The Bridge (21 page)

“Not sure how fascinating the places, the stopovers of the west, are, Allie,” Nell said.

“But,” Allie said, “you are onstage and people adore you and your husband. That has to be exciting.”

“At first it was,” Nell said. “But things change.”

Virgil glanced to me.

“Nell’s from San Francisco,” Allie said.

“That right?” I said.

“Yes,” Nell said. “Have you ever been?”

“I have,” I said.

“And?” Nell said.

“Lot of people,” I said. “A polyglot.”

“True,” Nell said.

“Do you miss it?” Allie said.

“Not so much,” Nell said.

“I’ve never been,” Allie said. “Virgil tells me he’ll take me there, one day. I will believe it when I see it. You have family there?” Allie said.

“No,” she said. “I don’t.”

“How did you become an actress?” Allie said.

“Allie,” Virgil said. “Let her chew her food.”

“Oh, it’s okay,” Nell said. “I was a dancer at first.”

“How exciting,” Allie said. “The ballet?”

Nell smiled.

“No,” Nell said. “Dance hall.”

“Oh,” Allie said.

“Started when I was twelve,” she said.

“Oh,” Allie said.

“In the Barbary,” Nell said, matter-of-fact.

“Oh,” Allie said.

Virgil glanced to me.

It became clear to me the relationship between Beauregard and Nell. She was in the Barbary. He most likely pulled her out of the Barbary before she was completely devoured. The only women in the Barbary were whores. Nell and Allie had more in common, I thought, than what first met the eye. Both had a history of whoring, and given
the fact they seemed to be two peas in a pod, it was becoming pretty clear just why.

“Let her eat,” Virgil said.

Nell worked at cutting the rabbit on her plate into little pieces before she said anything else.

“He’s not a bad man,” Nell said, looking at Virgil. “If it were not for him . . . no telling where I’d be.”

Virgil didn’t say anything.

“Not a good man,” Nell went on, as she continued to cut her rabbit.

She was sawing on the rabbit as if she were cutting up Beauregard.

“But not a bad man,” she said, as she forked a piece of rabbit into her mouth and chewed.

After dinner, Nell insisted Allie and Virgil sit by the fire and enjoy each other’s company while I helped her in the kitchen, cleaning the dishes.

We worked side by side, washing and drying the dishes for a long while without saying anything.

“He knows I like you,” Nell said.

I just looked at her.

She looked at me.

“That’s why he acted the way he did when I saw you walk into the door of the hotel,” she said. “He could see it in my eyes. He’s beyond jealous. He watches me. Watches my every move. He knows I’m looking for a way out.”

“I’m no savior,” I said.

“I know,” Nell said.

She continued to wash and I continued to dry.

“You could do one thing for me, though,” Nell said.

“What’s that?” I said.

“Before I have to leave Appaloosa,” she said, “I’d like you to make love to me.”

—
54
—

T
he night was dark and never without all the images of what Virgil and I had experienced this day and the last few that had preceded it.

The evening went on for certain without a roll with Nell or another strange encounter with Séraphine. Not sure I could have handled either. In fact, I knew I couldn’t.

My room was cold. I got the Pettit and Smith heater going and the chill lessened. I kicked my boots off and got myself ready to sleep.

I laid down, but my mind was active and unsettled.

I thought back about Virgil and me sitting on his front porch, talking about the incoming weather, and Sheriff Driskill and his deputies Chip Childers and Karl Worley stopping by on their way to the bridge in search of Lonnie Carman.
An innocent enough mission,
I thought.

I looked to the ceiling, and thought about Virgil and me hearing the music and then seeing Beauregard and the troupe parade into town and how excited Allie had been.

I sat straight and picked up the bottle I had set on the floor. It had a little left in it and I drank it. I felt tired and in need of sleep, but my mind was restless.

I wondered what had happened that day, when Driskill and his deputies encountered those goddamn dressers. How did they get them, get the jump on them?
They were not even a quarter-mile from town.
I kept playing out how it could have happened. It was hard for me to shake the image of the brutal torture the men had most surely endured.

Sledge Driskill, Chip Childers, and Karl Worley’s smiling faces stayed in my head as I thought about them sitting on their horses in front of Virgil and Allie’s porch.

Then I thought about today, about them lying lifeless in the back of the buckboard under our slickers as we rode back to town. I thought about us putting them in the cold shed behind Joshua’s place and about the mayor making an announcement to the community of Appaloosa.

I tried to drift off to sleep in my shitty room above the survey office but continued to have a hard time.

I thought about Séraphine, and when she left me the note. I thought about her saying she would remember me.

I thought about Nell, too, and the rabbit dinner Allie made tonight. I thought about Nell’s life with Beauregard, the older man, the actor with the black dyed hair, the jealous husband.

I thought about the Barbary Coast and what I remembered there. The rough men and women there and the rough life they led. I thought about Nell being there, and the life she had lived.

I thought about Virgil sleeping on his sofa and Allie and Nell sleeping in the same bed.

My mind would not quiet and I rolled and turned, trying to find some comfort, some peace, some slumber.

I thought about seeing the bridge blown up and the tons of wood and iron beams, draped down into the Rio Blanco River like a lifeless dead tree.

I thought of Bolger shooting at me, and of his brother, Ballard, and the buckboard and the clothes in the back.

Everything was revolving in my mind, including the cattleman Swickey. What could be his reason for blowing up the bridge? Or did he need one?
Maybe it was sheer hatred for Cox and for not getting the contract?

I thought about us riding to Loblolly tomorrow and about finding him. I thought about who he was and what he looked like. I thought about confronting him and I wondered what to expect, if we would run into the men pretending to be soldiers there, too
. Would this be it; would it go down?

I could not stop thinking about them, the pretend soldiers,
the goddamn no-good murderers.
The face of the bearded man who rode by Hal’s Café and lifted his hand, giving me a slight wave as he passed.
Was that one of the Cotter brothers?
I kept seeing his face . . . and his eyes, his disturbing, killer eyes. I kept seeing those eyes looking right at me.

But the men hanging in the slaughterhouse was the vision that kept me awake, kept returning in my mind, and I could not shake it. I knew those boys, Chip and Karl and Driskill. I knew them real well, they were good men, good lawmen; they were friends to one another and they were my friends.
Goddamn . . . Goddamn . . . Goddamn . . .

—

I
n the morning I sat on my bed with a blanket wrapped around me and stared at the floor for a long time before I even considered getting out of bed and getting dressed. My Pettit and Smith heater had died out through the night and the room was cold. The wind was whistling a haunting melody through the cracks around the door.

Where is the damn light?
I looked out the window; there was still no sign of sun, the weather remained cloudy and dark, and snow swirled in the bitter morning wind.

I dressed and stopped by Café Paris and drank some coffee. The Café Paris was the first place Virgil and I ever ate and drank coffee when we came to Appaloosa. The same place where we met Allie for the first time.
Allison French,
she’d said her name was, and Virgil asked her, that very first time he laid eyes on her, if she was a whore.

—
55
—

A
s planned, I met Virgil at the livery. We got our horses saddled and ready to ride. Salt watched us as we mounted up and rode out of the barn. I looked back. Salt closed the barn doors when we left and did not look at us as we rode away.

Before we took off for Loblolly Mills in search of Swickey, we stopped in at the mayor’s office to pay Ashley Epps a visit.

When we entered, Ashley was sitting behind his desk and a pretty young woman was sitting across from him as he dictated a note to her. He held up one finger for us to give him a moment.

We did.

When he finished with
God Bless, Yours Truly, Ashley Epps
, he thanked the young woman.

She nodded.

“Will that be all?” she said.

“Yes, Silvia,” Ashley said.

She curtsied a little to Ashley and offered us a smile on her way out.

Ashley stood up to greet us.

“Marshal Cole, Deputy Marshal Hitch, good to see you both. Please have a seat,” he said.

We sat opposite his desk.

“How are you?” he said.

Virgil said nothing.

“Been better,” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“I hope you are here to tell me you’ve apprehended the men responsible for the bridge?” Ashley said.

Virgil looked to me.

“What about the bridge?” I said.

Ashley looked back and forth between Virgil and me.

“Well,” Ashley said. “Curtis Whittlesey told me.”

“What’d he tell you?” I said.

“He told me about the bridge,” Ashley said. “That it had been destroyed.”

Virgil nodded a little.

“I wish you would have let me know,” Ashley said.

“Sounds like we didn’t need to let you know,” Virgil said.

“Yes, well, I am the mayor,” Ashley said, “as well as the minister, and it’s my duty to serve and console those in need.”

“Just had to keep this news from spreading the best we could,” I said.

“That’s hard to do with Curtis Whittlesey having knowledge,” Ashley said.

“Seems to be,” I said.

“Nevertheless,” Ashley said. “I’ve prayed for all those involved for God’s Peace to be with them.”

“Be with them?” Virgil said.

“Yes?” Ashley said.

“Peace be with who?” Virgil said.

“Well,” Ashley said. “Those involved, of course.”

“Don’t think God’s got much to do with this one,” Virgil said.

Ashley looked to me.

I didn’t say anything.

After Ashley continued with his concerns about his authority, we gave him the news of our Appaloosa lawmen. We didn’t provide any details, other than they had been killed in the line of duty and that a formal announcement needed to be made.

“Those fellas,” Virgil said, “you can talk with God about.”

We didn’t waste any more time and bid Ashley good day, leaving him shaken and with tears in his eyes.

Virgil and I walked out of the Rains Civic Building and mounted up. We turned our horses and started to ride when we heard Skinny Jack.

“Hold up,” he shouted.

We pulled up and looked back. Skinny Jack was coming up the boardwalk at a quick pace and Book was trying to keep up behind him.

“What is it?” I said.

“Goddamn glad we caught you,” Skinny Jack said, out of breath.

“What is it?”

“Don’t think you need to go looking for Swickey,” Skinny Jack said.

“Why?” I said.

“The sonofabitch is here,” Skinny Jack said.

“In Appaloosa?” I said.

“He is,” Skinny Jack said, trying to catch his breath.

“Where?” Virgil said.

“Scared the shit outta us,” Skinny Jack said. “Him and three men walked into the office just a while ago.”

“And?” Virgil said.

Book caught up with Skinny Jack.

“Said he was looking for you,” Skinny Jack said.

“Where you say we were?” I said.

“We didn’t,” Skinny Jack said. “We told them we didn’t know.”

Book nodded.

“We thought you’d be most likely gone already,” Book said, as he worked to catch his breath.

“We thought you’d most likely already left to go find him,” Skinny Jack said. “But we didn’t say so.”

“Glad to know you’re here,” Book said. “They’re heeled, too.”

“Where are they now?” Virgil said.

“Boston House,” Skinny Jack said.

—
56
—

B
oston House?
More of the goddamn
Boston House,
I thought.

“He said for us to find you,” Book said.

“What else he say?” Virgil said.

Skinny Jack looked to Book.

“That’s it,” Skinny Jack said. “Find you and let you know he’d be waiting on you.”

Virgil looked at me.

“What do you make of that?” I said.

“Don’t know,” Virgil said.

“Saves us from riding to Loblolly Mills to hunt the sonofabitch down.”

“Damn sure does,” Virgil said.

“What the hell is he doing here?” I said.

“’Spect we’ll find out,” Virgil said.

“Not friendly,” Book said.

Skinny Jack nodded.

“No,” Skinny Jack said. “Not overly.”

“Chastain at the jail?” Virgil said.

“No,” Book said. “Just the two of us in this morning.”

“He should be in directly,” Skinny Jack said.

“Book,” Virgil said. “Go back and keep house. Skinny Jack, you come with us.”

“What should I do?” Book said.

“Just be there,” Virgil said. “Let Chastain know when he comes in.”

“Okay,” Book said.

Virgil and I rode up the street in the swirling snow to the Boston House and Skinny Jack followed alongside.