Роберт Паркер - The Bridge

“No, sir,” Gains said. “We have looked, but there wasn’t much left of anything found in one piece.”

“Percy?” Cox said, shaking his head.

Gains nodded.

“How do you know they are dead?” Virgil said.

“Well,” Gains said. “After the explosion we had roll call and they were missing.”

“What time did this happen?” Virgil said.

“Just as the sun was coming up,” Gains said. “Ten minutes later there’d have been at least thirty men killed. Everyone was getting ready to go out.”

“These brothers, from Fletcher Flats, they have horses?” Virgil said.

“No, sir,” Gains said.

“How’d they get here?”

“We provide transportation for a lot of the workers. We have a ten-seater,” Gains said. “We transport workers to and from both Appaloosa and Fletcher Flats. That’s where our crews are from and that’s how the Cotter brothers got here.”

“Cotter?” I said.

“That’s right,” Gains said.

I looked to Virgil and he looked at me.

“Hocus-goddamn-pocus,” I said.

“Cotter?” I said. “You’re certain that is their last name?”

“That’s right,” Gains said. “That’s their names on the payroll, anyway. Dee and Dirk Cotter.”

“So, Deputy Marshal,” Cox said. “You suspect these two men were not killed but rather had a hand in this?”

“Don’t know,” I said.

“What do you know?” Cox said.

“Not enough,” Virgil said.

“But you know this name?” Cox said. “Cotter?”

Virgil looked at Cox for an extended moment but said nothing. Then he looked to Gains.

“How long had they been on the job?” Virgil said, disregarding the question. “The Cotter boys?”

“Not long,” Gains said. “A few weeks.”

“You talk to them,” Virgil said, “get to know them?”

“Some,” Gains said. “I hired them.”

“Thinking back,” Virgil said. “Was there anything about them that was not right?”

“Not really,” Gains said. “I suppose, if anything, they kept to themselves most the time. They seemed like good boys, though, quiet, hardworking.”

“What’d they look like?” I said. “Describe them.”

“They were young, twenty-five, twenty-six, maybe older,” Gains said. “Big boys, strong and tough. Southern fellas, like I said. Pale complexion, both had beards, sort of reddish color, I’d say.”

I looked to Virgil.

He met my eye.

Cox looked back and forth between us.

“What is it, Marshal?” he said. “What is this? What are you thinking?”

“Just thinking,” Virgil said.

“What kind of ‘just thinking’?” Cox said.

Virgil ignored Cox’s question and looked to Gains.

“How far to the bridge site?” Virgil said.

“Just right here,” Gains said. “Short walk.”

“Like to have a look,” Virgil said.

Gains nodded.

“First,” Cox said. “What kind of thinking, Marshal? What is this about? What do you know?”

“We don’t know, Mr. Cox,” Virgil said, “but as soon as we can put something together that we feel we need to share, we’ll let you know. Right now I’d like to have Gains show us the site and get to the business of figuring out the whereabouts of Sheriff Driskill and his deputies.”

Cox was upset, but Virgil didn’t feel the need to make him feel any less upset. Virgil always did well with questioning but never did well when it was the other way around and he was being asked questions.

Gains got himself ready with his coat and hat, and Virgil, Cox, and I followed him.

We walked through the encampment, down a snow-covered path, and up a short rise to the bridge site.

A one-hundred-foot hydraulic water crane, with its mast lying horizontal and parallel to the river’s edge, sat idle on a high bluff. Its crown, beams, and crossbeams were covered in snow. We walked up the bluff to the base of the huge crane and looked out over the Rio Blanco River gorge.

Gains pointed.

“Across there,” he said. “You can see what remains. Those posts, you see just there.”

Then he pointed to the bottom of the river, some one hundred feet below.

“The explosion was in the span’s middle,” Gains said. “Over there, on the other side, you can see the collapse of the span lying in the water.”

Everything was covered with snow, but we could make out where the bridge previously made landfall. Disconnected from the top section, the buckled bridge truss dropped and followed the hillside of the chasm down into the river.

“You can see what remains of the scaffolding below here, too,” Gains said with a point. “And right there, those beams there, are this side’s entrance.”

“Good God Almighty,” Cox said. “Good God.”

“Took a lot of dynamite to blow this,” Virgil said.

“Somebody damn sure knew what they were doing,” I said.

“Did,” Virgil said.

“You have dynamite on the location here?” Virgil said.

“No,” Gains said. “We did when we first got started. We had some excavation that was needed but haven’t had any dynamite here for a long time.”

Gains got us some hot food; it was a venison chili the camp cook made up, and we ate at a long table in the office.

In the following hour Cox drifted off to sleep on a cot near the heater stove and Virgil and I sat on the opposite side of the room with Gains. We were drinking coffee with a tip of whiskey. Gip lay curled up at Gains’s feet.

“Know anything about the man that bid against Cox for this project?” Virgil said.

“Swickey?”

Virgil nodded.

“Not really,” Gains said. “I know he’s a honcho cattleman.”

“He been here?” Virgil said. “To the bridge?”

“Not that I know of,” Gains said. “No.”

“You know where his place is?” I said.

Gains shook his head.

“I don’t.”

Virgil nodded to Cox sleeping on the cot.

“You ever hear there was bad blood between Cox and Swickey?”

“Had to be some,” Gains said quietly. “Mr. Cox getting the bid and all but I don’t know... You think Swickey did this?”

“Somebody did it,” Virgil said.

“They damn sure did,” Gains said.

“Any ideas?” Virgil said.

Gains shook his head.

“All I know is I damn sure didn’t do it,” Gains said.

Gip growled.

“Quiet, Gip,” Gains said.

Gip rolled over and Gains rubbed his belly with the heel of his boot.

“Not saying you did,” Virgil said.

“No, I know,” Gains said. “Just making it clear, I’m a bridge builder, proud to be one, that’s all. I hope to hell whoever the hell did do this gets their due.”

Virgil nodded to Cox.

“He make a good boss?” he said.

Gains tilted his head a little, followed by a slight nod.

“Late on paying bills and payroll these last two months,” Gains said, “but I don’t think it was any fault of his. I think it was just the territory with bureaucrats acting as bankers.”

Virgil looked over to Cox sleeping on the cot.

“What will happen now?” Gains said.

“After I finish this coffee, Everett and me are gonna ride to the way station,” Virgil said. “Maybe send us a wire or two.”

We sat for a while longer, discussing the cleanup operations with Gains, then Virgil and I left him and Cox. We got our horses from the stable, mounted up, and rode off to the telegraph way station on the road to Fletcher Flats.

The snow was still falling and there was a good eight inches that had built up. We rode awhile without talking, then Virgil asked me the question I was expecting.

“Tell me about this fortune-teller woman?” Virgil said.