Appaloosa

“Just keepin’ an eye on things.”
“On the town?” Cole said.
“Yeah.”
“For who?”
The rider shrugged. With an easy movement, Cole pulled the big Colt from its holster and hit the rider in the face with it. It knocked the rider out of his saddle, and by the time he hit the ground, the gun was back in its holster and Cole was leaning easily with his forearms resting on the horn of his saddle.
“You fucking broke my teeth,” the rider said, his hands to his face.
“Colt makes a heavy firearm,” Cole said. “That’s a fact. Who you riding for?”
The rider’s nose was bleeding, and there was blood on his mouth.
“Bragg,” he said.
“And why’s he want you riding round and round?”
“I don’t know. He just told me to do it. Mr. Bragg don’t tell you why.”
“Think Bragg’s attempting to frighten us, Everett?” Cole said.
“Be my guess,” I said.
“What’s your name?” Cole said to the rider.
“Dean.”
“Well, Dean, you may as well head back to Mr. Bragg and report that we ain’t too frightened.”
“Mr. Bragg ain’t gonna like it that you hit me,” Dean said.
“I don’t guess that you liked it all that much, yourself, Dean,” Cole said.
“That’s right.”
“So you and Mr. Bragg can, ah, co-… Everett, what word am I trying for?”
“Commiserate,” I said.
“Commiserate,” Cole said. “That’s the word. You and Bragg can commiserate each other.”
Riding downhill toward town, I said to Cole, “That fella wasn’t actually doing nothing illegal.”
“He was annoying the hell out me,” Cole said.
“That’s not illegal, Virgil.”
“No,” Cole said. “It’s personal.”
 
 10
When it was possible, Cole would sit with his one glass of whiskey and nurse it and watch Mrs. French play the piano. She played with both hands, raising them high and bringing them down firmly with no difference that I could hear between the two. When she was through playing, she would come and sit with him. Cole wasn’t expecting trouble today. I sat with them, too.
“So, tell me, Mr. Cole,” she said. “How long you been killing people for a living.”
“Call me Virgil,” he said.
He always said that and, to tease him, she always started out calling him Mr. Cole.
“Of course, Virgil. How long?”
“I don’t kill people for a living,” Virgil said. “I enforce the law. Killing’s sometimes a sorta side thing of that… That ain’t what I want to say. What am I aiming at, Everett?”
“By-product,” I said.
“Killing’s sometimes a by-product,” Cole said.
“And you’ve never killed anybody except as a lawman?”
“Never,” Cole said. “You gonna be killing people, you got to do it by the rules. Every man has his chance to surrender peaceable.”
“Is he telling me the truth, Everett?”
“Virgil always tells the truth,” I said.
“Nobody always tells the truth,” she said.
“Why not?” Cole said.
“Well,” Mrs. French said, “they, well, for heaven’s sake, Virgil, they just don’t.”
“Always thought the truth was simpler. Tell a man what you mean.”
“And a woman?” she said.
“A woman?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Allie, I don’t really remember telling a woman anything.”
“Virgil Cole,” she said. “Are you telling me you’ve never had a woman?”
Cole’s face got a little red.
“Well, hell, Allie, I don’t think that’s a thing I should be discussing with you.”
“But have you?” Allie said.
“Well, a’ course,” he said. “Assuredly, I have.”
“And did you never tell them anything?”
“Mostly I just did what we were there to do,” Virgil said.
His face was definitely red. She smiled at him, her head half turned away, looking at him sideways.
“And what was that?” she said.
It was like watching a cat play with prey.
There was a moment when nothing happened. Then Virgil’s face closed. It was over. He wasn’t prey anymore. She had inched across the line. It wasn’t smart to cross a line on Virgil. The problem was, it was never clear where the line was. Men had died making that mistake.
“We won’t talk about this anymore,” he said.
He spoke softly, and his expression didn’t change. But the redness left his face and something happened in his voice and in his eyes. It scared her.
“Virgil,” she said. “I was just funning you.”
“I didn’t enjoy it,” he said.
She sat frozen for a moment, then turned toward me.
“Everett,” she said. “You ever lie?”
Her voice sounded stretched.
“All the time, Allie,” I said. “All the time.”
“Well,” she said. “Then I understand you.”
Virgil was quiet. There was no color in his face. Across the room, two men at the bar were in a contest to see who could drink a beer faster. I knew one of them, a pale man with soft hands who worked in a feed store. The other one was a teamster with a teamster’s build: big belly from sitting all day on a wagon seat, and big muscles in his arms and shoulders from sawing on the reins of a six-mule rig over bad roads. The feed-store clerk was winning.
“You scrawny little bastard,” the teamster said in a loud voice. “Where you putting it all? You ain’t even pissed yet.”
The feed clerk laughed.
“Can’t always tell somethin’,” the clerk said, “just by looking.”
“Goddamn,” the teamster said in his big voice. “Two more, Willis. No fucking feed-store clerk is gonna back me down.”
Cole turned his head to look at them.
McDonough drew two glasses of beer. The men faced each other and each put a hand on his beer glass.
“Say when, Willis.”
“Now,” McDonough said, and the two men drank.
The feed clerk finished first.
“Shit!” the teamster said. “Shit!”
Cole stood suddenly and walked to the bar.
“Shut up,” he said to the teamster.
The teamster looked startled.
“What’s that, Marshal?”
“Shut your mouth and get out of here.”
“I ain’t done nothing.” he said. “Hell, Marshal, we’re just drinking beer.”
Cole kicked him in the groin, and the teamster grunted and doubled over. The feed clerk ducked away as Cole hit the man. Cole was only middle-sized, and the teamster was big, but it was a slaughter. Cole hit him with both fists, one fist, then the other. He caught hold of the teamster’s hair and slammed his face against the bar, and pulled it up and slammed it down again.
“Virgil,” I said.
The teamster was defenseless. Cole held him propped against the bar with his left shoulder while he hit him methodically with his right fist. Allie was watching. She seemed interested. I stepped over to them. The teamster’s head lolled back. I could see that his eyes had rolled back. Blood and spittle trickled from his slack mouth. I got my arms around Cole’s waist and picked him up off the ground and walked backward with him. He was still pumping his fist.
“Virgil,” I said. “Virgil.”
He didn’t fight me. He seemed unaware of me, as if his focus on the teamster was so enveloping that nothing else was real.
“Virgil,” I said.
He stopped moving his fist and held it, still cocked but still. I held on to him, listening to his breath snarl in and out of him. It felt as if there were something popping inside him, at his center.
“Virgil.”
His breath slowed. The popping eased.
“You can let go,” he said to me.
I relaxed a little but kept my arms around his waist.
“You can let go,” Virgil said.
I let go. He stood silently, his fist still cocked. Without Cole’s shoulder to hold him, the teamster had sagged to the floor, his head twisted against the foot rail of the bar, his face covered with blood. Cole gazed at him steadily. I stood waiting. Willis McDonough had backed away down the bar and was polishing glasses at the far end. The feed clerk had disappeared. Everyone else in the room was motionless and silent. The only sound was Cole’s breathing. Then I heard something else. It wasn’t just Cole’s breathing. Behind me. It was Allison French. She was breathing hard, too. We all held that way for a time that was probably much shorter then it seemed. Cole’s breathing slowed. He still stared at the teamster.