Brimstone

by Parker, Robert B.

  “More our type,” I said.

  “Ain’t so sure we got a type,” Virgil said.

  Brimstone was about seven blocks wide and ten blocks long in a green bend of the Paiute River, which made it cooler than this part of Texas usually was. Pike’s Palace was halfway down Arrow Street, on the west corner of Fifth Street, putting it about in the center of the town. All around it, the town was busting out of its skin. Freight and lumber were being hauled through town. Buildings were going up, saloons and eating places were crowded, and there were two general stores, a bowling alley, two millinery shops, and two hotels already and a third one being built. The air was full of sounds: wagons creaking, men swearing, mules, oxen, carpentry, and black- smithing. At the north end of Arrow Street was a big town hall, almost finished. At the south end was a church with an imposing spire. There were boardwalks lining every street, and most of the buildings had roofed out over the boardwalk in front of them, so you could shelter from the sun in good weather and the rain in bad.

  The saloon had a corner entrance and heavy oak doors, which were opened back in good weather and let you into a vestibule with swinging doors ornamented by stained-glass windows. Through the swinging doors was the saloon.

  Wearing our new deputy stars, we stopped inside the doorway and looked around.

  “Pike done himself proud,” Virgil said.

  “Did,” I said.

  Along the length of one wall, which seemed from inside to run nearly the whole block along Fifth Street, was an elaborate mahogany bar with a black mirrored wall behind it and bottles stacked in decorative pyramids. Along the other wall was a row of gaming tables, and in the open space between were tables and matching chairs. There was an ornate chandelier shedding light on the windowless room, and at the back a set of stairs that led to a second floor. The wide plank floors were polished. The bar top gleamed. The saloon whores were neat. And the glassware appeared clean. Four bartenders worked the bar, which was busy in the late afternoon, and a thin, dark, sharp-faced guy with a shotgun sat in the lookout chair near the far end of it. Virgil walked down the length of the bar to him.

  “J.D.,” he said.

  The lookout examined Virgil.

  Then he said, “Wickenburg.”

  “Yep.”

  “Virgil Cole,” J.D. said.

  “Yep.”

  “You posted us out of town,” J.D. said.

  “You was with Basgall,” Virgil said.

  “Moved on,” J.D. said.

  “And Basgall?”

  “Got shot by two Texas Rangers in El Paso.”

  “You with Pike now?” Virgil said.

  “I work here,” J.D. said. “You?”

  “Me and Hitch here signed on with the sheriff,” Virgil said.

  “Seen the badges,” J.D. said.

  “Like to talk with Pike,” Virgil said.

  J.D. nodded.

  “Spec,” he said to one of the bartenders, “go tell Pike new deputy wants to see him.”

  “Name’s Virgil Cole,” Virgil said.

  Spec nodded and walked to a door under the back stairs. In a moment he returned, and behind him was a big man with very little hair and a short beard.

  “Virgil Cole,” he said, and put his hand out.

  Virgil didn’t take it.

  “This here’s Everett Hitch,” Virgil said.

  Pike didn’t seem to mind not shaking hands.

  “Good to meet you, Everett,” he said. “You fellas care for a drink?”

  “Beer’d be good,” Virgil said.

  Pike nodded at the bartender and led us to an empty table.

  “Bartender says you and J.D. know each other,” Pike said.

  “Wickenburg,” Virgil said.

  The bartender arrived with three mugs of beer and placed them carefully before us.

  “Thank you, Spec,” Pike said.

  He raised his mug toward us. We drank.

  “J.D. is a pretty good gun hand,” Pike said.

  “Was,” Virgil said.

  “Still is,” Pike said.

  “Likely so,” Virgil said. “I just ain’t seen him lately.”

  Pike was deceptive. When you first saw him you thought he was fat. But when he moved he seemed light on his feet, and quick. And when you sat with him, up close, and could look at him you realized that he was big and barrel-shaped, but not much of it was fat. I looked around the saloon.

  “Done yourself proud here, Mr. Pike,” I said.

  “Aw, just Pike. Nobody calls me Mister.”

  “Well, you got a nice place here,” I said.

  “Yeah, lotta work, but it makes me sorta proud to see how it’s come along,” Pike said.

  Virgil was quiet. I knew he was studying Pike.

  “Understand you used to run a gang,” I said.

  “Yep, gotta say I did,” Pike said. “Done some pretty illegal things for a while until the damn Pinkertons wore me out. Had all that railroad money behind them . . .” He shook his head.

  “So you came here,” I said.

  “Yep, ain’t broke a law in Texas,” he said. “Had some money saved, brought a few of my boys, bought a damned shack of a place with no name, and we went to work.”

  “J.D. one of the boys you brought?” Virgil said.

  “Yep, J.D. is a good man, and I believe in loyalty.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “Other lookout, Kirby Harris, was with me, too.”

  Pike nodded toward the bartender who’d brought us the beer.

  “Spec,” he said. “Few other boys.”

  “Whadda they do?” Virgil said.

  “They help me with some of my other interests,” Pike said. “I’m expanding.”

  “What else you do?” Virgil said.

  “Oh, this and that,” Pike said. “Lemme get you boys another beer.”

  He gestured at Spec. I noticed he’d drunk only a little of his.

  Virgil didn’t push his question.

  “Any trouble in town?” Virgil said.

  “Why do you ask?” Pike said.

  “Just trying to get the lay of the land,” Virgil said. “Who’s that German guy you studied at West Point?”

  “Clausewitz,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Virgil said, “him.”

  He looked at Pike.

  “Fella says you need to be prepared for what can happen, you know, not for what might.”

  Pike nodded.

  “You went to West Point, Mr. Hitch?”

  “Everett,” I said. “And Virgil won’t mind if you call him Virgil.”

  Pike smiled and nodded.

  “You go to the Academy, Everett?”

  “I did.”

  “When?”

  I told him.

  “Why we didn’t meet,” Pike said. “I was there a little earlier.”

  “You in the Army?” I said.

  “Yep. Soldiered for ten years. Out here mostly,” Pike said.

  “Indian wars?” I said.

  Pike nodded.

  “Southern Cheyenne. Apache, Kiowa, Comanche. Comanches were a bitch.”

  “Still are,” I said.

  “Got to be a captain,” Pike said. “But . . .”

  He shook his head.

  “Rules got to be too much,” he said.

  “Yep,” I said.

  “You too?” Pike said.

  I nodded.

  “Yep.”

  “How you get along with Brother Percival?” Virgil said.

  Pike looked as if he’d been brought back from a reverie.

  “Brother Percival,” he said, and shook his head. “Brother Percival.”

  “Understand he’s opposed to sin,” Virgil said.

  “Appears so,” Pike said. “Which can be identified by seeing if people enjoy it.”

  “And if they do?” Virgil said.

  “It’s sin,” Pike said.

  “You seem to be selling a lot of it here,” Virgil said.

  “Much as I can,”
Pike said.

  “He bother you?” Virgil said.

  “So far a lotta blah, blah,” Pike said.

  “You think there might be more?” Virgil said.

  There was no meaning in his voice, just aimless talk. Except, if you knew Virgil, you knew there was nothing aimless about him.

  “He’s got a lot of hard-looking deacons,” Pike said.

  “What do you think that means?” Virgil said.

  “Might just mean he needs a lot of people to make the collections,” Pike said.

  “Or?” Virgil said.

  “Virgil,” Pike said. “I gotta tell you, I don’t know. I don’t understand Brother Percival. I don’t know if he’s a God-fearing Christian, or a lunatic, or a rogue. He might be running a church or a flimflam. His deacons may be prayerful or they may be troops. What I know is I don’t like him.”

  “And you have a few troops of your own,” Virgil said.

  Pike smiled.

  “Some,” he said.

  “Left over from the old days.”

  “Some.”

  “Doing this and that,” Virgil said.

  “Exactly,” Pike said.

  “So you’re prepared.”

  “Me and Mr. Clausewitz,” Pike said.

  He grinned at both of us.

  “Plus,” he said, “I know you boys’ll protect me.”

  “Sure thing,” Virgil said.

  13

  WE ATE DINNER at the hotel with Allie, and then the three of us sat outside on the front porch of the hotel and watched the evening action on Arrow Street. Virgil and Allie sat on a bench. I had my own chair. A lot of towns Virgil and I had worked were whores and drunks, teamsters and drovers and thugs. Brimstone was an actual town. Women walked along the street, some with children. Men who might work in banks strolled along with them. In the street among the horses and wagons were neat carriages, one- and two-horse rigs, with leather seats and canvas canopies to keep the rain off.

  “I found a house for rent,” Allie said. “Other end of Seventh Street. They’re building a whole row of them.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “Got a kitchen, got a front room, bedroom, got a room for Everett,” Allie said. “Be cheaper than the hotel, and Everett could chip in.”

  “Sounds fine, Allie,” Virgil said.

  “I can cook for both of you. I can wash and iron your clothes, and clean up. Make you breakfast in the morning.”

  “That’d be nice, Allie,” Virgil said.

  “Can we do it?” Allie said. “I’ll take care of everything.”

  “Sure,” Virgil said.

  “Oh, Virgil,” Allie said, putting her arms around Virgil and pressing her face into his neck. Virgil didn’t move.

  Allie straightened up and patted her hair.

  “We’ll move in tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll do it. You want me to move your stuff, Everett.”

  “Ain’t much to move,” I said. “I’ll take care of it when you tell me.”

  “Oh, this is grand,” Allie said. “This will be grand.”

  Virgil nodded. The sun was down, the street was darkening, and the air was warm and still. There were no streetlamps yet, but a lot of the merchants hung lanterns outside their doorways, and the soft light made Arrow Street look serene as the night came down.

  Allie was looking at the lights.

  “I’m going to make it up to you, Virgil. To both of you,” Allie said. “You too, Everett. I’ve been awful to both of you.”

  She was including me to be polite, and I knew it.

  “I want to change,” she said. “I don’t want to be that woman, that Allie, anymore. I want to be a good woman, take care of a man, sing in the church, keep a proper house.”

  Neither Virgil nor I spoke. Allie was staring at the lights, in some sort of dream, and I wasn’t even sure she was talking to Virgil.

  “I was in the bottom of the pit in Placido,” she said. “The bottom, no way to go down deeper. I was gonna die there.”

  She looked at Virgil.

  “And then you came, and you brought me out.”

  “Everett and me,” Virgil said.

  “Yes, Everett, too. And it was like you were from heaven come to save me, and you did; after all I done to drive you away, you found me and you saved me.”

  “I ain’t one for giving up on things,” Virgil said.

  “And you bore me away and brought me here,” Allie said.

  “On a buckboard,” Virgil said.

  “Oh, don’t tease me,” Allie said. “This is too much. . . . I got too much feeling. I’m gonna change, Virgil, I swear to God, I swear. . . . I’m changing now, I can feel it going on.”

  “Good,” Virgil said. “You was looking a bit peaked when I found you.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about, Virgil.”

  “I know it ain’t, Allie,” Virgil said.

  They were both quiet. I was, too. I had my own views on Allie’s potential for change, but sharing them didn’t seem like a useful thing. So I stayed quiet.

  “You ain’t touched me since you found me in Placido,” Allie said.

  I concentrated hard on watching the people moving through the lantern light. I wasn’t sure Allie even remembered I was there. But whether she did or not, this wasn’t a conversation I wanted to join.

  “Things take time,” Virgil said.

  “Like finding me,” Allie said.

  “Took a lotta time,” Virgil said.

  “But you’re not one for giving up on things,” Allie said.

  “I am not,” Virgil said.

  “So maybe you’ll find me again,” Allie said.

  “Expect I will,” Virgil said.

  14

  THE WHITE CLAPBOARD BUILDING looked like a Congregational church in some town in Vermont. Except it was at the south end of Arrow Street in Brimstone, beside the Paiute River, in the middle of the Texas prairie. A sign over the door read The Church of the Brotherhood. Brother Percival was giving his morning service when Virgil and I came in. We took off our hats and stood at the rear of the church while Brother Percival told us in unpleasant detail what hell was like and how easy it was to get there.

  He was a big, strapping man, with blond hair to his shoulders. His eyes were big and the sort of hard bright blue you see in Navajo jewelry. He was dressed in a white robe and sandals. His voice was deep and reached without apparent effort to every corner of the big church.

  “There is a long and slippery slope,” he said, “that all of us live on. It is called this world, and there are no handholds. And all those who live only in this world begin slowly to slide, slowly, slowly, to slide toward the pit.”

  There was no religious ornamentation in the church. Merely a big crucifix on the wall behind Brother Percival, and a polished mahogany altar rail in front of him. As he preached he walked back and forth behind the rail.

  “And the closer to the pit we get, the faster we slide, and we reach out, and we try to stop but there is nothing to stop us, this downsloping world has nothing to hang on to and we slide faster and faster, weighted down by all the things of this world, surely and ever more surely toward the pit.”

  The interior of the church was painted white. The windows on either side of the church were the same pale glinting blue as the preacher’s eyes. Above us where we stood, in the back of the church, was a balcony. I couldn’t see from where I stood, but I assumed the Kansas City organ was up there.

  “God alone is our handhold, and his kingdom is not of this world. We grasp frantically, trying to hang on to the things of this world, all the while turning our backs to our only hope for rescue, for salvation, for escaping the raging inferno of the eternal pit.”

  The church was nearly full, men and women, maybe more women. Along the walls stood hatless men in black suits and white shirts.

  “The main business of this community is whores and whiskey and gambling with cards. It is a community run by people who trade on human weakness, on lust, an
d thirst, and greed. It is a community of the godless.”

  The audience was entirely still, motionless in their church pews, listening to the word of the Lord. The men along both walls nodded their heads silently. The morning sun shining through the pale blue windows gave a blue tone to everything.

  “But we are not godless,” Brother Percival roared. “We are the godly, and we are growing, and as we grow, a new and ever more muscular love of righteousness will grow with us and spread through this community and drive out the pustulating corruption, and the Lord God Almighty will prevail here as He must everywhere, and we will prevail here in His name.”

  Brother Percival was sweating. His face was shiny with sweat. His muscular neck was glistening with sweat, and as he turned in his pacing behind the altar rail, the sweat was darkening the back of his white robe between his shoulder blades.

  “We will prevail,” he said softly.

  He stood erect and spread his arms.

  “We will prevail,” he said louder.

  “In God’s name, and with his strength”—he was bellowing now—“we . . . will . . . prevail.”

  Then he stopped and stood for a moment with his arms spread wide and his face raised to the ceiling. The room was dead still. Then he dropped his arms and buried his face in his hands and stood exhausted. Then the room erupted. Men and women were clapping. Many were screaming, “We will, we will.” Most rose to their feet. The clapping was sustained, and as it and the screaming went on, the men in the dark suits began to move down each of the aisles, passing collection baskets.

  Virgil and I stayed where we were while the tempest and the collection ran their course, during which time Brother Percival stood motionless in the front of the church with his face in his hands.

  I looked at Virgil.

  “Fella knows an awful lot about hell,” I said.

  Virgil nodded and smiled at me.

  “So do we,” he said.

  15

  WHEN THE COLLECTION WAS TAKEN and the money stored, and the baskets put away, and the last of the churchgoers had left the church, the deacons went back to their positions along the walls. Only then did Brother Percival raise his face. He seemed to have collected himself during the interlude. He saw Virgil and me standing in the back and opened the altar-rail gate and walked down the center aisle of the church toward us. Up close, he was impressive. Bigger than I was, and muscular. He looked at us calmly for a moment.