Appaloosa

“Let me go,” she said.

Her voice was harsh and unlovely.

“Let me go, goddamn you,” she said.

“I’m leaving, Allie,” I said.

“You bastard,” she said. “You sonova bitch.”

The words came out slurred and almost hissing with rage. Her face was perfectly white and twisted with anger. There were tears in her eyes, though she wasn’t crying yet. I gave her a little shove that set her back for a moment and turned and ran.

“You prick,” she screamed after me.

I ran through the sucking mud and got up on the dry boardwalk and walked fast up Front Street toward Second.

“You fucking prick,” she screamed.

I hunched my shoulders a little and kept walking through the hard rain.

22

Vince came back with twenty riders on a hot, still day with no clouds and a hard sun. I was sitting out front with Whitfield when they turned the corner at Second Street and started down toward us at a slow walk, nobody saying anything.

“God, Jesus,” Whitfield said and stood up.

“There’s a loaded gun in the table drawer,” I said to him. “If they rush us, shoot Bragg.”

Whitfield went inside the office. I took out my Colt and fired two shots in the air and reloaded and holstered. A couple of the horses in Vince’s party shied at the gunfire. No one else reacted. I picked up the eight-gauge and stood. There were people on the sidewalks on Main Street. As the riders approached, the people disappeared into the nearest doors. The riders fa

“Morning, Hitch,” Vince said to me.

“Vince,” I said.

“We come for Mr. Bragg,” Vince said.

“Can’t have him,” I said.

“We’ll take him if we have to.”

The rider on the far right end of the circle had a riderless saddle horse on a lead. To my right, Virgil Cole came walking on the boardwalk toward us. He didn’t seem to raise his voice, but everyone heard him clear.

“If you do, he’ll be dead.”

No one said anything.

“Everett,” Cole said, “you step on into the office with that eight-gauge and first thing, anything happens, you blow Mr. Bragg’s head off.”

I wanted to say that Whitfield had that assignment and I could do him more good out here. But I didn’t. I did what he told me. I always did what he told me, because in a lot of towns over a lot of years, I’d learned that in a tight crease, you’d best do what Virgil Cole told you. No questions. Virgil always knew the situation better than you did, and he always knew what he was doing better than anyone did. I reached behind me and pushed open the office door and went inside.

Behind me, I heard Cole say, “You boys best wheel them animals around and shoo.”

I glanced over my shoulder at Bragg.

Bragg was standing in his cell, close to the bars, looking at me.

“We come for Bragg,” Vince said.

I glanced at Whitfield. There was no Whitfield. Past the two cells was a door that led down a little hall to the store behind us that sold dry goods and hardware. The door was open.

“Can’t have him,” Cole said.

I went and closed it and slid the bolt. Bragg smiled at me.

“We know you’re good, Cole,” I heard Vince say. “But you ain’t as good as twenty of us.”

“You know the arrangement, boys,” Cole said pleasantly.

I went to the table drawer and opened it. The gun Whitfield was supposed to use was still there.

“First time one of you does an ineluctable thing…” Cole said.

He didn’t finish the sentence. But I knew, because I’d seen him do this before, that he had pointed at the office and pretended to shoot Bragg with his thumb and forefinger.

“You can’t just shoot a prisoner,” Vince said. “You’re a fucking lawman.”

I smiled. Cole already had them backing up a little. He didn’t need me out there with the shotgun.

It ain’t firepower, he’d always said. It was firepower, we’d lose most of the time, because most of the time it’s just you and me against a whole passel.

“Prisoner tries to escape, I’m supposed to shoot him,” Cole said.

“You shoot him, you think we’ll ride off?”

“Nope.”

“We’ll kill you and Hitch,” Vince said.

“You’ll try.”

“There’s twenty of us, for God’s sake,” Vince said. “You willing to die to keep us from taking him?”

“Sure,” Cole said.

Everyone was silent. I could see Vince staring hard at Cole. Vince was a hard case. Jack Bell had been a hard case. But Vince was looking at something Vince had never seen before.

“Hitch?” Vince raised his voice. “You willing to die, too?”

I stood near the corner of the two cells, against the wall, where I wouldn’t get shot right away, and where I could get a clear shot at Bragg if they came. I could see Vince and some of the riders through the window. I couldn’t see Cole.

“ ’Course he’s willin’ to die,” Cole said. “You think we do this kinda work ’cause we scared to die?”

Even though I couldn’t see him, I knew how he was. I’d seen him at other times. He was motionless. His six-gun was still holstered. His arms were relaxed at his side. He was looking at Vince with no expression, and his eyes were perfectly dead, like two stones.

“Any man’s scared a dying,” Vince said.

“He’s got ’em turned,” I said softly to Bragg. “They’re arguing with him.”

Bragg was silent, struggling, I assumed, with hope, fear, and rage.

“You?” Cole said.

Vince said, “Me?”

“You afraid to die,” Cole said.

“I ain’t afraid,” he said.

“Good,” Cole said. “ ’Cause you go first.”

Vince rocked very slightly back in his saddle. He probably didn’t know that he’d done it.

“Ball goes up,” Cole said. “Two things certain. Bragg’s dead. You’re dead.”

Then I could see Cole. He had stepped forward to the edge of the boardwalk so he was closer to Vince. He appeared to be looking straight at him, but he pointed, apparently without looking, off to his right.

“And the boy with the Winchester,” Cole said, “with the red scarf. He goes next.”

The way Cole could see all around him was always sort of magical. And I knew he meant it. I’d been with him in so many gunfights that I knew what he’d do. If it started, he’d shoot Vince long before Vince got a hand on his weapon; then, if there was someone with a rifle, he’d wheel in a comfortable crouch and shoot him. Then, when he’d emptied the sidearm, if he was still alive, he’d dive through the open office door and continue matters with the Winchester he kept just inside. As soon as I’d killed Bragg, of course, I would be shooting past him through the window. No one said anything for a long, quiet moment. Then Cole stepped off the boardwalk and into the street.

“Go on home, Vince,” Cole said. “Too many people die if you don’t.”

He took his hat off with his left hand and swatted Vince’s horse across the face. The horse reared and wheeled half around. Cole slapped it on the hindquarters, and the horse reared against the bit and tried to run, with Vince wrestling hard to hold him.

“Go on,” Cole said, pushing among the horses, his right hand hanging loose near his gun, his left hand slapping with the hat. “Go on home.”

It’s always one person at a time, Cole would tell me. No matter how many there are, you back them down one at a time so it’s always you against him. And he knows you’re quicker.

Vince brought his surging horse under control and held him.

“There’ll be another time, Cole,” he said.

Then he gave the horse his head, and one after the other, Bragg’s riders headed out of town.