54
The saloon at the Boston House was looking good. There was a big, new, dark mahogany bar, and a big, new, gilt-trimmed mirror behind it, and a big chandelier with a lot of cut glass in the middle of the room. There were four card tables in the back and a man to deal faro. Bragg had made a deal with Phil Olson, the lone remaining alderman, for a special deputy with powers limited to the hotel, who sat lookout with a shotgun in a high chair near the faro layout.
Allie had a new piano to play, which was a waste of money, and she was playing hard when I sat down near the bar. Bragg was there, dark suit, white shirt, gold chain, good cigar. He came to my table.
“Buy you a drink, Everett?”
“Got one,” I said.
Bragg turned his palms up.
“Fine,” he said. “Perfectly fine. Cigar?”
I shook my head.
“Fine,” he said again. “I understand why you boys are feeling hard about me. But I want you to know I ain’t the man I was, and I’m hopin’ we can work together once you boys come to see the truth of my statement.”
“That statement being that you’re a reformed man.”
“I am.”
“Who now owns two saloons, a hotel, and an expensive black bull,” I said.
“And six heifers,” Bragg said and smiled. “I’m going to raise beef that most folks have never tasted, and, when they do, they won’t be able to get enough of it.”
“With a bull and six cows.”
“My cows are just the start. I’m arranging for some other folks to start ranching Angus heifers, and my bull will do the service.”
“I thought you was already rich,” I said.
“I had some good luck,” Bragg said. “Now I want to give this town good luck, make up for all the bad luck I brought it in the past.”
“You’re going to bring us luck?” I said.
“I’m going to make Appaloosa famous for its beef. I want to develop the copper mines properly. It’s going to be a place where people want to come, where people can have a good time, where people will want to invest money.”
I sipped some whiskey and leaned my chair onto its back legs and put one foot against the edge of the table and teetered a little.
“Bragg,” I said. “Let’s you and me understand each other. I don’t believe a single fucking word you say. You want to turn Appaloosa into your private town, and you’re working your ugly ass off to get on the good side of Virgil and me, so we won’t stop you.”
I took another sip.
“Which we will,” I said.
Something moved just for a second behind Bragg’s face, then it was gone. When he spoke, his voice was the same jolly voice he was using these days.
“Sorry to hear you say that, Everett. I was hoping I could work with you and Virgil.”
I didn’t answer him.
“Well,” he said with his big friendly smile. “Time will tell.”
I didn’t say anything, and Bragg walked over to the piano where Allie was playing “My Old Kentucky Home.” I think.
“You know ‘Old Folks at Home,’ Allie?” Bragg said.
“Of course I do, Mr. Bragg.”
“Please call me Randall,” Bragg said. “Always did love that song.”
Allie began to play the tune, and Bragg stood listening, as if the song had captured him. To me, it didn’t sound too much different than “My Old Kentucky Home.”
“You like Stephen Foster, Randall?”
“I do.”
“I love him, too,” Allie said.
Bragg went to the bar and got a drink and brought it back and put it on top of the piano.
“I haven’t really had much chance to talk with you since the Indians almost got us.”
Allie nodded.
“I just wanted to tell you I admired your courage.”
“Oh, bless my soul, Randall, I was terrified.”
“Well, I thought you were very brave.”
He drank some of his drink.
“Could I buy you a small glass of something? We have sherry now, you know.”
“A glass of sherry would be lovely,” Allie said.
There was a sound in her voice I’d heard before. It wasn’t a good sound. Bragg went and got her a glass of sherry and brought it back. She sipped a little and put it down on the piano and began to play “Camptown Races.” Bragg leaned against the piano, listening, as if it was good.
Without looking up, Allie said, “I’m always embarrassed when anyone talks about that. I mean, Randall, you saw me all undressed.”
“I don’t mean to be forward, Allie,” Bragg said. “But I remember that moment happily.”
Allie giggled.
“Randall, you are making me blush,” she said.
Bragg laughed.
“Nothin’ to be ashamed of, Allie. Fact is, as I recall, there’s a lot to be proud of.”
“Oh, my,” Allie said.
I got up and walked over and leaned my forearms on the piano and didn’t say anything. Allie kept playing.
“We were just talking about that terrible time with the Indians,” Allie said.
“I heard,” I said.
“Randall just bought me a lovely glass of sherry, Everett,” Allie said.
I nodded. Bragg didn’t say anything. Allie begin to play “Oh! Susanna.” Bragg and I stood and listened.
When Allie finished, Bragg said, “Thank you for the nice recital, Allie.”
“Thank
It was late in the day in the middle of September and rainy when a slim man with a young, smooth face came into the marshal’s office where Cole and I were drinking coffee and watching the rain through the open door. He was wearing a slicker unbuttoned and I could see that he had a.44 Colt with a pearl handle under it.
Cole looked at him carefully for a moment.
“Hayes,” he said.
“Hello, Virgil,” the man said.
He took his hat off and slapped it against his leg to shake off some of the rain, and put the hat on the edge of Cole’s desk. His hair was gray. Taking his hat off aged him.
“My deputy,” Cole said, nodding at me, “Everett Hitch. Hayes Hatfield.”
We said hello.
“Heard about you boys and the Sheltons,” Hatfield said.
“ ’Gainst city regulations,” Cole said, “to be carrying a gun in town.”
“Always is in your towns, Virgil. I figured you’d give a little slack on that.”
Cole nodded.
“I will,” Cole said. “How long you in town.”
“Be gone tomorrow,” Hatfield said.
“Appreciate you didn’t stroll around with the gun showing,” Cole said. “Sorta undercuts the law.”
“I’ll keep my coat closed,” Hatfield said.
“But not buttoned,” Cole said.
“Gun don’t do you much good buttoned up under your coat,” Hatfield said.
“No,” Cole said. “It don’t.”
“Mostly I’m just going to get some supper and go to sleep,” Hatfield said.
“You got business in Appaloosa?” Cole said.
Hatfield smiled a wide smile. Except for the gray hair, he looked about twenty.
“Fella came over to Yaqui to see me. I’m dealing cards there, in the Crystal Palace, doing a little work for Wells Fargo. He said he was going to be the first mayor in Appaloosa, and he wondered if I might like to be the city marshal.”
“Didn’t know the job was open,” Cole said.
“Said it was gonna be, soon as he was mayor.”
Cole didn’t say anything.
“Said the town was growing so fast that they’d be organizing a police department, and as soon as they did, I’d be the chief.”
“Hadn’t heard that,” Cole said.
“So I asked around a little,” Hatfield said, “and I found out that you was the marshal here, and I thought I might come over here and talk to you about it.”
“Who was the fella you talked to,” Cole said.
“Fella named Olson,” Hatfield said.
Cole looked at me.
“So he’s in with Bragg,” he said.
“In deep,” I said.
“Bragg the fella you didn’t kill up in Beauville?”
“He run,” Cole said.
“And he come back?” Hatfield said.
“He come back with money,” I said. “Bought out most of the town.”
“You boys stopping him from buying all of it?”
“Yes.”
“He don’t dare go up against you straight on,” Hatfield said.
“Don’t seem to,” Cole said.
“And he thinks I would,” Hatfield said.
“You would,” Cole said, “if there was reason.”
“And if I hired on with this Olson fella…”
“There’d be reason,” Cole said.
Hatfield picked his hat up off the corner of the desk and held it against his left thigh while he stood in the doorway for a moment and watched it rain.
“Rainy fall,” he said.
“Startin’ out that way,” Cole said.
Hatfield put his hat on and adjusted it so that it tilted a little forward over his eyes.
“Sounds to me a fella took this job, he might be working for Bragg.”
“That would be correct,” Cole said. “Olson’s just the errand boy.”
Hatfield nodded, his back to us, still looking at the rain through the open door. Then he turned and looked around the little marshal’s office.
“Don’t seem like a place I’d care to work,” he said.
Virgil and I both nodded.
“If I was here,” Hatfield said, “wouldn’t let him run me off.”
“I got a house here,” Cole said. “And a woman.”
“Even if you didn’t. You wouldn’t let him run you off.”
“No,” Cole said, “I guess I wouldn’t.”
“However,” Hatfield said. “Since I ain’t here, I don’t see no reason to come here.”
“Correct,” Cole said.
Hatfield turned back from the door and put his hand out. Cole shook it. Then I did.
“I’ll be on the train back to Yaqui tomorrow,” Hatfield said.
Then he turned and walked out the open door, holding his coat closed, and walked toward the Boston House.
56
“They ain’t going to run me off,” Cole said.
“We got hired,” I said. “We can get fired.”
“Me and Allie got a house here. I’m staying.”
“What you gonna stay as?” I said.
“Ain’t got to that yet,” Cole said.
“They ain’t gonna pay us,” I said.
“I know,” Cole said.
I drank some coffee.
“Might make some sense to move on,” I said.
Cole shook his head.
“You talk this over with Allie?” I said.
Cole nodded.
“She won’t go,” I said.
“No.”
I closed my eyes for a minute and opened them slowly and looked at the rain some more.
“And you won’t go without her.”
“No.”
The wet smell was strong. Wet wood, wet mud, wet horses. It mixed with the smell of wood smoke as people fired up stoves against the first rainy chill of early fall. I took in some air and let it out slowly.
“She will,” I said. “You saw how it was with Ring Shelton. Once you ain’t the stud horse anymore…”
Cole tipped his chair back further and looked up at the sky with his head resting against the weathered exterior of the office wall.
“I won’t leave her,” he said.
57
It was brisk as I walked the town. When the sun went down, it would be cold. I went into the saloon at the Boston House to warm up and get some coffee. The room was quite noisy. Allie was playing the piano, adding to the noise. I got some coffee and stood at the bar to drink it. I saw Bragg come into the saloon through the lobby entrance. He bought a bottle of brandy at the far end of the bar, then walked to Allie and whispered to her. She put her head back and laughed. He whispered something else, and she nodded. Then he left and went back out through the lobby door.
Allie played two more songs, then stood, lowered the keyboard lid, and walked out toward the lobby. After a moment, I put my cup down and walked out after her. She wasn’t there.
“Mrs. French pass by here?” I said.
The clerk nodded toward the stairs.
“She went up,” he said.
I nodded.
“Bragg keep a room here?”
“I’m not supposed to tell, Everett.”
“Peter,” I said. “I am the damned law, remember?”
“Two-oh-five,” he said.
“Thank you.”
I went outside and stood on the porch for a time and breathed the clean, cold air. Then I turned back into the lobby and went past the clerk and up the stairs to the second floor. It was quiet. I walked the length of it without hearing anything interesting. So I settled my back against the wall beside the window at the far end of the hall and waited. The late-afternoon sun slanted past me down the hall. I could see the little dust particles floating in it.
I wasn’t happy. I knew what I was going to find out. I was there in part, I guess, because I kept hoping I wouldn’t find it out. That there’d be nothing to find out. I knew better, but knowing and wanting ain’t always the same. And when I found out, then what was I going to do? I didn’t have to decide that until I found it out. I tried to keep my mind blank as I stood and waited.
The sun was a lot lower when the door opened to room 205 and Allie walked out. Bragg stood behind her in the doorway and she turned to kiss him one more time. It was a hard, hot kiss, and it lasted awhile. I stood where I was, feeling sort of sick. When the kiss ended, she pulled away from him, and they both saw me standing down the hall. She flinched. Bragg stepped back into the room and closed the door. In the silent hall, I could hear the bolt slide. Allie stared at me. I looked back. Then she gave me an odd, nasty smile and tossed her head a little and flounced away. I stood for a time where I was in the empty hall. I could kick Bragg’s door in. But then what? I could confront Allie. But then what? Cole would be back from Yaqui in the morning. And, good Jesus Christ, then what?