Appaloosa

“Mine.”

“So you did think maybe they was here to kill Whitfield,” I said.

“Couldn’t say they wasn’t.”

“Who’s going to bring him in to testify?”

“Stringer and the other deputies.”

“Sheltons know where Whitfield is?”

“Nobody does, except me, and now you.”

“He testifies, and they’ll convict Bragg,” I said.

“I’d say so.”

“So if the Sheltons are here about Bragg,” I said, “they got to bust him out afterwards.”

“Yep.”

“ ’Course, they may not be here for that,” I said.

“Nope.”

“On the other hand, there’s Mr. Clausewitz.”

“Yep.”

“So we got to prepare for it.”

Cole nodded.

“We got you and me and four deputies, Virgil,” I said. “Sounds like enough to me.”

Cole tilted his head back against the top of the chair as if he was looking at the sky, except his eyes were closed. He sat like that for a pretty long time.

Then he said, “Four deputies won’t count for much if it happens.”

“They look like pretty good gun hands,” I said. “ ’Specially Stringer.”

“They are pretty good gun hands,” Cole said.

“But not good enough?”

“Everett,” Cole said. “Neither you or me ain’t never been up against nobody like Ring and Mackie Shelton.”

We were both quiet as the hawk swooped and soared on the wind.

“We been up against pretty good,” I said.

Cole shook his head without remark.

“You ain’t sure we can beat them,” I said after a while.

“When it comes right down to her,” Cole said. “No, I ain’t.”

I thought about it.

“Well,” I said after a time. “It’s not like you ever know for sure, before the shooting starts.”

“So this time won’t be much different,” Cole said.

“Be different if we lose,” I said.

“Won’t matter to us,” Cole said. “ ’Cept for Allie.”

29

Whitfield testified, with the bar closed in the Boston House Saloon, and Cole beside him, and me in a lookout chair with a shotgun, and two country deputies with Winchesters at the saloon doors. He stood up, and Eaton swore him in, and the judge asked him what he seen when Jack Bell was shot, and Whitfield looked right at Bragg and said Bragg done it. The tables had been pushed to the walls for the trial, and the chairs had been set up in rows. Most of the town was there. The Sheltons sat near the lobby door, in the back.

There was no prosecutor. The judge asked Whitfield questions, and then Mueller, Bragg’s lawyer, cross-examined. You could see his heart wasn’t in it. He knew Bragg was guilty, and he knew that Judge Callison knew it. Whitfield was the only witness against Bragg. Mueller called Bragg’s foreman. Vince said he didn’t see who shot Bell and the deputy, but it wasn’t Bragg. Mueller brought three more of Bragg’s hands to the stand. They all said the same thing. When Mueller brought the fourth, the judge stopped him.

“You go

“Nope.”

The judge addressed the room.

“Anybody in the court got anything different to say other than Bragg didn’t shoot anyone and you don’t know who did?”

No one stirred. Judge Callison nodded to himself.

“That’ll do then; no reason to waste time saying the same thing over and over.”

“My client has a right to testify in his own defense,” Mueller said.

“ ’Course he does,” the judge said. “Swear him in, Eaton.”

Eaton took the Bible to Bragg. Bragg looked at it without comment.

“Put your hand on the Bible,” Eaton said.

Bragg didn’t move. Cole reached over and picked up one of Bragg’s hands and slapped it onto the Bible, and held it in place. Bragg didn’t resist. Eaton said the words. Bragg didn’t answer.

“He so swears,” Judge Callison said. “What have you got to say for yourself, Mr. Bragg.”

Bragg stood slowly.

“Fred Whitfield is a goddamned liar. I didn’t shoot Jack Bell or them other fellas. I don’t know what happened to them.”

He sat down. Judge Callison looked at him for a moment and half smiled.

“Eloquent, Mr. Bragg. But unconvincing,” he said. “I find you guilty of these charges and sentence you to hang at Yaqui Prison at a time to be decided by the prison warden.”

He banged his gavel and said, “Court’s adjourned.”

And that was Bragg’s trial. Stringer and Cole and I and the other deputies took him back to his cell.

30

There was no one at the train siding in Appaloosa. The westbound train to Yaqui was twenty minutes late, and by the time we got Bragg, in handcuffs and leg shackles, onto the train and into the last passenger car, it was 6:20 in the morning. Cole sat beside him, and I sat across the aisle with Stringer and his three deputies in front of us. All of us were yawning. I had a shotgun; everyone else had Winchesters. All of us carried sidearms. There was no one else in the car except a couple of drummers up front, both of whom were asleep.

The conductor came through. Stringer gave him a county voucher for all of us.

“Be about seven hours to Yaqui,” the conductor said. “Be stopping for water at Chester.”

Cole nodded.

Stringer said, “I know. I’ve done this before.”

The conductor looked at Bragg.

“He ain’t going to be no trouble, is he?” the conductor said.

“If he is, it won’t be for long,” Cole said.

Bragg stared out the window as the train slowly began to move, and he kept looking as we picked up speed. I had not heard him say anything since the trial. Cole ignored him.

“Anything go

“That why we’re along?” I said. “Because you think something might happen.”

“Yep. Usually, I’d just let them boys take him over to Yaqui.”

“You think it’ll be the Sheltons?”

“Yep.”

I looked at the four deputies.

“These are four pretty good boys, Virgil.”

“They are,” Virgil said.

The train moved heavily along the tracks that ran beside the river, across Bragg’s ranch. We could see the ranch house and some of the outbuildings off to the right side of the train. I thought for a minute what it might be like to sit in shackles on your way to hang and look out at your home and not be able to go there. I decided there was nothing to be gained thinking about that, so I stopped. A few of Bragg’s steers stood near the tracks, staring at us as we went by.

We stayed in the flatlands pretty much, following the course of the river, the tracks snaking along around the hills. Out the left side, at a distance, I could see the Appaloosa stallion herding his mares toward a draw. The sun was higher now, and the train was getting warm. One of the deputies opened the windows that would open and let the air move in as we chugged along. A couple of antelope stood on one of the hills above us as we went west, and on another hill, among the rock outcroppings, six or eight coyotes sat staring down at us, and we bumped and rattled past them. One of the train hands came through after a while and gave us coffee. Bragg, too. All of us took it.

“Be some sandwiches at Chester,” the train hand said.

“How soon?” one of the deputies said.

“Chester? Hell,” he said. “I du

The deputy nodded as if he’d expected the answer. A half hour later, the conductor strolled through and took out a big watch and studied it for a minute and told us we’d be in Chester in one hour and thirty-six minutes.

“When we start the upgrade,” the conductor said, “you’ll feel us slow down. It ain’t a hell of a grade, but it’s a long one, and the locomotive labors a little.”