Robert Parker - Blue-Eyed Devil

Virgil nodded slowly.

“Kinda what I was afraid of,” he said.

Pony looked at me and put out his hand.

“Everett,” he said.

“Pony.”

He looked at Teagarden.

“Gracias,” he said.

Teagarden shook his hand.

“On down the road,” he said.

Pony nodded. He looked at Allie.

“Señorita,” he said.

She was holding her apron up to her face.

Virgil stood in front of Laurel with his hands at his sides.

“Wherever you go. Whatever happens. You got some people here who love you.”

She nodded. Then put her arms around Virgil and buried her face in his neck and cried. He put his arms around her and stood expressionless, holding her comfortably until she was through.

She stepped away from him and looked at Pony.

“Chiquita,” he said, and put out his hand.

She swung up behind him. He turned the horse and kicked him into a trot and they left. All of us watched as they rode off. Allie sniffled loudly.

“Nice ceremony,” Teagarden said.

EMMA SCARLET wore a red wig for business, but since we were more friends than anything else, and since this morning we had finished our business already, she left the wig on its holder while we drank coffee in her room.

“So, the girl ran off with the half-breed,” Emma said.

“Laurel,” I said. “With Pony Flores.”

“Love,” Emma said.

“I guess.”

We drank some coffee.

“I think Allie was a little upset,” I said.

“You do,” Emma said.

“Think she was planning on some fine eastern gentleman,” I said.

“For crissake, Everett, Laurel didn’t even talk.”

“’Cept to Virgil,” I said. “And ’fore she left she said Pony’s name out loud.”

“Golly,” Emma said.

“She might have been losing her baby, but she’d only had a baby for a couple years.”

“And maybe she didn’t mind,” Emma said.

“No?” I said.

“Maybe she didn’t like the competition,” Emma said.

“Competition with who?” I said.

“Laurel,” Emma said.

“For?”

“Virgil,” Emma said.

“Virgil wouldn’t lay a hand on Laurel,” I said.

“Don’t matter what Virgil would do,” Emma said. “It’s what Allie fears that matters.”

“You think Allie was afraid Virgil would run off with Laurel?” I said.

“’Course she was,” Emma said.

“I don’t see that,” I said. “I known them since they been together. Virgil never run off on her.”

“She ever run out on him?” Emma said.

“She did,” I said.

Emma was still naked from our time of business, and as she talked she leaned back and looked at her extended leg.

“Where’d she end up?”

“Pig wallow in Placido,” I said. “On the Rio Grande.”

“How’d she get out of there?”

“Me and Virgil found her, took her out,” I said.

“And if you hadn’t?”

“She’d a died,” I said.

“So, he owes her leavin’,” Emma said.

“More than one,” I said.

“And if it weren’t for him she’d be fucking her life away in some dump down by Mexico.”

“So, she’d be worried about anybody,” I said.

“Especially a young girl starting to come of age that speaks only to Virgil?”

I nodded and drank some coffee.

“Hadn’t thought of it that way,” I said.

“’Course you hadn’t,” Emma said. “She’s a woman.” She waved her naked leg around. “You only think of her this way.”

“You don’t seem to mind,” I said.

She shrugged and pointed her toes.

“Not with you,” she said.

SOMEONE HAD SET UP a steam saw at the corner of Main and Second Street, and you could hear it eighteen hours a day, every day, all over town. It was like the base melody for an orchestra of hand tools: hammers, chisels, mallets, and handsaws hovering in lighter cadence. The raucous language of the laborers formed a vocalization.

Several saloons had set up tents with plank-and-barrel bars, and enough people got drunk to keep me and Virgil in business from our headquarters on what was left of the Boston House’s front porch.

Virgil was looking at it all.

“We had this many government folks before,” Virgil said, “Kah-to-nay wouldn’t have attacked.”

“And Callico has kissed the ass of every one of them since,” I said.

“The hero of the recovery,” Virgil said.

“Lot people will remember him for it, and be grateful,” I said. “He knows a lot of people. He’s brought in lot of money for rebuilding.”

“The savior of Appaloosa,” Virgil said.

“Been better if he never lost it in the first place,” I said.

“Would,” Virgil said.

A big lumber wagon pulled by eight oxen drudged up Main Street past us toward the steam saw with a load of logs.

“When they get that cut up,” I said, “think they’ll cure it proper?”

“Nope.”

I smiled.

“Be good not to buy a new building in town for a few years,” I said. “Let it dry out.”

A handsome two-bench buggy went by in the other direction, pulled by two gray horses. A driver sat on the front seat, and in back was General Laird, with Chauncey Teagarden beside him. Chauncey was wearing a black jacket with conchos, and his ivory handle gleamed in contrast.

“Chauncey’s looking good,” I said.

“He is good,” Virgil said.

“He still here for you, you think?”

“Be my guess,” Virgil said.

“Because of the son,” I said.

“Yep.”

“What are they waiting for?” I said.

“Chauncey likes to play the fish for a rime, ’fore he catches him,” Virgil said. “And during the recent Indian thing we was kinda useful.”

“I got another theory,” I said.

“Figured you would,” Virgil said. “Bein’ as how you went to West Point and all.”

“Things are in a state of some flux,” I said.

“ ‘Flux’?” Virgil said.

“Like flow,” I said. “Things are moving and changing.”

“Does a river flux?”

“No, it flows,” I said.

“Don’t it mean the same thing?” Virgil said.

“Pretty much,” I said. “Except people just say it the way they say it.”

“So, things are fluxing,” Virgil said.

I nodded.

“So, Laird may be thinking it’s a good idea to have a first-rate gun hand available until things shake out.”

“That would be Chauncey,” Virgil said.

“And if Chauncey kills you,” I said, “he probably would need to go away.”

“Not, I’m betting, because of Amos Callico,” Virgil said.

“Maybe, maybe not. Depends how things are when he has to decide. But Stringer might come down from the sheriff’s office. Hell, I might even get sort of bothersome ’bout it.”

“It would make sense for Chauncey to flux on out of Appaloosa after he killed me,” Virgil said.

“Which,” I said, “would leave Laird without the gun hand that he might need if, say, he finds it too hard to get along with Callico.”

“Nicky probably done that work for him before,” Virgil said.

“Or wanted to,” I said.

Virgil shook his head sadly.

“Wasn’t good enough,” he said.

“But Chauncey is,” I said.

“Maybe,” Virgil said.

“And if you kill him…” I said.

“Laird’s gotta find somebody else.”

“Ain’t too many in Chauncey’s class,” I said.

“Nope.”

“So, we wait and watch,” I said.

“Yep.”

“Least he won’t back-shoot you,” I said. “He’ll come at you straight on.”

Virgil nodded.

“Be too bad if I have to kill him,” Virgil said. “He’s been pretty useful so far.”