Robert B. Parker's The Bridge

“Deputies said it’s you who has come here to Appaloosa, looking for me,” Virgil said.

“I damn sure did,” Swickey said. “Fifty miles in the cold.”

“’Bout?” Virgil said.

“’Bout the bridge,” Swickey said.

— 57 —

Virgil took a few steps toward Swickey.

“What about it?” Virgil said.

“You think I had a hand in it,” Swickey said.

Virgil didn’t say anything.

Swickey moved a little closer to Virgil with his shoulders squared and relaxed.

“Don’t you?” Swickey said.

Virgil remained quiet, letting Swickey show as many cards as he was willing to turn over.

“You think I did it,” Swickey said. “You think I blew the sonofabitch up?”

“Who said it was blown up?” Virgil said.

Swickey looked at Virgil for a moment, then nodded slowly.

“I know it was, for certain,” Swickey said.

“You do it?” Virgil said.

“No,” Swickey said.

“Then what makes you certain?” Virgil said.

Swickey looked to one of the men at the table.

“Me,” the man said.

“Who are you?” Virgil said.

“David Daniels,” he said.

David slid back in his chair a bit more. He was a slender, strong-looking man. He wore a flat-crown wide-brim hat with rawhide straps hanging from its sides that fu

“Go on?”

“I saw it,” David said.

“You were there?”

He shook his head.

“Rode up on it,” David said. “We was gathering cattle and come up on it, I seen it.”

Virgil didn’t say anything.

“I heard you were looking for me,” Swickey said. “Inquiring about me, so I figured I’d save you the looking and pay you a visit.”

“You didn’t come all the way over here,” Virgil said. “’Cause you wanted to pay me a visit.”

“Not really,” Swickey said.

“Then why?” Virgil said.

“For a few reasons,” Swickey said.

“Which are?” Virgil said.

“You think I had a hand in this?” Swickey said. “Because of Cox?”

“What about him?” Virgil said.

“I don’t like the sonofabitch,” Swickey said. “Everybody knows that.”

Virgil didn’t say anything.

“But I damn sure didn’t blow up his bridge because I don’t like him,” Swickey said.

“Who did?” Virgil said.

“Hell,” Swickey said. “I don’t know.”

“What do you know?” Virgil said.

“That bridge was going to bring me prosperity,” Swickey said.

“What kind of prosperity?” Virgil said.

“I’m no goddamn bridge builder,” Swickey said. “But I wanted that bridge, that’s why I even put in a bid on it in the first place. I wanted to see it built.”

“That the prosperity you’re talking about?” Virgil said.

Swickey shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I damn sure could have made money on the contract. Good goddamn money. But that bridge was a goddamn gateway for me.”

“How so?” Virgil said.

“The money I would save on moving my cattle alone is one hell of a reason I wanted more than anyone to see that bridge built. The bridge would have co

“You said a few reasons,” Virgil said. “What’s the other reason?”

“Got my suspicions about who did this,” Swickey said.

“Who?” Virgil said.

Swickey looked to his chair behind him.

“Mind if we sit?” Swickey said, extending his hand to the open chairs at the table. “Goddamn trip, riding in that damn buggy wore my ass out.”

Virgil glanced to me, then the chair, then nodded slightly to Swickey.

Swickey nodded and smiled some. “Knees and back aren’t as friendly as they used to be. Hell, nothing is,” he said, as he sat slowly back in the chair.

Virgil and I moved to the table. Virgil pulled a chair back away from the table a few feet and sat with an empty chair on each side of him. I sat in a chair at a table just next to them.

Swickey looked back to O’Malley behind the bar. He’d been standing the whole time, watching Virgil and Swickey talk as he wiped down a rack of beer mugs.

“Young fella,” Swickey said, as he picked up the coffeepot off the table. “Could we get some more coffee here, please?”

“Certainly,” O’Malley said.

O’Malley came around the corner of the bar. Swickey handed off the pot to him, then turned and faced Virgil with one elbow on the table and one on the back of his chair.

“There’s a good number of cow-calf operations over here on this side of the bridge that goddamn sure didn’t want to see that bridge built.”

“There one in particular?” Virgil said.

“There are a few, I’d suspect. But considering another aspect of all this, Eddie Winslow here,” Swickey said, looking to the man sitting just to the right of him, “has other information I feel is something you will want to hear.”

“What’s that?” Virgil said.

“Eddie had some bad dealings with someone he thinks had a hand in this,” Swickey said.

“Who?” Virgil said.

“Cotters,” Eddie said. “Two fellas, name Cotter.”

Virgil looked and me and shook his head a little.

— 58 —

What sort of bad dealings?” Virgil said.

Eddie Winslow wasn’t a big fella, but he looked to be as tough as they come. He was an angular, rawboned cowboy with a dark complexion and steely eyes.

“Tell him, Eddie,” Swickey said.

Eddie swiveled in his chair a little, facing Virgil, and placed his strong hands on the table in front of him.

“Me and my partner, Jim Lee, we was working for an outfit up on the north fork of the Red,” Eddie said. “Things petered out for us, and we come down this way. Jim was from this part of the country. We hired on with an outfit between Yaqui and here, pretty good-size outfit.”

“What outfit?” Virgil said.

“Rancher’s name is Westmorland,” Eddie said.

Swickey shook his head.

“Don’t think Westmorland is any part of this,” Swickey said. “I don’t know him, but I know of him. He’s a second-generation rancher and he’s a family man, always had a good reputation. I’d be surprised if he had any part in this, but of course you never know.”

Eddie nodded.

“He was fair; seemed so, anyway,” Eddie said. “He was good to us, fed us good, paid us regular and treated us good. He had some good hands, too, but then these two fellas hired on, them Cotters. They seemed nice enough to me, but I’m a dumbass. Jim was the one that said they was up to no good, and sure enough he was right.”

Eddie stopped talking for a moment. He looked down at his hands clasped on the table in front of him, then looked back up to Virgil and continued.

“Jim come back one night and told me them two asked him if he’d consider throwing in with them, doing a job with them.”

“What kind of job?” Virgil said.

Eddie glanced to Swickey, then looked back to Virgil.

“Jim didn’t spell it all out, exactly,” Eddie said. “Had to do with shutting down the bridge that was being built over the Rio Blanco, though. Said there’d be good money involved.”

Eddie stopped talking when O’Malley came to the table with a pot of coffee and two extra cups.

“Here ya go,” O’Malley said.

Eddie watched O’Malley walk away, then started talking again.

“See, my friend Jim was a rough sonofabitch and all the hands knew he spent time in Brigham’s Hole in Salt Lake for holding up a bank and killing a teller. These two Cotter hands figured Jim was a good pick for doing something dirty. But Jim had given up his wicked ways. He told them to fuck off, that he didn’t want no part of nothing that would put him back behind bars.”

“Where is Jim?”

Eddie looked to his hands again, then looked back up to Virgil, shaking his head.

“Dead,” Eddie said. “That following day was Jim’s last day on God’s green Earth.”