Роберт Паркер - The Bridge

She nodded a little.

“Such is the Moon of Mother Nature,” she said. “Not too much can be assured when it comes to the forces of Mother Nature’s Moon.”

I was on my back. Her head was on my shoulder and her leg was draped over me. She was touching my chest with the tips of her fingers.

Sonofabitch, I thought, as I looked at her. Séraphine. She was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. It felt like time had goddamn stopped or something. Who was this woman, where the hell did she come from?

Nothing had been said for a long while.

Then she said quietly, “You know, I’m much older than you.”

I smiled to myself.

“No,” I said. “You’re a good twenty years younger.”

She continued to caress my chest delicately but didn’t say anything for a long moment... then: “I’m certain why I am here, Everett.”

“Why?”

“For you.”

“I’m right here,” I said.

“Oui,” she said. “You are.”

“Oui,” I said.

She looked up into my eyes and smiled.

“Oui,” she said softly again.

“In my time,” I said. “I’ve avoided asking women about most everything.”

“You are smart,” she said.

“I always figured it best to let sleeping dogs lie,” I said. “But I’m compelled.”

“About?”

“You,” I said. “Where do you come from?”

She leaned up on her elbow and looked at me.

“As you say, it’s best for sleeping dogs to lay.”

“Looks like we’re beyond that,” I said.

“It’s just better,” she said. “Just know I am here for you.”

She sat up and turned to face me.

“I know what you went through today,” she said.

“Somebody tell you, word on the street? Or did you see it in your mind’s eye, the friends, guides, and such?”

“I wanted to warn you,” she said.

“You already did that, remember?”

She shook her head.

“You did,” I said.

“What happened today was not what I saw before.”

“There’s more to it?”

“There is,” she said.

“What?”

“What happened was something altogether different,” she said. “That I’m clear on.”

“That so?”

“Oui,” she said.

I smiled at her.

“You don’t believe me?” she said.

I didn’t, but I allowed.

“You said you saw men running, scared,” I said.

“Oui.”

“Well, there you go, that is what happened today, two men came running by me, scared for their life; another man was shooting at them.”

She shook her head.

“What I saw was different,” she said.

“I’m listening,” I said.

“What I saw, with the men, was in water,” she said.

“Water?”

She nodded.

“Well, it was raining and wet. I don’t know if we can stand much more water than what we have coming down.”

She shook her head.

“It was not here,” she said.

“Not here in Appaloosa?”

“Oui,” she said.

“So,” I said. “How is it, if what you saw was not here in Appaloosa, but I’m here in Appaloosa, my life is in danger?”

“I don’t have all the answers,” she said.

“Well, I can’t do anything other than what I do,” I said.

“Just watch out,” she said.

“It’s what I do,” I said. “Watch out. I’m always aware, rest assured.”

She nodded.

“Can’t live in fear of the unexpected,” I said.

“No,” she said sadly. “I know. I wish I could tell you more.”

“Well, I appreciate the advice,” I said.

I looked at my watch on the chair next to the bed.

“I’ll be going,” she said.

Séraphine removed her leg that was draped across me and sat up on the edge of the bed.

“I’ll walk you.”

“No,” she said, and then gave me a peck on the cheek. “Not necessary.”

I stayed there on the bed and watched her dress.

Her sharp-angled figure was strong and without blemish. She held her shoulders back and her chin high and all of her moves were elegant and languid. Something about her did make her seem as if she were older than me.

Within a matter of minutes, Séraphine together and dressed, she leaned over, twisting her long hair into a tidy bale atop her head and crowning it with her bowler. She leaned down and kissed me again, sweet-like on the lips, then slipped on her slicker and walked out the door.

I moved to the window and watched her descend the stairs. She walked across a single board leading to the boardwalk. She stepped up on the boardwalk, stopped and turned. She looked back up seeing me looking at her. She snugged her derby, continued on, and was gone from sight.

Good Goddamn.

I dragged my straight razor across the concave belly of my seasoned whetstone and got the blade good and sharp. I heated up some water in a tin cup over the lamp, whipped up some pumice and goat-milk shaving lather with my boar-bristle brush, and then gave myself a proper slow shave. I thought about her as I worked the sharp steel across my face. I thought about how she smelled, how she felt, and the words she had spoken to me.

Goddamn lovely she is, really nice, smooth and lovely. Hocus-goddamn-pocus.

“Aha...”

The straight razor I was working up my neck toward the corner of my jaw took a nick of skin and blood instantly showed through the lather and snaked down my neck.

That’s what cogitating about a woman will get you, I thought. Hocus-goddamn-pocus.

I finished up my shave, and after I stopped the bleeding I scrubbed my teeth good, dressed, and left the room.

The rain had subsided for the moment, but it was dark out and for sure it was getting colder. As we had arranged, I met Virgil at the sheriff’s office at nine o’clock to collect the report for the DA that Book took from Grant and Elliott.

Book was drinking coffee when we entered.

“I sat with Bolger through the night,” Book said. “All he did was sleep. Skinny Jack’s there with him now.”

“No sign of his brother?” Virgil said.

“No, sir, no sign. Doc said we can get him over here and lock him up in a short-short.”

Virgil nodded.

“Any word from Sheriff Driskill from the bridge camp?” Virgil said.

“Nope,” Book said. “Not a word.”

Virgil looked at me.

“That’s peculiar. They should have made it to the bridge by dark yesterday,” Virgil said.

I nodded.

“What about Deputy Chastain,” I said. “He still sick?”

“Far as I know,” Book said. “I haven’t seen him.”

Virgil nodded.

“You boys keep alert,” Virgil said.

“Yes, sir,” Book said. “We will, sir.”

Virgil and I drank some coffee with Book for a bit, then we walked Grant and Elliott’s report over to the district attorney.

We were waiting in the front room of the DA’s office when Carveth Huckabee, Appaloosa’s DA, walked in.

He was a squat-figured man with a wide chest and a big voice. Carveth had a ruddy complexion, a bushy head of strawlike hair, and an easygoing attitude.

“Nice weather for a duck,” Carveth said.

“Is,” Virgil said.

“Glad to see you’re still with us, Everett,” Carveth said.

“Me, too, Carveth.”

“I was abstracting money at five-card from pesky mining esquires last night and I heard about the whole thing,” he said. “The heralded subject of the said shoot-out was on the table.”

“Figures,” I said.

Carveth nodded.

“It will most certainly make tomorrow’s untrustworthy newspaper,” he said. “Come on in.”

Virgil and I followed Carveth into his office. He sat behind his big oak desk and Virgil and I sat across from him.