked over to us. He wasn’t heeled that I could see.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said to Virgil. “Boys at my table got a bet. Some say you’re Virgil Cole. Some say you’re not.”

  The young man hadn’t shaved lately, but he was too young to have much of a beard. His two front teeth were missing.

  “I am,” Virgil said.

  The boy looked over his shoulder at the others at his table.

  “See that?” he said. “See what I tole you?”

  Everyone stared at Virgil.

  “Seen you in Ellsworth,” the kid said. “I was ’bout half growed up. Seen you kill two men slick as a whistle.”

  “Slick,” Virgil said.

  The others at his table were all turned toward us.

  “How many men you figure you killed, Mr. Cole?”

  “No need to count,” Virgil said.

  Most of the room was looking at us now, including the bartender. The boy seemed to have run out of things to say. Virgil was silent.

  “Well, uh, it’s been a real pleasure, Mr. Cole, to meet you. Can I shake your hand?”

  “No,” Virgil said.

  The boy looked startled.

  “Virgil don’t shake hands,” I said to the boy. “He don’t see any good coming from letting somebody get hold of him.”

  “Oh,” the boy said. “A’course not. I shoulda known.”

  Virgil didn’t say anything. The boy backed away sort of awkwardly. When he got to his table, his friends gathered in tight and whispered together.

  “No need to be explaining me,” Virgil said to me.

  “Hell there ain’t,” I said.

  Virgil smiled. The kid at the next table got up and went out without looking at Virgil. A fat Mexican girl in a loose flowered dress came to the table.

  “Good time for joo boys?” she said.

  “Sit down,” Virgil said.

  “Buy drink?” she said.

  Virgil shook his head.

  “Nope,” he said. “You know a woman named Allison French?”

  The woman shook her head.

  “Probably calls herself Allie?” Virgil said.

  “No.”

  “Plays the piano?” Virgil said. “Sings?”

  “Don’t know nobody,” the Mexican woman said. “Round the world for a dollar. Joo friend, too.”

  Virgil smiled.

  “No,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “No drink?” she said. “No fuck?”

  “Nope,” Virgil said. “Anybody knows Allison French, though, they get a dollar.”

  The woman stood up and went back to the other girls in the back of the saloon. She was too fat to flounce, but she was trying.

  “Think she gets many dollars?” I said to Virgil.

  “Nope.”

  “Easy to turn down,” I said.

  Virgil shrugged.

  “She probably don’t like it, either,” he said. “Just doing what she gotta.”

  A group of four men came into Los Lobos and stood at the bar and looked at Virgil. Each of them had a whiskey. Pretty soon two more men drifted in, and then three, until the bar was crowded with men.

  “Looks like that kid been spreading the alert,” I said to Virgil.

  “ ’Fraid so,” Virgil said.

  “All of ’em look like town people,” I said. “Don’t see no cowboys.”

  “Nope,” Virgil said.

  “I’m feeling a little left out,” I said. “Nobody’s looking at me.”

  “That’s ’cause you’re ugly,” Virgil said.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Señorita offered me round the world for a dollar.”

  “She included you second,” Virgil said.

  “That’s just ’cause I ain’t famous like you,” I said.

  “Also true,” Virgil said, and drank the last of his beer.

  2

  “I GOT ENOUGH CHANGE,” I said, “I can buy two more beers. Save the dollar for a room.”

  “Maybe sleep in the livery stable,” Virgil said. “I’ve slept in worse than a hayloft.”

  “We been sleeping in worse for most of the l
ast year,” I said.

  Virgil nodded. He was looking at the bartender coming toward our table carrying a bottle and three glasses. With him was a short, wiry man. Not thin, exactly, but lean, sort of hard-looking, with a scraggly blond beard.

  “You’re Virgil Cole,” the wiry man said as he reached the table.

  Virgil nodded.

  “Like to buy you a drink, if I can,” the wiry man said.

  “Sure can,” I said, real quick, before Virgil could be unfriendly. You never knew with Virgil.

  I gestured at an empty chair, and the wiry man sat down. The bartender put three glasses on the table and poured a useful amount of whiskey in each one.

  “Name’s Cates,” the wiry man said. “Everybody calls me Cates.”

  Virgil nodded and sipped his whiskey.

  “Whiskey clears the throat,” Virgil said. “Considerable better than beer.”

  “It does,” Cates said. “You boys been traveling?”

  Virgil nodded.

  “This here’s Everett Hitch,” he said.

  “By God,” Cates said. “I heard a you, too.”

  “See that,” I said to Virgil.

  “You been with Mr. Cole for some time,” Cates said.

  “I have,” I said.

  Virgil grinned.

  “Well,” Cates said. “I’m proud to meet both you boys. Especially you, Mr. Cole.”

  “ ’ Specially,” Virgil murmured to me.

  “The great Virgil Cole,” Cates said happily, “right here, in my saloon.”

  Virgil looked at me without expression.

  “With his friend,” Virgil said.

  “Of course,” Cates said. “With his friend, Mr. Hitch.”

  “Everett,” I said. “And he won’t mind you call him Virgil.”

  Virgil nodded. Cates nodded. And we all drank. Cates picked up the bottle and poured us all some more. Cates looked around the room.

  “Look at the crowd,” he said. “Got to say you’re a big attraction, Virgil.”

  “Like a geek show,” Virgil said.

  “No,” Cates said. “God, no. It’s respect. It’s like a hero has come to town.”

  Virgil looked at me.

  “Hero,” he said.

  “That’d be you,” I said.

  “Maybe you boys don’t take it serious, but I’m here to tell you that we do.”

  “ ‘ We’?” Virgil said.

  “Everybody,” Cates said. “I got a proposal for you.”

  Virgil didn’t say anything. If Cates minded that, it didn’t show.

  “My shotgun lookout works ’bout twelve hours a day,” Cates said. “He needs a break.”

  “Any law in town?” Virgil said.

  “Never needed none,” Cates said.

  Virgil nodded.

  “Like to hire you to sit shotgun,” Cates said. “Couple hours a day is all, start of the evenin’.”

  “Draw a crowd?” I said.

  “Sure would,” Cates said. “The great Virgil Cole? Sitting shotgun in Los Lobos? Good gracious. It would put this whole damned town on the map.”

  “And make you some money,” I said.

  “Sure would; why I want to do it. But what’s good for me is good for the town, and the other way around as well.”

  “How much,” Virgil said.

  “Give you a dollar a day,” Cates said.

  “Each,” Virgil said.

  “You and Everett?” Cates said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Cates looked at the bar, which was two deep now with people drinking and watching Virgil. He looked at me and back at Virgil. Then he nodded.

  “Done,” he said.

  He went into his pocket and took out two silver dollars and put them on the table.

  “First day in advance,” he said.

  Virgil picked up the coins and gave one to me.

  “Don’t know how long I’ll be in town,” he said.

  “Long as you’re here, the deal stands,” Cates said.

  “I’m looking for a woman,” Virgil said.

  Cates grinned and waved his hand toward the back of the saloon.

  “Take your pick,” he said.

  “Woman named Allison French,” Virgil said.

  “Can’t say I know her,” Cates said.

  “Sings,” Virgil said. “Plays the piano.”

  “In saloons?” Cates said.

  “Yep.”

  “Lotta saloons in town,” Cates said. “I can ask around.”

  “Do,” Cole said.

  3

  WE TOOK A ROOM in the Grande Palace Hotel, which was not accurately named, and agreed to live on Virgil’s dollar a day and save mine for when we moved on. During Virgil’s shift on lookout, I sat around Los Lobos and observed. During the day we strolled around the ugly little bare-board town and asked about Allie.

  “When’s the last time you did a lookout job?” I said to Virgil after the first night.

  “Sorta helped you out a year ago up in Resolution,” he said.

  “But when did you actually earn money at it?” I said.

  “ ’Fore I met you,” Virgil said.

  “Close to twenty years,” I said.

  “Yep.”

  “How’s it feel?” I said.

  “People come here to look at me, Virgil Cole, the famous shooter. I feel like I’m in a circus.”

  “But…” I said.

  “Need the money,” he said.

  “And we can’t steal it,” I said.

  “Can’t do that,” Virgil said.

  We were having breakfast in a cook tent that had no name, only a sign outside that said EAT. Virgil put down his coffee cup and looked at me.

  “Ain’t gonna talk about this ’cept once,” Virgil said. “I got something I got to do. So I will do whatever I have to do to do it.”

  “Lotta do’s in there, Virgil.”

  “You know what I’m saying.”

  I grinned at him.

  “I do,” I said.

  “And you’re with me.”

  “I am,” I said.

  “Because that’s how we are,” Virgil said.

  I nodded.

  “It is,” I said.

  “So I’m gonna sit lookout until we know that Allie ain’t here. Then we gonna move on.”

  “I know,” I said.

  Virgil picked up his coffee cup and drank some.

  “Coffee ain’t very good,” he said.

  “Better than no coffee,” I said.

  ***

  Los Lobos was regularly jammed with Virgil-watchers at the beginning of the evening. On the third night we were there, Cates came in and walked over to my table. I noticed that people made room for him quite carefully as he walked through the crowd. He seemed to be the most pleasant man in the room. But people were careful around him.

  “Evenin’, Everett,” he said.

  “Cates,” I said.

  “Mind if I sit with you?”

  “Have a seat,” I said.

  Cates sat; the bartender brought him whiskey and two glasses. He poured himself a glass and offered some to me.

  I shook my head.

  “I’ll drink a little beer,” I said.

  “Backing up Cole?” Cates said.

  “Something like that.”

  “That why you got the shotgun?”

  “Didn’t know what else to do with it,” I said. “Leave it someplace and somebody’ll steal it.”

  Cates looked at the shotgun for a moment.

  “That’s some big load,” he said.

  “Eight-gauge,” I said. “Brought it along with me when I left Wells Fargo.”

  “Blow a big hole,” Cates said.

  “Does,” I said.

  “Shotgun messenger?” Cates said.

  “Yep.”

  “When’d you do that?”

  “After I got out of the Army, I did a little of this, a little of that, ’fore I met Virgil.”

  “You enlisted?”r />
  “Nope.”

  “West Point?” Cates said.

  “Yep.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Cates said. “You never got along too well with the Army, I’m guessing.”

  “Lotta rules,” I said. “How about you. How’d you end up here?”

  “Come into a little money, sort of unofficial like,” Cates said. “Bought this place when it was a rattrap. Hundreds of ’em. Got a couple big mean tomcats, fixed it up a little, and things are starting to build.”

  “Nothing like a tomcat,” I said.

  “Coyotes got one of ’em, but the other one’s still working here,” Cates said.

  “Feed him?”

  “Nope. He stays nice and fat on his own.”

  “Good thing,” I said.

  “Self-supporting,” Cates said.

  Cates poured himself a little more whiskey and looked at it in the glass. The room was thick with smoke, and noise, and the smell of whiskey.

  “You still looking for that girl?” Cates said.

  “Yep.”

  “Don’t know if it’s the right one, but there’s a girl named Frenchie, works out of a saloon in the river end of town. Used to sing and play the piano some, they tell me. But she was pretty bad, so she mostly now just works on her back, if I can say that to you.”

  “You can,” I said. “Won’t do anybody any good to say it to Virgil, though.”

  There were some cards being played along the left wall of the saloon, and the whores clustered at the back, foraying out now and then for a prospect, taking him out through a door in the back of the room. They were generally not gone for long.

  “No,” Cates said. “I figured it wouldn’t. Why I’m talking to you.”

  “What’s the saloon?” I said.

  “Barbary Coast Café,” Cates said.

  I smiled.

  “Do get some names round here,” Cates said. “Don’t we.”

  “As grand as it sounds?” I said.

  “No,” Cates said.

  We both looked at Virgil sitting motionless in the high chair, looking at nothing, seeing everything.

  “Don’t use a shotgun,” Cates said.

  “Mostly no,” I said.

  “Guess he don’t need one,” Cates said.

  “Virgil don’t need much,” I said.