Robert Parker - Brimstone

“No,” Cates said. “God, no. It’s respect. It’s like a hero has come to town.”

Virgil looked at me.

“Hero,” he said.

“That’d be you,” I said.

“Maybe you boys don’t take it serious, but I’m here to tell you that we do.”

“ ‘ We’?” Virgil said.

“Everybody,” Cates said. “I got a proposal for you.”

Virgil didn’t say anything. If Cates minded that, it didn’t show.

“My shotgun lookout works ’bout twelve hours a day,” Cates said. “He needs a break.”

“Any law in town?” Virgil said.

“Never needed none,” Cates said.

Virgil nodded.

“Like to hire you to sit shotgun,” Cates said. “Couple hours a day is all, start of the evenin’.”

“Draw a crowd?” I said.

“Sure would,” Cates said. “The great Virgil Cole? Sitting shotgun in Los Lobos? Good gracious. It would put this whole damned town on the map.”

“And make you some money,” I said.

“Sure would; why I want to do it. But what’s good for me is good for the town, and the other way around as well.”

“How much,” Virgil said.

“Give you a dollar a day,” Cates said.

“Each,” Virgil said.

“You and Everett?” Cates said.

“Uh-huh.”

Cates looked at the bar, which was two deep now with people drinking and watching Virgil. He looked at me and back at Virgil. Then he nodded.

“Done,” he said.

He went into his pocket and took out two silver dollars and put them on the table.

“First day in advance,” he said.

Virgil picked up the coins and gave one to me.

“Don’t know how long I’ll be in town,” he said.

“Long as you’re here, the deal stands,” Cates said.

“I’m looking for a woman,” Virgil said.

Cates grinned and waved his hand toward the back of the saloon.

“Take your pick,” he said.

“Woman named Allison French,” Virgil said.

“Can’t say I know her,” Cates said.

“Sings,” Virgil said. “Plays the piano.”

“In saloons?” Cates said.

“Yep.”

“Lotta saloons in town,” Cates said. “I can ask around.”

“Do,” Cole said.

WE TOOK A ROOM in the Grande Palace Hotel, which was not accurately named, and agreed to live on Virgil’s dollar a day and save mine for when we moved on. During Virgil’s shift on lookout, I sat around Los Lobos and observed. During the day we strolled around the ugly little bare-board town and asked about Allie.

“When’s the last time you did a lookout job?” I said to Virgil after the first night.

“Sorta helped you out a year ago up in Resolution,” he said.

“But when did you actually earn money at it?” I said.

“ ’Fore I met you,” Virgil said.

“Close to twenty years,” I said.

“Yep.”

“How’s it feel?” I said.

“People come here to look at me, Virgil Cole, the famous shooter. I feel like I’m in a circus.”

“But…” I said.

“Need the money,” he said.

“And we can’t steal it,” I said.

“Can’t do that,” Virgil said.

We were having breakfast in a cook tent that had no name, only a sign outside that said EAT. Virgil put down his coffee cup and looked at me.

“Ain’t gonna talk about this ’cept once,” Virgil said. “I got something I got to do. So I will do whatever I have to do to do it.”

“Lotta do’s in there, Virgil.”

“You know what I’m saying.”

I grinned at him.

“I do,” I said.

“And you’re with me.”

“I am,” I said.

“Because that’s how we are,” Virgil said.

I nodded.

“It is,” I said.

“So I’m gonna sit lookout until we know that Allie ain’t here. Then we gonna move on.”

“I know,” I said.

Virgil picked up his coffee cup and drank some.

“Coffee ain’t very good,” he said.

“Better than no coffee,” I said.

Los Lobos was regularly jammed with Virgil-watchers at the beginning of the evening. On the third night we were there, Cates came in and walked over to my table. I noticed that people made room for him quite carefully as he walked through the crowd. He seemed to be the most pleasant man in the room. But people were careful around him.

“Evenin’, Everett,” he said.

“Cates,” I said.

“Mind if I sit with you?”

“Have a seat,” I said.

Cates sat; the bartender brought him whiskey and two glasses. He poured himself a glass and offered some to me.

I shook my head.

“I’ll drink a little beer,” I said.

“Backing up Cole?” Cates said.

“Something like that.”

“That why you got the shotgun?”

“Didn’t know what else to do with it,” I said. “Leave it someplace and somebody’ll steal it.”

Cates looked at the shotgun for a moment.

“That’s some big load,” he said.

“Eight-gauge,” I said. “Brought it along with me when I left Wells Fargo.”

“Blow a big hole,” Cates said.

“Does,” I said.

“Shotgun messenger?” Cates said.

“Yep.”

“When’d you do that?”

“After I got out of the Army, I did a little of this, a little of that, ’fore I met Virgil.”

“You enlisted?”

“Nope.”

“West Point?” Cates said.

“Yep.”

“I’ll be damned,” Cates said. “You never got along too well with the Army, I’m guessing.”

“Lotta rules,” I said. “How about you. How’d you end up here?”

“Come into a little money, sort of unofficial like,” Cates said. “Bought this place when it was a rattrap. Hundreds of ’em. Got a couple big mean tomcats, fixed it up a little, and things are starting to build.”

“Nothing like a tomcat,” I said.

“Coyotes got one of ’em, but the other one’s still working here,” Cates said.

“Feed him?”

“Nope. He stays nice and fat on his own.”

“Good thing,” I said.

“Self-supporting,” Cates said.

Cates poured himself a little more whiskey and looked at it in the glass. The room was thick with smoke, and noise, and the smell of whiskey.

“You still looking for that girl?” Cates said.

“Yep.”

“Don’t know if it’s the right one, but there’s a girl named Frenchie, works out of a saloon in the river end of town. Used to sing and play the piano some, they tell me. But she was pretty bad, so she mostly now just works on her back, if I can say that to you.”

“You can,” I said. “Won’t do anybody any good to say it to Virgil, though.”

There were some cards being played along the left wall of the saloon, and the whores clustered at the back, foraying out now and then for a prospect, taking him out through a door in the back of the room. They were generally not gone for long.

“No,” Cates said. “I figured it wouldn’t. Why I’m talking to you.”

“What’s the saloon?” I said.

“Barbary Coast Café,” Cates said.

I smiled.

“Do get some names round here,” Cates said. “Don’t we.”

“As grand as it sounds?” I said.

“No,” Cates said.

We both looked at Virgil sitting motionless in the high chair, looking at nothing, seeing everything.

“Don’t use a shotgun,” Cates said.

“Mostly no,” I said.

“Guess he don’t need one,” Cates said.

“Virgil don’t need much,” I said.

I LEFT THE EIGHT-GAUGE with the bartender and went out into the darkening street. The dust was nearly ankle-deep on top of the hard-baked dirt beneath it. I walked toward the river. If I hadn’t known where it was, I could have followed the smell of it. Around Los Lobos, among the saloons and bordellos, there were a few commercial enterprises that sold cloth and feed and nails. As I got closer to the river the shops disappeared and there were only saloons and whorehouses. The Barbary Coast Café was the last place on the street. It stood right up against the mudflat that bordered the depleted river. This time of year the Rio wasn’t very grand. In spring the mudflats would be covered with water. But now there was mostly mud, with just enough water running down the center to remind us it was a river.