by Robert Knott
Every word that the teamster’s wife said that started with the letter W sounded like a V. And every word that ended with ing sounded like ink.
“Where are you coming from?” she said.
“Down Mexico way,” the teamster said with a smile.
She threw her hand at her teamster husband like she was flicking something at him.
“He can speak for himself, no?”
The kid smiled.
“Can you?”
“I can.”
“Where in Mexico?”
“Border towns, for the most part, Nuevo Laredo, Juárez, and some places in between.”
“You are a little brown, but you are no Mexican.”
“No.”
“Blue eyes,” she said.
“Sí,” he said.
“My husband tells me you are a good card player?”
He laughed.
“I have some skills.”
“Tell me, where do you come from?”
“I just come from Trinidad.”
“Trinidad? What is this Trinidad?”
“Colorado.”
She nodded as she puffed on her pipe.
“Your home?”
“No.”
“What was there in Trinidad?”
“Turned out my father was there.”
“And your mother?”
He shook his head.
“No, she was not there.”
She puffed on her pipe some more as she gazed up to the stars.
“So Trinidad is your father’s home?”
“It was.”
She looked to him.
“He’s not there anymore?”
“No.”
“Where is your mother?”
“I’m not sure. I aim to find her.”
“So where are you going to find her?”
“I’m pretty much there, now.”
“Chester? Your mother is here?”
“Appaloosa. I hear tell she’s in Appaloosa.”
“Appaloosa,” she said with a scoff, and then spit.
“What’s the matter with Appaloosa?” the kid said.
“One too many people in Appaloosa.”
“I have never been,” the kid said.
“But you think she is there?”
The kid nodded.
“That is what my father told me,” the kid said.
“You will see,” she said. “Too many people.”
“I don’t mind people.”
“But with people comes too many horses. Too many horses, means too much horseshit. Too much horseshit brings too many flies, summers especially.”
“I’m used to the heat. Horseshit, too, I reckon. Like your husband said, I come from the south. I like the south. I like the Mexican way of living.”
She nodded.
“Do you like tequila?”
“I do.”
She turned to the teamster and tipped her head toward the house. He got up without a word and went into the house.
“You move gracefully,” she said.
He smiled.
“Like a dancer.”
He laughed.
“I am a good dancer.”
She nodded, staring at him.
“But it has not been easy for you,” she said.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because I know these things.”
“Easier than some,” he said. “Harder than others, I guess.”
The teamster came out with a bottle of tequila and handed it to his wife. She took out the cork and took a pull. Then she passed the bottle to the kid. The three of them shared, drinking directly from the bottle.
“Where did your father go?” she said.
“Go?” he said.
“You said your father was not any longer in this town . . . this . . . Trina . . .”
“Trinidad,” the teamster said.
She stared intently at the kid.
“Oh. No, he left when I left.”
She nodded like she knew what happened to him.
“Where did he go?” she said with a smile.
“Hell,” the kid said. “He went to hell.”
She grinned and offered a nod to her husband.
“I knew something like this,” she said to her husband, then turned her attention to the kid. “And how did he get there? To hell?”
“I sent him,” the kid said, looking her in the eye. “I sent him up in flames.”
She nodded, then turned to her husband.
“What did I tell you?” she said.
“She told me you danced with fire,” the teamster said.
She leaned in, staring at the kid as she puffed on her pipe.
“I see things like this,” she said.
“She does,” the teamster said.
The kid did not know what to say.
“What do you expect from her?” she said.
The kid stared at her long and hard.
“You don’t know?” she said.
“Not exactly,” he said.
“Do you want her love?”
The kid didn’t say anything.
“Do you want to harm her?”
The kid stared at her.
She nodded.
“Maybe I can help you.”
“How?”
“Help you to know what it is that you expect of her.”
He said nothing. And no one spoke. Silence set in. The kid tilted his head back and took in the night sky full of stars.
She remained staring at the kid, then lifted out of her chair. She stood, and she, too, gazed up at the stars with the kid.
“He will sleep with me tonight,” she said to her husband. “You will sleep in the barn.”
29
After the ambulance departed, Virgil and I stayed and talked with Daniel McCormick on the front porch of James’s home. Now that the women had gone inside, Daniel was shaking. It was as if he hadn’t allowed his emotions and feelings to surface until now. He appeared weak as he turned, looking for a place to sit.
“Gentlemen,” he said, lowering into a porch chair, “I don’t know what to say. I . . . I have no words for any of this.”
Virgil waited before he spoke.
“We need to figure out what happened here,” Virgil said. “Who did this and how.”
“No,” Daniel said. “I understand that, I do. Indeed, I do.”
“The sooner we get onto this,” Virgil said, “figure out what exactly happened here, the better.”
“Well, you don’t have to look too far for who killed James. That is obvious,” Daniel said. “Goddamn obvious.”
“How was it you were here?” Virgil said.
“Well, my wife and I live just there.”
He pointed to a house a few doors down and across the street.
“Bernice came rushing over.”
“You were home?” Virgil said.
“No, my wife sent our housemaid to come and collect me. I was at the office. That is obviously how Mr. Hodge knew about this, from my employees there.”
“What do you know?” Virgil said. “Did James’s wife offer any explanation of how this happened or who did this?”
“I don’t know much more than you do,” he said. “She said nothing to me, really. Except that she was out on the back porch and she heard James enter from the front here. She said she heard a crash, then she came inside the house to see a vase had fallen; it was broken on the floor. The door here was open and James was staggering away.”
“Mr. McCormick,” I said. “Right now we need to speak with her, your brother’s wife. Bernice, is it?”
“Yes, Bernice,” he said.
He removed
his hat and pushed his hand through his hair as he stared at the floor.
“I’m obviously shocked and devastated with all this. And Bernice as well, more so perhaps. Though I’m not sure that is possible, as I’m frankly goddamn sick. But if it is all the same to you, I think it best we give her, and me, the evening to let this . . . I don’t know, let this sink in. And let us see you in the morning and talk then.”
I glanced at Virgil.
He nodded.
“We’ll have deputies here,” Virgil said. “Watching out. Make sure no one tries anything they should not.”
Daniel nodded.
“Thank you. Now, if you will excuse me,” he said as he got to his feet. “I would like to be with my wife and Bernice.”
Virgil nodded.
“Let her know we will need to talk with her tomorrow,” Virgil said.
Daniel offered a weary smile.
“And for the time being we will keep this silent,” Virgil said. “Less talk, the better.”
“I understand,” he said, then entered into the house, closing the door behind him.
Virgil and I walked down the steps.
“So what in the hell did happen here?” I said.
“He was shot all right,” Virgil said. “One shot in the side toward his back it seemed. Not a lot of bleeding.”
“And nobody saw anything, nothing?”
“No,” Virgil said, “nothing more than what you heard and what Skeeter told us.”
“Hard to believe nobody came forward,” I said. “No neighbors claiming they heard a shot or saw anything?”
“No,” Virgil said. “Nothing. Everyone stayed away. As far as the folks that live nearby know, he just fell dead in the street.”
“My stop to Dag’s turned up a few things,” I said.
“Victor Bartholomew was already gone,” Virgil said.
“That’s right.”
“And his big brother, Ventura Bartholomew, was seen with him,” Virgil said.
“That’s right, too,” I said. “How’d you know?”
“I didn’t,” Virgil said.
“Where there is smoke?” I said.
“Yep,” Virgil said.
“Double the trouble,” I said.
“Don’t suppose anybody has any idea where they are,” Virgil said. “Where they went, where they were headed.”
“No,” I said. “The gal there at the hotel, Sandy, said they had their horses stabled at that livery, Deek’s, across the tracks there from Dag’s hotel. Maybe somebody there might have some idea as to where they took off to.”
Virgil nodded.
“Baptiste and Eugene Pritchard likely know where they are,” Virgil said. “They had to find them in the first place.”
“Maybe the Bartholomew hands we have locked up, Johnny, Wayne, Noah Miller, and the other one,” I said, “maybe they could point us in the right direction.”
“Could,” Virgil said. “But then what? We just lock them up, too. Ol’ Hodge might be right,” he said.
“That this is war?”
“That’s right,” Virgil said. “Both sides of this are itching.”
“Seems so,” I said. “We got a good portion of them behind bars, though.”
“That we do,” Virgil said.
“Might not be a bad idea to let them fucking go,” I said, “and let them sort it out.”
“Might not,” Virgil said.
“Might make things easier for us in the long run,” I said. “Let them whittle on each other.”
“Might,” Virgil said.
“Hodge was damn sure convinced that James was murdered,” I said.
“That he was,” Virgil said. “Has every right, too.”
“Don’t think there’d be too many to disagree on that assumption,” I said.
“No,” Virgil said. “I don’t, either.”
30
Virgil and I got deputies lined up to keep watch on the home of Bernice McCormack. Then we got our horses and headed for the hospital.
As Virgil and I rode, we crossed Appaloosa Avenue, a half-block away from the theater.
I thought about Martha Kathryn. I was trying to determine the timeline of the play. Playing it in my mind as to what act they were currently in. Somewhere between the dancing cow and the spewing whale, I figured.
Duncan Mayfield, a reporter from the Appaloosa Star, met us when we entered the hospital lobby.
“Marshal Cole. Marshal Hitch,” he said. “Dr. Burris would not allow me back there. And he told me any news about James McCormick would have to come from a source other than himself. Told me I would have to talk with you or someone in law enforcement.”
He was a thin, pimple-faced fella who wore spectacles and was always in a wrinkled suit.
“So I’m asking,” he said. “What can you tell me?”
Duncan was the last person Virgil would want to see. We’d dealt with Duncan before. He was kind enough, but the nature of his job, asking questions, rubbed Virgil the wrong way.
“I just heard about it after the fact and was too late to make it to the house. This is a tragedy no doubt involving McCormick. No doubt. So. What can you tell us?”
“Nothing,” Virgil said as Duncan followed us toward the hall to the back rooms.
“I’m just doing my job,” Duncan said.
“Good,” Virgil said.
“The fact that you are here at the hospital tells me there is more to the story of James’s death than just falling over dead in the middle of the street.”
As we got to the door that separated the lobby from the hallway that led to the operating rooms, Virgil turned to face Duncan.
“We will get to the story one way or the other,” Duncan said. “But hearing the details from you would allow me to get the story out in a factual manner. How did he die? Was he murdered?”
“The one thing you need to know right now is this,” Virgil said. “If we get up in the morning and find you have written something that pisses me off, I will make certain you wish you had thought twice or maybe three times about it.”
Virgil turned and pushed through the door, leaving Duncan in the lobby.
“I’m pretty certain he means what he’s saying,” I said.
“Just trying to do my job,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “Us, too.”
Duncan nodded. Then I pushed on through the door and followed Virgil down the hall.
A few minutes later, Virgil and I stood over James McCormick’s body. He was laid out facedown on his table in the hospital. Doc Burris was looking over his body with one of the night nurses.
There was some dried blood around the bullet hole high up on the left side of his back.
“Looks like he was shot just this once,” Doc said. “And not a lot of bleeding.”
Doc wiped the dried blood free from around the wound and studied it closely.
“Small-caliber,” I said.
Virgil nodded.
“Not much bigger than a .22,” he said.
“It’s a bit bigger,” Doc said.
Doc nodded to his nurse.
“Hand me that magnifying glass.”
Doc took the glass and leaned in. He looked at the hole closely and shook his head.
“I’ll get into this and let you know what I find,” he said.
“What are you thinking?” I said.
“A .32, maybe,” Doc said. “I could be wrong. God knows I have been wrong before. Married and divorced three times to prove it. But I’ll get the bullet out and let you know.”
Virgil and I looked closer at the wound.
“Let’s turn him over,” he said.
Doc and the nurse rolled the body over. Then Doc looked the corpse over carefully. He looked into the ears, then nose
and throat, then raised his eyelids. He leaned in and looked through the magnifying glass into James’s dead eyes.
“Give me some time and check back with me.”
We thanked him and walked out of the room and down the hall toward the lobby.
“What do you figure?” I said.
Virgil shook his head.
“Don’t know,” he said. “Not many fellas carry pea shooters.”
31
Virgil and I made a trip to Deek’s livery, where the Bartholomew hands had their horses stabled across the tracks from Dag’s Hotel. Deek was an old-time resident of Appaloosa who Virgil and I knew somewhat and had visited with on occasion.
According to Deek, the horses belonging to Victor and Ventura Bartholomew were gone. The brothers had picked them up earlier in the day. The horses belonging to the hands we had locked up were still stabled and were grazing in a pasture behind the livery. But the Bartholomew brothers had saddled up and vamoosed, and Deek had no idea as to their whereabouts or destination. The only other information Deek had to offer was that he didn’t much care for the lanky brothers. Shitheads, he called them.
When we got to the office, we interrupted one of Lloyd’s stories. He was telling Skeeter about meeting Custer and his wife, Libbie, when Custer and his battalion once dispatched to Houston, Texas. I often wondered how much of the Texan yarns Lloyd spun was factual. But Virgil and I did not really care, and the deputies anticipated his stories. Law work was often monotonous. Having colorful pieces of history told by a good storyteller, even if he was a tall-tale Texan, kept the days from being boring.
We had Lloyd open up the door leading to the cells. All of the hands that were locked up stirred when they saw us, wondering what was going on. The two McCormick hands were separated from the Bartholomew gunmen. Bartholomew’s big man, Noah Miller, got up off his bunk and moved to the bars as we entered.
“We getting out?” Noah said. “You letting us go?”
Lloyd ignored Noah’s question with the seasoned insolence of a lawman.
“Johnny Rodriguez?” Lloyd said.
Johnny was asleep facing the wall on a corner bunk. He turned and looked to us.
“Qué?” he said sleepily as he looked back over his shoulder with his eyes narrowed, trying to focus.
“Get up,” Lloyd said.
He seemed confused, then slowly swiveled around and put his feet on the floor.