The Bridge (6 page)

“Regardless,” Skinny Jack said, “I got my eye on him, Marshal, in case he wakes and tries to get shitty.”

Virgil nodded.

“You seen him around before, Skinny Jack?”

“We have,” Skinny Jack said. “He’s been picked up a few times drunk. Heard bad things about him, but we’ve not experienced nothing serious, not until now, anyway.”

Virgil nodded and looked back to the partners sitting on the sofa. I closed the door to the back room and Virgil faced the men.

“This is Grant Minot and Elliott Warshaw,” I said.

“I’m Territorial Marshal Virgil Cole.”

“We’ve heard all about you, Marshal,” Grant said. “Your reputation precedes you.”

Elliott nodded.

“What happened here?” Virgil said.

“That beast of a man in there tried to kill us, for God sake,” Grant said.

“I’ve been apprised of what went down,” Virgil said. “Why don’t you tell me why he tried to kill you?”

“Bolger, um, Mr. Orsley,” Grant said, “came into our office with a gun, demanding pay.”

“Pay he’s owed?” Virgil said.

“Well, yes,” Grant said. “But, well, it’s complicated.”

“Why don’t you uncomplicate it for me?”

“It’s a commerce issue, really,” Grant said.

Elliott put his hand on Grant’s hand.

“Let me explain,” said Elliott.

Grant nodded, smiling pleasantly at Elliott.

“Bolger and his brother, Ballard, worked for us,” Elliott said. “They delivered goods for us.”

“Goods?”

“Yes,” Elliott said. “We supply the Rio Blanco crews with food and Bolger is, well,
was
our driver.”

“The bridge?” Virgil said.

“That’s right,” Elliott said.

“Where’s the rub?” Virgil said.

Elliott turned his head to the side and looked to Grant.

“The problem,” Grant said, providing the meaning of
rub
to Elliott.

“Oh. Well, Bolger and Ballard had been making delivery runs to the camp twice a week,” Elliott said, “and for two weeks consecutive we’ve not been paid and therefore we were unable to pay Bolger and Ballard.”

Elliott glanced to Grant. Grant bobbed his head a little.

“Where’s Ballard?” Virgil said.

“We don’t know,” Elliott said. “He’s a mean man, and when he hears about this, he will become even meaner, I’m sure of that.”

Grant nodded.

“With him loose we will need protection,” Grant said. “I can tell you that.”

“I assure you we did everything in our power to pay what we owed. This is a new business for us,” Elliott said. “We were both employed as tailors previously. We wanted to start our own business and heaven knows cash flow is a necessity for a new enterprise. We certainly don’t blame Bolger or Ballard for being upset, but, well, there was simply nothing we could do.”

“You can imagine how we felt,” Grant said. “I think perhaps Bolger was drinking.”

“Inebriated is more like it,” Elliott said with a huff. “Both of them are drunks. We didn’t know that when we got into business with them.”

“One thing you should know about Ballard,” Grant said.

“What’s that?” I said.

“Well, I know Bolger talks about him like they are close but Ballard was very mean to him,” Grant said.

Elliott nodded.

—

O
ne day, the last delivery, actually,” Elliott said, “they got into a bad fight and Ballard hit Bolger, told Bolger he was no longer part of the business.”

“We haven’t seen Ballard after that,” Grant said.

“Or the buckboard,” Elliott said.

“Ballard took the buckboard?” I said.

They nodded.

“He did,” Elliott said.

“Bolger, however,” Grant said, “kept coming around, asking us for money.”

“Then he came with the gun,” Elliott said.

“We tried to reason with Bolger,” Grant said. “Thank God Elliott pushed him when he was standing over me with the gun in my face.”

“He stumbled and we took off running,” Elliott said.

“Who’s supposed to be paying you that ain’t paying you?” Virgil said.

“We’re the middlemen, so to speak. Our deal is with a grocer in town,” Elliott said. “The contractor pays them and they pay us.”

“Grocer claims it’s the contractor,” Grant said. “That is why I stated it was a commerce issue.”

“Why’d he try and shoot you, Everett?” Virgil said.

“Bad weather, I reckon.”

—
11
—

B
efore we left Doc Crumley’s office Virgil opened the door and looked into the back room again. He instructed Skinny Jack and Book to take turns keeping an eye on Bolger.

“Get him locked up as soon as the doc says he’s okay to be moved,” Virgil said.

“He’s not hurt. He’ll be walking easily on his own accord by morning,” Doc said.

“Keep the door locked and be ready if this brother of his wants to show up and lend a hand.”

“Will do,” Skinny Jack said.

Virgil nodded and moved to Grant and Elliott. They were watching him like trained lapdogs awaiting instruction.

“You boys want to press charges, I imagine?” Virgil said.

Grant looked to Elliott and Elliott looked to Grant. They looked back to Virgil and nodded in unison.

“We do,” Elliott said.

“Most certainly,” Grant said. “We need him to be unable to get to us.”

“Yes,” Elliott said. “He should be locked up.”

“Indeed,” Grant said. “But what about Ballard?”

“You got no idea where he is?” Virgil said.

They shook their heads.

“Know where he lives?” Virgil said.

“No,” Elliott said. “We have no idea.”

“When we first hired them they were so nice, polite, and clean actually,” Grant said. “But then, after a few runs up to the river bridge, they were always dirty and smelled of liquor. All the time. Elliott said something to them about drinking on the job and oh, my. That’s when we knew we had hired degenerate dregs.”

“They turned on me,” Elliott said. “And I thought they were going to kill me right then and there.”

Virgil looked to deputy Book.

“Get these fellas to fill out a full report, Book,” Virgil said. “Get it to the office and we’ll get it processed in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,” Book said.

Virgil looked back to Grant and Elliott.

“We’ll get this report filed with the DA’s office first thing,” Virgil said. “In the meantime, you boys find someplace to stay where you won’t be expected to stay. Don’t want this brother of his showing up to fuck with you.”

Grant looked to Elliott. His face twisted up. He started to cry. Virgil glanced to me and I followed him out the door.

The rain was still coming down and it seemed that it was getting a little colder. We stood under the overhang for a bit, watching the rain.

“Allie heard when Hal came and told me what went down in front of his café,” Virgil said. “She damn near bawled just thinking about the notion of something happening to you. Said she wouldn’t know what to do without you.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything.

“She gets scared,” Virgil said, “thinking about what we do.”

“You and me been at this line of work for a long time, Virgil,” I said. “It’s what we do.”

“Is,” Virgil said.

“She’s just never got used to it,” I said.

“No,” Virgil said. “She ain’t.”

“It’s not just gun work,” I said. “Lots of circumstances and incidents can be attributed to not being here on this Earth anymore.”

“The unexpected is always more expectant with gun work, though, Everett, you know that.”

“Is,” I said. “Of course it is.”

We watched the rain for a bit.

“Old Salt was right,” I said.

“’Bout?”

“Weather getting worse before it gets better.”

Virgil nodded and pulled his watch. He flipped open the lid and checked the time.

“Allie was thrilled to know you was okay,” Virgil said. “She was appreciative as well she wouldn’t have to cancel her ladies’ social shindig on account of something bad happening.”

“Appreciative?” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“What shindig?”

“For the traveling troupe,” he said, as he shut the lid on his timepiece and put it back in his pocket. “The mayor’s gonna formally welcome them.”

“Now?”

“’Bout an hour from,” Virgil said.

I thought about that for a moment as I watched the rain pour off the porch roof, making a trench line in the street between the boardwalk and hitch.

“You expected at this shindig?” I said.

“Seeing how you are upright and alive,” Virgil said. “We are.”

“How about we get a beer first?” I said.

“How ’bout it,” Virgil said with a nod.

We walked a bit, listening to the rain on the metal roof covering the boardwalk. We came to Grove’s Place, a lively saloon where cattlemen from the stockyards gathered.

—
12
—

W
e entered Grove’s and the saloon was more spirited than usual with stockyard hands and cowboys off work because of the nasty conditions.

Virgil and I got us a beer and stood next to a tall table by the window and watched it rain.

“Calm’s over,” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“Outlaw racket come back in business today,” I said.

“Did,” Virgil said.

“Weather comes woes,” I said.

We sipped our beer and didn’t say anything for a while.

“This Ballard fella,” I said. “Sounds like he might have a bone or two to pick.”

“Does,” Virgil said. “Don’t seem like he’s going to appreciate you shooting his brother, Bolger, none.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t, either.”

“Might be a good idea if we locate him before he locates you,” Virgil said.

I nodded and we watched the rain for a bit as we sipped our beers.

“Damn monsoon,” I said.

“Happens once and a while,” Virgil said.

A group of young cowhands across the room burst into laughter after one of them told the punch line to a joke.

Virgil looked over to them and smiled a little.

“You notice when the Beauchamp group come into town,” I said, “the good-looking woman sitting in one of the trailers?”

Virgil shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Didn’t.”

“I met her,” I said. “She’s the fortune-teller.”

Virgil looked at me.

I sipped my beer for a moment before I said anything else.

“After I left your place last night, I stopped in and drank some whiskey with Wallis at the Boston House and in she walked.”

Virgil turned his head slightly and looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

“Goddamn good-looking lady,” I said.

“Good,” Virgil said.

“She told me my life was in danger.”

Virgil leaned his elbow on the tall table and smiled a bit.

“She know you’re a lawman?”

“Does,” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“That’d be like telling a farrier he’d get kicked,” Virgil said. “Or a banker would be receiving a large sum of money.”

“True,” I said.

“Same concerns Allie’s got for us,” Virgil said. “More bullets move around us than move around most people.”

“She calls herself Madame Leroux,” I said. “Funny thing was, some of Madame Leroux’s hocus-pocus foretold what I encountered today.”

Virgil looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

“She didn’t get all of it just right,” I said.

Virgil grinned.

“What’d she allow?” he said.

“Said she saw men running, scared,” I said. “That’s what happened when I left Hal’s, those two dandies, Grant and Elliott, came running right by me. Damn near run over me.”

Virgil grinned, wider this time.

“Hell,” Virgil said. “Most men are scared of their own shadow and they run all the time.”

“Something about her,” I said.

“Always something about a woman, Everett,” Virgil said. “Fortune-teller or not.”

“There is,” I said.

“What’d she not get right?” he said.

“She asked me if I knew someone or something of some such named Codder or Cotter.”

“Codder or Cotter?”

“None of those boys involved in the scuffle in front of Hal’s was named Codder or Cotter,” I said.

“Well,” Virgil said with a chuckle. “That’s a goddamn good thing, Everett.”

“It is,” I said. “Be a bit unsettling to think she really knew what she was talking about.”

“Reckon she can’t be right all the time,” Virgil said.

“No,” I said. “Reckon not.”

Virgil smiled again.

“Figure she weren’t completely shy on the hocus-pocus fiddle-faddle, neither,” Virgil said with a smile, “what with them two running an’ all?”

“No,” I said. “Not completely.”

—
13
—

B
y the time we got over to the town hall in the newly constructed Rains Civic Building on Main Street, the shindig was under way. Virgil and I stood at the back of the large room that served as a courtroom when the judge was in town and a town hall meeting room when community business needed to be discussed.

Appaloosa’s mayor, Ashley Epps, was standing behind the small lectern, speaking to the good-sized crowd that Allie and the ladies’ social had rallied up.

“Considering the weather,” I said, “they got a good turnout, it appears.”

“They do,” Virgil said.

Ashley was a young family man who was fairly new to Appaloosa. Besides being the mayor, he was also the minister of the Baptist church, with ambitions of becoming the territorial governor.

He was small but mighty, a well-spoken man with a genuine Baptist conviction he wore on his shirt cuff. He had a flashy smile, golden skin, and wheat-colored hair.

Behind Ashley was the majority of the Extravaganza troupe. There were about thirty people in all. Most were outfitted in some
kind of colorful costume, including the band members with their instruments, and a pair of jugglers dressed like jokers on a deck of cards.

“Colorful lot,” Virgil said.