Robert Parker - Brimstone

“But the cattle…” Allie said.

“Not my cattle,” Virgil said.

“But the poor cows,” Allie said.

“What you think them cows are for, Allie? Wolves eat ’em. People eat ’em. Don’t seem to me make much difference to the cow.”

Allie watched them until they were gone, and the mule settled back into his walk.

“How’d you see them so quick, Virgil,” Allie said.

“Eyesight’s good,” he said.

“But it’s more than that, isn’t it?” Allie said. “You always see everything.”

Virgil didn’t answer. We rode in silence for a while.

Then Allie said, “You know what I’d like to do again?”

Virgil didn’t say anything.

So I said, “What’s that, Allie.”

“I’d like to be Allie again.”

“Be nice,” I said.

“It would,” Allie said.

Virgil was looking at the landscape again.

“Virgil isn’t very talkative,” Allie said. “Is he, Everett.”

“Don’t seem so,” I said.

“Used to be a talker,” Allie said.

I nodded.

“How come you don’t talk to us, Virgil?” Allie said.

“Got nothing to say,” Virgil answered.

“When we were together in Appaloosa,” Allie said, “you used to talk a lot about nothing.”

“Lotta things happened since Appaloosa,” Virgil said.

“You thinking about all those things, Virgil?” Allie said.

“Yep.”

“Wasn’t easy on me, you know?” Allie said.

“I know.”

“You gonna stop thinking about all that, one of these days?” Allie said.

“Might,” Virgil said.

Nobody said anything else. I looked over at Allie once and saw that her lips were moving. Appeared she was praying again. Other than that, we bumped along in silence until we reached the Paiute River, where we made camp and slept under the buckboard.

WE HEADED NORTH ALONG the Paiute at sunrise, and by the middle of the afternoon we were in a hotel in Brimstone, Allie and Virgil in one room, me next door.

“Heard you was out of the law business,” Dave Morrissey said when we went to see him.

“Was,” Virgil said.

“What changed your mind?” Morrissey said.

Virgil was silent for a moment.

“Well, some things bothered me,” Virgil said. “But Everett and I talked some, and now they don’t bother me so much.”

I was startled. First time he’d ever admitted that I had any influence on him.

“Anything else?” Morrissey said.

Virgil grinned.

“Need the money,” he said.

Morrissey nodded.

“Ain’t quite commensurate with the risk,” he said. “But only a fool would do it for free.”

“How ’bout you, Hitch?” Morrissey said.

He looked like he might have been a cowboy once, sort of bowlegged and smallish. He had a big drooping mustache, and wore a long duster.

“Well,” I said, “I done law and not law for a long time. Don’t make a lot of difference to me. I’m not too scared, and I’m decent with the eight-gauge.”

“That’s what that thing is,” Morrissey said. “Thought it might be a cannon.”

“Two barrels,” I said.

Morrissey grinned.

“God’s truth,” he said. “I heard about you boys, and when Sheehan telegrammed me I was interested. I’m told you’ll stand, and your word is good.”

“It is,” Virgil said.

“And I hire you, you won’t sell me out for a higher offer.”

“We don’t promise to work for you forever,” Virgil said. “But we won’t work against you, ’less you force it.”

“Fair enough,” Morrissey said. “What I told Sheehan was true, we’re booming. Cattle mostly. Railroad’s expanding, bigger herds coming in. I come down from Del Rio every once in a while, and a Ranger comes by every month or so. But right now there ain’t no permanent law here, and the place is growing like a damn weed.”

“Town grows too fast,” Virgil said, “leaves an empty space; people fight to fill it.”

“You’ve worked a lot of towns,” Morrissey said.

“We have,” Virgil said.

“The situation in this one is a little peculiar,” Morrissey said. “We have a fella named Pike. I don’t even know his first name. Everyone calls him Pike… Hell, maybe Pike is his first name.”

Virgil shrugged.

“Anyway,” Morrissey said, “he showed up here a few years ago with the remains of a gang that the Pinkertons chased into exhaustion.”

“They’ll do that,” I said.

“Sometimes,” Morrissey said. “He had a few of his boys with him and some money they probably stole from a railroad, and they bought a saloon at the north end of town. Never broke no law here. And they run a first-class operation. Booze is good, games are honest, girls are clean. They police themselves. No trouble. We’ve never even had to go up there since they been in town.”

“Model citizens,” I said.

“And then, ’bout a year ago, here come Brother Percival.”

“Percival,” Virgil murmured.

“What he calls himself,” Morrissey said. “Brother Percival.”

“Preacher?” I said.

“Yep,” Morrissey said. “Come to town with a tent show, preaching against sin like he was the first man to discover it. Nobody paid him much attention for a time. But he kept collecting people to his whatever it is, and then he built himself a church, brought in a damned organ from Kansas City. And him and some of the people come with him when he arrived, they decide to make a target of the biggest and best saloon in town.”

“Pike’s,” Virgil said.

“What’s Brother Percival want?” I said.

“Damned if I know. Maybe he is acting on behalf of the Kingdom of Heaven. Maybe he wants to take over Texas.”

“And Pike?” I said.

Morrissey smiled a little.

“He wants to take over Texas,” Morrissey said.

“Potential there for conflict,” Virgil said.

Morrissey nodded.

“You want the job?” he said.

“Sure,” Virgil said.

“COMMENSURATE?” Virgil said outside Morrissey’s office.

“Sort of like equal to,” I said.

“Might as well go right at ’em,” Virgil said. “See what we got.”

“Which one first?” I said.

“Start with Pike,” Virgil said.

“More our type,” I said.

“Ain’t so sure we got a type,” Virgil said.

Brimstone was about seven blocks wide and ten blocks long in a green bend of the Paiute River, which made it cooler than this part of Texas usually was. Pike’s Palace was halfway down Arrow Street, on the west corner of Fifth Street, putting it about in the center of the town. All around it, the town was busting out of its skin. Freight and lumber were being hauled through town. Buildings were going up, saloons and eating places were crowded, and there were two general stores, a bowling alley, two millinery shops, and two hotels already and a third one being built. The air was full of sounds: wagons creaking, men swearing, mules, oxen, carpentry, and black- smithing. At the north end of Arrow Street was a big town hall, almost finished. At the south end was a church with an imposing spire. There were boardwalks lining every street, and most of the buildings had roofed out over the boardwalk in front of them, so you could shelter from the sun in good weather and the rain in bad.

The saloon had a corner entrance and heavy oak doors, which were opened back in good weather and let you into a vestibule with swinging doors ornamented by stained-glass windows. Through the swinging doors was the saloon.

Wearing our new deputy stars, we stopped inside the doorway and looked around.

“Pike done himself proud,” Virgil said.

“Did,” I said.

Along the length of one wall, which seemed from inside to run nearly the whole block along Fifth Street, was an elaborate mahogany bar with a black mirrored wall behind it and bottles stacked in decorative pyramids. Along the other wall was a row of gaming tables, and in the open space between were tables and matching chairs. There was an ornate chandelier shedding light on the windowless room, and at the back a set of stairs that led to a second floor. The wide plank floors were polished. The bar top gleamed. The saloon whores were neat. And the glassware appeared clean. Four bartenders worked the bar, which was busy in the late afternoon, and a thin, dark, sharp-faced guy with a shotgun sat in the lookout chair near the far end of it. Virgil walked down the length of the bar to him.