Robert Parker - Blue-Eyed Devil

“Virgil Cole?” Teagarden said.

“Yep.”

“Chauncey Teagarden.”

Virgil nodded. Neither man put his hand out.

“You was up in Telford,” Virgil said.

“Indeed,” Teagarden said.

“Osage County War,” Virgil said.

Teagarden nodded.

“Pleasure,” Teagarden said.

“Likewise,” Virgil said.

Since they had come in sight, each had looked exclusively at the other.

“Not doing law work,” Teagarden said.

“Nope.”

“You and Hitch keeping order in some saloons,” Teagarden said.

“Yep.”

Then Teagarden nodded slightly.

“Well, I’m glad I got to meet you,” Teagarden said. “The great Virgil Cole.”

Virgil didn’t comment.

“Maybe see you again,” Teagarden said.

“Maybe,” Virgil said.

Teagarden turned and walked off down Main Street. Virgil watched him go.

“Says he’s just drifting,” I said.

“He ain’t just drifting,” Virgil said.

“Here on business?”

“He’s here to kill somebody.”

“You now that,” I said.

“It’s what he does,” Virgil said.

“Why’d he want to see you?”

Virgil smiled.

“So he’d know what I looked like,” Virgil said.

“You think it’s you?” I said.

“I don’t think he was just being neighborly,” Virgil said.

“Anything personal?” I said.

“Chauncey Teagarden? Hell, no. He got no feelings. Somebody hired him.”

“We know who that would be,” I said.

“Probably,” Virgil said.

“We gonna do anything about it?” I said.

“We’ll await developments,” Virgil said.

I WAS LEAVING the Boston House to start my evening rounds when Laurel came full speed through the swinging doors and ran into me. I caught her and held her for a moment as she looked wildly around the room.

“Virgil?” I said.

She nodded. I knew she couldn’t talk to me. So with my arms still around her I bellowed back into the saloon for Virgil. When he appeared I let her go, and she pressed herself against him. He put his head down, and she whispered in his ear. Virgil listened to Laurel completely, like he always did.

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll go out and you can sit with me and Everett while we discuss this.”

Laurel nodded. We sat in front of the saloon.

“Laurel says that Allie told Mrs. Callico that Pony and his brother are up in Resolution.”

Laurel leaned over and whispered for a long time to Virgil. He nodded gravely as he listened. Then, when she stopped, he spoke to me.

“Laurel says Mrs. Callico’s first name is Olivia.”

He looked at Laurel. She nodded.

“Says Mrs. Callico told Laurel to call her Aunt Olivia.” I smiled.

“But since Laurel don’t talk,” Virgil said, “don’t make much difference what she calls her.”

“True,” I said.

“Laurel says she thinks Mrs. Callico is a horse’s ass,” Virgil went on. “But that Allie thinks she’s the queen of England or somebody.”

“So, she told her where Pony went, to suck up,” I said.

Laurel pulled at Virgil’s sleeve, and he leaned down again. She whispered to him. Virgil nodded.

“Allie was bragging about how she can get her way when she wants it,” Virgil said. “Told Mrs. Callico that she made us send Pony away.”

“You tell her that?” I said to Virgil.

“I did,” Virgil said. “Thought she’d like it.”

I nodded.

“Keep forgetting that you can’t always count on her,” he said.

“Easy mistake to make,” I said. “Shot Choctaw Brown for you in Brimstone.”

“Keep remembering that,” Virgil said. “Keep forgetting how we got to be in Brimstone in the first place.”

“Have to assume she’ll tell Amos,” I said.

“And there’s a reward on both Pony and Kha-to-nay,” Virgil said.

“Figure we should ride up there,” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“We’ll go on home, and tell Allie we got to go north for a few days,” Virgil said to Laurel. “You don’t say a word to her ’bout anything you told me.”

Laurel nodded. Then she leaned close to Virgil again and whispered.

When she was done, Virgil said, “Don’t worry ’bout Pony. Pony can take care of himself pretty good. And we’ll go up.”

Laurel nodded. She leaned over again. Again Virgil listened carefully.

Then he said, “Nothing going to happen to Pony Flores. I promise.”

She whispered again. Virgil nodded.

“You promise, too, Everett?” he said.

“I promise,” I said to Laurel.

She looked at Virgil. He nodded. She looked at me. I nodded. Then she nodded back at both of us. And smiled.

LAUREL’S SO QUIET,” Virgil said. “Folks forget she’s there, and they say things in front of her.”

“Think she’ll ever talk?” I said to Virgil.

“Talks to me,” Virgil said.

“Think she’ll ever talk to anybody else?” I said.

“Don’t know,” Virgil said.

We were riding easy down a low slope. The horses had settled in for the ride, and picked their way comfortably through the prairie grass. It was warm. The sun was at our backs. And we had a ways to go before we got to Resolution.

“Know why she won’t talk to anybody but you?” I said.

“No more’n you,” Virgil said.

“Had to do with what happened to her,” I said. “But Pony and me saved her, too. How come she only talks to you.”

“Knows I’m the smart one,” Virgil said.

I nodded.

“Probably it,” I said. “I wonder if we took her back east. Boston. Philadelphia. Someplace like that. Maybe a doctor could fix her, or a school, something.”

“She don’t want to go,” Virgil said.

“She said so?”

“She did,” Virgil said. “I asked her and she said no.”

“Maybe she oughta go anyway,” I said. “For her own good.”

Virgil shook his head.

“Child’s sixteen years old,” I said. “How she gonna meet a husband? Have children? Live a life? She won’t say nothing.”

“Allie’ll work with her,” Virgil said.

I didn’t say anything. Ahead of us a sage hen flurried up and canted off with a lot of wing flapping before she resettled maybe a hundred yards from us.

“We both know Allie got her problems,” Virgil said after a while.

“We do,” I said.

“Allie’s had a lot of hard times of her own,” Virgil said.

“And you and me can’t do it.”

“No.”

“That monthly stuff, and all,” Virgil said.

“We can’t do it,” I said.

“So, we got to let Allie do it,” Virgil said. “She’s trying.”

“And we got no one better,” I said.

“Nope.”

“Maybe we can find a way to send Allie back east with her.”

Virgil shrugged.

“Ain’t gonna make Laurel go,” Virgil said.

“Maybe we should.”

“Done too much she don’t want to do,” Virgil said. “She don’t want to talk, she don’t have to.”

“No,” I said. “I s’pose that’s right.”

“Make it our business to see to it she don’t have to do what she don’t want to,” Virgil said.

“Her whole life?”

“Long as is needed,” Virgil said.

“Might mean in the end she don’t get to do things she does want to,” I said.

“I can see to that, too,” Virgil said.

“Not so sure you can,” I said.

Virgil shrugged.

“Hell,” he said. “Talking ain’t worth so much, anyway.”

LAW IN RESOLUTION was still Cato and Rose. Frank Rose was a big, showy guy with a handlebar mustache and two pearl-handled Colts. Cato Tillson was small with droopy eyes and a sharp nose. He carried one Colt, with a dark walnut handle. They were both good with Colts. Cato maybe a little better.