Роберт Паркер - Robert B. Parker's Revelation

“Well, he’s not been in here.”

Book nodded and looked around the room. He made eye contact with Driggs. Driggs smiled and touched his brim. Book smiled, then looked back to Wallis.

“Well, if you do happen to see him, tell him Virgil has been trying to wire him.”

“You check with the Cherokee gal?” Wallis said with a chuckle.

“First place I looked,” Book said.

“He still seeing her?”

“Says he’s not,” Book said.

Wallis laughed.

“We believe that,” he said.

“Sure we do,” Book said.

Wallis and Book shared a laugh.

“If you happen to see him, tell him that we’re looking for him, will ya?”

“You bet,” Wallis said.

Driggs finished the last sip of his whiskey as Book walked out the door, then got up and walked to the bar.

“That was damn good,” Driggs said as he set his glass in front of Wallis. “Believe I’ll have another.”

“You got it,” Wallis said, then uncorked the bottle and poured.

Driggs laid his newspaper on the bar as he fished a few coins from his pocket and tossed them on the bar.

Wallis looked at the cover article.

“Big to-do tomorrow night?”

Driggs looked to the paper.

“You going?”

“Me?” Wallis said, scoffing. “Heck no. Too rich for my blood.”

“Kind of the point, isn’t it?”

“What’s that?”

“That’s the intention,” Driggs said. “Throwing a party like that separates the rich from the poor. Puts folks in their place.”

Driggs laughed and held up his hands.

“Hey, I don’t by any means mean a damn thing by that comment, not saying you, me, or any other swinging dick does or does not belong, but I’ve seen enough of that sort of do-gooder bullshit in my time.”

“You going?” Wallis said.

Driggs laughed.

“Why, of course.”

Virgil and I sat our horses in front of the depot, looking at the blond fella holding the pink ribbon that was blowing sideways as it danced and twisted gently with the breeze. The young hand got up off the porch and walked over to Virgil and me. He handed the ribbon to Virgil.

“Where’d you find this?” Virgil said.

“Just right up the way here,” he said, pointing north.

Virgil handed me the ribbon.

“How far up the way?” Virgil said.

“Oh, ’bout a quarter-mile.”

“Just so you know, though,” the heavyset boss said. “This line is like every other line across this country, it’s littered with damn trash. Half the time that is what we are doing, picking up trash. Not saying one way or the other but we find all kinds of shit up and down these damn tracks.”

Virgil nodded, thinking. He looked to the ribbon in my hand, then he looked up to the telegraph lines running next to the track.

“Telegraph working?” he said.

“It is,” the heavyset man said.

“Like to send a wire,” Virgil said.

“You bet,” he said, then looked to one of the young fellas on the porch. “Fletcher?”

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“Hump to,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

Fletcher was a thin-faced young man, not more than sixteen. He wiped off his hands as he got to his feet.

“Come on in. Fletcher here is our operator. He’ll tap out whatever you need... I’m Louis, by the way.”

“Thank you, Louis,” Virgil said.

“Hell, anything we can do, just say.”

We sent a wire to Sheriff Chastain in Appaloosa and waited for a reply. We got a wire back in about fifteen minutes letting us know they were looking for Chastain and would have him wire back just as soon as he was located.

After an hour the sounder clicked and the message came in letting us know Chastain was nowhere to be found.

“Don’t think he’s shacked up again with that Cherokee he promised he was swore off, do you?” I said.

“Might,” Virgil said. “I think he likes the fact that she don’t talk much.”

“What’s not to like about that?” heavyset Louis said with a chuckle, then looked to Virgil and me as he moved to the door. “I’ll be in the shed with the hands out behind us here, loading up for the afternoon fixes. Holler if you need me.”

Virgil nodded and Louis stepped out the door.

“What do you figure?” I said.

Virgil thought for a moment as he looked to the rail map that was tacked to the wall.

“No telling where Degraw is,” he said.

Virgil nodded to the map.

“Lot of land out there,” he said.

“Is,” I said.

“We could go this way and well, hell,” Virgil said. “He could be that way.”

“Could have jumped the night train,” I said.

“Yep.”

“Then again, he might not have,” I said.

“Sure don’t like the idea of this.”

“The girl?”

“None of it,” he said. “Especially the girl.”

“No,” I said. “Unless we find something that can tell us where to point no telling what to do or where to go from here... I don’t want to give up, Virgil, but I don’t think we have much choice at this point and time.”

I got out of the corner chair I’d been sitting in and moved next to Virgil and looked at the map. After some time of looking and thinking, I turned to Virgil.

“’Spect we should get on that train when it comes through,” I said.

“I suspect so,” he said.

With the exception of Fletcher and Louis, all the young hands loaded up in the flatbeds and headed back out to work on the rails as we waited for the train.

When the train arrived at the depot there was still no word back from Chastain but we let the Western Union office know that we would be back to Appaloosa by tomorrow night.

At four in the afternoon Virgil and I loaded our animals in the stock car, boarded the northbound train, and headed back to Appaloosa.

At the first water drop ten miles out we saw one of the section-line flatbeds near the water tank. As the train slowed, a handful of the hands moved toward the train. The blond fella that found the ribbon was in front of the pack.

Virgil and I were standing on the third car porch as the engine slowed to a stop under the water drop. When the blond hand saw us he rushed over.

“I think we found the young girl you was looking for. She’s over there in the flatbed,” he said with a point. “She’s dead. Looks like she was tossed off the train. Not sure if it was the fall that killed her or what. But she’s naked and purty mangled up.”

Driggs awoke the day of the party like he did every morning. He stood looking out the window watching the folks of Appaloosa going this way and that as he sipped some whiskey and lit a cigarette. Coming up the block was the man in the buggy being towed by the wide dun horse. Driggs watched as the man turned the corner in front of the hotel and moved on up the road.

Driggs turned back to the princess and watched her sleeping and thought about having her just get up and get dressed, pack up, and leave town. Go elsewhere, Frisco, Chicago, or Denver, but he had a job to do first, then they would go. He did not come all this way for nothing. He had some pertinent business to take care of and of course there was the party. He was looking forward to the party and dancing with the princess.

Driggs moved to the bureau, poured some water in the basin, and splashed his face. As he looked at himself in the mirror he thought it time for a haircut and shave. He wanted to look good for the party and for the princess.