Appaloosa

Without looking at me, Bragg said, “You a drinking man, Everett?”

“Not so much,” I said.

“Hard to like a man that don’t drink a little,” Bragg said.

His high, black hat was set square on his head. Even sitting, you could see that he was tall, and the hat made him look taller. He had on a starchy white shirt and black pants with a fine chalk stripe tucked into hand-tooled black boots. His spurs were silver. His gun belt was studded with silver conchos, and in his holster was a Colt with white pearl grips. Cole smiled.

“But not impossible,” Cole said.

“Well,” Bragg said, “we’ll see.”

He drank most of his second drink and wiped the corners of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger, pinching his lower lip in the process.

“You shot three of my hands,” Bragg said.

He wasn’t looking at Cole when he said it. He was carefully pouring more whiskey into his near-empty glass.

“Matter of fact,” Cole said, “I only shot two. Hitch shot the other one.”

I smiled and shrugged.

“Point is,” Bragg said, “I can’t keep having my hands come in here and you boys shooting them.”

“I can see how you’d feel that way,” Cole said.

“So we need to make an arrangement,” Bragg said.

“We do.”

Bragg smiled slightly and nodded. Everyone was looking at Cole and Bragg. While they were looking, I picked my shotgun up off the floor under my table and held it in my lap just below the tabletop.

“You have a suggestion, Marshal?”

“There’s a set of town bylaws posted right outside the door of this here very saloon,” Cole said. “Your boys do like the bylaws say, and everything will be muy bueno.”

Bragg’s face pinched a little.

“And if they don’t?” he said.

“Then I arrest them.”

“And if they don’t go along?”

“I shoot them.”

Cole smiled sort of happily at Bragg. He nodded toward me.

“Or Everett does.”

I had moved the shotgun onto the tabletop. As Bragg looked over at me, I cocked it.

“That’s your idea of an arrangement?” Bragg said after a moment.

“The law is all the arrangement there is,” Cole said.

“Your law,” Bragg said.

“Same thing,” Cole said.

The men along the bar were looking at Bragg and looking at the shotgun. Bragg sat silently for a moment, looking at Cole. Deep in thought, maybe.

Then he said, “This town belongs to me. I was here first.”

“Can’t file no claim on a town, Bragg.”

“I was here first.”

Cole didn’t say anything. He sat perfectly still with his hands relaxed on the top of the table.

Leaning forward toward him, Bragg said, “I got near thirty hands, Cole.”

“So far,” Cole said.

“You proposin’ to kill us all?”

“That’d be up to you boys,” Cole said.

“Maybe you ain’t good enough,” Bragg said.

I could see it in the way he sat, in the way he held his head and hands. He was trying to decide. Could he beat Cole? Should he try?

“Don’t be so sure you’re quicker than me,” Bragg said.

He was trying to talk himself into it.

“So far I been quick enough,” Cole said.

Bragg was silent for a moment. Then I could see him give up. He stood carefully with his hands apart and flat on the tabletop.

“This ain’t the time,” he said.

“Um-hm.”

“Don’t mean there won’t be a time,” Bragg said.

“I see you are heeled and your boys there are heeled. I know you haven’t had a chance to read the bylaws yet, so I’m go

Bragg’s body stiffened. His shoulders seemed to hunch. He opened his mouth and closed it and stood for another moment. Then he turned without a word and walked out of the saloon. His ranch hands straggled after him.

6

The woman got off the train in the morning carrying a big carpetbag, and walked slowly up the main street and into Café Paris, where Cole and I were having breakfast. I’d never been to Paris, but I’d read about it, and I was pretty sure there were no cafés there like this one. One of the Chinamen who cooked there kept some chickens, so now and then they had some eggs on the menu. But today, like a lot of days, we were eating pinto beans and fried salt pork along with coffee and some sourdough biscuits. The biscuits were pretty tasty. The woman sat at a table near us and looked at the menu for a long time and finally ordered coffee and a biscuit.

“No sell,” the Chinaboy said.

“But they’re on the menu,” she said.

“With breakfast.”

“But all I want is a biscuit.”

“No sell.”

Cole was wiping his plate with half a biscuit.

Without looking up, he said, “Chin, sell her a biscuit.”

The Chinaboy looked at Cole for a moment, outraged at the impropriety of it.

“Boss say…”

“Sell her a biscuit,” Cole said again and looked up from his plate. The Chinaboy looked quickly away from Cole and went and brought the woman coffee and two biscuits on a plate. He added a pitcher of sorghum, to show that there was no ill will. The woman gave him twenty-five cents and looked across at Cole.

“Thank you,” she said.

Cole smiled at her.

“It was my pleasure,” he said.

She was a little travel-worn, but still good-looking, with a strong young body that her dress didn’t hide. I could see her looking at the star on Cole’s chest.

“Are you the sheriff here?” she said.

“City marshal,” Cole said. “Virgil Cole. Big blond fella here is my deputy, Everett Hitch.”

“How do you do,” she said. “Could you direct me to a clean, inexpensive hotel?”

“We only got one,” Cole said.

“Is it expensive?”

“Probably more than it should be, there being no other choices.”

“I only have a dollar,” she said.

Cole nodded.

“What’s your name?” he said.

“Mrs. French,” she said. “Allison French.”

“You have a husband, Mrs. French.”

“He died.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Cole said. “You do any kind of work.”

“I play the organ,” she said. “And the piano.”

“You’re not a whore.”

“Don’t be crude,” she said. “No, I am not what you said.”

“No need fluffing your feathers about it,” Cole said. “Don’t see a lot of single women here that ain’t whores.”

“Well, I’m one.”

“Sprightly thing,” Cole said to me.

I nodded. Cole was always improving himself, reading books, making lists of words, which he usually misused slightly.

“Will the hotel let me stay for a dollar?” Mrs. French said.

Cole gri

“For as long as you’d like, Mrs. French.”

She frowned.

“How can that be?” she said.

“Might hire you to play the piano, too,” Cole said. “You think so, Everett?”

“I do,” I said.

“When you finish your breakfast,” Cole said, “Everett here will escort you down and help you get settled.”

“Be my pleasure,” I said.

She finished her biscuit and slipped the other one into her carpetbag. Then she smiled and stood.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Cole, for your kindness.”

“No trouble at all, Mrs. French,” he said. “Everett, you will speak with Mr. Raines.”

“I will.”

Cole stood. Like all his movements, he seemed to go from sitting to standing without effort.

“Good,” Cole said. “I hope to see you again, Mrs. French.”

“Yes, Mr. Cole, that would be nice.”

I picked up her carpetbag, and we walked down Main Street toward the hotel.

“You have freckles,” Mrs. French said. “Sandy hair and freckles.”

“Yes,” I said.

“I think that’s so cute in a man.”

“Me, too,” I said.

I was more aware than I had been of the way her body moved under her skirts.

“How can Mr. Cole be so sure that they will give me a room,” she said as we walked along the plank sidewalk.