Роберт Паркер - Robert B. Parker's Revelation

“Damn sure did,” Theodore said. “Pointed right at us.”

“They all had guns?” I said.

The brothers nodded.

“They did,” Dudley said.

“Some men escaped out of Cibola that we are after, and it sounds as if these men might have been them. Any reason you think it might have been them, you notice any prison clothes, anything like that?”

“No,” Dudley said.

“What’d they look like?”

“Shit,” Theodore said as he looked to Dudley.

“Average dumb-looking robbers,” Theodore said. “They was just skinny fellas...”

“All but one,” Dudley said.

Theodore nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “The one that come up from behind.”

“He was kind of big, strong-looking,” Dudley said. “No hat and bald as a goddamn baby.”

Virgil looked at me.

“Ravenscroft,” I said.

“I could have picked off each of the sonsabitches.”

“Will you shut up? We’re lucky to be alive.”

We left Dudley and Theodore and walked by the stalls toward the front of the livery.

“Montezuma’s the real fancy place near Las Vegas, ain’t it?” Flower said.

“Largest hotel west of the Mississippi,” Hart said. “That’s what I heard.”

“Never been there,” Flower said.

“Me neither,” Hart said.

“You think they’d go to the Montezuma?” Flower said as we neared the wide front door of the stables.

“Could,” I said.

“Fancy damn place for escaped convicts,” Hart said.

“I heard President Arthur went there,” Flower said. “And Hays and Grant, too.”

“Montezuma takes money like anyplace else,” Virgil said.

“No telling who else they might have robbed besides the prospectors,” I said.

“But then again, they could go anyplace,” Hart said.

“They could at that,” Virgil said.

“That they could,” I said.

We stopped at the door, looking out at the rain. The liveryman that we’d talked to when we first entered was sitting in the office reading a newspaper. He looked up and nodded a bit.

“What now?” Flower said.

Virgil waited a second, then looked to the deputies who were both looking at him expectantly.

“For now, let’s get our animals squared away, then you boys get yourselves dried out and rested,” he said. “Then we’ll see you at the office in the early morning and go from there.”

“We gonna ride to Montezuma?” Hart said.

Virgil looked out for a moment, then looked to Hart and Flower.

“Don’t know,” Virgil said. “Right now Everett and me need to do some communicating at the wire office. Then we’ll see you boys in the morning.”

“They got wire to there, to the Montezuma?” Hart said.

“Good chance,” I said.

Virgil said, “We’ll see what we can find out.”

“Okay,” Flower said.

Hart and Flower turned up the collars on their slickers, and we watched them as they hurried off into the rain.

“Good fellas,” Virgil said.

“Boys,” I said.

“They are.”

Virgil and I stayed out of the rain, watching it come down for a bit, then we moved on across town to the Western Union. We learned that the Montezuma indeed did have wire service, but the communication with them proved little to nothing. The hotel was crowded at the moment because of a territory political symposium, and there was no way to determine if three of the hundreds of guests might be the three men we were looking for.

We subsequently sent a wire to the Las Vegas sheriff’s office, alerting them about the three escapees, and heard back that they had received a previous alert from Stringer’s office with detailed descriptions and had been keeping sharp eyes out for them. We next sent a wire to Appaloosa to see if there had been any new details regarding the prison break or if there was any new information regarding the man that had fled from the shootout at Meserole’s saloon and learned there was nothing new to report on either front. Last, we tried to contact the prison, but still there was no connection.

Virgil and I walked to the Rawlings Hotel. It was the nicest hotel and the oldest, sort of like the Boston House in Appaloosa but bigger, and with a larger saloon. We booked us each a room, then settled in to the bar, where an older Negro fella was playing the piano. The place was fairly empty. There was a corner table with some men in suits sitting with a few saloon ladies, and at the far end of the bar sat two other dapper-looking older fellows having a lively liquor-fueled discussion.

“Two whiskeys,” I said.

“And let me have one of those cigars you have there,” Virgil said to the bartender as he pointed to an open box behind the bar.

“You bet,” said the barkeep.

He poured us each a whiskey, then removed a cigar from the box.

He clipped the end with a brass tip cutter and handed it to Virgil. Then he struck a fat match, cupped his hand over the flame, and held it out over the bar. After Virgil got the cigar going good, the bartender shook the flame out and moved on down the rail.

We drank some whiskey and listened to the piano for a little while, thinking about our options. Like the deputies had mentioned, the Montezuma was the largest hotel in the west, maybe in the whole United States. With more than four hundred rooms, built by railroad tycoons on the Gallinas Creek north of Las Vegas, Montezuma was a hot-springs destination for the wealthy who could afford the lavish accommodations.

“We, of course, could ride up there to Montezuma and not find them,” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“Got to go someplace, though,” I said.

“We do,” Virgil said.

“If it’s running,” I said. “Maybe we take the train to Vegas. Be quicker.”

Virgil nodded as he puffed on his cigar.

“Excuse me,” I said to the bartender as he came walking by. “You wouldn’t happen to have a train schedule back there, would you?”

The bartender turned and plucked out a printed schedule from an upright menu box and handed it over the bar to me.

“Much appreciated,” I said.

“What you see there is pretty much what you get,” the bartender said. “Amazes me how they can stay on time... The way of the world, I guess.”

He walked off as I read the schedule.

“Leaves here at seven,” I said. “Arrives Vegas, two in the afternoon.”

“Take us the whole day and then some if we were to ride,” Virgil said.

“The way of the world,” I said.

Late in the evening, Driggs watched the princess sleeping as he dressed. He had been curious about her pretty teeth, her pearly white teeth that pushed forward ever so slightly. He thought the little overbite was a sensuous part of her appeal. She was in every way a beautiful woman, and her teeth, with that slight protrusion, made her even more alluring. He had wondered before if it was because she had sucked her thumb as a child. Now, however, he was sure as he watched her with her thumb tucked softly into her mouth as she slept. Baby, he thought. He looked at her softness and youth and saw that even now, she was still not much more than a child, only a third his age. But she was by no means young in her actions and feelings. He took a swig from the bottle, then sat and rolled a few cigarettes as he gazed at her sucking her thumb. She was an old soul, he knew.

Driggs removed a pillowcase from one of the pillows as he watched the princess. He wondered about her being dead and what it would feel like if she were dead and gone. He folded the pillowcase and put it in his pocket, then opened the door and closed it behind him as he left the room.

When he came down the stairs, he stopped in the saloon and ordered a whiskey from Wallis.