ROBERT PARKER - Appaloosa

It was late in the day in the middle of September and rainy when a slim man with a young, smooth face came into the marshal’s office where Cole and I were drinking coffee and watching the rain through the open door. He was wearing a slicker unbuttoned and I could see that he had a.44 Colt with a pearl handle under it.

Cole looked at him carefully for a moment.

“Hayes,” he said.

“Hello, Virgil,” the man said.

He took his hat off and slapped it against his leg to shake off some of the rain, and put the hat on the edge of Cole’s desk. His hair was gray. Taking his hat off aged him.

“My deputy,” Cole said, nodding at me, “Everett Hitch. Hayes Hatfield.”

We said hello.

“Heard about you boys and the Sheltons,” Hatfield said.

“ ’Gainst city regulations,” Cole said, “to be carrying a gun in town.”

“Always is in your towns, Virgil. I figured you’d give a little slack on that.”

Cole nodded.

“I will,” Cole said. “How long you in town.”

“Be gone tomorrow,” Hatfield said.

“Appreciate you didn’t stroll around with the gun showing,” Cole said. “Sorta undercuts the law.”

“I’ll keep my coat closed,” Hatfield said.

“But not buttoned,” Cole said.

“Gun don’t do you much good buttoned up under your coat,” Hatfield said.

“No,” Cole said. “It don’t.”

“Mostly I’m just going to get some supper and go to sleep,” Hatfield said.

“You got business in Appaloosa?” Cole said.

Hatfield smiled a wide smile. Except for the gray hair, he looked about twenty.

“Fella came over to Yaqui to see me. I’m dealing cards there, in the Crystal Palace, doing a little work for Wells Fargo. He said he was going to be the first mayor in Appaloosa, and he wondered if I might like to be the city marshal.”

“Didn’t know the job was open,” Cole said.

“Said it was gonna be, soon as he was mayor.”

Cole didn’t say anything.

“Said the town was growing so fast that they’d be organizing a police department, and as soon as they did, I’d be the chief.”

“Hadn’t heard that,” Cole said.

“So I asked around a little,” Hatfield said, “and I found out that you was the marshal here, and I thought I might come over here and talk to you about it.”

“Who was the fella you talked to,” Cole said.

“Fella named Olson,” Hatfield said.

Cole looked at me.

“So he’s in with Bragg,” he said.

“In deep,” I said.

“Bragg the fella you didn’t kill up in Beauville?”

“He run,” Cole said.

“And he come back?” Hatfield said.

“He come back with money,” I said. “Bought out most of the town.”

“You boys stopping him from buying all of it?”

“Yes.”

“He don’t dare go up against you straight on,” Hatfield said.

“Don’t seem to,” Cole said.

“And he thinks I would,” Hatfield said.

“You would,” Cole said, “if there was reason.”

“And if I hired on with this Olson fella…”

“There’d be reason,” Cole said.

Hatfield picked his hat up off the corner of the desk and held it against his left thigh while he stood in the doorway for a moment and watched it rain.

“Rainy fall,” he said.

“Startin’ out that way,” Cole said.

Hatfield put his hat on and adjusted it so that it tilted a little forward over his eyes.

“Sounds to me a fella took this job, he might be working for Bragg.”

“That would be correct,” Cole said. “Olson’s just the errand boy.”

Hatfield nodded, his back to us, still looking at the rain through the open door. Then he turned and looked around the little marshal’s office.

“Don’t seem like a place I’d care to work,” he said.

Virgil and I both nodded.

“If I was here,” Hatfield said, “wouldn’t let him run me off.”

“I got a house here,” Cole said. “And a woman.”

“Even if you didn’t. You wouldn’t let him run you off.”

“No,” Cole said, “I guess I wouldn’t.”

“However,” Hatfield said. “Since I ain’t here, I don’t see no reason to come here.”

“Correct,” Cole said.

Hatfield turned back from the door and put his hand out. Cole shook it. Then I did.

“I’ll be on the train back to Yaqui tomorrow,” Hatfield said.

Then he turned and walked out the open door, holding his coat closed, and walked toward the Boston House.

It was chilly and still raining when I walked down to the marshal’s office in the morning. Cole was sitting outside under the overhang, out of the rain. It didn’t seem like good sitting-out weather.

I said, “Morning, Virgil.”

Cole nodded, and I went in and got some coffee off the stove and poured it and brought it out, and sat in the other chair. Cole didn’t say anything. He didn’t seem to be looking at anything or thinking about anything. He seemed to be just sitting. I sat with him and drank some coffee. It had been raining three days now. Main Street was a slough of mud. A few saddle horses moved heavily through it, but there was no wagon traffic.

“They ain’t going to run me off,” Cole said.

“We got hired,” I said. “We can get fired.”

“Me and Allie got a house here. I’m staying.”

“What you gonna stay as?” I said.

“Ain’t got to that yet,” Cole said.

“They ain’t gonna pay us,” I said.

“I know,” Cole said.

I drank some coffee.

“Might make some sense to move on,” I said.

Cole shook his head.

“You talk this over with Allie?” I said.

Cole nodded.

“She won’t go,” I said.

“No.”

I closed my eyes for a minute and opened them slowly and looked at the rain some more.

“And you won’t go without her.”

“No.”

The wet smell was strong. Wet wood, wet mud, wet horses. It mixed with the smell of wood smoke as people fired up stoves against the first rainy chill of early fall. I took in some air and let it out slowly.

So here we are.

“I got to say some things, Virgil.”

Cole nodded.

“I stay here,” he said, “and I won’t be able to make a living.”

“Soon as Olson’s mayor, he’ll fire us, and no one else will hire us.”

“I know,” Cole said.

He was still motionless. Looking at nothing. Thinking of nothing. Being nothing.

“I got something else,” I said.

“She might leave me,” Cole said.

A rider went by on a small sorrel horse. I watched the rain puddle in the collapsing imprint of the horse’s hooves. I took in another long breath and tightened my stomach muscles and hunched my shoulders and said it.

“She will,” I said. “You saw how it was with Ring Shelton. Once you ain’t the stud horse anymore…”

Cole tipped his chair back further and looked up at the sky with his head resting against the weathered exterior of the office wall.

“I won’t leave her,” he said.

It was midafternoon the second Monday in October. Cole had taken a prisoner to Yaqui and would be back Wednesday, which left the town for me to police.

It was brisk as I walked the town. When the sun went down, it would be cold. I went into the saloon at the Boston House to warm up and get some coffee. The room was quite noisy. Allie was playing the piano, adding to the noise. I got some coffee and stood at the bar to drink it. I saw Bragg come into the saloon through the lobby entrance. He bought a bottle of brandy at the far end of the bar, then walked to Allie and whispered to her. She put her head back and laughed. He whispered something else, and she nodded. Then he left and went back out through the lobby door.