Robert Parker - Brimstone

Then I saw the Indian.

He stepped out from the rocks with his rifle, looking around the hollow. He wore his black coat and hat. His face was painted black and I could see where the coat was open red stripes painted on his naked chest. I cocked the shotgun. He heard it and looked up at me, and Virgil stepped out from behind the rocks. He had his Colt but not his Winchester.

“Buffalo Calf,” he said.

The Indian turned slowly and looked steadily at Virgil.

“You,” he said.

“Me,” Virgil said.

“You know my name,” the Indian said.

“I do,” Virgil said.

“What’s your name,” the Indian said.

“Virgil Cole.”

“You are not with Pike,” the Indian said.

“Nope.”

“How many are you?”

“Everett up in the rocks,” Virgil said. “Pony Flores over to your left.”

The Indian nodded.

“Everett has a shotgun,” the Indian said. “I heard both hammers cock.”

“Eight-gauge,” Virgil said.

The Indian nodded.

“I had planned to kill you,” he said. “You and Pike.”

Virgil nodded.

“Now, maybe, you will kill me,” the Indian said.

“Maybe,” Virgil said.

“I would wish to have killed Pike first,” the Indian said.

“Why?” Virgil said.

“Things from our past,” the Indian said.

“Put down the Winchester and we’ll take you back to Brimstone,” Virgil said.

“To a white-face jail,” the Indian said.

“Yes.”

“To be hanged by a white-face judge,” the Indian said.

“Probably,” Virgil said.

The Indian nodded.

“Virgil Cole,” he said.

Virgil said nothing. The Indian bent over slowly and laid the rifle on the ground. Then he straightened and there was a big bowie knife in his hand. He came straight at Virgil. Virgil never moved, until, with no apparent hurry, he drew and fired and hit the Indian in the chest. The Indian kept coming. Virgil shot him twice more before he went down, the knife still in the Indian’s hand. He crawled forward a little farther, then stopped. His whole body seemed to convulse with effort, and then it was still. He was dead at Virgil’s feet. Virgil opened the cylinder, ejected the spent cartridges, and reloaded the Colt. Then he put the gun back in his holster and squatted on his heels and looked at Buffalo Calf.

WE LAID THE INDIAN SIDEWAYS over the back of his horse, and tied him in place. We got our own animals and went down the slope, leading the paint horse with Buffalo Calf’s body. We rode for maybe half an hour on the flat plain before we came up to the posse. Pike was riding in the lead. When he saw us he stopped the posse and sat waiting for us, peering at us through the rain, until we got close enough for him to make everything out.

“You got to him first,” Pike said to Virgil.

“We did,” Virgil said.

Pike swung off his horse and walked to the dead Indian. He took hold of the Indian’s hair and raised his head and looked at his face.

“Buffalo Calf,” Pike said.

“Buffalo Calf,” Virgil said.

Still holding the Indian’s head up, Pike reached behind him and took a knife from his belt.

“No,” Virgil said.

I never did understand how Virgil got that sound in his voice. But when he said “No,” it was like the closing of an iron valve. Everything stopped.

“I want his scalp,” Pike said.

“No,” Virgil said.

Pike stepped back away from Virgil. I eased my eight-gauge out of its scabbard and rested it across my thigh. On Virgil’s left, Pony looped his reins over the horn of his saddle. Pike looked at Virgil and then looked back at his posse.

“Virgil,” he said. “There’s twenty of us.”

Virgil said, “Anybody puts a hand on a weapon, Pike, and I’ll kill you.”

“For a dead fucking red nigger,” Pike said, “stole two women, killed three men, we know of?”

“Four,” Virgil said.

“You’d fight all of us for that?”

“Be my plan,” Virgil said.

Pike looked at me.

“Everett?” he said.

“I’m with Virgil,” I said.

He looked to Virgil’s left.

“You, Pony?” he said.

“Virgil,” Pony said.

Pike backed off another step.

“You think you’re good enough to kill me?” he said.

“Yes,” Virgil said.

The rain was still coming down. Not hard but steady. The horses all had their heads down so it wouldn’t get in their eyes and nostrils.

“You think you can kill us all?” Pike said.

“Be some of you left when we go down,” Virgil said. “But you won’t be one of ’em.”

Virgil scanned the posse.

“Rest of you can try to figure which ones’ll be left,” he said.

We all sat our horses, except Pike, who still stood in front of Virgil. He took off his hat and held it at his side. The rain began to bead on his bald head. It might have been kind of a pleasant rain if I hadn’t been wet since yesterday. Then, very deliberately, Pike put the knife back in his belt. He shook the water off his hat and put it back on. He grinned.

“Just a damn Comanche buck,” Pike said. “No need for white men to die over him.”

Virgil didn’t speak.

“Hell, Virgil,” Pike said. “We’ll all ride back together.”

“We’ll trail along behind you,” Virgil said.

“You don’t trust me, Virgil?”

“Never did,” Virgil said. “You’re too damned jolly for me.”

Pike laughed.

“I don’t think you can beat me anyway,” he said.

“Never know till we’ve tried it,” Virgil said.

Pike laughed again and swung his bulk up onto his horse.

I put the eight-gauge back in its scabbard. Pike turned the posse. We fell in behind it.

And we headed back to Brimstone.

IT WAS HARD TO SAY if the Ostermueller girls, mother and daughter, had a reaction to Buffalo Calf’s death. Mary Beth was drunk now, nearly all the time. And Laurel still didn’t speak, except, now and then, in a whisper, to Virgil. Virgil didn’t report what she said.

Laurel did, however, take to hanging around the sheriff’s office, first only when Virgil was there, but after a time, when either of us was there. She’d come in and sweep up, and make fresh coffee, and sit quietly on the old couch and look out the window. She never spoke. But when Virgil was there, she watched him nearly all the time.

Mary Beth, when she was sober enough, was making a living on her back in Pike’s Palace. It wasn’t much of a living because she wasn’t taking very good care of herself, so she was the whore of last resort most of the time. She was often too drunk to perform. What little money she did make went for booze.

Virgil and I were sitting on the front porch in the bright morning, drinking some of Laurel’s fresh coffee, while she swept up inside. The sun was warm after days of rain, and the town was full of energy.

“What’d you do with the Indian’s horse?” I said.

“Gave him to Pony,” Virgil said.

“What’d Pony do with him?” I said. “Damn thing was barely broke.”

“Pony shot him,” Virgil said. “So Buffalo Calf would have something to ride in the spirit world.”

“Pony believe that?”

“Don’t know,” Virgil said.

“But Buffalo Calf probably did,” I said.

“I guess,” Virgil said.

“Pony ain’t so far from the wickiup himself,” I said.

“ ’Pears not,” Virgil said.

We were quiet while we watched a team of red-and-white Ayrshire oxen pull a big freight wagon up Arrow Street.

“Nice-looking team,” I said.

“Me and Allie been talking ’bout Laurel,” Virgil said.

I nodded.

“She ain’t getting no mothering that’s worth anything,” Virgil said. “ ’Cept what she gets from Allie.”