Роберт Паркер - The Bridge

“Fuck you,” he said.

I crammed my boot fast and hard under his neck and pushed him back to the fire. His hair started to burn.

“Ahha,” he rasped as he squirmed trying to worm out of the fire, “Ohhh... stop! Stop... Dee! Fuck. Dee. Name is Dee.”

“You murdered the sheriff and his deputies of Appaloosa?” I said. “Yes or no?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Dee said.

I shoved him back into the fire and he fought me, but I held him to it.

“Ahhh,” he cried.

I wanted to pull both triggers on my side-by-side and watch his face explode, but I took another tactic and let up on him.

“Oh, fuck,” Dee said, as I let him out of the fire.

“Oh, fuck...” he continued. “Oh, fuck...”

“This fella here with you and this goat?” I said. “He part of your rotten gang?”

Dee’s eyes were just wide with pain and madness.

“What’s your name, your real name?” I said to the man Virgil had his Colt leveled at. “You lie to me and I will burn you, too.”

“Dmitry,” he said.

Dee squirmed and I dug my boot into his neck.

“I ain’t done nothing,” Dmitry blurted out. “I didn’t kill nobody. Honest.”

Dmitry was a little man with a wool head cap. He had thin lips and slits for eyes.

“There’s gonna be a few options for you, Dmitry,” Virgil said. “One is you will die, the other is you will go to jail.”

“I didn’t do nothing to no one,” Dmitry said.

“How many are you, Dmitry?” I said.

“Fuck him,” Dee said.

Virgil looked around. I glanced around, too, and for the moment there was no one moving about except for the men fifty yards down the way in the darkness. The men were still chopping wood and they were unaware we were even in camp.

“How many are you, Dmitry?” I said.

Dmitry’s eyes worked back and forth.

“Talk,” Virgil said, as he pressed his Colt on Dmitry’s forehead.

“Seven,” Dmitry said, “There’s seven of us...”

Dee squirmed some more. He was clearly not liking the idea that Dmitry was forthcoming.

A hefty man wearing long johns walked out of the tent that was flanked by Chastain and Eddie. He saw Virgil and me, and Dee on the ground, and guns out. This sight was obviously a confusing and unexpected one.

“Wha... what’s going on out here?” he said.

“We’re just having a visit,” Virgil said.

“What?” the hefty fella said.

In an instant, Chastain was at his side with his rifle crammed into his ear.

“Down,” Chastain said quietly.

The man just looked to Chastain, and Chastain slapped him hard on the side of the head with the barrel of the rifle.

“Now,” Chastain said with a harsh hush.

The hefty guy did as he was told and got down on his knees. Chastain peeked quick into the tent, then looked to Virgil and me and shook his head, letting us know there was no one else inside. He put his boot in the middle of the hefty man’s back and shoved him hard face-first into the dirt.

“Don’t move a muscle,” Chastain said.

“Fat fella one of your clan?” Virgil said to Dmitry.

Dmitry glanced to Dee, then nodded.

“Eddie,” Virgil said.

Eddie was standing in the dark beside the tent and looked out a little.

Virgil nodded for him to step out.

“Here,” Virgil said.

Eddie moved out into the open road area, looking both to his left and to his right as he made his way over to us.

Dee cocked his head, looking at Eddie. He recognized him.

“I’ll be goddamned,” Dee snarled. “You fuck.”

Without saying a word, Eddie took one bounding step and kicked Dee so hard between the legs his head jerked forward and he busted his mouth on the barrels of my eight-gauge.

“Goddamn,” Dee cried, as he crunched his legs up and spit out pieces of his bloody teeth. “Goddamn...”

“Eddie,” Virgil said, tossing Eddie his knife, “cut some lines off that tent. Tie up that big boy under Chastain’s boot first. Tie him up good.”

Eddie nodded and did as he was told. He cut the tent ropes, then moved to the man under Chastain’s boot.

“Hands behind your back,” Chastain said.

The man did as he was ordered.

“Snug ’em tight to his feet, Eddie,” Chastain said.

Eddie did just that. He tied the fella’s hands behind his back, then looped the rope around his feet, and with a half-hitch jerk he pulled the man into an uncomfortable backward arch.

“Gag him,” Chastain said.

Eddied nodded and crammed his handkerchief into the man’s gaping mouth.

From a ways down the dirt path of shacks and tents that lined the creek we heard some music start up, a fiddle and a guitar. They were working on some dancing tune.

“Dmitry,” Virgil said. “The more you tell me, the better off things will be for you when we take you in, that is if we take you in. If things go a way we might not appreciate, there’s a good chance you will burn and die here tonight.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Dee said, struggling to speak.

“The less you tell me of what you know, Dmitry,” Virgil said, “the worse things will be for you.”

“Wha... what do you want to know?” Dmitry said.

“First thing I want to know is where are your horses?”

“Corral down at the end here,” Dmitry said.

“All seven of you here?”

Dmitry nodded.

“Where are the other four?”

Dmitry nodded up the path.

“Whore shack,” he said.

Out of the darkness came the three men we saw chopping wood. The woodchopper was a big man and he had the ax in his hand. The two men following him were kind of pint-sized. They both were holding beer mugs.

“What the hell?” the woodchopper said.

Chastain and Eddie trained their guns on the men.

“Don’t move,” Chastain said. “Stay right where you are.”

The men raised their hands up away from their bodies.

“They with you?” Virgil said to Dmitry.

“They are not,” he said.

“We’re law,” Virgil said. “Just stay where you are.”

They did as they were told.

“You damn sure,” Virgil said to Dmitry, “they’re not part of your kettle?”

“They’re not,” he said.

“You lie to me,” Virgil said, “and if shit goes down, you will be the first to die.”

“They’re not,” Dmitry said.

Virgil looked to Dmitry for a bit, then looked to the men.

“You fellas,” Virgil said. “Like I say, we’re law. We’ve located these critters here and we’re sorting them out for the lawbreaking they’ve done. You can be part of this or you can go back down on the other end and keep out of this. The choice is yours.”

The three of them started backing up.

“We got no dealing with nothing that the law needs to be part of, mister,” the woodchopper said, “No dealing.”

“Okay,” Virgil said. “I see you or anyone else come down the road this way, they will become part of something they’d be better off not being part of, comprende ?”

The men nodded and started backing away.

“One thing,” Virgil said to the men.

“Yes, sir,” the woodchopper said.

“How many people are here?” Virgil said. “In this camp?”

“There’s us down here,” the woodchopper said. “Six of us, we’re all from Missouri. Be on our way to California when the weather clears. And down there, on the other end, there’s them fellas there, them seven, and there’s five other fellas, regulars that are here all the time.”

“Whores?” Virgil said.

“Three,” the woodchopper said. “Indians.”

Virgil nodded.

“Go on back,” Virgil said to the men. “Go on back or get yourself into some shit you don’t want no part of. Go on.”