Robert Parker - Blue-Eyed Devil

“Need money to go where you want to go,” Virgil said.

“Sure do,” Callico said. “One reason people like the general are important.”

“Reason why you charge folks a fee for police services, too,” Virgil said.

“Town don’t give us enough operating budget,” Callico said. “Got to do what I can.”

Callico smiled a big, friendly smile.

“Opened up a little business for you boys, too,” he said.

Virgil nodded.

“Did,” he said.

“I can do things like that,” Callico said.

Virgil and I didn’t say anything.

“I ain’t asking you boys for help. You’re the only ones round here could give me trouble. You stay out of my way, and I’ll consider it help.”

“We got no ill will,” Virgil said. “Do we, Everett.”

“Nope.”

“Good,” Callico said. “Thanks for the coffee.”

He stood and walked back down Main Street.

I looked at Virgil.

“You sure we don’t have no ill will?” I said.

Still studying the western horizon, Virgil smiled slowly. “Well,” he said. “Maybe a little.”

I HAD STARTED keeping company with Emma Scarlet. “Your partner killed General Laird’s son,” Emma said.

It was midafternoon and business was slow for both of us, so we took a siesta in her room.

“Yes,” I said.

“And I started it,” Emma said.

“I guess,” I said.

“It’ll get him in trouble with the general,” Emma said.

“Or it might get the general in trouble with Virgil,” I said.

The life hadn’t gotten her yet, and she still looked pretty good with her clothes off.

“General draws an awful lot of water, round here,” Emma said.

“I heard that,” I said.

“Be governor if he hadn’t been a reb,” Emma said.

“People still care?” I said.

“Not around here,” she said. “But lot of other voters. Don’t make much difference to me. I can’t vote, anyhow.”

“What you can do, though, you do pretty well,” I said.

“Pretty well?” she said.

“Best in the history of the goddamned world,” I said.

She giggled.

“Oh, Everett,” she said. “That’s real sweet.”

“Like me,” I said.

“Most men are scared of the general,” she said.

“Virgil ain’t,” I said.

“How do you know so sure?” Emma said.

“’Cause Virgil ain’t scared of anything,” I said.

“I feel kinda bad about Nicky getting killed,” Emma said. “You know? Like it was my fault. Couldn’t Virgil have just whonked him on the head with his gun?”

“Ever see a gunfight, Emma?”

“Sure, I have. I’m a whore. I work saloons. Seen a lot. Drunks, mostly. Usually they miss.”

“There’s another kind, too,” I said.

“Like the ones you and Virgil do?”

“Like those,” I said. “What I learned about those, I learned from Virgil. Because of what he does, what we do, mostly we’re outnumbered.”

“Like you were with Nicky,” Emma said.

“Yep. So we got to mean it, soon as it starts. No whonking people. No shooting them in the leg. They need to know, and we need to know, that we are ready to kill them.”

“Someone told me Nicky had six men with him,” Emma said. “How come they all didn’t just start shooting at the same time and kill both of you.”

“Couple reasons,” I said. “One, Virgil always makes it one against one. He always lets them know that if they draw first they are going to die first. And he’s so quick that he’s killed the first man before anyone else has cleared the holster. It tends to freeze everyone. Once they freeze, it’s over.”

“God,” Emma said. “You talk about this like it was some kind of regular work, like herding cows.”

“Seems like regular work after a while, I guess. How ’bout you?”

Emma giggled.

“Depends who I have to fuck,” Emma said.

“It would,” I said. “Wouldn’t it.”

“I do it ’cause, pretty much, I gotta. I got no money, no husband, don’t know how to do nothing else,” Emma said. “But you can do other stuff. You don’t have to do what you do. You been to the United States Military Academy. How come you just do gun work.”

“Me and Virgil,” I said. “We’re good at it. Hell, Virgil may be the best there is at it.”

“And you like that.”

“It’s pleasing,” I said. “To be good at what you do.”

“You like killing folks,” Emma said.

I thought about that for a while.

“Not so much killing,” I said. “But when we do it, and, Virgil would say, do it right, it’s like we say, This is us; this is who we are; this is what we do.”

“And you like that.”

“Guess we do,” I said.

“You think I’m good at what I do?” Emma said.

“Best in history,” I said.

“Want me to do it again?”

“One’s all I can afford,” I said.

Emma rolled over on top of me.

“On the house,” she said.

NICKY LAIRD had been dead for three weeks. I was in the Golden Palace explaining to a very drunk mule skinner why he couldn’t buy more whiskey on credit. He was kind of stubborn about it, so I hit him in the stomach with the butt of the eight-gauge and threw him off the front steps into Third Street.

I came back into the saloon, and a man came in behind me. He was wearing a beaded buckskin shirt, an ivory-handled Colt on his hip, and a derby hat tilted forward over the bridge of his nose. He looked like somebody from a wild west show, except, somehow, I knew he wasn’t.

“Nicely done,” the man said to me.

He had black-and-white striped pants tucked into high black boots, and his skin was smooth and kind of pale, like a woman’s. He didn’t look like he spent much time outside. His hands were pale, too, with long fingers.

“No guns,” I said, “allowed in the saloon.”

“Oh,” he said. “Of course. Perhaps we could step out onto the veranda.”

First time I ever heard it called a veranda. But we stepped out onto it anyway.

“No wasted movement,” he said when we were outside.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Nice long gun, too,” the man said. “Eight-gauge?”

“Yep.”

“Makes a big hole,” the man said.

“Does,” I said.

“You work here?” he said.

“Here and there,” I said.

“I’m looking for a fella named Virgil Cole,” the man said. “Might you be he?”

“Nope,” I said. “Name’s Everett Hitch.”

“Chauncey Teagarden,” he said. “You’re with Cole, are you not?”

He didn’t offer to shake hands. I didn’t, either.

“I am,” I said.

“Know where to find him?”

“I do,” I said. “Why do you want to see him?”

“Heard so much about him,” Teagarden said.

I nodded. We were both quiet.

“Seems to me,” I said after a short time, “that I’ve heard some ’bout you.”

“All good, I hope.”

“Heard you did gun work,” I said.

“Some.”

“What brings you to Appaloosa?” I said.

“Just drifting,” he said.

“Planning on staying?” I said.

“Don’t expect to be here long,” Teagarden said.

“Planning on any work while you’re here?” Teagarden smiled.

“See if any comes my way,” he said. “I’d surely like to meet Virgil Cole.”

“Probably sitting in front of the Boston House,” I said. “I’ll walk up with you.”

“’Preciate it,” Teagarden said.

WE LEFT the Golden Palace and turned up Main Street. Virgil was sitting where we sat, in front of the Boston House. He stood as we came toward him. There was nothing sudden in the movement. He was seated. Then he wasn’t. I’d never seen Virgil hurry, except that everything he did, he seemed to do it before anyone else.