Robert Parker - Brimstone

I nodded.

“We want to take her in with us,” he said.

“And put her in my room,” I said.

“Figure you can bunk in one of the cells,” Virgil said.

“Fine with me,” I said. “You talk to Laurel about it yet?”

“No. Thought I better clear it with you first.”

“Girl that age shouldn’t be on her own,” I said. “ ’Specially after the things happened to her.”

“Allie can sort of look after her,” Virgil said. “Might be good for Allie, too.”

“Kid makes good coffee,” I said. “Maybe she can cook.”

“Be like finding gold, if she can,” Virgil said.

“Percival been bothering her?” I said.

Virgil didn’t say anything.

“You promised her you wouldn’t tell nobody what she told you,” I said.

“Yep.”

“You promise anything else?”

“Yep.”

“You promised her you wouldn’t do nothing,” I said.

Virgil shrugged.

“So, if Percival’s been poking her, and she told you about it, you can’t say nothing about it, and you can’t shoot him.”

Virgil shrugged.

“I didn’t make no promise,” I said.

“You give your word,” Virgil said, “you don’t weasel on it.”

“You mean you can’t let me do nothing.”

“I don’t want no one bothering Brother Percival,” Virgil said.

“Okay.”

“Time comes to bother him,” Virgil said, “I’ll do it.”

“You can bother hell out of someone, you really set your mind to it,” I said.

“I know,” Virgil said, and went into the office to talk with Laurel.

WE DEVELOPED A ROUTINE. Every morning Allie would drop Laurel off at the office, leave me some biscuits for breakfast, and then hustle away on God’s business. Or Brother Percival’s. Or one and the same. The biscuits would have stopped a bullet. Laurel would make coffee, sweep up the office, and sit on the couch. I would soak the biscuits in the coffee until they had softened up enough to eat. When the weather was good, I took my breakfast outside. Virgil usually saddled up and did a sweep of the town to start the day, so for a while it was just me and Laurel.

The third week we did this, Laurel brought some corn cakes for breakfast. They were still warm. It was worth sleeping in the jail.

“Allie make this?” I said.

She shook her head.

“Virgil?”

She shook her head. She didn’t smile, but I thought for a moment she might. I picked up the corn cakes and a cup of coffee and went out onto the porch. It was early, and the streets were still empty. I sat down. A coyote came out of the alley between the sheriff’s office and the bank next door. He paused in the middle of Arrow Street and looked at me. I looked back. Then he turned and trotted on across the street and into the alley across the street. Always good forage in a growing town. I sipped some coffee. There was a lot of sugar in it. Behind me the office door opened and Laurel came out and sat in the chair beside me.

“Want a corn cake?” I said.

She nodded. I held the plate toward her. She broke off a piece of one cake and held it in her hand. I took a piece and set the plate on the floor of the porch beside my chair. She took a very small bite. I ate some of mine.

“You cook better than Allie,” I said.

She chewed her corn cake.

“ ’Course, so do I,” I said.

She took another small bite. She sat straight in the chair with her feet flat on the floor and her knees together.

“Your mother teach you to cook?” I said.

I wasn’t looking at her, so I didn’t know if she nodded. I proceeded as if she had.

“Did a good job,” I said. “Taught you how to sit like a lady, too.”

I glanced at her. She was looking straight ahead.

“Hard now,” I said. “That she’s having so much trouble. Hard for you. Hard for her.”

Laurel was silent. Up the street a wagon pulled up outside of Pike’s Palace. The driver jumped down and tied up at the rail outside. There was a piano and a piano bench on the back of the wagon. In a minute Brother Percival came around the corner with Allie. Behind them came Choctaw Brown. Percival helped Allie into the wagon and she began to play loudly, some sort of unrecognizable church music. He climbed in beside her and rested his elbow on the piano. A few early drunks wandered out of the Palace and stared at the wagon. Virgil rode around the corner of Sixth Street and came down behind them and stopped and sat his horse to listen.

“Pike’s Palace,” Percival bellowed. “A palace of debauchery, a stench of whores and poisonous whiskey, a stench of sin, like rotting flesh, odious to God and to all who love Him.”

Allie played some more. Choctaw leaned against the wall next to the door of Pike’s Palace and looked faintly amused. Pike made no appearance. After a while, Percival stopped shouting. Allie stopped playing. They climbed down from the wagon and headed up Fifth Street with Choctaw trailing behind them. The wagon driver untied from the rail and climbed up on his wagon and drove back down Fifth Street. Virgil turned his horse and walked him down the street toward us.

I looked at Laurel.

“Allie don’t play the piano so good, either,” I said.

Laurel nodded almost vigorously.

When Virgil arrived and dismounted, Laurel jumped up and went in and got him some coffee.

“Thank you,” Virgil said. “You sit in the chair, Laurel.”

She shook her head. Virgil nodded as if to himself.

“There’s a chair beside my desk,” he said to Laurel. “Would you go get it and bring it out here?”

She nodded.

When she came out with it, Virgil said, “Put it there, between my chair and Everett.”

She did.

Virgil sat in the chair she’d vacated for him. He looked at Laurel and pointed at the chair she’d just brought out.

“Now sit in it,” he said to her.

She stared at him. Then she sat down between us.

“BIG DOINGS up at the Palace,” Virgil said.

I nodded.

“Surprising,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” Virgil said. “Kinda thought there was something going on between Percival and Pike.”

“Looks like there is, but it ain’t what we thought,” I said.

“Or it was what we thought, and now it ain’t,” Virgil said.

“Choctaw’s still trailing along,” I said.

“Yep.”

I watched a cluster of sparrows fluttering around the dried horse manure in the street. Virgil drank his coffee. A fancy little carriage went down the street past us, pulled by a sorrel horse with a black mane and tail. The sparrows flew up as it went by and settled directly back to breakfast when it was gone.

Laurel leaned over and pulled at Virgil’s sleeve. He put his head down, and she whispered to him. He nodded. She whispered some more. He nodded again and whispered to her. She looked at me for a moment. Then she nodded.

“Laurel says Pike and Percival had a big argument. I asked her if I could tell you about it, and she said yes.”

“Thank you, Laurel,” I said.

“Percival and Pike got together pretty often, Laurel says. Pike would come over to the compound, and he and Percival would have a drink together in Percival’s office, and they’d talk awhile…”

Virgil looked at Laurel.

“Can I tell the next part?” he said.

Laurel looked at me silently for a moment, then nodded her head.

“Then Pike would visit with Mary Beth.”

Laurel was watching me. There wasn’t anything to say. I nodded and looked at her and smiled. She kept looking at me.

“Just before Laurel moved in with Allie and me,” Virgil said, “Pike came over, they went to the office, and after a while there was a lot of yelling and the door yanked open and Pike came out. He said a bad word to Percival, and Percival says, ‘My kingdom is not of this earth.’ ”