Роберт Паркер - Robert B. Parker's Revelation

“Are you sure?” he said. “How about a nice brandy to close out the evening?”

“No,” Margie said as she stood. “Again, thank you for a very enjoyable evening.”

“Well,” Driggs said as he slid back his chair and got to his feet. “Let me see you home.”

“That’s quite all right,” she said. “I’m just across the way.”

“Are you sure?” he said with a warm smile.

“Yes,” she said as she looked to Allie. “I will see you tomorrow... I have some business to attend to in the morning, but I can come by in the early afternoon.”

“Okay, dear,” Allie said, then looked to Driggs and his princess. “I, too, should be going.”

“Oh, please,” the princess said. “I’ve had yet to enjoy myself as I have this evening. A few more moments of your time won’t be too much of an imposition, will it?”

“Well,” Allie said. “I suppose I could sit for a moment or two longer.”

Allie looked to Margie.

“I’ll see you in the afternoon, dear,” Allie said.

Margie smiled, curtseyed a bit, then walked away and out the front door.

“What a lovely woman,” the princess said.

“She is,” Allie said.

“Indeed she is,” Driggs said. “Indeed she is.”

Driggs laid his napkin on the table and scooted back his chair. He leaned in, looking at Allie and his princess, then said, “Please excuse me for a few, if you would be so kind, I need to check on my elephant...”

The princess laughed and Allie smiled.

“I shall return subsequently.”

Driggs left the parlor restaurant and walked through double doors into the Boston House Saloon. He weaved his way between the crowded tables to the side door of the saloon. He looked out over the top of the saloon doors. He looked to his left, then to his right. Then he saw her, a tiny glimpse of Margie as she rounded the corner.

He stepped out onto the porch and moved toward the hotel entrance to where he could see her walking away. He watched as she crossed the street and then he saw her turn. He stepped out and walked down the hotel steps and moved under the awnings of the boardwalk and walked until he had a view of the street she turned on. Then he saw her again. She was halfway down the block. He watched her as she entered a boardinghouse with a sign above the door that read Rooms for Rent by the Day . He walked on the opposite side of the street and moved toward the boardinghouse, where he had a good view. Then he saw a light come on in a second-floor window.

Driggs stood there under the awning and pulled a rolled cigarette from his pocket. He struck a match on the post and lit the cigarette as he watched shadows moving about in the room. He waited until he got a clear glimpse of Margie moving to fully close the draperies, then turned and walked back to the hotel.

When he returned to the table, Allie and the princess, Mrs. Bedford, were having a discussion with their noses inches apart.

“Am I interrupting?” he said.

They looked to him.

“Looked as if you two were about to kiss,” he said. “Did I miss something?”

“Don’t be silly,” the princess said. “I was marveling at Mrs. French’s eyes.”

“I have a flaw,” Allie said.

“Don’t we all,” Driggs said, holding up a bottle of champagne that he’d been hiding behind his back. “I figure we should have a toast. A celebration to Mrs. French.”

“Oh,” she said, looking at the champagne. “I really shouldn’t.”

“Nonsense,” Driggs said as he sat.

“Me?” Allie said. “Why ever toast me?”

“For your new dress shop, of course, and for us being your first customers.”

“Well, that’s very kind of you,” Allie said, blushing.

“I figure it is the least we can do,” Driggs said as he removed the cork cover. “I mean, seeing how your husband is away chasing bad men.”

“Oh,” Allie said. “We are not married.”

Driggs put his thumbs to each side of the cork.

“Living in sin,” he said, looking at Allie as the cork exploded in dramatic fashion. “I like that.”

Before we took off to shaft number forty-two we wired once more to Appaloosa to check with Chastain regarding the lookout of Driggs.

We waited for the response, then Chastain replied that he had nothing to report. He stayed clear of the hotel but kept the entrance in sight from a long distance, but said he did not see anyone matching the description we provided him of Driggs and the warden’s wife.

Virgil and I followed Cotton and a handful of his men riding in a buckboard up a winding road to the location of number forty-two. The moon was out, but it was a little under half full and there was slight cloud cover, so it was dark as we traveled up. A few of the men in the buckboard carried lanterns, so the path up to the mine was easy to follow. It was a good half-hour ride out of Bridgewater, and the moment we arrived the men bailed out of the buckboard and got to work.

Cotton turned the buckboard around and pulled next to Virgil and me.

“Follow me. We’ll go around to the other side of the bluff. Leave our animals over there, away from the blast.”

Virgil and I did as Cotton said, and once we got the horses tied we walked back around the bluff with Cotton to where the men were setting the explosives.

“There’s the entrance of forty-two,” Cotton said. “You can see the rails disappearing into the middle of it where it’s covered up from the blast. We’re setting small explosives at the entrance by the rails. We’ll blast away at the cover-up. We have to do this a little bit at a time, just like we do when we’re building a shaft. Otherwise we could bring the whole damn mountain crumbling down over the entrance, and we don’t want that.”

“How far to the other side?” Virgil said.

“Oh, ’bout an eighth of a mile,” Cotton said.

“And how far is it to the other side of the mountain?” Virgil said.

“Long damn way,” Cotton said. “There is no short way over, take half a day to ride over there from here.”

“How long will it take to go at this a bit at a time,” I said.

“Hard to say. Depending on how much we need to shore up, or if we have to shore up. My guess is the blast that closed it up happened just inside the portal collar-set, which is sturdy as hell, so I’m thinking the blast just brought in the rock behind that... we’ll know soon.”

The first blast was ready within a matter of minutes. Cotton’s men had moved back toward where Virgil and I were standing. Cotton lit the fuse on the dynamite, then walked back over to where we were, just behind the edge of the bluff. The explosion sounded kind of muffled from where we were standing, but the light from the blast lit up the pine trees surrounding us like a lightning strike. Then the men moved back to the shaft and got to work on preparing a second blast.

“Why this?” Virgil said.

I looked to Virgil. He was staring off, looking out into the dark, then looked at me.

“Why up here?”

“I know,” I said.

“Leave your horse here and enter this here shaft,” he said.

“Don’t make a lot of sense.”

“Not really,” Virgil said.

“You think maybe Degraw lured them?”

“Crossed my mind,” Virgil said.

“But then if Degraw did that, he wouldn’t have left the horses.”

“No, I know,” Virgil said.