Robert B. Parker's The Bridge

Sitting on the bed was Séraphine. She was looking directly at me through the window as if she knew I would be peeking in.

I was glad it wasn’t Bolger’s bad brother I’d heard about waiting on me.

I opened the door.

“Hello, Everett,” she said.

I stayed standing in the doorway.

She watched as I slowly slid my Colt back in its holster.

I smiled at her. She smiled at me.

“Hey,” I said.

Her blue eyes were catching the light just right from the lamp fire. It was nice to see her looking at me, and it felt good to look at her back.

“You didn’t show for the theatrical town hall presentation?” I said.

“I’m here,” she said.

“Yes, you are.”

She was sitting on the bed with her back propped up on the headboard, looking casually at yesterday’s newspaper. She folded the paper simply and put it to her side. She was relaxed and calm. Her long legs were extended on the bed and crossed at her ankles. She was wearing a pair of Mexican cowboy boots with riding heels that were unusually clean, considering the weather.

She was dressed different from when I saw her the night before. She was wearing a simple cream-colored muslin dress, like a long, thin sleeping gown. The flimsy fabric allowed the valleys, hills, and curves of her slender body to be revealed fully, and I appreciated the contours.

“You look good,” I said.

“Do I?”

“You do.”

“That’s good?” she said.

“It is.”

“Merci,” she said.

“Merci back,” I said.

The mysterious fortune-teller, I thought. I entered and closed the door behind me.

I’d been all over. Met a lot of women in my time, some with taste and some without a lick of it. Some, through the many years, have been refined and some downright uncouth. Some smart and some not so smart, but I’d never run across anyone like this woman, Séraphine.

She had a sense of herself. She was self-assured unlike any woman I’d ever met. Her strange and suspect profession was fitting for her in some ways. Might be the only way this sultry, unusual, almost otherworldly creature could exist.

She had a horsehair belt around her narrow waist. Her long, dark hair was pulled up and concealed under a black bowler hat that was a few sizes too large for her. She was wearing her large gold hoop earrings but was without her long strings of beads and shells.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said.

“That you look goddamn good?”

“That I am here in your room.”

“I’d mind if you weren’t.”

“Good.”

I took off my hat and slicker and hung them on some long nails next to her slicker.

“I know what happened with you today,” she said.

“Don’t talk,” I said.

I walked over to her and stood, looking down on her.

Her eyes looked slowly up my body and met mine.

I reached for her just as she reached for me. I pulled her up to me, and our lips met but I did not kiss her. I just looked in her eyes and she looked in my eyes as I held her in my arms. She removed her bowler and tossed it. Her long, dark hair tumbled across my arms.

I kissed her and she kissed me back like she was hungry and had not eaten for some time.

I felt as though I was dreaming for an instant.

I held her back away from me and looked in her eyes again. I wanted to see her. I wanted to make sure it was really her I was kissing. Her eyes were moist, almost as if she were crying.

She was looking at me with a calm-but-desiring expression. I reached down and she helped me remove her belt. I slung it to the floor.

She started unbuttoning my shirt and kissing my chest.

I took her by her shoulders and pushed her back on the bed.

I let her lie there for a moment as she looked up at me. Her chest was moving. She was breathing heavy.

She reached up for me.

Then I moved down on her. I put my hand behind her neck and pulled her lips to mine.

— 16 —

In the morning, we laid in bed listening to it rain.

“This storm’s put a damper on the Beauchamp outfit getting the show under way,” I said.

She nodded a little.

“Such is the Moon of Mother Nature,” she said. “Not too much can be assured when it comes to the forces of Mother Nature’s Moon.”

I was on my back. Her head was on my shoulder and her leg was draped over me. She was touching my chest with the tips of her fingers.

Sonofabitch, I thought, as I looked at her. Séraphine. She was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. It felt like time had goddamn stopped or something. Who was this woman, where the hell did she come from?

Nothing had been said for a long while.

Then she said quietly, “You know, I’m much older than you.”

I smiled to myself.

“No,” I said. “You’re a good twenty years younger.”

She continued to caress my chest delicately but didn’t say anything for a long moment . . . then: “I’m certain why I am here, Everett.”

“Why?”

“For you.”

“I’m right here,” I said.

“Oui,” she said. “You are.”

“Oui,” I said.

She looked up into my eyes and smiled.

“Oui,” she said softly again.

“In my time,” I said. “I’ve avoided asking women about most everything.”

“You are smart,” she said.

“I always figured it best to let sleeping dogs lie,” I said. “But I’m compelled.”

“About?”

“You,” I said. “Where do you come from?”

She leaned up on her elbow and looked at me.

“As you say, it’s best for sleeping dogs to lay.”

“Looks like we’re beyond that,” I said.

“It’s just better,” she said. “Just know I am here for you.”

She sat up and turned to face me.

“I know what you went through today,” she said.

“Somebody tell you, word on the street? Or did you see it in your mind’s eye, the friends, guides, and such?”

“I wanted to warn you,” she said.

“You already did that, remember?”

She shook her head.

“You did,” I said.

“What happened today was not what I saw before.”

“There’s more to it?”

“There is,” she said.

“What?”

“What happened was something altogether different,” she said. “That I’m clear on.”

“That so?”

“Oui,” she said.

I smiled at her.

“You don’t believe me?” she said.

I didn’t, but I allowed.

“You said you saw men ru

“Oui.”

“Well, there you go, that is what happened today, two men came ru

She shook her head.

“What I saw was different,” she said.

“I’m listening,” I said.

“What I saw, with the men, was in water,” she said.

“Water?”

She nodded.

“Well, it was raining and wet. I don’t know if we can stand much more water than what we have coming down.”

She shook her head.

“It was not here,” she said.

“Not here in Appaloosa?”

“Oui,” she said.

“So,” I said. “How is it, if what you saw was not here in Appaloosa, but I’m here in Appaloosa, my life is in danger?”

“I don’t have all the answers,” she said.

“Well, I can’t do anything other than what I do,” I said.

“Just watch out,” she said.

“It’s what I do,” I said. “Watch out. I’m always aware, rest assured.”

She nodded.

“Can’t live in fear of the unexpected,” I said.

“No,” she said sadly. “I know. I wish I could tell you more.”

“Well, I appreciate the advice,” I said.

I looked at my watch on the chair next to the bed.

“I’ll be going,” she said.

Séraphine removed her leg that was draped across me and sat up on the edge of the bed.

“I’ll walk you.”

“No,” she said, and then gave me a peck on the cheek. “Not necessary.”

I stayed there on the bed and watched her dress.