Роберт Паркер - Robert B. Parker's Revelation

“Well, at least we have some descriptions and names,” Book said.

Virgil pulled his watch from his vest pocket, looked at the time, then got to his feet.

We saw to a few last-minute details, then mounted up just as the sun showed a piece of its face. When we turned the corner to head south I looked back to Book. He was standing in the dark of the office overhang. He stretched out his arm and poured the remainder of his coffee into the street.

Driggs had no idea until he did some snooping around that he would have to wait for a while in Appaloosa until he could accomplish what he came to town to do. But that was okay with him; he was as patient as ol’ Job.

Driggs raised his long, muscled arms above his head, stretching, as he stood naked looking out the window of the Boston House Hotel. It was early in the morning; the sun was just brightening the free world of Appaloosa. Behind him, in bed, lay the woman. She was naked, spent, and sound asleep. Her long, dark hair violently wound this way and that, spreading out like long tentacles across the valleys and hills of the swirling white sheets.

He stood perfectly still as he looked out, thinking about nothing in particular. Not at this moment, anyway. He was enjoying the view of the town coming to life before him, a vision he’d not witnessed in some time.

A buggy came slowly up the street that was being pulled by an old wide dun horse. The driver’s face was hidden under the buggy’s canopy as he incessantly urged the animal forward. The fact that Driggs could not see the driver’s features made him think about how there is no real individual face of man, not really. Though far and wide there are many varied faces, they are pretty much most certainly the same. They are interchangeable, Driggs thought, all trudging endlessly toward the common goal of an end result. Survival, need, and instinct drove the masses. Driggs had determined early on that the insufferable hordes are primarily caretakers of man-made order, of the way of mankind. Driggs knew though that he himself was not part of that mundane order. He was certainly not just a driver with a face unseen.

Driggs watched the man in the buggy encourage the dun as they turned in front of the hotel, and he watched as the dun trotted on, disappearing with the faceless man down Main Street.

He stood calm and still for a few minutes, then moved from the window and picked up a tobacco pouch off the dresser and rolled a cigarette.

He looked at the naked woman, watching her breathe. She was on her stomach with only half of her rear end covered with bedding. The gentle, slow breathing forced her lips to push out when she exhaled. The move seemed childlike and made the woman appear momentarily innocent to Driggs. But she was far from innocent. After Driggs had done his necessary investigation and reconnaissance throughout the evening and into the early-morning hours, it was proved to him that nothing about the woman embodied innocence. Maybe that was true before, but now it was different. Now that she had been relieved of her preconceived self-styled notions about tolerance and suffrage, about purity and decency, what was left was only a savage beast that breathed harmonically. But he knew all that before he got into it, into the throes of it, with her. He was glad to know there was more to be extracted and that made him feel good, that it would not simply be a matter of time before he would have to move on from her, disregard her. He rested in the comfort, however, that he knew exactly what was required and just how it would go on and what more would need to be pulled, twisted, and turned. But most important, she was his partner, his princess. His princess for the task at hand, and he was steady and patient about the process. Driggs didn’t ever rush or hurry. Haste was simply not in his nature.

He moved back to the window, and with a stick match between his middle finger and forefinger scratched the sulfur tip with a quick flick of his thumbnail and the flame ignited. He lit the cigarette, then inhaled the Virginia tobacco. He held out the cigarette and studied the smoke rising from the lit end. It had been a long time since he had fine morning tobacco after an evening of roughshod. Driggs enjoyed the smoothness as the intake stimulated spiderwebbed euphoria across his mind. When he let out the smoke he savored the refreshing morning dizziness it gave him.

He reached back and grabbed the bottle off the bedside table next to the Bible and held it up in the light of the window. It was three-quarters empty. He took a good pull from the golden liquid and savored the warmth as it slid down this throat.

Hitch, he thought. Fucking Everett Hitch. It had been a long time since he had seen Hitch. A lot of men change through the years and age rapidly and drastically, he thought, but not Everett Hitch. He was still lean, strong, and youthful... like the Indian killer he remembered... Fucking Hitch.

“What are you thinking about,” the princess said with a sleepily raspy voice from the night of whiskey.

Her question did not take him by surprise. He figured it would be only a matter of time until she was ready.

“God,” he said, without turning around to look at her.

“What about God?”

He did not answer immediately. He could feel his princess looking at the back of him, and most likely the three bullet holes in his shoulder that he’d received the day he was double-crossed. He turned to her and smiled.

“Just flowing with the hinges,” he said.

“Hinges?”

He nodded and tapped his temple.

“This way and that, they go.”

Her eyes rested on his rugged and... rigid nakedness. She looked up and met his eyes. She stared at him and he stared at her. She rolled over on her back, looking up at him.

He took a pull off the whiskey, put the cigarette in the ashtray, then moved a bit closer to the bed. She instinctively recoiled and moved back, but he reached out with his right hand and grabbed her ankle, then swiveled her around and grabbed her other ankle with his left hand. He stared at her eyes as he pulled the princess’s body toward him.

We rode for a solid eleven hours, stopping only briefly for feed and to rest the animals. When it started to get dark we made camp on a finger of wooded land that diverted the river east for at least a mile before the waters turned and continued south. The peninsula, bolstered by its rocky base, served as a solid retaining wall that had withstood the years of force from the mountain spring waters.

After dinner, Virgil lit a cigar and I poured us some whiskey. I handed a cup to Virgil and we sat looking at the clear night sky and did not talk until I refilled the cups.

“We get gone by daylight, we should get to Vadito by mid-afternoon.”

Virgil nodded and we did not talk again for another long moment as we just sipped our whiskey.

“Ravenscroft,” I said. “Charlie Ravenscroft.”

Virgil looked to me and shook his head a little.

“If there is anybody that don’t need to be out and about among the innocent people,” Virgil said, “it’s him.”

“Yep.”

“Not sure how his lawyer talked the judge out of not hanging him,” Virgil said.

“Cibola,” I said. “Don’t seem to be a much better fate.”

“No,” Virgil said. “It don’t.”

“Hard life,” I said.

Virgil nodded, and he puffed on his cigar some.

“Man needs not to be locked up, though,” Virgil said. “Don’t do no good, really.”

I looked to Virgil. He was staring into the fire.