“She gets faint if the Countess looks at her,” Virgil said.
“And she don’t want this fight to happen,” I said.
“She don’t,” Virgil said.
“But she sets the trap on her ’cause you asked her to.”
“Allie loves me,” Virgil said.
“Except when she doesn’t,” I said.
Virgil sipped his whiskey.
“She always loves me,” he said. “Sometimes other stuff gets in the way.”
“She wants to be more than she is,” I said. “She cheats on you. She gets so sucked up into her self that she can’t see you for a while. She gets lost. You go find her. She strays off. You bring her back. You love her.”
“I do,” Virgil said.
“Why?”
“Don’t know,” Virgil said.
We poured ourselves more whiskey.
“But you do,” I said.
“Yep.”
“You ever spend time thinking about it?”
“Nope.”
I grinned.
“No,” I said. “You wouldn’t.”
“I like it,” Virgil said. “It works for me. Why fuck around with it.”
“Don’t spend much time figuring yourself out, either,” I said.
“Same thing,” Virgil said.
“You like yourself,” I said.
Virgil grinned.
“So, why fuck with it?” he said.
“You know why you’re getting into General Laird’s fight?” I said.
“Killed his kid,” Virgil said.
“Feel guilty ’bout that?”
“Nope,” Virgil said. “Kid gave me no choice. Don’t mean I can’t help his old man out.”
“And we don’t like Callico, do we?” I said.
“No,” Virgil said. “We don’t.”
“And we do kind of like putting together a little fire-fight like this.”
Virgil drank some corn whiskey and held it in his mouth and looked up at the stars. He nodded slowly.
“We do,” he said.
66
NEW MOON,” General Laird said. Six of us sat our horses back from the ridgeline in the near-perfect darkness above Appaloosa.
“Yep,” Virgil said.
“Knew that when you planned this,” the general said.
“Did,” Virgil said.
Almost noiselessly, Pony Flores guided his horses up from the right slope and in beside Virgil.
“How’s he do that?” Chauncey said to me. “I know he’s quiet, but how’s he make the horse quiet?”
Pony heard him.
“Chiricahua,” he murmured to Chauncey.
“Or Mex,” Chauncey said.
“Or both,” Pony said.
“How is it down there?” Virgil said.
He never got nervous, but he did focus sometimes, and this was one of those times.
“Done what you say he do, Jefe,” Pony said.
“Set up an ambush,” Virgil said.
“Sí.”
Downslope a ways five extra horses were tethered. They would blow softly now and then in the darkness.
“Where’s he got ’em?” Virgil said.
“I show,” Pony said.
We moved down slope a little and dismounted. I got a lantern going, and we crouched together, watching, while Pony scratched out a sort of map in the dirt.
“Have two on second floor, Boston House,” Pony said, and marked it.
“One on roof of Golden Palace.” He drew an X.
“Three in livery corral. Behind wagon.” He drew three X’s.
When Pony was finished Virgil counted the X’s.
“I get fifteen,” he said.
“Five alone,” I said.
“We can take them out?” Virgil said to Pony. “Quiet?”
“Sí,” Pony said. “The one’s alone. Maybe two on roof at jail.”
“You think you can take out two men in the dark without making any noise.”
“Chiricahua,” Pony said. “Kill many men on roof.”
“Chiricahua better not fuck this up,” Virgil said. “Blow the whole goddamned project if there’s noise.”
“Sí.”
“On the jail roof,” I said.
“Sí.”
“I won’t tell you how to do your work,” Virgil said.
“We pull it off, he’ll have a lot fewer men than he thinks he’s got,” I said.
“Where’s the rest?” Virgil said.
“Jail,” Pony said.
“Right below Pony,” I said.
“With Callico?” Virgil said.
“Sí.”
Virgil studied the sketch in the dirt for a bit. Then he stood and remounted and rode to a spot just below the ridgeline. It was too dark to be seen, but Virgil was always careful. He sat and looked down at Appaloosa for a while.
“We get the first part cleaned up and settle in,” Virgil said. “Then just before dawn the horses go in.”
“Somebody gotta drive them,” I said.
“I’ll do that,” General Laird said.
“Good chance you don’t survive,” Virgil said.
“No need,” the general said. “I’m seventy-seven years old. My son is dead. I’m the one you can spare for this. No need to survive.”
Nobody said anything.
“I’ll stick here with him,” Teagarden said.
“Okay,” Virgil said. “Just before dawn. We pull this off and we’re all in place. You bring the horses in, bunched up together so they can’t really tell if there are riders. When they start shooting, you get down in the saddle and get the hell out of there.”
“Okay,” he said. “We may as well start. Who wants the Golden Palace?”
“I know the place,” Cato said. “I’ll take it.”
“Before you begin,” Laird said.
We waited.
“I am seventy-seven,” Laird said again. “All I have left in the world is my ranch. I was going to leave it to my son. But Virgil Cole killed my son. Because I was a powerful man, I told my son he was a powerful man. I was a soldier all my life. Power, I told him, comes from the muzzle of a gun. He took it to heart. Because I was powerful, my son thought he was powerful. Because I was powerful, people treated my son as if he were powerful. I thought he was. He thought he was. And it got him killed by Virgil Cole.”
Nobody spoke in the darkness. The horses stood quiet, waiting, the way they did.
“That is my fault,” Laird said. “Virgil Cole did what he had to do.”
We were still.
“Chauncey, I don’t want you to kill him,” Laird said.
“Hell, General, Callico probably gonna kill us both, anyway,” Chauncey said.
“I want you men to witness this,” Laird said. “My only connection to my son is through the man who killed him. And he’s a good man. If I die here, or when I die somewhere, I want Cole to have the ranch.”
“Virgil?” I said.
“Yes.”
“You understand what you’re doing?”
“Yes,” Laird said.
There was a moment more of silence.
Then Laird said, “And so does Virgil Cole.”
In the darkness, Virgil said, “I do.”
“We’re all witness,” I said.
“Then let’s get to it,” Virgil said. We all dismounted, took our spurs off, and began down the hill toward town. Being silent in the dark made it slow going.
My man was behind the Chinese laundry, barricaded behind some big wash cauldrons, with, in daylight, a clear line of sight at the open space in front of the jail.
I remembered moving in on a Comanche camp through a dark Texas night. The horses held by squad back from the scene, the troopers spread out on each side of me, the silence so pressing that you didn’t want to breathe. Except this time I was alone. I stashed the eight-gauge on the far wall of the laundry. It would be in my way for what I had to do now. But it would be very handy later.
I took the bowie knife from its scabbard. I don’t enjoy knives much, but there didn’t seem any other way. I went very slowly, feeling my way with the toe of my boot through the littered laundry lot. It took so long that I was afraid dawn would arrive before I got to him.
But it didn’t.
And I cut his throat soundlessly before he ever knew he was dead, and took his place behind the wash pots.