Роберт Паркер - The Bridge

“Just be aware,” she said. “Keep those thoughts with you.”

She stood and took a step closer to me.

“Now I must go. I’m just here,” she said, pointing toward the vacant lot where the troupe was camped. “I will scurry through this rain to the dryness. I will see you again.”

She moved a little closer. She leaned in and kissed me, but as I worked to kiss her back she pulled away.

“Be careful, Everett.”

With that she took off running in the rain toward the troupe’s encampment.

I watched her until she faded away into the dark of the rainy night.

“Hocus-pocus,” I said.

The following morning I woke up to the sound of thunder. I looked out the window and it was still raining. It was colder than it had been when I had finally drifted off to sleep in the early morning hours.

Since Virgil and I had been back in Appaloosa I’d been sleeping in a small alley room I’d rented above a survey company on the south side of town. The room consisted of a small bed, a chair, a washbasin, a dresser, a small Pettit and Smith heater, a window, and a door.

I laid in bed looking out the window and watched the rain falling for some time. My head was throbbing a little. I thought about the card game with Virgil and Allie and my strange encounter with Madame Séraphine Leroux. Codder, Cotter, I thought, and men running. What the hell am I supposed to make of that?

I spent the first half of the day in the Appaloosa Livery, the main livery stable in town, drinking coffee with Salt, an old Teton Sioux blacksmith, while I shinbone-oiled my saddle and tack.

I liked old Salt. I’d known him for years. He was a small, easy-moving man with dark, intelligent eyes. What I liked most about Salt was he didn’t say much and when he did he was always worth listening to.

When I left the livery, Salt told me the weather was going to get much worse before it got better.

I walked across town and stopped in for some fried chicken at Hal’s. I sat by the window with two elderly ranchers. They talked about how we needed this water, their fields, their livestock, the price of grain, and life on the farm. I shared with them what Salt had said about the forecast. Most everyone in Appaloosa, including the two ranchers, knew Salt and revered him as a man of wisdom and understanding. Upon hearing Salt’s weather predictions, the old ranchers didn’t waste any time to leave. Saying though they were appreciative of the water, they needed to get back to their spreads and prepare for worsening conditions.

I smiled, thinking about Séraphine. I thought she should throw in with Salt. Hell, between the two of them, they could strike gold.

Séraphine. The name suited her. I kept imagining I would turn around and she’d be behind me.

Hal brought me a plate of fried chicken from the kitchen. He set it in front of me and poured me some more coffee.

“There ya go, Hitch,” Hal said.

Hal was a six-foot-six mountain of a man, an ex-slave from Alabama with a shock of white hair and an infectious wide grin.

“Looks good, Hal,” I said.

“Enjoy,” Hal said, then looked out the window.

I followed Hal’s glance.

Seven men on horseback were riding slowly up the street. Three had on kepi hats; the four others were wearing Union slouch-brims.

“Soldiers,” Hal said.

“Is,” I said.

“Looks like them boys been in it for a while,” I said.

“It sure do,” Hal said.

“Must be up from Fort Union,” I said.

Hal nodded.

When they rode by the window, the bearded lead rider turned his head slowly and looked at me. He looked haggard. He raised his hand up from his saddle and gave a limp wave as they moved past the window.

“Don’t seem all together,” I said, “do they?”

“No, Hitch,” Hal said. “They don’t.”

When I left Hal’s, a dandy moving quick on the boardwalk damn near collided with me. Another man was coming quickly right behind him and then I heard a gunshot.

I turned, seeing a big man in a slicker holding a pistol. He fired a second shot. He was shooting at the men I’d just encountered.

I pulled my Colt and stepped back in the doorway of Hal’s as two more shots rang out. The big man came running by the door of Hal’s.

“Drop your pistol,” I shouted.

He turned, raising his pistol at me.

I moved quickly behind the doorjamb and he fired on me.

I stuck my pistol around the jamb and returned fire in his direction; two shots, and I heard him groan loudly, “Aw, damn... Lordy hell.”

I stepped back and peeked out the window. He staggered in the street, holding his side, and then dropped in the mud on his ass.

“I’m Deputy Marshal Hitch,” I said. “Throw that pistol away from you or I’ll kill you.”

He looked around some, then tossed the pistol in the street.

I stepped into the doorway with my Colt trained at his head.

He looked up at me, shaking his head some, then leaned over slowly on his side.

I looked to my left. The two men he’d been firing on stepped out from an opening between two buildings down the way and looked in my direction.

“Stay where you are,” I said.

They stopped.

“Hands away from your body.”

They did as I told them.

The big man in the street rolled onto his back, looking up at the rain falling in his face as he clutched his side.

“What’s happened here?” I said to the two men standing on the boardwalk thirty feet away.

“He tried to kill us,” one of the men shouted, like he was about to burst into tears.

“Both of you. Walk over here. Now.”

The two men followed my orders.

“Either of you heeled?”

“No,” the taller of the two said.

They walked shoulder to shoulder up the boardwalk and stopped when they got close to me. One of the men was stocky, with a trimmed red beard and a high top hat. The other, the taller man, was slim, clean shaven, and wearing a high ribbon bowler. They both wore suits with fancy silk ties.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Grant Minot,” the bearded man said.

Grant’s voice was soft with a Yankee lilt. He nodded to the taller man next to him.

“This is my partner, Elliott Warshaw,” Grant said.

“Why was he trying to kill you?” I said.

“He came into our office,” Grant said, “claiming we owed him and his brother, Ballard, and...”

“You goddamn sure do, you silly shit,” the man lying on his back in the street interrupted. “You goddamn sure do.”

“And who is this man?”

“I’m the man who tried to kill those two fucking crooks is who I am,” the man said. “Just wait and see what happens when Ballard gets wind of this.”

“He’s Bolger Orsley,” Grant said. “Bolger and his brother, Ballard, worked for us.”

“And wasn’t paid,” Bolger said with a groan.

“Just keep your mouth shut,” I said to Bolger.

Bolger lifted his head.

“You just wait,” Bolger said. “When Ballard finds out what you did to me...”

“Not another word,” I said.

Bolger sneered at me, then lowered his head back in the mud.

I called back into the café. “Hal?”

“Yessir,” Hal replied.

“Do me a favor,” I said.

Hal came to the door. He ducked under the door and stepped out.

“Wha’cha need, Hitch?”

“Go and get Doc Crumley, will ya, Hal?”

He looked at Bolger lying in the street.

“On my way,” Hal said.

“And stop by Virgil and Allie’s place,” I said. “Let Virgil know what happened here. Find any deputies along the way, tell them, too.”

Grant and Elliott were sitting side by side on a sofa in Doc Crumley’s front office when Virgil entered with Lewis “Book” Page, one of the deputies Sheriff Driskill left on duty. Book carried a short-barrel twenty-gauge. He was a hefty overgrown kid with rosy red cheeks and thick spectacles.