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  Ironhorse

  Virgil Cole & Everett Hitch [5]

  Parker, Robert B.

  Putnam Adult (2013)

  * * *

  Tags: Virgil Cole Everett Hitch, Robert Knott

  Virgil Cole Everett Hitchttt Robert Knottttt

  * * *

  Itinerant lawmen Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch return in a brilliant new addition

  to the New York Times-bestselling series.

  For years, Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch have ridden roughshod over rabble-

  rousers and gun hands in troubled towns like Appaloosa, Resolution, and

  Brimstone. Now, newly appointed as Territorial Marshalls, they find themselves

  traveling by train through the Indian Territories. Their first marshaling duty

  starts out as a simple mission to escort Mexican prisoners to the border, but

  when the Governor of Texas, his wife and daughters climb aboard with their

  bodyguards and $500,000 in tow, their journey suddenly becomes a lot more

  complicated.

  The problem is Bloody Bob Brandice. He and Virgil have had it out before, an

  encounter that left Brandice face-down in the street with two .44 slugs lodged in

  him. Now, twelve years later on a night train struggling uphill in a

  thunderstorm, Brandice is back — and he's not alone. Cole and Hitch find

  themselves in the midst of a heist with a horde of very bad men, two beautiful

  young hostages, and a man with a vendetta he's determined to carry out.

  NOVELS BY ROBERT B. PARKER

  THE SPENSER NOVELS

  Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Sixkill

  Painted Ladies

  The Professional

  Rough Weather

  Now & Then

  Hundred-Dollar Baby

  School Days

  Cold Service

  Bad Business

  Back Story

  Widow’s Walk

  Potshot

  Hugger Mugger

  Hush Money

  Sudden Mischief

  Small Vices

  Chance

  Thin Air

  Walking Shadow

  Paper Doll

  Double Deuce

  Pastime

  Stardust

  Playmates

  Crimson Joy

  Pale Kings and Princes

  Taming a Sea-Horse

  A Catskill Eagle

  Valediction

  The Widening Gyre

  Ceremony

  A Savage Place

  Early Autumn

  Looking for Rachel Wallace

  The Judas Goat

  Promised Land

  Mortal Stakes

  God Save the Child

  The Godwulf Manuscript

  THE JESSE STONE NOVELS

  Robert B. Parker’s Fool Me Twice

  (by Michael Brandman)

  Robert B. Parker’s Killing the Blues

  (by Michael Brandman)

  Split Image

  Night and Day

  Stranger in Paradise

  High Profile

  Sea Change

  Stone Cold

  Death in Paradise

  Trouble in Paradise

  Night Passage

  THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS

  Spare Change

  Blue Screen

  Melancholy Baby

  Shrink Rap

  Perish Twice

  Family Honor

  THE VIRGIL COLE NOVELS

  Blue-Eyed Devil

  Brimstone

  Resolution

  Appaloosa

  ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER

  Double Play

  Gunman’s Rhapsody

  All Our Yesterdays

  A Year at the Races

  (with Joan H. Parker)

  Perchance to Dream

  Poodle Springs

  (with Raymond Chandler)

  Love and Glory

  Wilderness

  Three Weeks in Spring

  (with Joan H. Parker)

  Training with Weights

  (with John R. Marsh)

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa), Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North 2193, South Africa • Penguin China, B7 Jiaming Center, 27 East Third Ring Road North, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2013 by The Estate of Robert B. Parker

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada

  ISBN 978-1-101-61716-8

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  FOR JULIE

  Contents

  Also by Robert B. Parker

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Ch
apter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Acknowledgments

  1

  VIRGIL WAS SULLEN. Other than “yep” and “nope,” he hadn’t said much in the last few days. We crossed the Red River and entered the Indian Territories aboard the St. Louis & San Francisco Express out of Paris, Texas. At just past five o’clock in the afternoon, Virgil broke the silence.

  “A good pointer don’t run through a covey,” Virgil said.

  I tipped my hat back and looked at him. He was gazing out the window, watching a line of thunderclouds spreading across the western skies.

  The St. Louis & San Fran Express was a new breed of train. It was the nicest we’d been on since we traveled up from Mexico, with automatic couplers, Westinghouse air brakes, and a powerful Baldwin ten-wheel engine capable of pulling twice as many cars as other locomotives. The fourth and fifth cars back were first-class Pullman sleepers with goose-down beds and leaded-glass transom windows. The coaches were fancy, too, with luminous pressure lamps, mahogany luggage racks, tufted seats, velvet curtains, and silver-plated ashtrays. Virgil and I sat at the back of the last passenger car. Behind us was a walk-through freight car followed by a stock car that carried livestock, including Virgil’s stud and my lazy roan.

  After near twenty years doing law work with Virgil Cole, I knew well enough he wasn’t talking about hunting, but I obliged.

  “No, a good pointer takes it slow. Moves steady,” I said.

  Virgil continued looking out the window and nodded slowly.

  “They do, don’t they,” he said.

  “They do if they’re trained right.”

  Virgil watched the clouds for a moment longer, then looked back to me.

  “What was the name of the philosopher we were reading about in the Dallas newspaper the other day?” Virgil thought some, then answered his question: “Peirce?”

  “Charles Peirce.”

  “Charles. That’s right,” Virgil said. “What was it they called him the father of?”

  “Pragmatism . . . He’s a pragmatist.”

  “That’s right. Pragmatist . . . Hell, Everett, that’s you, too. You’re a pragmatist.”

  “Charles Peirce is a pragmatist,” I said.

  “You went to West Point, Everett. You’re educated.”

  “About some things.”

  Virgil glanced back out the window again.

  “You never said nothing.”

  “Said nothing about what?”

  A dark thundercloud in the far distance flashed a hint of white and silver lightning, and for a brief moment, the western horizon lit up some.

  “We’re talking about Allie; this is about Allie?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “What I’m getting at is, you might have apprised me not to run through it over a woman who’s got the disposition to do the things she does.”

  “Could happen to any man.”

  “Not Charlie Peirce.”

  Virgil hadn’t talked about Allie since Appaloosa, and his comment took me by surprise. Not so much by the elapsed time since he’d last talked about her, but by the comment itself. Virgil never asked, needed, or took advice from anybody, including me.

  “Better to pull up short than to run through it like a pup, you know that, Everett.”

  “I do.”

  “You never said anything.”

  “I did not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Not my place.”

  Virgil narrowed his eyes at me as if he’d eaten something that didn’t taste so good. He focused his attention back out the window.

  Virgil Cole was always steady—never rattled, never bothered, and incapable of confusion—but at the moment, something was sitting sideways with him.

  He shook his head a little.

  “I love that woman,” Virgil said.

  2

  AFTER OUR SHOOT-OUT with Sheriff Amos Callico and his clan in Appaloosa, Virgil was appointed territory marshal, and I was appointed his deputy marshal. The position was better suited for Virgil and me. It was better than being town sheriffs or city police. The job didn’t restrict us to one town. Our duties were to oversee everything within our territorial jurisdiction.

  On the third day after our new commission, we got orders to carry out the assignment we were on.

  Before we departed on this mission, Virgil selected Chauncey Teagarden and Pony Flores as interim deputies of Appaloosa. Chauncey and Pony were good gunmen. They had helped us in the altercation with Sheriff Callico and proved to be trusted allies.

  Our job was to collect two Mexican Wall Street con artists and deliver them to Mexican authorities in Nuevo Laredo. The job was a simple matter of transporting top-priority criminals. This was not something Virgil and I were accustomed to doing, but it was part of our new marshaling duties, and we did just that, transported criminals.

  Though there was a considerable amount of train travel involved, the journey was less than formidable, and Virgil and I got along with our prisoners.

  Virgil figured any man who could make money from people who stole the money in the first place couldn’t be all bad.

  The Mexicans spoke good English, were polite, and knew nothing about firearms. We played cards and even shared a bit of whiskey.

  Virgil intended to ride horseback on the return to Appaloosa, seeing the country, as he preferred to see it, from the view of the saddle, but a telegram he received the day we dropped off our prisoners to the federales in Nuevo Laredo changed our plans.

  I was not privy to the details regarding the telegram or who it was even from, but I figured the content of the telegram wasn’t good, and it had everything to do with Allison French. The devil is always in the details, or, better put, the devil is in Allison French.

  We had barely made it to the train station in Nuevo Laredo before we received word our prisoners had been placed in front of a firing squad and shot. Mexicans have a swift way of dealing with other Mexicans.

  It had been four full days on the rail before we were close to getting out of Texas. We had traveled up through San Antonio and Austin City, crossed the Brazos, changed to the Texas Pacific, and stopped for a spell in Dallas. There, we got a big T-bone dinner near the Trinity River, walked the horses a good bit, and hoteled for the evening. In the morning, we got a plateful of food at a Hungarian café near the depot and boarded the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas line heading north into Indian territory.

  We had been within roping distance of the Chickasaw Nation and were leaving Texas behind before we got detoured just south of the Red River. The MK&T track running north from Sherman was under repair, so we had to catch the Pacific Transc
ontinental line, a sixty-mile jaunt east to Paris, Texas. We made a final stop in Paris. It took a while to make the changeover there, so I walked the horses again before we transferred to the St. Louis & San Fran Express and headed back north.

  —

  Currently, the Express was struggling a bit up a steep grade.

  Virgil slid a cigar from his breast pocket, bit off the tip and spat it out the window. He fished out a match, dragged the tip of it on the iron frame of the seat in front of him, and lit the cigar. After he got it going good, he repeated what he’d previously said.

  “I do,” he said. “I love her.”

  “Except for the unfortunate stint of whoring, you or me have killed all the men she has been with,” I said encouragingly.

  “Got no guarantee,” Virgil said.

  I thought about that for a moment.

  “No,” I said. “I suppose you’re right about that.”

  Virgil shook his head slightly and turned, looking out the window.

  “Been enough, though,” Virgil said.

  “There has.”

  “Can’t say there might not be more.”

  “No, we can’t.”

  Virgil got quiet. After a moment or two of silence I leaned forward a bit, looking at him.

  “That what this is about?”

  Virgil looked at me.

  “You thinking she’s fucking Chauncey Teagarden?” I said.

  3

  VIRGIL DIDN’T ANSWER my question. He focused on the cigar in his hand and rolled it back and forth between his fingers and thumb. Then he looked out the window at the rocky terrain passing by.

  Besides the rail we were riding—the St. Louis & San Fran—the Atchison/Topeka, Santa Fe/Burlington, Rock Island & Pacific, and the MK&T railways connected all the Five Civilized Tribes that made up the majority of the territories: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. The sixty-mile detour east had us crossing the river and entering the Indian Territories into the Choctaw Nation, as opposed to the Chickasaw Nation. Other than the additional sixty miles of travel, the only real notable difference for us taking the St. Louis instead of the MK&T and entering the Choctaw Nation was the wooded and rough terrain ahead. The rail leaving Texas and heading north was a treacherous winding rise up, up, and up, following the swift waters of the Kiamichi River.

  “We’ve been gone a good while,” Virgil said.

  “We have.”

  “Just how long have we been gone?”