ROBERT PARKER - Appaloosa

We were drinking coffee in the saloon one morning when I saw Cole sit up a little straighter and drop one hand lightly into his lap near his gun’s butt. I looked where he was looking and saw two men who looked like each other leaning on the bar. One of them nodded at Cole. He nodded back. The other one grinned.

“You know them?” I said.

“Shelton brothers,” Cole said.

“Can’t say I know them.”

“ ’Fore you was doing this work,” Cole said.

“They troublesome?” I said.

“Yes.”

“They ain’t packing,” I said. “That I can see.”

“You’ll know when they’re packing,” Cole said.

“Good?”

“Excellent,” Cole said.

“Good as you and me?”

“Might be,” Cole said. “Don’t know that they ain’t.”

“One of ’em shoot better than the other?”

“Can’t say. Ring’s the older brother, on the right. Other one’s name is Mackie.”

“Do look alike,” I said.

“They are alike. And they’re close. Never seen nobody closer. See one, you see ’em both.”

“Fight one?” I said.

Cole nodded.

“Fight ’em both,” he said.

“They do law work?” I said.

“They do gun work,” Cole said.

“So what would they be doing here?”

“Might have something to do with Bragg.”

I looked at the Shelton brothers for a while. Ring had taken his hat off when he had come in, and set it on the bar. He didn’t have much hair, except for a kind of long fringe that looked like it was turning gray. He had a thick neck and longish arms and sloping shoulders that looked strong but not all that wide. His legs were bowed some, and it made him shorter than he might have been otherwise. Mackie had his hat still on. He was taller than Ring, and his legs were straighter. The hair that showed under his hat was sort of reddish. But he had the same thick neck and long arms. There was a bottle of whiskey on the bar between them, and each of them had a glass. Ring picked up the bottle, and he and Mackie came to the table.

“Virgil,” Ring said.

“Ring.”

“You remember my brother,” Ring said.

Virgil nodded.

“Mackie.”

Mackie said, “Virgil.”

“This here is Everett Hitch,” Virgil said.

We all nodded.

“Can we set?” Ring said.

Virgil gestured toward the empty chairs. Ring put the whiskey bottle on the table, and the Shelton brothers sat down.

“Want a taste?” Ring said.

Virgil shook his head and tapped the marshal star on his shirt.

“Still doin’ that,” Ring said.

Virgil nodded.

“Well, we ain’t,” Ring said.

He poured some whiskey into Mackie’s glass and some into his own. He sipped some of his and smiled.

“Good,” he said. “Think it’s corn.”

He looked at me.

“You as good as Virgil with a gun?” he said.

“Never been tested,” I said.

“I hear you been with him for a while.”

“I have.”

“So you seen him work; what would you guess, you and him was to go at it?”

“Never seen no one better than Virgil,” I said.

“But you ain’t saying you’re not as good.”

“I ain’t discussing it, the truth be told,” I said. “How ’bout you?”

“Like you,” Ring said. “Never seen no one better.”

“You ever meet anybody better’n you, Virgil?”

“Guess I haven’t,” Cole said. “I’m still here.”

“Guess that’s true,” Ring said. “How ’bout him?”

He nodded at me.

“He’ll do,” Cole said.

“He as good as us?” Ring said. “Me and Mackie?”

“He’ll do,” Cole said.

I was looking at Ring’s hands. With his thick shoulders and his bowed legs, Ring looked like a cowboy. But his hands on the tabletop were clean and flexible, and the nails were trimmed. I thought they looked like the kind of hands you might see on a painter.

“What are you and Mackie doing in town?” Cole said.

“Everybody got to be somewhere, don’t they, Mackie?”

Mackie nodded. Where his brother had sort of wide eyes that bulged a little, Mackie’s looked heavy-lidded and half open all the time.

“Gonna be here long?” Cole said.

“Can’t say. Heard there was a big trial comin’ up, might want to take that in. I like a good trial,” Ring said. “Mackie, too.”

“Well,” Cole said. “You been in some of my towns before. You know the rules.”

“I surely do,” Ring said. “You know the rules, don’t you, Mackie?”

Mackie had a mouthful of whiskey. He swallowed.

“I know them rules,” he said.

His voice was a kind of hoarse whisper. It sounded as if it was an effort to speak. Across the room, Allie French came in wearing a pink dress and came straight up behind Cole and kissed him on the top of his head, and stood with her arms draped over his shoulders.

“This here is Mrs. French,” Cole said.

They all said hello. Ring and Mackie both looked at her steadily. She looked back at them without flinching. The king’s lady. Let them stare. Cole didn’t like it much. But he hadn’t made any laws about looking at Allie French. He stood.

“Mrs. French and me are going perambuling in a buggy,” he said.

He put his hand on Allie’s arm and turned her, and they walked out of the saloon through the lobby door. As they left, she glanced back over her shoulder at our table.

“Virgil’s woman,” Ring said to me.

“Yep.”

“I’ll be damned,” Ring said.

“Is sort of surprising,” I said.

“I always figured Virgil for whores and squaws.”

“She’s neither one of them,” I said.

“I’ll be damned.”

“You known Virgil for a time?” I said.

“Oh, hell, yes, me, and then when Mackie got old enough, me and Mackie both. Knew him in Wichita. Was with him in Lincoln County. Did some business with him in Bisbee. Up along the Platte.”

“Deputy work?”

“Some.”

“Not deputy work?”

Ring grinned. I noticed he had a couple of teeth gone in front.

“Some,” he said.

He and Mackie both drank some more whiskey. It didn’t seem to affect them.

“After the trial, you gonna hang this fella here?” Ring said.

“Ain’t mine to say.”

“No, course not,” Ring said. “I hope it’s here. Me and Mackie like hangings. Still there ain’t no gallows, and nobody building one. It’s messy if you hang ’em from a rafter or something.”

I nodded. I knew that if he was convicted, they’d take Bragg to Yaqui and hang him in the prison courtyard. But I didn’t see any reason to tell the Sheltons. Keeping quiet never caused me no trouble. I stood.

“Nice meetin’ you boys,” I said.

“Likewise,” Ring said.

Mackie nodded. None of us offered to shake hands. There was no advantage to letting somebody get hold of you.

It was the night before the trial. Stringer and his deputies were in the jail with Bragg and Whitfield. Cole and I were walking, one on each side of Allie, to look at the latest developments on the house. Allie had her arm though Cole’s. She showed no sign that anything had gone on there, or anywhere else, between me and her.

“Tell me about those men, Virgil,” she said.

“Shelton brothers?”

“Yes. The ones in the Boston House Saloon.”

“They’re just gunmen,” Cole said.

“But they seem different than other gunmen.”

“They ain’t,” Cole said. “They’re just real good gunmen.”

“No,” she said, “they are different. Even from Mr. Bragg. You treat them different.”

“Known ’em a long time,” Cole said.

“Longer than you’ve known Everett.”