Appaloosa vcaeh-1

by Robert B. Parker

“Something’s goin’ on,” Cole said.

  “Why does he keep biting the mares?” Allie said.

  “He wants them close together,” Cole said.

  “Why?”

  “Cougar maybe,” I said.

  “Another stallion,” Cole said.

  “You’re sure?” Allie said.

  “Yes.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Allie said.

  Cole shrugged.

  “It’s another stallion,” he said.

  And it was. Big. Chestnut-colored. On the side of the hill, moving toward the herd.

  “You knew,” Allie said to Cole.

  “I did,” Cole said.

  “How?”

  Cole shrugged again.

  “Virgil knows things,” I said.

  The chestnut got closer to the running herd. He was running free. The Appaloosa had to herd his mares, and it slowed him. Then the Appaloosa stopped and turned and made a snarling bugle sound at the chestnut. The mares stopped running and gathered. The chestnut reared and bugled back at the Appaloosa. Then they both stood motionless for a moment, looking at each other. The mares stayed close together. The chestnut swished his tail and pulled his lips back from his teeth, and squealed. The Appaloosa exploded. He came at the chestnut with his neck straight out, biting at him. The chestnut bit him back. The Appaloosa reared and slashed at him with his front hooves. The chestnut went up, and they grappled like that, screaming. Then they separated and stood again. There was blood on both of them. The chestnut moved sideways. The Appaloosa moved with him, staying always between him and the mares. The chestnut tried to move around him, and the Appaloosa drove into him again.

  “Oh, my God,” Allie said. “Oh, my God.”

  Our horses, all three of them geldings, stirred uneasily as the two stallions screamed and bit and kicked.

  “Oh, my God,” Allie said again.

  She covered her ears with her hands.

  The chestnut made one final attempt to circle around the Appaloosa and get past him to the mares. Then he shied away. The Appaloosa pressed him, and the chestnut shied, kicked with his hind hooves at the Appaloosa, and ran. The Appaloosa went after him, biting at his haunches as he ran. The chestnut went up the next hill and over it. The Appaloosa followed him to the top and stopped. He wouldn’t lose sight of the mares. He stood on the hilltop, watching as the chestnut ran off, glancing back every few seconds at the mares.

  Allie took her hands from her ears.

  “Is it over?” she said.

  “Yes,” Cole said.

  “That was all about the mares?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do they always do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Stallion wants mares, he’s got to fight another stallion.”

  “Why does this stallion care if another stallion mounts one of those mares?”

  “Ask him,” Cole said.

  “But, I mean, it’s not love.”

  “Probably not,” Cole said.

  The Appaloosa pranced back to his mares with his neck arched and his tail high. He was still churning with nervous energy. The mares began to graze as he moved restlessly around the perimeter of their grazing.

  “Or jealousy,” Allie said. “I mean, he’s just a damned horse.”

  “Them mares,” Cole said, “belong to that Appaloosa stud, long as he’s enough horse to keep them. That matters to him, I guess.”

  “And what about the mares,” Allie said. “Do they have any choice?”

  “Horses do what they need to do,” Cole said. “Everett, you been to the United States Military Academy. You know why the mares stay with the stallions?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Mares and stallions probably don’t know, either.”

  “Horses ain’t too smart,” Cole said.

  50

  Bragg showed up in the spring. He walked into the city marshal’s office in the midafternoon of a rainy April day, wearing a rain slicker and, under it, a suit like a banker.

  “I’m going to take a piece of paper out of my coat pocket,” he said.

  I took my gun out and rested the barrel against the edge of the desk. Bragg took a presidential pardon from an inside pocket and put it on the desk in front of me.

  “Absolved of all charges,” Bragg said.

  I picked up the document and looked at it for a while. There was a lot of lawyer language, but there was the phrase absolved of all charges outstanding, right in the first paragraph. I handed the document back to Bragg.

  “You must have come into money,” I said.

  “Where’s Cole?” Bragg said.

  “Out walkin’ the town,” I said. “He’ll be back in a while.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “Not in here,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t like you.”

  “I don’t want Cole to see me and start shooting,” Bragg said, “ ’fore he reads my pardon.”

  “Ain’t Virgil’s style,” I said, and went to the door and held it open.

  Bragg hesitated. Then he shook his head and walked outside and sat on one of the chairs in front of the office, under the overhang. I left the door open and went back to my desk, and watched the rain puddle in the street outside.

  It was maybe an hour and a half later when Cole came back. I knew he’d have seen Bragg from a long way up the street. And I knew he wouldn’t have shown any response. I saw him pass in front of the window. His slicker was unbuttoned so he could get at his gun if he needed to. His collar was turned up against the rain, and his hat was tilted down over his eyes. I stood and went to the door. Cole had stopped in front of Bragg and was looking at him without expression. Bragg had his coat open. “I’m not heeled,” he said.

  Cole nodded. Bragg held up the paper he’d already shown me. I knew it wouldn’t mean anything to Cole. He’d have to read it slowly when he had time to make out all the words.

  “I been pardoned,” Bragg said. “I already shown it to Hitch.”

  I stepped out and sat down in the chair beside Bragg. Cole glanced at me. I nodded. He looked back at Bragg.

  “You was the only one to run off,” Cole said, “up in Beauville.”

  “The ones that stayed are dead,” Bragg said.

  Cole didn’t speak.

  “I’m a law-abiding citizen,” Bragg said. “You got no call to bother me further.”

  Cole was silent for a time, looking at Bragg with no expression.

  Finally he said, “Not ’less you give me cause.”

  Bragg smiled widely.

  “That’s very fine,” he said. “I’m coming back to Appaloosa. I needed to clear things up with you first.”

  Cole didn’t answer.

  Bragg took a tan leather cigar case out of his inside coat pocket. He offered a cigar to Cole and to me. We declined. He took one out for himself and got it lit and puffed on it till it was going good.

  “I come into some money,” Bragg said, “and I got plans for coming into more.”

  Bragg put out his hand.

  “Bygones be bygones?” he said.

  Cole ignored him and walked past him into the office. Bragg watched him for a moment. Then he looked at me.

  “I’m the right side to be on,” Bragg said. “I’m going to do some things in Appaloosa.”

  I shook my head.

  Now that he’d been reassured that Cole wouldn’t shoot him dead, Bragg seemed pretty full of himself. He wasn’t a dangerous rancher with a fast gun who hired fast gun hands. Now he was a man of means and position. He looked and talked like a politician. He offered cigars and talked of big plans. He wore a suit with a vest. I didn’t like this Bragg any better than the other one.

  “I won’t shake your hand, either,” I said.

  Bragg stood and buttoned up his raincoat.

  “Things are likely to change in Appaloosa,” Bragg said. “You could benefit from the changes, or you could get left behind.”

&
nbsp; He turned up his collar and adjusted his hat and stepped off the front porch into the rain. I watched him as he walked on down the street, trailing the smell of a pretty good cigar behind him.

  51

  It wasn’t until the middle of May that I rode up in the early morning to take a look-see at Bragg’s ranch. I could smell the smoke and bacon smell from the cookshack long before I topped the rise and looked down at the place. There were horses in the corral and, as best I could make out, more in the barn. The weeds were gone from the front porch. The place looked somehow clean and busy, although I only saw two hands loafing by the corral, where they had slung their saddles on the top rail. Between the ones in the barn and those in the corral, there were horses for a considerable number of hands. I saw no sign of cattle. The two boys leaning on the fence weren’t dressed for cattle work. I sat my horse for a time, looking down. Some other hands came and went: to and from the privy, in and out of the bunkhouse, back and forth to the cookshack. None of them seemed dressed for herding cows. I got bored looking at them, so I turned my horse and rode back to town.

  Cole was drinking coffee in the Boston House Saloon and studying an illustrated book about King Arthur. I stopped for a minute and watched him. He read slowly, like he always did, sometimes forming words silently with his lips, sometimes running his forefinger along under an especially hard sentence.

  Without looking up he said, “Come on and set, Everett.”

  I did. Tilda came and gave me coffee.

  “Bragg’s back into his ranch,” I said.

  Cole put the book aside.

  “I know.”

  “Got quite a number of hands,” I said.

  “And no cows,” Cole said.

  “You been up there, too,” I said.

  “ ’Course I have.”

  “What do you think is happening?”

  “I know he bought both of Earl May’s saloons.”

  “Really?” I said. “What’s Earl going to do.”

  “Says he’s going to retire, go live with his daughter in Denver.”

  “Maybe we should do that,” I said.

  “You got a daughter someplace?” Cole said.

  “No.”

  “Me, either.”

  “Might as well stay here then,” I said. “Where you suppose Bragg’s getting this money?”

  “Heard different things,” Cole said. “Fella told me Bragg had a big silver strike in Nevada. ’Nother fella told me that Bragg and some other boys robbed a train in Mexico that was carrying gold.”

  “I heard he was down along the Rio Grande with some fellas, stealing cows and horses from Mexico,” I said. “Bringing them back here and selling them to the Army.”

  “Hard to get rich doing that,” Cole said.

  “But easy to get killed.”

  Cole nodded.

  “Doesn’t sound like Bragg,” he said.

  “Hard work, too,” I said.

  Cole grinned.

  “Doesn’t sound like Bragg,” he said.

  “I heard he won a pile of nuggets from some drunken miner in a poker game in Abilene,” I said. “And I heard he took a fortune off a Wells Fargo stage in Clovis.”

  Tilda came by and filled our coffee cups. Cole drank some. Then he grinned.

  “Maybe he worked hard and honest for it,” Cole said.

  “That’s probably it,” I said.

  “What we do know,” Cole said, “is he’s got a big payroll up at that ranch for a lot of riders that so far’s I can see, don’t do nothing.”

  “And he bought two saloons,” I said. “Earl get a good price?”

  “Seemed happy with it.”

  “Any chance Bragg run him off?”

  “Don’t think so,” Cole said. “You might ask him.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Why do you think he came back here?”

  “Got land here,” Cole said.

  “Easy enough to sell.”

  “He’s got us here, too,” Cole said.

  “Think it’s got something to do with us?”

  “Might. Bragg was the big dog ’round here till we showed up.”

  “You think it’s got something to do with pride?”

  “Pride’s a funny thing,” Cole said.

  I drank some more coffee and looked at Cole for a time.

  “How would you know that?” I said.

  52

  Appaloosa had two town meetings every year: one on the first of June, before it got too hot to have a meeting, the other on the first of December, before the real winter hit. The meetings took place in the church at the end of Second Street. They usually lasted all day, and me or Cole always went, to see to it there was no fistfights broke out over ticklish points.

  I was there for the June meeting, in the back of the church, by the door, sitting on a saloon lookout chair that was brought in special for the meeting. The aldermen sat in a row up front, beside the pulpit where the pastor stood, moderating the meeting. As always, after the lunch break there was a clean smell of whiskey in the room. While the latecomers were sitting down, Randall Bragg came in and walked alone down the center aisle and sat in the front row. He was dressed in a dark suit. He had a gold watch chain across his vest. He took his hat off as he came into the church and placed it carefully in his lap when he sat down.

  Nobody had a gavel in town, so when it was time for the meeting to start for the afternoon, the pastor came out and stood silently at the pulpit until things got quiet. I was always surprised that it worked. But it always did.

  “Before we begin this afternoon’s session,” the pastor said, “we have had a special request from a member of the community to address the members of the meeting.”

  The pastor was a strapping man who obviously considered himself a sure bet for heaven.

  “With the concurrence of our Board of Aldermen,” the pastor said, “I have agreed to the request. Mr. Bragg?”

  Bragg stood, laid his hat on his chair, and stepped to the pulpit. He was clean-shaven, freshly barbered, and, probably, if the room smelled less of whiskey, he would have smelled of bay rum. He glanced toward the ceiling for a moment and then turned to the audience.

  “I was fearing maybe there’d be a lightning bolt when I stepped to the pulpit,” he said.

  The audience laughed politely.

  “And if the Lord had chosen to send one,” Bragg said, “who could have blamed him.”

  The audience laughed again. Bragg smiled at them.

  “Most of you know who I am,” he said. “My name is Randall Bragg, and I have been an evil man for some years.”

  Everyone got very quiet.

  “A year or so ago, I faced death several times and escaped with my life. It made me wonder why. Why did I not die when so many others had?”

  My answer was that in at least one instance, it was because he turned and ran. But I kept my answer to myself.

  “It came to me one day like the sun coming through a cloud, that the answer lay in a higher power. God had plans for me. He wanted me to come back to where I’d done so much that was bad, and try to do some good.”

  You couldn’t even hear people breathing in the room. The big preacher stood beside Bragg, beaming with pride.

  “And,” Bragg said, and bowed his head as he said it, “here I am.”

  A sort of long sigh ran through the crowd.

  “I’ve been blessed,” Bragg said. “In this last year, I’ve come into money, and I’m back here to use that money, to build this town, where only a short while ago I did so much harm.”

  There was a little scattered clapping. Bragg put his hands out to ask for quiet.

  “I’ve bought some property in town, from Earl May,” Bragg said. “And I’m fixing to renovate it, and today I’d like to tell you all that I’ve bought the Boston House from Abner Raines.”

  A lot of the audience whispered to each other.

  “I’m going to turn it into the finest hotel between Saint Louis and Denver,” he said, �
�and, with God’s help, I’ll make Appaloosa into the finest, richest town between the Rockies and the Mississippi River. It’ll be a town where people will come to spend money. It’ll be a town where a man, any man willing to work, can be not just well off, he can be rich.”

  When Bragg started talking about God’s help, I wondered about a thunderbolt myself. But none came. Instead, the audience began to clap and somebody stood up and cheered, and then everyone was on their feet, clapping and cheering. Bragg stood silently, his head bowed reverently, his hands clasped in front of him, and accepted the clapping and cheering modestly and gratefully.

  He didn’t make clear exactly how he was going to accomplish all this, but nobody seemed to notice. They all liked the idea of working hard and getting rich. Bragg raised his eyes as the applause began to quiet.

  “To any here whom I have ever offended, I beg you to forgive me. To all of you here, I thank you for having me back.”

  Then he lowered his eyes again, and with his hands still clasped in front of him like some kind of friar, he walked down the aisle of the church to the door. He looked up a little bit as he passed me and nodded and smiled.

  It was a hell of a performance.

  53

  The bull showed up in a boxcar in the dead heat of July. Two of Bragg’s hands met him at the train and began to haze him slowly though town on his way to the ranch. He was a squat, compact bull with a black coat and no horns.

  “Ever see one looked like that?” I said to Cole as they moved the bull up Main Street.

  “Nope.”

  A few boys followed along, looking at the black bull. Some men came to the doors of shops. People stood in the doorway of Bragg’s two saloons to look.

  “Olson told me Bragg bought it in Scotland. It’s a Black Angus.”

  “Olson seems pretty snug with Bragg,” Cole said, “don’t he.”

  “Olson says Bragg’s fixing to start a herd, got some Angus cows coming, too.”

  “Sort of small bull,” Cole said.

  “Olson says the steers make real good eating,” I said. “Says that some of the fancy hotels and restaurants back east will pay a lot more for them.”

  The hands turned the bull at the foot of the street, and we couldn’t see him anymore. The boys trailed around the corner after them.