39.
Patrick brought the bottle over and poured us all another drink. Mrs. Redmond took a drink and stared into her glass. She had stopped crying. And she was a little drunk.
“He isn’t as bad a man as he seems,” she said.
“Hard to be worse,” I said.
“He is just so strained,” she said, “trying to support me and the kids, and trying to organize the ranchers, and trying to fight Mr. Wolfson.”
None of us said anything.
“He gets crazy mad, sometimes,” she said.
“At you,” I said.
She nodded.
“But he never hurts the kids,” she said.
“He ain’t supposed to,” Virgil said.
She stared at him. I knew she didn’t understand him. Most people didn’t. There was about him a flat deadliness that frightened people. And yet he had protected her from her husband and helped her get settled in the Blackfoot.
“He wasn’t always like this,” she said. “It’s just that all we got is that piece of land, and he’s terrified we’re going to lose it. That Mr. Wolfson will take it away from us.”
“Make him feel like a failure,” I said.
“Yes.”
“This ain’t gonna help him,” Virgil said. “Us taking his wife away from him.”
“You didn’t do that,” she said.
“He’ll see it that way,” Virgil said.
Virgil probably knew something about that feeling. Mrs. Redmond drank more whiskey and began to cry again. She talked haltingly while she cried.
“My children.” She gasped. “My children. He won’t let me see my children.”
“He might,” Virgil said.
She shook her head.
“His mind is set,” she said. “When he sets it, ain’t nothing will change it.”
“Couple of us could take you out for a visit,” Virgil said.
She shook her head.
“No,” she said. “There might be trouble. I wouldn’t want the children to see it.”
“Well, then,” Virgil said. “Maybe Everett and me can ride out tomorrow and talk with him about this.”
“Oh, God,” she said. “Not in front of the children.”
“They home all the time?”
“They go a couple hours in the afternoon to Ruth Anne Markey, Charlie Markey’s wife. She teaches some of the kids in her home. Mostly Bob needs them to help with the place.”
“We can do it then,” Virgil said.
She stared at him again.
“Don’t hurt him,” she said. “Please don’t hurt him.”
“’Course not,” Virgil said.
Mrs. Redmond was silent for a time, staring into her glass. Then she pushed the glass away, folded her arms on the tabletop, and put her head down on her arms. In a few moments she was snoring softly.
“Care to give me a hand, Everett,” Virgil said.
I nodded, and we stood, and each with a hand under her arm, we got her to her feet and steered her to her hotel room.
40.
The horses had been ridden together so often that, both geldings, they had become friends. They would occasionally nuzzle each other when we stopped.
“Isn’t this sort of the way you took up with Allie?” I said to Virgil.
“How so?” Virgil said.
“She comes into town alone. No money. No place to stay. You find her a place to stay. Get her a job.”
“Uh-huh.”
“How’d that work out for you?” I said.
“Don’t know yet,” Virgil said.
“Damn,” I said. “You are a stubborn bastard.”
“I am,” Virgil said.
The horses moved along pleasantly. The air was warm, not hot, and there was a nice little breeze. Virgil rode well. He did everything well. When he rode, the horse seemed an extension of him. When he shot, the gun seemed part of him.
“Hard on women out here,” Virgil said.
“Hard on everybody out here,” I said.
“Women need looking after.”
“Allie?” I said. “I figure Allie’s pretty good at taking care of herself.”
“Allie thinks with her twat,” Virgil said. “It gets her in trouble.”
“True,” I said. “So what are you going to do with Mrs. Redmond?”
“Don’t know,” Virgil said. “Can’t let her old man beat on her.”
“We could let Cato kill him,” I said.
“Can’t do that,” Virgil said.
“Why not?” I said.
“Can’t do that,” Virgil said, as if it was an answer.
The horses eased down the trail toward the homesteads on the flat land. The homesteads weren’t much. Weather-grayed cabin and shed. Sparse-looking kitchen garden. An occasional split-rail corral with one or two horses. Redmond’s was no different. We found him straddling the peak of his cabin, patching the roof. When he saw us ride in he climbed down and went inside. By the time we reached the house, he was back outside with a Winchester.
“What do you want?” he said.
“Need to talk,” Virgil said.
“Got nothing to talk about,” Redmond said.
“You do,” Virgil said.
Redmond gestured with the Winchester.
“I know how to use this,” he said.
“’Course you do,” Virgil said. “You might get off a shot. You might even hit one of us. But ’fore you jacked the second shell up into the chamber you’d be dead.”
“And maybe one of you’d be dead.”
“Maybe,” Virgil said.
There was some silence. Virgil’s horse put his head over and snuffled at mine. Redmond lowered the Winchester slightly.
“What you want to talk about?” he said.
“Your wife and children,” Virgil said.
“Goddamn it,” Redmond said. “Wolfson don’t run my family.”
“This ain’t Wolfson,” Virgil said. “This is me.”
He was relaxed and comfortable in his saddle as he talked. Like he always was. Sometimes people would make a bad mistake and think he wasn’t ready. He was. Virgil was always ready. He just never looked it.
“You fucking her yet?” Redmond said.
“Nope.”
“Probably all of you, fucking her,” Redmond said.
“Nope.”
“Well, I’ll give her that,” Redmond said. “She’s hot enough. Or she used to be.”
“That be before you starting smacking her around?” Virgil said.
“That’s none of your business,” Redmond said.
“True enough,” Virgil said. “But she needs to see the kids.”
“She can’t,” Redmond said.
“Me and Everett,” Virgil said, “think she should visit the children, couple times a week. Cato and Rose agree with us.”
“You threatenin’ me?” Redmond said.
“I am,” Virgil said.
Again, silence. Redmond and Virgil looked at each other. Nobody could hold a stare very long with Virgil Cole. Redmond looked away.
“What if I say no?”
“Four of us will bring her out anyway,” Virgil said.
“Four fucking pistoleros against one farmer?” Redmond said.
“Yup.”
“Don’t seem fair,” Redmond said.
“One of us comes out,” Virgil said. “And you might try to shoot it out, and whoever would have to kill you. Four of us come out, and you won’t be that stupid.”
Redmond looked at Virgil. Then at me. I smiled at him. He looked back at Virgil.
“I already told them she’s a whore,” Redmond said.
“Tell ’em she ain’t,” Virgil said.
My horse tossed his head, and the sound of the bridle hardware was the only sound.
“Kids should probably see their mother,” Redmond said.
“Should,” Virgil said.
“When you want to bring her out?” Redmond said finally.
“Monday and Friday,” Virgil said.
Redmond nodded.
“Lunchtime,” Redmond said.
“Okay.”
“Don’t need all four of you to come.”
“Maybe at first,” Virgil said. “See how it goes.”
Redmond thought about it awhile.
“Why do you people give a fuck about me and Beth?” he said.
“Good to keep busy,” Virgil said.
Redmond nodded slowly. More to himself, I think, than to us.
“Four killers,” he said. “Four fucking gun-shooting killers.”
Virgil nodded.
“And all of a sudden,” Redmond said, “you’re like fucking law and order, for crissake.”
“Peculiar, ain’t it,” Virgil said.
41.
With Cato and Rose at the Excelsior, and me and Virgil at the Blackfoot, things got so peaceful that I stopped sitting in the lookout chair and sat with Virgil at a table near the bar.
“Quiet,” I said to Virgil.
“It is,” he said.
“Makes you wonder if they need us here,” I said.
“They’d need us if we wasn’t here,” Virgil said.
“Same at the Excelsior,” I said.
“Should be,” Virgil said.
“Cute,” I said. “They don’t need us unless we ain’t here; then they do need us.”
“Called keepin’ the peace,” Virgil said.
“That’d be us,” I said.
Two farmers came into the Blackfoot, and looked around, and came to our table.
One of them, a short, chunky guy wearing a pink shirt, said, “Cole and Hitch?”
“He’s Cole,” I said. “I’m Hitch.”
“We got a problem,” the farmer in the pink shirt said.
The man with him was taller and rounder. He was wearing a blue shirt.
“He’s got a problem,” the man in blue said. “Sonovabitch sold me a lame horse.”
“He had a chance to try the horse,” Pink Shirt said. “He didn’t say nothing about her bein’ lame when he bought her.”
“How lame,” Virgil said.
“Lame,” Blue Shirt said, “right front leg’s all swole.”
“Why?”
They both looked at him blankly.
“Why’s it swole?” Virgil said.
“’Cause she’s lame,” Blue Shirt said.
“Wasn’t swole when I sold her,” Pink Shirt said.
Virgil took a long breath through his nose.
“Where’s the horse,” Virgil said.
“Out front,” Blue Shirt said.
“Lemme see her,” Virgil said.
He and I stood, and all of us went outside.
The horse was a sorrel mare and pretty long in the tooth. Virgil sat on his haunches beside her, and looked at her swollen right foreleg without touching it. He nodded to himself.
“Everett,” he said. “Get me a bottle of good whiskey and a clean cloth.”
I went in and got what he ordered and came out with it.
“Gashed her leg on something,” Virgil said. “It’s infected.”
I handed him the cloth and the whiskey.
“Take her head,” Virgil said. “I’m gonna clean her wound.”
I held the horse by the bridle straps. Virgil carefully picked up her foreleg and held it between his legs, his back to the horse.
“Hang on,” Virgil said.
I put my weight on the head straps.
“Easy, darlin’,” Virgil said to the horse. Virgil poured about half the whiskey into a gash on her foreleg. The horse lunged back. I held her head. Virgil rode her foreleg comfortably, murmuring to the horse all the time, and in a moment she stopped lunging. He studied the gash.
“Again,” he said.
I clamped on the harness, and he clamped the foreleg tight between his legs and poured the rest of the whiskey over her wound. She struggled long this time, but we rode it out and she calmed down again. Virgil tore the cloth into strips and bandaged the wound. He continued to murmur to the horse as he had since he started. The horse stayed docile. Virgil stood.
“Whiskey ought to kill the infection,” he said. “Change the bandage every day. Week or so she’ll be fine.”
“I don’t want no damaged horse,” Blue Shirt said.
“Well, you bought her,” Pink Shirt said.
Virgil was standing next to the horse, patting her absently on the shoulder.
“Either she had the gash when you bought her,” Virgil said, “and you were too stupid to see it, or you caused the gash after you bought her and were too stupid to treat it.”
“You’re saying it’s my fault.”
“I’m saying you take care of the horse, and in a couple weeks she’ll be fine.”
“I’m not taking care of this damn horse,” Blue Shirt said.
“You are,” Virgil said.
Blue Shirt stared at him. Virgil looked at him steadily.
“What if I don’t?” Blue Shirt said.
“I’ll kill you,” Virgil said.
“Kill me?”
“Yep.”
“Over this fleabag of a fucking horse?” Blue Shirt said.
“Yep.”
“So,” Pink Shirt said. “It’s settled then.”
Virgil turned his head slowly and looked at Pink Shirt.
“Put her in the livery stable,” Virgil said. “You pay.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s how it is,” Virgil said. “Me and Everett will be checking. Anything happens to the horse, you answer to us.”
Blue Shirt took the lead from the hitching post and began to walk the horse slowly down the main street toward the livery stable.
“How ’bout we split the cost of the livery?” Pink Shirt said.
“Fuck you,” Blue Shirt said.
They kept walking and they didn’t look back. Virgil and I went back into the Blackfoot.
“Sheriff, judge, and jury,” I said.
Virgil grinned at me and said, “Got nothing else to do.”
42.
We rented Mrs. Redmond a buggy at the livery stable and rode out with her to her husband’s ranch. A hundred yards or so upslope from the ranch we stopped.
“You go on down,” Virgil said.
She didn’t say anything, but her face was tight and there was no color in it.
“Go ahead,” Virgil said. “We’ll be right here.”
She chucked to the horse and slapped the reins and the buggy went on down the easy slope to the ranch. As she got there the kids came out of the house and stood on the front porch. When the buggy stopped, the kids stared at their mother without moving. She said something to them, and after a moment they climbed into the buggy. The four of us sat our horses in a row on the hillside and watched. Rose on the left, Cato next to him, me, and Virgil on the right. Redmond never showed himself.
Mrs. Redmond sat in the buggy with her children for maybe an hour. The four of us sat our horses on the slope and watched. Then the kids climbed down and went to stand on the porch. The buggy turned slowly and started back up the slope. The kids watched as it went. When it reached us, she was crying.
“They want to know when I’m coming home,” she said. “They want to know when I’m going to stop being bad. They want to know if I’m mad at them. They want to know if Daddy is mad at me.”
Nobody said anything. We wheeled our horses in behind the buggy and rode in silence back to town.
“How’s that mare doing,” Virgil said to the stableman while he helped Mrs. Redmond down from the carriage.
“Good, Mr. Cole. Swelling’s way down.”
“Keep an eye on her,” Virgil said.
“You bet, Mr. Cole.”
We delivered Mrs. Redmond to her hotel room and then went into the saloon. Wolfson was waiting for us.
“Well, here it is,” Wolfson said. “The fucking pistolero benevolent society. I hire you to take care of beat-up women and old nags, for crissake?”
“You hire us to keep the peace for you,” Rose said.
He spread his hands to encompass the saloon and the street in front of it.
“Look how peaceful,” he said.
Wolfson nodded.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I know. But sometimes I’m not so sure whether you work for me or I work for you.”
“We’re in this together, Amos,” Virgil said. “We all got collaborative goals.”
“’Less I don’t pay you,” Wolfson said.
“That might change things,” Rose said. “Right, Cato?”
“Sure,” Cato said.
“Well if you ain’t too busy with your fucking charity work,” Wolfson said, “maybe you’ll be good enough to ride out with me in the morning and foreclose on a bean wrangler.”
“Can’t pay his bill?” Virgil said.
“That’s right, so I’m taking his ranch in lieu.”
“Anybody we know?” I said.
“It ain’t Redmond, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s what I was asking,” I said.