Роберт Паркер - Robert B. Parker's Revelation

Though we were standing there dripping wet, no one paid Virgil and me much attention when we entered. A short, round, red-faced woman wearing a checkered apron who came out of the kitchen drying her hands on a towel was the first person to greet us.

“Evening, fellas,” she said.

Virgil showed his badge.

“I’m Marshal Virgil Cole. This is Marshal Everett Hitch.”

“I’m Lucy.”

“Need a few things,” Virgil said.

She looked back and forth between us.

“Okay,” she said.

“We are looking for a man that might have come in here sometime earlier,” Virgil said. “With a young woman... a girl.”

She shook her head.

“No,” she said. “I’ve not seen any man with a girl... Sorry.”

I glanced at Virgil.

“How about without a girl,” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“Have you seen any strangers come through?” Virgil said. “Anyone at all?”

“Not in the last few days,” Lucy said.

Virgil nodded.

“That being that,” he said, “we could use some doctor help outside here. Pronto.”

“We have a young man with us in a buckboard,” I said. “He’s in pretty bad shape and in need of medical attention.”

“You are in luck there,” Lucy said as she looked to the men watching the fiddle players. “That’s the most qualified man here in Red Rock right there. He’s an ol’ dentist who’s a better vet, and even better doctor. Retired now for the most part, but he works on most anybody with whatever.”

She moved toward him.

“Claude,” she said.

Claude was a skinny, older fella wearing overalls. He turned and looked to us.

“Come here,” she said.

Claude got up and ambled over to us.

“These men are lawmen and they need help.”

The fiddlers stopped fiddling and the handful of fellas that’d been watching them fiddle turned and looked to us.

Then the woman barked orders at a few of the other men to help and we got Gracie moved inside. We laid him out on the most comfortable spot we could find. Then Claude looked to Virgil and shook his head some.

“I ain’t never worked on no Niggra before,” Claude said.

“Good news,” Virgil said.

“What’s that?” Claude said.

“Things have changed for you, Claude,” Virgil said.

The fiddle players and their small audience cleared out of the eatery as Claude got to work on Gracie. He took immediate charge of the situation. He had Lucy put some water on to boil, then cleaned out the wounds in Gracie’s back with soap and hot water. Gracie was already numb from the pain and barely made a sound as Claude scrubbed, then stitched up the openings. When Claude was done, Gracie fell instantly asleep.

“That is it for now,” Claude said.

Claude watched the kid breathing for a moment. He put his hand to Gracie’s head and left it there feeling his pulse at his temples. He touched his cheeks and the back of the boy’s neck, then looked to us and nodded a little.

“He’s very lucky,” Claude said. “If either one of those wounds ended up a half-inch one way or another...”

Claude just shook his head, then looked to Virgil and me.

“He’s gonna be okay,” he said.

Virgil nodded.

Claude looked at Lucy.

“I’ll stay here through the night,” he said.

Virgil looked to me, then to Claude.

“Much appreciated.”

“The fact me saying I never worked on no Niggra before had nothing to do with me not willing,” Claude said. “I just never had the opportunity. In all my years, this here boy is my first.”

Claude turned back to Gracie and rested his hand on his shoulder as he nodded a little.

“He’s a strong boy,” Claude said, then turned to Lucy. “How about a whiskey, Lucy?”

“You bet, Claude. Coming right up,” she said, then looked to us. “Marshals?”

“Sure,” we said.

Lucy poured us each a healthy glass of whiskey.

“Been a while since me and Everett have been through here,” Virgil said. “Where would a man find a room ’round here, what’s available?”

“You fellas are welcome to bunk down here if you like.”

“More interested in where we might find the man we was looking for,” Virgil said. “Where he might have ended up.”

“Oh,” Lucy said. “Well, there are no official hotels... Not yet, anyways. Growing every day and there’s talk of one a’coming. For now there’s just a few rooming houses up the street.”

Virgil nodded but didn’t say anything.

“There is a boardinghouse at the north end of town, but that stays pretty full with lumbermen. Each one of those places will have vacancy signs up if they got space.”

“Saloons?”

“There’s two small ones, Jim’s and the other just says Bar . Both of those are at the end just where the road goes back north.”

“They open?” I said.

She nodded.

“Never closed.”

Virgil nodded a little, thinking.

“Wire service here?” I said.

She shook her head.

“No, but the Transcontinental’s not but eight miles up and the water-drop depot is right there where the road crosses the tracks. The section line operator is there, takes care of everything on the tracks and runs the section team and such. If he’s not in when you get there, just wait awhile and he’ll show up.”

We took our whiskeys and stepped out onto the back porch of the eatery that looked out over the river.

“Ol’ Claude at first seemed like someone you’d rather not have work on you under dire conditions,” I said.

“Is.”

Virgil glanced back to Claude sitting with Gracie, then moved to the rail and looked out toward the dark. We could hear the water moving over the rocks. The sound of the rushing water and the rain falling on the covered porch was loud.

“Still coming,” Virgil said.

“Damn sure is,” I said as I moved near the rail next to him.

“Been thinking ’bout that young girl he took,” I said.

Virgil nodded but did not look at me.

“Me, too.”

“I’d like to think some kind of good could exist for her,” I said, “but...”

“I know,” Virgil said.

“And that boy in there,” I said, looking inside.

Virgil glanced back and shook his head.

“He’ll not likely forget this... He’ll carry those scars inside for all his born days,” he said.

We stood there for a moment just listening to the rain and river as we sipped our whiskey.

“Something don’t seem right,” Virgil said.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Don’t know.”

He shook his head a little and looked to me but said nothing.

“Driggs?” I said.

Virgil thought, then nodded.

“No doubt we been after some real shits that got loose,” he said. “And we got some kind of monster right here, right now, with this goddamn Degraw... but Driggs.”

“We were talking there at the table when Rutledge came up, talked about his big party and mentioned the prison break,” I said. “And Allie was concerned about the convicts ending up in Appaloosa.”

“I know.”

“That was a far notion from our minds at the time,” I said.

“At the time,” Virgil said.

“Not from Allie’s,” I said.

“Nope,” he said.

“Rutledge said he heard about the break from a wire that came from his business partner in Yaqui,” I said. “When he was ordering parts or some shit.”

I could tell Virgil was thinking back on that night.

“I thought back on him, Rutledge,” I said. “Saying that shit to us at the table... Don’t think he was fishing, do you, about what we did and didn’t know?”

“What do you think?”

“Don’t know,” I said. “Rutledge seems like a harmless blowhard, but hell if I know.”