Роберт Паркер - The Bridge

“On three,” the warrior man said.

“One... two...”

He lowered the plunger handle on the detonator and the men watched the three-hundred-foot iron bridge that crossed over the Rio Blanco River explode in a monstrous blast, earth-quaking and sulfurous as if it came from deep down in hell, delivered by the Evil Red Devil himself.

“Weather.”

“Is,” Virgil said.

“Don’t look good,” I said.

“No,” Virgil said. “It don’t.”

Virgil and I were watching a faraway line of darkness coming toward us from the north.

“Got this place shingled just in time,” I said.

Virgil glanced up, looking at the underside of the porch overhang we were sitting under.

“Know soon enough if we got any leaks,” I said.

“’Spect we will.”

“This’ll be the first sign of weather since we’ve been back here in Appaloosa,” I said.

“It is,” Virgil said, looking back to the clouds. “Ain’t it?”

“Been warm and dry,” I said. “Hot, even.”

“Has,” Virgil said.

Virgil put the heels of his boots on the porch rail and tipped his chair back a little. We sat quiet for a long moment as we watched the dark weather moving slowly in our direction.

“What is it,” Virgil said, tilting his head a little. “Where are we, Everett?”

“November, Virgil. Second day of.”

Virgil shook his head a little.

“What the hell happened to October?”

“You had those two German carpenters you hired working my backside off on this place, that’s what happened,” I said. “Good goings for you things have been quiet in the outlaw racket.”

“Temperate times,” he said.

Virgil rocked his chair a little as he looked at the clouds.

“Hope it’s not the calm before the storm,” I said.

“Never know,” Virgil said.

“No reason to think about outlawing that’s not yet happened,” I said. “Or be downright superstitious.”

“No,” Virgil said. “No reason.”

We sat quiet a moment, watching the faraway storm.

“Bad weather does make folks desperate,” I said. “People get out of sorts.”

“Been our experience,” Virgil said, “people get cold, desperate, and hungry.”

I leaned back in my chair and looked through the open doorway into the house.

“Speaking of it,” I said. “What do you think she’s cooking up in there?”

“Don’t know,” Virgil said. “Allie said she was making something special.”

“That don’t sound good.”

Virgil smiled a little.

“She’s trying,” he said.

“Maybe you ought to get her a cookbook,” I said. “With recipes. Where she learns how to measure stuff out and how long to cook it and what goes with what and so on.”

“I offered,” Virgil said. “She told me all good chefs cook by the seat of their pants.”

We both thought about that for a moment.

“You got some of that Kentucky?”

“I do,” Virgil said.

“Might as well have ourselves a nudge or two,” I said.

“No reason not to,” Virgil said.

Virgil removed his boots from the porch railing and lowered the front legs of the chair he’d been tilting back in. He got to his feet just as three men on horseback wearing oilcloth slickers rounded Second Street, riding directly toward us at a steady pace. It was Sheriff Sledge Driskill with two of his deputies, Chip Childers and Karl Worley.

“Got some intention,” I said.

“They do,” Virgil said.

“Might be the end of those temperate times we were talking about.”

“Might,” Virgil said.

Sledge and his deputies slowed as they neared and came to a stop just in front of the porch.

“Virgil,” Sledge said. “Everett.”

“Afternoon,” I said.

Virgil eased up to the porch steps.

“Sledge,” Virgil said with a nod. “Boys.”

Sledge was a big man with thick black eyebrows and a full dark beard streaked with silver. Karl was a skinny Canadian fella, an ex-cowhand who was never without sheep chaps. Chip was a chubby overgrown kid with a large wad of tobacco crammed in his cheek.

“What brings you here?” Virgil said.

“Wanted to let y’all know,” Sledge said, “got some business away. And the town will be scarce of us for a bit. Only deputies left on duty will be Skinny Jack and Book. Chastain is sick in bed with a stomach bug.”

“Where you headed,” Virgil said.

“We’re headed up to the bridge camp.”

“Now?” I said.

“Yep,” Sledge said, tipping his head to the dark clouds on the northern horizon. “Storm’s a comin’.”

“That it is,” I said.

“Need to beat it best we can,” Sledge said.

“Why the bridge camp?” Virgil said.

“Know Lonnie Carman?”

Virgil shook his head, then looked at me.

“Know who he is,” I said. “Little fella with the tattoos, did some time, works at the Boston House?”

“That’s him,” Sledge said. “He don’t work there anymore. He’s been working on the bridge crew.”

“What about him?” Virgil said.

“Well,” Sledge said. “His new wife, Winifred, believes something has happened to him.”

“What?” Virgil said.

“He didn’t return from his bridge shift when he was supposed to,” Sledge said.

Bridge camp was a construction site a day’s ride south of Appaloosa. The bridge had been a major undertaking for the territory. It spanned a wide chasm across the Rio Blanco, where rotating crews of workers had been constructing the massive timber-and-steel truss crossing for the better part of two years.

“Why does she think something has happened to him?” I said.

Sledge shrugged a bit.

“Says it’s unlike him. Says he’s punctual. She came to see me yesterday. Said Lonnie was supposed to be back home by now. Said she sent two wires to the way station near the bridge where they correspond bridge business, materials and what have you, but got no response back. I told her, give it a little time, maybe he was just busy bridge building.”

“She’s been back three times since,” Karl said.

Sledge nodded.

“Each time she’s been more riled. She put her nose in my face,” Sledge said, shaking his head a little, “said if I didn’t go and find her husband she was gonna come roust the two marshals in town to do the lookin’ and, well, I don’t want that. Having her coming over here pestering y’all.”

“She hollered in his face last time,” Chip said, then spit a stream of tobacco juice in the dirt. “Eyes damn near popped out of her skull.”

“Hollered, hell,” Karl said. “She screamed like a cut calf.”

“I didn’t have the heart to tell her maybe he run off,” Sledge said.

“I know I damn sure would,” Chip said. “Can’t imagine marrying a lady like that.”

“Hell, no,” Karl said with a nod in agreement. “Me for sure, neither.”

“No matter,” Sledge said. “Wanted to spare you two of the misery of her coming over here. We’re gonna ride up, see if we can find the poor sonofabitch.”

Virgil nodded some.

“We’ll be here,” he said.

Sledge gave a sharp nod, then backed up his big bay a bit.

The lawmen turned their horses and rode off south. We watched them as they galloped off and disappeared behind the mercantile at the end of the street.

“Winifred?” Virgil said. “That the fearsome lady churns butter at the grocer?”

“It is,” I said.

Virgil nodded a bit, then walked into the house to get the Kentucky whiskey.

Virgil and I had been working our job as territorial marshals for close to a year before we returned to Appaloosa. We spent the last part of the summer and near the whole of the fall helping the two German carpenters Virgil hired to rebuild Virgil and Allie’s house.