Brimstone vcaeh-3 Page 7

  “Can’t get across,” I said. “ ’Less he’s willin’ to wait while we find a place to ford.”

  Virgil didn’t say anything. He kept looking at the Indian.

  “And a’course if he’s willing to wait for us,” I said, “who else is waiting behind the swale over there.”

  Virgil and the Indian kept looking at each other. I wondered if the Indian knew that Virgil would know him twenty years from now if he saw him again. On the other hand, maybe the Indian would know Virgil, too.

  “You could probably shoot him from here,” I said. “Bein’ as how you’re Virgil Cole and all.”

  “He ain’t done nothing,” Virgil said.

  “Might have,” I said.

  “Can’t shoot a man for sitting on his horse.”

  “Hell, Virgil, he’s an Indian,” I said. “Mighta killed this poor fella and stole his horses.”

  “Can’t shoot a man for sitting on his horse,” Virgil said again.

  “What are we gonna do about the dead gentleman,” I said.

  “Wagon’s too heavy for our two horses,” Virgil said. “And he’s starting to smell. We’ll go get the undertaker.”

  “And leave him here?” I said.

  “He ain’t in no hurry,” Virgil said.

  “I suppose he ain’t,” I said.

  We mounted up and turned the horses back toward town with the river on our left. The Indian turned his horse and rode along with us.

  “He stays with us to the edge of town, there’s a ford,” I said.

  “He’ll be gone by the time we reach the ford,” Virgil said.

  And he was.

  25

  THE UNDERTAKER REPAIRED the dead man enough for us to display him outside the undertaker’s shop. People came to look at him and before noon we knew who he’d been. His name was Peter Lussier. Worked on a spread ten miles down the Paiute. No wife. No kids. He’d been on his way into town to buy supplies for the cook shack.

  “Wonder why that Indian spent so much time showing himself to us?” Virgil said.

  “Don’t know,” I said.

  “Them red beasties can be strange,” Virgil said.

  “They ain’t as strange as we like to think they are,” I said. “They got reasons for what they do, just like us. Except sometimes they don’t.”

  “Just like us,” Virgil said.

  “Yep.”

  Virgil drank some coffee.

  “Every morning,” he said, “Allie comes down here and makes us coffee and leaves, and we throw it away and make some new coffee.”

  I nodded.

  “Whadda you think of that?” Virgil said.

  “Better than drinking hers,” I said.

  “A’course,” Virgil said. “But don’t you think there’s something wrong with it?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “But she’s trying to translate herself,” Virgil said. “You know, make herself different?”

  “Transform,” I said.

  “That’s right,” Virgil said. “She’s trying to transform herself.”

  “And you don’t want to tell her it ain’t working,” I said.

  “Well, maybe it is,” Virgil said. “Except she can’t make coffee.”

  “Or sew or iron or wash clothes,” I said. “Or cook.”

  “Hell,” Virgil said. “She can’t sing and play the piano, either, but she been doing it for years.”

  “I thought you liked her piano playing,” I said.

  “God, no,” Virgil said. “You?”

  “No,” I said. “Singing, neither.”

  It was still raining, and the water ran down the windows in the front of the office, changing the shape of everything moving in the street. Virgil sipped his coffee and looked at the rain.

  “She used to be fun,” Virgil said. “Now she working so hard to make it up to me, she ain’t fun anymore.”

  “She is pretty drab,” I said.

  “Drab,” Virgil said.

  “Sorta no color,” I said. “Boring.”

  He nodded.

  “Drab,” he said. “That’s her. Drab.”

  “Maybe if you was to say something to her.”

  Virgil shook his head.

  “Know the only thing she’s good at?” Virgil said.

  “Not firsthand,” I said.

  Virgil nodded.

  “She’s good at it,” Virgil said.

  I nodded.

  “Built for it,” he said.

  “I notice she’s filled back out, since we come here,” I said.

  “She has,” Virgil said.

  “But…” I said.

  “Ain’t ready yet,” Virgil said.

  “Why not?” I said.

  “Got to think it through,” Virgil said.

  “You love her?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking through,” Virgil said.

  “We come all the way down here looking for her,” I said. “And killed four men to get her out of Placido, and you don’t know if you love her.”

  “Thought I did when we come down here,” Virgil said.

  “But?”

  “But I can’t seem to get past what she done yet,” Virgil said.

  “The men or the running off, or both.”

  “Understand the running off,” Virgil said. “She felt shamed. But the other men.”

  “It didn’t work out for her,” I said. “You seen where we found her.”

  “No,” Virgil said. “And I don’t have no problem with the whoring when she didn’t have no choice. Feel bad for her. But I don’t have no problem.”

  “Bragg?” I said.

  “Him, the other men, when she had a choice.”

  “Maybe she thinks she didn’t,” I said.

  “Then what she transforming for?” Virgil said.

  “Please you?”

  “It don’t please me.”

  “And you ain’t talked about it,” I said.

  “Can’t,” Virgil said.

  I nodded.

  “Neither one of us,” Virgil said.

  I nodded again.

  “Yet,” Virgil said.

  26

  WHEN ALLIE BROUGHT OUR LUNCH, Virgil and I were sitting outside the sheriff’s office watching the last of the whiskey get packed onto a wagon, in front of the Bluebell Saloon.

  “Isn’t that good?” Allie said.

  “The Bluebell?” Virgil said.

  “Yes, it’s closing. They’re going away.”

  “Some saloons left,” Virgil said.

  “Not so many,” Allie said. “Brother Percival says we’ve driven four of them out already.”

  “Pike’s Palace still doing well, though,” Virgil said.

  I knew why he said it. He was still thinking about Choctaw Brown being with Pike the night Pike killed three men. Virgil never forgot anything, and he never let anything go.

  “Brother Percival says Mr. Pike is running a much more Christian enterprise than the others.”

  Virgil said, “Uh-huh.”

  “I think they’re actually kind of friends,” Allie said. “I see them together sometimes.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “What’s Pike do that the others don’t?” Virgil said.

  “I don’t really know,” Allie said. “But I know Brother Percival sends some of the deacons over there regularly.”

  “How ’bout Deacon Brown?” Virgil said.

  “Yes, he goes over.”

  “And they go there to make sure,” I said, “that he’s running a Christian saloon.”

  Allie’s face sort of squeezed in on itself.

  She said, “Being Christian doesn’t mean being foolish, Everett. We know men have their needs.”

  She looked at the floor.

  “Women, too, I guess,” she said. “And we don’t expect everyone to be perfect. So we are working to get rid of the worst kind of vice dens, and try to maintain a better option.”

  “Why not let them decide for themselves,” I sai
d.

  Allie didn’t look at either of us. She stared down the street and watched the wagon pull away from the Bluebell.

  “People can’t always decide for themselves. When they do, many times they decide the wrong thing.”

  Neither Virgil nor I said anything.

  “And they can’t ever make it up,” Allie said. “They try and try, but the thing they did was too wrong… and they can’t fix it.”

  “Nothing can’t be fixed,” Virgil said.

  Allie turned her head toward him. She didn’t speak for a time. Virgil didn’t say anything else.

  “You really believe that, Virgil?”

  “I do,” he said.

  They looked silently at each other. Allie opened her mouth to speak and closed it without speaking. They looked some more.

  Then Allie said, “Here’s your lunch. I got to go practice on the organ now.”

  She handed the lunch basket to Virgil, who took it.

  He said, “Thank you, Allie.”

  She nodded and smiled sort of uncertainly, and then turned and headed south on Arrow Street toward the church. Virgil watched her go.

  “Something up between Percival and Pike,” Virgil said.

  “That what we was talking about?” I said.

  “Partly,” Virgil said.

  27

  THE HOUSE WAS LITTLE MORE than a cabin, with a stock shed next to it. In front of it, in the trampled dirt yard, was a dead man facedown with part of his head blown off. An arrow protruded from his back below the ribs. In the stock shed, a milk cow was making some noise.

  Virgil and I dismounted and went into the house. There were three rooms. All of them empty.

  “There’s women’s clothes in both bedrooms,” I said to Virgil. “But no women.”

  “And there’s a wagon and a plow in the yard but no horses,” Virgil said.

  “Somebody took ’em both?”

  “Maybe our Indian friend,” Virgil said.

  We went back into the yard and squatted on our heels beside the body. I shooed the flies away and pulled out the arrow.

  “Same kind of arrow,” I said. “No point.”

  The cow was still complaining in the shed.

  “Needs to be milked,” Virgil said.

  “Sounds that way,” I said.

  “You know how to do that?” Virgil said.

  “Nope.”

  “I do,” Virgil said, and went to the shed.

  The cow was in one stall; the other two stalls were empty. Virgil found a milking stool and began to milk the cow, letting the milk soak into the hard earth of the shed.

  “Shame to waste it,” I said.

  “Cow don’t think so,” Virgil said.

  While he milked the cow I studied what little sign there was on the hard-packed earth. When Virgil was through, he pitched some hay from the loft into the feed trough, and left the shed gate open.

  “We’ll take her back to town when we go,” Virgil said. “Maybe Allie can do something with her.”

  “Can’t read much here,” I said. “Ground’s too hard. But over there, leading toward the river, there’s the tracks of maybe three horses. Two of them probably shod, one of them not. I think.”

  We stood together over the dead body.

  “Killed the man,” Virgil said. “Took the horses and the women.”

  “A while ago,” I said.

  “He is getting kind of ripe,” Virgil said.

  “We don’t smell good when we’re dead,” I said.

  “Especially after a while,” Virgil said.

  “Probably don’t care, though.”

  “Probably don’t,” Virgil said.

  He was looking off in the direction where the hoof prints led.

  “Got a start on us,” Virgil said.

  “Yep, but if he’s traveling with two women,” I said, “he might be going slower than we will.”

  Virgil glanced suddenly over his shoulder back toward town. I could see dust rising along the road from town, and in another minute I heard the sound of horses and a wagon.

  “Be the undertaker,” Virgil said. “He can take the body. We’ll take the cow.”

  28

  VIRGIL WAS FEEDING SHELLS into his Winchester when Pike came into the sheriff’s office with a dark, lean, hard-looking man.

  “Virgil,” Pike said. “Everett.”

  We both nodded.

  “This here’s Pony Flores,” Pike said. “One of my employees.”

  “From the old days?” I said.

  Pike nodded.

  “Old days,” he said.

  Virgil and I both nodded at Flores. He nodded back.

  “Understand some Indians killed Tom Ostermueller, and took his wife and daughter.”

  “Something like that,” Virgil said.

  “You going after them?”

  “Yep.”

  “Posse?”

  “Nope.”

  “Posse’d just get in the way,” Pike said.

  “It would,” Virgil said.

  “Bunch of townspeople with guns,” Pike said.

  “Probably shoot their own horse, they ever have to clear a weapon,” Virgil said.

  “Lend you some of mine,” Pike said.

  Virgil shook his head.

  “Me ’n Everett will do,” he said.

  “Got a tracker?” Pike said.

  “Everett can track some,” Virgil said.

  “Pony can track a butterfly two days after,” Pike said.

  Virgil looked at me.

  “Where’d you learn to track?” I said.

  “Apache,” Flores said.

  “Pony’s mother is Apache,” Pike said.

  “Chiricahua,” Flores said.

  “That your real name?” Virgil said.

  Pony shook his head and said something in Apache. “Means what?” Virgil said.

  There was a brief expression on Pony’s face that might have been amusement.

  “Pony Running,” I said.

  “Okay if we stick with Pony?” Virgil said to Flores.

  “Okay.”

  “Father’s Mexican,” Pike said.

  “Can he talk for himself?” Virgil said.

  Pike smiled.

  “Try him,” Pike said.

  “Live with your mother’s people?” I said.

  “Some.”

  “Track as good as Pike says?”

  “Yes.”

  “Speak English okay?” I said.

  “Speak it good,” Pony said.

  “Just not often,” Virgil said.

  Pony looked like he might have smiled for a moment, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Speak Spanish?”

  “Sí.”

  “Any Comanche?”

  “A little bit,” Pony said.

  “Shoot?” Virgil said.

  “I can shoot,” Pony said.

  “Will you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why do you want to track for us?” I said.

  “Two women,” Pony said.

  “You know them?”

  “No.”

  “But you want to help us save them,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  Virgil and I looked at each other.

  “He’s good,” Pike said. “Been with me a long time.”

  “Good how?” Virgil said.

  “Colt, Winchester, knife,” Pike said. “Best tracker I ever saw.”

  “Keep his word?” Virgil said.

  “I do,” Pony said.

  Virgil looked at me.

  “Everett?” he said.

  “He can probably track better than I can,” I said. “What I learned I learned from Apache scouts.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “Okay,” he said. “I can pay you half a dollar a day. You supply your own horse and saddle, your own weapons and ammunition.”

  “Yes,” Pony said.

  29

  WE SAID GOOD-BYE TO ALLIE on the front porch of the house we were re
nting. It was just after sunrise, and she was barefoot and in her nightgown. She and Virgil put their arms around each other. But they didn’t kiss, and when he stepped back and swung up onto his horse, she smiled at me and patted my cheek.

  “Take care of each other,” she said.

  I got up on my horse.

  “Have somebody milk that cow every day,” Virgil said.

  “I will,” she said.

  None of us moved. Virgil looked down from the saddle at Allie.

  “I’ll come back,” he said.

  Then he wheeled the horse and I followed with the pack mule on a lead, and we rode up Third Street toward Arrow. Pony was mounted and waiting outside Pike’s Palace, and he swung in beside us as we rode south out of town. We stopped at the Ostermueller farm shack. Pony got down and spent maybe ten minutes looking at the ground, then mounted his horse and led us out toward the river where the tracks led.

  Once we were into the open, I took the mule off the lead. He’d follow the horses, and if he didn’t, one of us could haze him back.

  “You see more than one Indian?” I said.

  “No,” Pony said.

  “And two shod,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell if anyone’s riding the shod horses?”

  “Need to see tracks when no one rides them, and tracks when someone does,” Pony said.

  We rode south along the river most of the day. Pony rode quietly, looking at the tracks. Occasionally he would lean out of the saddle and study them, then he would resume.

  “Don’t seem worried ’bout covering his tracks,” Virgil said.

  “No,” Pony said. “But he don’t know I the one following.”

  Virgil grinned.

  “Figures we can’t track?” he said.

  “Yes,” Pony said.

  We came to a ford at the end of the day, and the tracks led into it. The sun was down, and it was hard to see the bank on the other side of the river.

  “Might want to camp this side,” Virgil said. “Kinda hate to get caught in the middle of the river in the near dark by a man with a rifle.”

  “We can cross in the morning,” Pony said.

  We made a fire and cooked some bacon and beans. I took a jug from the pack, and we passed it around while the supper cooked.