Robert B. Parker's Blackjack (6 page)

I
buried my husband and have been in this place ever since. I don’t completely remember just why I stayed really, I just had no place to go. Two years now. I bought this saloon with the last money we had, and currently I just watch all the travelers come and go with their dreams. I think of this place as somewhere between Heaven and Hell, a halfway stop of sorts. A reckoning happens here, it’s a way station of Revelation.”

She smiled a wistful, reflective smile.

“I’m a midwife, you could say. Truths are conveyed here and I know whose dreams will come true and whose won’t. I know what truths travelers carry with them . . . One day, when the blood is gone, I will move on.”

“It wasn’t Black who killed your husband?” Virgil said.

“I told you he did not.”

“You telling the truth?” Virgil said.

She looked at Virgil without blinking . . .

“No.”

“So he did?” Virgil said.

“My husband had it coming,” she said. “He pulled on him.”

“You also told us memory can be tricky business,” Virgil said. “So what is the real story?”

“Bill Black’s horse went lame. He shot his horse and he got on the same stage I was on with George. They became quick friends, and to my disliking, they gambled together on the trip. My husband liked to gamble. For the most part he was good at it, unless he was gambling against Bill. He found that out rather fast.”

“And the two of you?” I said. “Bill and you?”

“What about us?”

She looked at me for a steady moment, then smiled some and nodded.

“Yes . . . as I mentioned, I knew him, too, you see. I got to know him, too . . . and I liked him, very much . . .”

She paused, looked away, then said, “He is a dangerous sort.”

Virgil looked at me.

“Since he has been near here, over in Appaloosa, he has been here to see me on occasion. More than once . . . always thrilling, we have a special friendship.”

She took a drink of whiskey, set the glass back on the table, and glided her finger around the rim.

“I sleep with who or whom I want to sleep with, when I want to sleep with them,” she said.

She looked up and smiled at Virgil.

“But of course him coming here this time was very different,” she said.

“Different how?” Virgil said.

“Well, that is obvious, is it not, Marshal?” she said. “He showed up here with other men, some no-good men, and with you after him, hunting him down to kill him.”

“Not hunting him down to kill him,” I said.

“He know we are after him?” Virgil said.

“Suspected,” she said with a nod.

Skinny Jack looked up at me a little, then lowered his eyes.

“And I personally abide by that impression as to why he was here for such a short while,” she said with a smile. “I would hate to think I was the reason for him moving on in haste . . . I would say it concerns me that he is on the run, but frankly nothing truly concerns me anymore. I will also say, since he was in Appaloosa, so near, I was hopeful that he might come back over here someday and perhaps stay awhile. Or take me away, save me, and help me to forget. But that is, or was, wishful thinking, and now there is every reason to believe he will die. Just like my husband. He will be killed.”

“When the time comes he will have a choice,” Virgil said.

“Providing he makes the right choice?” she said.

“Where is he?” Virgil said.

She looked down to her hands resting on the table. She smiled a little and then looked back up at Virgil’s eyes.

“I’ve told you,” she said. “Gone, just gone.”

“And the other two,” I said. “What about them?”

She shook her head.

“I do not know about them. Gone, too, I assume,” she said. “I saw them for a brief time. Bill told them to leave here and he would collect them when he was ready to leave. They went over to the girls across the way and thankfully stayed there . . . I assume.”

“When did Bill leave?” I said.

“Early this morning. I awoke and he was gone.”

Virgil nodded and flatly stared at her for a long moment, then shifted in his chair and placed his elbow on the table and leveled his eyes at her.

“He didn’t mention the Denver woman’s name to you?”

“No.”

“What else can you tell us?” Virgil said.

She shook her head.

“Nothing,” she said.

“I don’t suppose you’d be too inclined to share where he might be headed?”

“Inclination aside,” she said, “I have no idea, Marshal.”

Virgil looked at her, steady.

She looked back at him, a little steadier.

“What, and why did he mention anything to you about a woman in Denver at all?” he said.

She shrugged.

“I don’t know.”

“Why do you think?” I said.

“I don’t think and I don’t know.”

“You have to have some kind of idea?” I said.

“No,” she said, “I don’t . . . He is an anomaly. In actuality, he functions pretty much like a hole card.”

“How so?” Virgil said.

She shrugged a little.

“He keeps himself facedown, never obliged to reveal what he’s about until it is time for the showdown.”

Virgil looked at her for an extended moment, then looked to me.

“Do you think he killed her?” I said.

“Perhaps his reasoning for bringing up this business of murdering the woman in Denver was an attempt to simply madden me, to put me in my place. Then again, perhaps it was his celestial epitaph of finality. Regardless, as I told you, this is a place of reckoning. And Boston Bill Black was . . . is no fool, but he is also no exception.”

W
hen we left Mike in her saloon it was good and dark out. The night air was pleasant and the wind had died down to a gentle breeze.

“Tangled goddamn web,” I said.

“Is,” Virgil said.

“I’ll say,” Skinny Jack said. “She’s . . . well, I don’t know, strange, I guess.”

We got our horses and rode off down the street to pay the whores a visit. We wanted to see if they might be able to offer up any news regarding the intended whereabouts of Truitt Shirley, his buddy, and Boston Bill.

The working girls were sitting on the porch in two weathered armchairs when we rode up. A lamp hung from a rope draped over the porch’s eave beam made it possible to see them clearly. One of the women lifted out of her chair when we came to a stop.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” she said. “Welcome. I am Irena.”

“I am Ursula,” the seated woman said.

They were fairly young, and it was obvious by their accents that they were Polish.

Irena leaned on the porch post and showed us the flesh of her thigh.

“You like?” she said.

She smiled a wide smile.

“Tell me if you like?”

“Very nice,” I said. “But . . .”

“Me love good,” Ursula said as she, too, got to her feet.

Though I’m sure they were good at their trade, their English was limited. Irena was slightly older than Ursula and seemed able to manage words a little better.

“Tonight,” Irena said, “we can make you feel really so very good, you will see.”

She turned around and showed us her backside.

“You will feel better,” Irena said, looking back over her shoulder.

“No,” Virgil said. “Just want to talk.”

She remained looking at us over her shoulder for a moment, then slowly turned to face us.

“Talk about what?” Irena said.

“The men you were with last night,” I said.

Irena put a hand to her hip.

“What men?”

“The blond fella, long hair, and the other man, young, dark hair, beard. They were with another man, an older tall fella.”

Irena looked to Ursula. Ursula shook her head and Irena looked to me, shaking her head.

I moved close to the porch, pulled a dollar from my vest, leaned out, and handed it to Irena. She looked at the dollar in the palm of her hand, then back at me.

“What about them?” Irena said.

“Do you know where they are?”

Irena looked to Ursula, then to me, and shook her head.

“No.”

“When did they leave?” Virgil said.

“Last night,” Irena said. “Very late. They left in the middle of the night.”

“You sure?” I said.

“Yes,” Irena said. “The big man came in here and told the other two they had to leave. They left.”

“Any idea which way they rode away?”

“No,” she said.

Virgil looked to me, nodded a bit, then backed his horse up.

“Appreciate it,” I said.

Ursula said something in Polish that made Irena laugh.

“What’s that?” I said

“The one man,” Irena said, “the young man. He could not do fun with Ursula, he was very sick with tooth.”

“Yes,” Ursula said, then rattled off something in Polish and pointed to her temple.

Irena nodded.

“Yes, his tooth was very bad, he was in much pain,” she said as she pointed two fingers to her eyes. “He was crazy.”

Ursula nodded.

“Blood . . .” Irena said. “He was spitting much blood like he was the devil.”

Ursula nodded her head in agreement and said something in Polish again.

“Yes, he drank a lot of whiskey,” Irena said, “to, you know, to help with pain, but it did little good. And he was mad at the other man.”

“Mad?” I said. “Why?”

Irena shook her head.

“I do not know, they just complain about each other, like little boys fighting over candy.”

Virgil looked to me, then looked back to the women and nodded.

“All right, then,” he said.

Virgil tipped his hat and reined his horse away from the women a little.

“Special,” Ursula said as she moved to the door.

She held back the tarp that covered the door and pointed to Skinny Jack and then pointed in the room.

“For you,” she said. “Special.”

Skinny Jack looked to me, then to Virgil, and pointed to himself.

“Me?”

“Yes. Special,” she said, nodding. “Ursula show you and I will make very good for you.”

“Um, gosh, thank you,” Skinny Jack said, “but no, thank you, ma’am.”

“No, you come,” she said.

“No,” he said. “I . . . I won’t come, ma’am.”

“Yes,” she said.

She pointed to Skinny Jack, then pointed into the room like she was angry, and she spoke to Skinny Jack in a scolding tone.

“Special, Ursula will show you.”

Skinny Jack backed his horse up and shook his head.

“Got to go, ma’am,” Skinny Jack said.

“Ursula do extra-special for you.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” Skinny Jack said.

Ursula laughed and pulled down one side of her loose-fitting cotton dress and showed one of her breasts. I couldn’t see Skinny Jack in the dark, but I was pretty sure he was blushing.

Virgil smiled and turned his horse.

“Good evening, ladies,” he said, and moved on.

“You sure you do not want some love?” Ursula said again to Skinny Jack.

“Maybe next time,” I said, speaking for Skinny Jack. “Maybe next time.”

“There is no better time than now,” Irena said as we rode off in the dark. “No better time.”

She laughed and Ursula joined her. Their laughter cut through the otherwise still evening. We could hear them jabbering in Polish as Skinny Jack and I caught up with Virgil. The three of us rode abreast for a moment before Virgil spoke up.

“Well, there you have it.”

“Yep,” I said.

“That Polish lady has a sure enough hankering for you, Skinny Jack,” Virgil said.

“Sure enough,” I said. “Special.”

“Extra-special,” Virgil said.

W
e rode to the corral behind the stage stop, where an elderly black fellow we’d seen pitching hay earlier gladly gave us some feed for our animals.

His name was Louis. He was a tall, lanky man hunched over from years of hard work, friendly but not at all talkative. He said he’d seen Black and the other two ride in but never talked with them or saw them after they rode by.

Louis shared with us some food he cooked. It was a good-tasting red broth stew made of pork, corn, rice, and beans. We sat under the lean-to behind the stop and ate with the animals.

“They damn sure keeping on the move,” I said.

“They are,” Virgil said.

“Sounds like the one fella is in some pain,” Skinny Jack said.

“Does,” I said.

“We getting on the road tonight?” Skinny Jack said. “Stay after them?”

Virgil nodded.

“Don’t you think, Everett?”

“I do, especially since they took off last night and not this morning. I don’t think it a good idea to rest up too long and give them the whole of the evening.”

Louis walked out with the kettle of stew and without saying a word he ladled each of us another scoop.

Virgil nodded.

“Thank you, Louis,” Virgil said.

Louis nodded and started back inside.

“Louis,” Virgil said.

He turned back.

“Yes, sir.”

“Like to find a lamp or two,” he said. “We got to get us some light before we get on the road.”

Louis pointed us to a small house behind the general store and told us to wake up the old man that runs the store. He let us know that he didn’t much care for the old sonofabitch and was happy for lawmen to make him have to open up after hours.

After we ate and got our horses ready to ride, we rousted the store’s owner. There was most certainly something about him that made us feel comfortable with the opinion Louis had of the old fellow. He was grumpy and unfriendly, but he did have what we needed.

He didn’t have any lamps to spare, but we made ourselves some good stave torches of Hessian and paraffin he had available. Then we rode out to the crossroads, lit the torches, and searched the ground for fresh tracks. In no time we located the trio’s hoofprints.

“South it is,” Virgil said.

We walked slowly on the road at first, keeping the tracks visible, making sure they had not veered off in a different direction, and once we were convinced they stayed to the road, we put out the light and kept traveling.

The night was clear and full of stars. We had a bit of light from
the low-slung moon as we rode. Every few miles we fired the torches, making sure we still had track.

“I been thinking,” Skinny Jack said. “There’s a good chance they might ride for La Verne.”

“What makes you think that?” I said.

“Well, I don’t know for sure, but down there Truitt knows his way around those parts,” Skinny Jack said. “I mean, it’s a long damn ways to La Verne, but, um, that is where Truitt’s from.”

“Got to be a good hundred and fifty miles,” I said.

“We know it,” Virgil said. “La Verne.”

“We do,” I said.

“You think they’d go there?” Skinny Jack said.

“Hard to say about Black and the other fella, but for Truitt it wouldn’t be unlikely,” Virgil said.

“When things are uncertain,” I said, “a place that is known gives a fella some security and comfort to uncertainty. Like you were saying, Skinny Jack. A better place than where they were.”

“That’s right,” Virgil said.

“Then again, Yaqui is the train,” I said.

“Is,” Virgil said.

“Well, La Verne’s damn sure Truitt’s home place,” Skinny Jack said. “I was raised just east of there at the fort. I got a lot of family down that way myself. That’s how I know about Truitt and his family. My dad knew his pa from the fort. Truitt’s got kin all through there that could and would lie for him, hide him and protect him.”

We rode solid through the night and into the morning hours. We continued to follow the tracks and just before noon we came upon a sign:
Ray Opelka’s—Way Station & Supply Depot—3 miles ahead
.

The road between the sign and the way station worked its way back and forth through rocky terrain and was uphill. After we topped the long rise we came to the depot on the other side of the crest.

The way station was built on the west side of the road in front of a bluff that protected the place from the late afternoon sun. The main building had a wide porch that fronted the road. Behind that was a living quarters structure surrounded by smaller outbuildings, a small barn, and empty corrals, and behind that there was a pen with a big hog standing stock-still.

There was nobody moving about. Other than the hog, the only sign of life was a trickle of smoke rising from a single chimney in the storefront.

As we rode closer there was a flash from a north-facing window followed by a rifle report. A bullet ricocheted off the road just behind us. A quick second shot was fired and it hit Skinny Jack, knocking him to the ground and sending his horse running off back the way we came.