Appaloosa vcaeh-1

by Robert B. Parker

  “You gonna say anything different?” the judge said to the hand.

  “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 gonna happen,” Cole said to me, “it’ll be at Chester. Takes ’em a while to fill that boiler, and we’re pretty much sitting ducks while they do.”

  “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 dunno, ask the conductor.”

  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.”

  “How long after we hit the grade?” Cole said.

  “Ten minutes or so, ain’t far, but the engine’s strugglin’.”

  “Anybody there.”

  “Nope.”

  “Thanks,” Cole said.

  I looked at Bragg. He was still staring out the window without expression. If he expected action at Chester, he wasn’t letting on.

  “When we get there,” Cole said to me, “I’ll go to the front of the car. You take the rear. Outside. I don’t want us sitting in here like a tom at a turkey shoot.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  COLE WAS the first to sense the start of the upgrade. Of course. He always knew things first. I hadn’t felt the train slow at all, when Cole was on his feet.

  “You boys stay here with the prisoner,” he said to Stringer. “Me ’n Everett will do some recognicence.”

  He picked up his Winchester, pointed me toward the back of the train, and walked toward the front. As I walked toward the rear coupling space between my car and the caboose, I could feel the train beginning to lurch up the grade. Virgil disappeared out onto the front. The strong-smelling smoke from the engine streamed back over the train. I held the handrail and swung out and looked ahead. At the top of the rise, I could see the water tower and beside it, higher, the windmill that kept it full. I could also see Virgil’s head as he looked out past the cars in front of us. I scanned the dry scrubland around us. There was nothing moving. The train wasn’t moving fast enough to generate any breeze, and the thick air was oppressive. I turned and looked on the other side of the train. Nothing moved over there, either. There was nothing behind us.

  As we went over a small bridge over a shallow dry wash, three riders trailing a saddled, riderless horse on a lead appeared beside the train tracks up ahead. Two of them were the Sheltons; the other, riding between them, was Allie. Ring held the lead from the riderless horse. They rode slowly beside the train letting our car draw even with them. There was a rope around Allie’s neck. The other end was looped around Ring’s saddle horn. On the other side of her, Mackie held a double-barreled shotgun resting on her shoulder, pressed against her neck. Everything slowed down. I could see the locomotive top the rise and level out as it approached the water tower. The train slowed, then halted, with the water spout over the boiler cap. I saw Cole step down from the train and stand stock-still, holding the Winchester, barrel down, in his left hand, looking at the three riders. I realized that I had stepped down, too, still holding the shotgun. There was no movement in the well shack next to the water tower, only the slow revolution of the windmill above it.

  The three riders halted in front of Cole. He was motionless. So was I. The fireman had climbed onto the top of the cab to set the spout. He pulled the rope to drop it and stepped back as the water poured in, sending a slash of steam up. When he saw us all, he stopped and stared and stayed put. There was no sound but that of steam hissing from the idle engine.

  “You see how this is going to go, Virgil,”
Ring Shelton said.

  Cole looked at the three riders without any sign. Between the two Shelton brothers Allie looked red-eyed and pale. Her face seemed crumpled.

  “Any sign of trouble from anybody,” Ring said, “and Mackie gives her both barrels. The horses will then head off in different directions, and what’s left of her will be yanked off of hers, and her neck will break and she’ll drag for miles through the mesquite. Less Mackie blows her head clean off, then the rope’ll probably slip loose.”

  He talked slowly and carefully, as if to be sure everyone understood what was being said. I didn’t move. Cole looked at the three riders, unblinking. Stringer had moved out of the car and stood above the coupling behind Cole. He had his Winchester leveled at Ring. Mackie’s horse swished his tail at a fly that buzzed his flank. He shifted slightly when he did, but Mackie adjusted and the shotgun stayed easy and straight against Allie’s neck.

  “So you folks are going to have to unshackle Bragg and parade him on out here, or she gets killed.”

  Stringer had brought the Winchester to his shoulder.

  “I got you in my sights,” he said. “Whatever happens to her, you’re dead.”

  Ring smiled gently.

  “What do you think, Virgil?” Ring said. “Think I’ll get scared and change my mind?”

  “Put the rifle down,” Cole said to Stringer.

  “This ain’t your jurisdiction, Cole,” Stringer said.

  “Put it down,” Cole said.

  Stringer held still. Two of his deputies were on the platform behind me with Winchesters.

  “I’ll kill anybody don’t lower their rifles,” Cole said.

  It was like a painting, everyone frozen in color and time with the rolling, hardscrabble land stretching out to the horizon.

  Then Stringer lowered his Winchester.

  “Lower ’em, boys,” he said.

  And the two deputies dropped the rifle barrels toward the ground.

  “We give you Bragg, you give us the woman,” Cole said.

  Ring laughed.

  “Virgil, you know I ain’t that dumb. You give us Bragg. We keep the woman. You ride off on the train, and when it’s out of sight, we cut her loose.”

  The few passengers in the other cars had gathered on our side of the train and were looking out the windows. Cole ignored them. His whole focus was on Allie and the Sheltons. He stood as he had since he’d stepped down from the train. He had not moved. He didn’t move now.

  Then he said, “Everett, get Bragg.”

  I looked at Stringer.

  “It’ll go easier with the other deputy,” I said, “if you do it.”

  Stringer held my look for a minute. Then he nodded and turned and walked back into the train. In the silence I thought I could hear Allie sniveling. Neither of the Shelton brothers paid any attention to her except for the steady pressure of the shotgun against her neck. Then Stringer came out with Bragg. He had taken off the handcuffs and the leg shackles. Bragg stepped past him when he reached the door, and jumped down from the train and walked to the riderless horse, and swung into the saddle.

  “Gimme a gun,” he said to Ring.

  “Why?”

  “Cole,” Bragg said. “I’m going to shoot the sonova bitch.”

  If Cole heard him, he made no sign. His gaze remained steady on the riders.

  “Ain’t part of the deal,” Ring said, and began to turn his horse slowly.

  “Turn with us, darlin’,” he said to Allie.

  “Goddamn it, you work for me, gimme a fucking gun,” Bragg said.

  “I hired on to get you loose,” Ring said. “You’re loose. You keep yappin’ and I’ll leave you and the girl right here.”

  Bragg opened his mouth and closed it. He glanced down at Cole.

  “Another time,” he said.

  Cole didn’t move.

  “We’ll ride off now,” Ring said. “No hurry. We can see a long way, so best you get the train rolling, because we ain’t cutting her loose until the train is out of sight, and that’s a ways down the track.”

  With the rope around Allie’s neck tied to Ring’s saddle, and Mackie on the other side with the shotgun against her neck, the three of them had to wheel in formation. Which they did slowly.

  “Bragg, you lead on out,” Ring said.

  Bragg glanced back at us as he rode away. Allie didn’t, nor did the Sheltons.

  31

  It took the train more than a half hour to get around the far bend and stop and back up. Cole stood on the back platform of it and said nothing as he watched the riders move away south down the dry wash. He stayed where he was and said nothing for the full half hour after the riders were no longer in sight and the train had gone around the bend and stopped and backed slowly up. When we got back to the water tower, Allie wasn’t there. Virgil stepped off the train and walked toward the wash. Stringer started to walk after him.

  “Stay away from him,” I said.

  “The bastards said they’d leave her here.”

  “They’re safer if they got her,” I said.

  “You knew they were lying.”

  “We both knew,” I said. “But there wasn’t nothing to be done about it. “

  “We got to discuss this,” Stringer said.

  “Discuss it with me,” I said. “Don’t try to talk to Virgil.”

  Stringer stared after Virgil.

  “We got no horses,” Stringer said. “We can’t go after them on foot.”

  I nodded.

  “We’ll go back to town and get some,” I said.

  “Quicker Cole gets back here,” Stringer said, “quicker we’re on our way.”

  “He won’t come back,” I said.

  “Won’t come back?”

  I shook my head.

  “Wait for me,” I said and walked after Cole.

  Cole was standing on the little bridge over the wash, looking south down the wash.

  I said, “We got no horses, Virgil.”

  A half mile or so away, the wash curved slightly west and you couldn’t see down it anymore.

  “I’ll ride the train on to Yaqui and get some.”

  Cole still held the Winchester exactly as he had held it when he was talking to the Sheltons. He was squinting into the sun as he looked southwest along the wash. His face, half shielded by his hat’s brim, was without expression.

  “I’ll bring the horses back here,” I said, “and if you ain’t here, I’ll follow you down the wash.”

  Cole turned suddenly and walked off the bridge and began to edge down the side of the dry wash.

  “You leave the wash,” I said. “Leave me a sign.”

  Cole didn’t answer or look at me. He started walking southwest along the flat bottom of the wash, looking at the tracks in the dirt. I went back and got aboard the train.

  We didn’t get to Yaqui until after six that night. Stringer, being a deputy, could roust people around a little and, even though some of the stores were closed in Yaqui, I was on the way back to Chester by 8:15 with three horses and a pack mule carrying supplies. There was a good moon, and the stars were bright, and all I had to do was follow the tracks.

  32

  When I got to the water tower, the moon was nearly down, but the sky to the east was still dark. I let the horses and the mule drink from a trough near the windmill. There was nothing moving in the wash. If I started down there now, in the dark, I couldn’t read the tracks, and if Cole had left me a sign, I might not see it. This wasn’t going to be a quarter-mile horse race. This would be a long ride. Long rides went better when you didn’t hurry. I tethered the animals, gave them some feed, and ate a can of peaches. I sat down with my back against the railroad shed and slept for a while, facing east, so the sunrise would wake me up. Which it did. It was slow going down the wash, trailing three animals. I thought about driving them ahead of me, but that would have wiped out any tracks that the Sheltons, and Cole, left. Next spring the wash would be roiling with water until summer. But
right now it was dry as dust, with the little rivulet patterns of the spring torrent showing on the bottom. The hoofprints from the Sheltons’ horses were clear enough, and among them I could see Cole’s boot prints. They had a twelve-hour start on me, but sooner or later I’d catch up with Cole, and then, sooner or later, we’d catch up with Allie.

  I had matches wrapped up in oilcloth in my shirt pocket. I had a Winchester in a saddle scabbard under my left leg, and the eight-gauge under my right. I had two canteens slung over the saddle horn. I had a .45- caliber Colt on my belt and a bowie knife. Wrapped in a slicker and tied behind my saddle was a change of clothes. Cole would have to make do with what he was wearing. I had ammunition and food and water and whiskey and a few sundries on the mule.

  The tracks were clear enough. There was nothing out here and no reason for anybody to be here. Nobody else had ridden the wash for a long time. There were some coyote tracks mixed in, and some antelope spoor. As the wash turned west, I could feel the sun hard on my back. It was getting hot. The horses weren’t tugging on the lead anymore. The mule had been on a lead all his life and the extra saddle mounts had fallen into his rhythm. I drank a little water. The sun was halfway up toward midday when the wash petered out onto a flat plain. The tracks stayed west and then got hard to follow in the scrub that covered the ground. I had to get off my horse to follow them, leading all four of the damned animals. Pretty soon they’d be riding me.

  It was past midday when I came to a pile of stones about a foot high. I stopped and squatted and looked at it. Beside it, on the ground, was a smaller pattern of stones in the form of an arrow. It pointed south. I scattered the stones, remounted, and turned my animals south, and we moved on. I didn’t need to track much anymore. I knew Cole would leave me directions. And he did. Some mesquite freshly cut. Some dry sticks pointing south, bigger growth with a prominent slash. In the late afternoon, I found him, near a shale outcropping, sitting on a rock, beside a marshy-looking water hole, with the Winchester in his lap, his boots off, and his feet in the water. He watched me ride up, trailing the animals.