ROBERT PARKER - Appaloosa

Beauville wasn’t much. It wasn’t even Appaloosa. But it was a railhead, where cattle driven up from Texas could load onto trains that would bring them to Omaha or Chicago. And being a railhead, it was livelier than it had any right to be otherwise.

We dragged into Beauville two days after my coup had been counted by the buck with the vermillion chin; we were tired, out of coffee, and short of most everything else. The horses were tired. The mule was tired. And we were tired. Allie, straggle-haired and badly dressed, dusty and sweat-streaked like the rest of us, looked especially tired. There was a hotel on the one street, and a bank, and a restaurant in a tent, and six saloons. At the far end of the street, there were a few small, unpainted houses. The train station, surrounded by cattle pens, was the grandest building in town. There was even a little steeple on it, with a big clock. According to the clock, it was 2:41. Behind the station was the city marshal’s office and jail. “This time tomorrow,” Ring said.

“This time,” Cole said.

“We’ll ride on down to the station,” Ring said. “You, too, Bragg. If the money’s there, our deal is up. If the money’s not there, we gonna be asking you where it is.”

“It’ll be there,” Bragg said. He nodded at us. “What about them?”

“Our deal covers them,” Ring said. He looked at Cole.

“That gonna be a problem?” Ring said.

“Might be,” Cole said.

Ring nodded.

“How about the woman?” he said. “She a problem?”

“Might be,” Cole said.

“Well,” Ring said. “Won’t be a problem till tomorrow afternoon.”

He nudged his horse forward. His brother followed. Bragg trailed along, and Russell behind him. Allie sat uncertainly on her horse, near me.

“Let’s head down to the hotel, Allie,” I said. “Get you a room.”

“How about you two?” she said.

“I’ll bunk in with Everett,” Cole said.

It was between cattle drives, and the hotel was nearly empty. We washed and slept and sent our clothes to the Chinaman. It was after dark when Cole and I went down to the saloon and Allie joined us. The hotelkeeper’s wife had found her some clothes, probably from one of the whores who worked in the hotel, and Allie looked pretty good again.

It wasn’t much of a saloon, two long planks set on whiskey barrels. The whiskey sat in bottles on a table behind. We had a drink, including Allie, who drank hers in very small sips.

“Will the Sheltons stick to the truce?” I said.

“Ring’s word is good,” Cole said.

“And so is ours,” I said.

“Yes.”

We were quiet. The hotelkeeper’s wife came to the table.

“You folks hungry, we got some stew and some fresh bread,” she said. “I baked it today.”

“How ’bout the stew?” Cole said.

“Been simmerin’ ’bout six years,” the woman said. “Just keep dishing it out and addin’ in stuff.”

We ordered some.

“What are we going to do?” Allie said.

“We’ll wait until tomorrow afternoon,” Cole said. “Then we’ll take Bragg back.”

“I meant us, Virgil,” she said.

I started to get up.

“I’ll have a drink at the bar,” I said.

Cole put his hand on my arm.

“Sit,” he said.

“Does Everett have to be here, Virgil?” Allie said.

“Yep.”

I wasn’t comfortable with it. But staying might not be a bad idea. If Allie started talking about us at her half-constructed house that rainy day, I would want to be around to see that the story got told adequately.

“Ring forced me to do that with him,” Allie said.

“Nope,” Cole said.

“He did, Virgil, I swear he did.”

Cole shook his head.

“I seen what I seen,” he said.

“I was afraid,” Allie said. “I was doing what I had to do to stay alive.”

“He wouldn’ta killed you,” Cole said. “He’d just trail you along with him till he didn’t need you no more.”

“Maybe you know that,” Allie said. “But I didn’t know it, Virgil. And the other men. I was a woman alone with four terrible men.”

Cole drank some whiskey and stared into the glass and didn’t say anything for a while.

Then he said to me, “Tomorrow this time we’ll have settled things with the Sheltons. If Ring kills me, you think she’ll go off with him, Everett?”

“I think Allie needs to be with a man,” I said.

“You bastard,” Allie said. “Don’t listen to him, Virgil. The sonova bitch tried to put his hands on me one day when I was showing him our house.”

Cole looked at me.

“No, Virgil,” I said. “I didn’t.”

Cole looked at me for a moment longer. I looked back. Then he looked back into his whiskey glass.

“No, Allie,” he said. “Everett didn’t do that.”

“He’s lying, Virgil. You believe him and not me?”

Cole studied the surface of his drink. He nodded his head slowly.

“That is correct,” he said.

“You men. You always stick together, don’t you. What chance has a woman got, alone?”

Cole finished his drink and poured himself another. The hotelkeeper’s wife brought us food. We all ate some and were quiet while we did. It was better than fried salt pork and hardtack.

“Well, if it’ll help you feel easy,” Cole said after a time, “nobody’s killed me yet, and I don’t think Ring can do it, either.”

“Why do you have to face him?”

“He’s got my prisoner.”

“Can’t you get the local marshal or whoever to help you?”

“Maybe,” Cole said. “Either way, he’s got my lawful prisoner.”

“And you just have to get him back,” Allie said.

“He’s my lawful prisoner,” Cole said.

“And that’s all there is to it?”

“I’m a lawman,” Cole said.

“And that’s all you are?” Allie said.

“Mostly,” Cole said.

After we ate, Cole and I went out and sat in a couple of chairs in front of the hotel. It was dark now, and the street traffic was mostly rail hands and cowboys heading for the saloons, and now and then a whore hurrying to work. Allie had gone back up to her room without speaking to us again. The night insects were making noise. I could hear the sound of a bad piano somewhere up the street.

“What happened at the house?” Cole said to me.

“I didn’t make no advance at Allie,” I said.

“I believe it. I tole you that already. But I’d like to know what transacted.”

I told him. He nodded slowly as he listened. If he felt anything, he didn’t show it. He sat with his chair tilted back, looking up through the clear night at the stars. After a while, he shook his head as if answering a question no one had asked.

“I never met no woman like her,” he said.

I was quiet.

“Mostly, I been with whores, and some squaws.”

Cole took out a cigar and lit it, turning it in the match flame, and got it going good and even.

“She talks good and dresses nice, and she’s good-looking,” Cole said.

He took in some cigar smoke and blew it out and watched it thin out and disappear in the night air.

“She can play the piano, and she cooks nice, and she’s very clean.”

Cole’s voice was quiet in the near darkness. He was listing assets, I thought, deciding whether to buy.

“But,” Cole said, “it appears she’ll fuck anything ain’t gelded.”

I shook my head.

“I ain’t sure that’s quite right,” I said.

“What do you think’s right?”

“I think she wants to be with the boss stallion,” I said.

“Ain’t but one stallion in a herd,” Cole said.

“At a time,” I said.