by Robert Knott
3
“Three thousand people living here now in Appaloosa,” I said.
“Two thousand nine hundred and something too many,” Virgil said.
“Well, it’s a good thing for Allie,” I said.
Virgil nodded.
“Hope she can make money,” I said.
“Goddamn do, too, Everett.”
“Cost you a cent or two to put this together.”
“Two and then some,” Virgil said.
“Well, it’s good, even though you can’t throw a rock without hitting a human being, she don’t got that much competition that she has to contend with.”
“For the time being,” Virgil said.
“Gives her some independence.”
“Her?”
“You, too,” I said.
Virgil said nothing for a moment.
“Times are changing, it seems.”
I laughed out loud.
“Goddamn right about that,” I said.
“Surprises are far and few between.”
“Well, she’s happy,” I said.
“She is,” Virgil said.
“Guess it could be Mrs. Cole’s?”
Virgil looked to me.
“If you and Allie were married she could have called it Mrs. Cole’s?” I said.
“Could have,” Virgil said.
“But you’re not.”
“I’m well aware of that, Everett.”
“It don’t bother you?”
“That we aren’t married?”
“That she’s using her dead-and-gone husband’s name for her new business?”
“It’s her name, Everett. Mrs. French.”
“’Course it is.”
Virgil and I were across the street from Allie’s new dress shop, watching a sign man painting Mrs. French’s Fine Dresses in fancy cursive style. We were standing on the wide covered front porch of the newly constructed Vandervoort Town Hall. It was an impressive building that was at least two hundred feet long, with tall double doors every twenty-five or so feet that opened out onto the porch. Inside, there were a few workers putting finishing touches on thirty-foot-tall draperies that were hung at one end of the room, separating the glossy wood floors from the stage.
Virgil shook his head.
“I guess you call this expansion,” I said.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Virgil said.
We looked back to Allie’s shop. The letters being painted were at least a foot tall and in colors of lavender and lilac bordered with gold. The shop was not yet open to the public, but Allie was getting ready for the grand opening.
“Fancy-looking,” I said.
“Is.”
The month previous, Virgil and I had experienced limited marshaling duties, so we’d been helping Allie put the shop together. It wasn’t until a few days prior to today that she had even decided on just what she was going to name the shop.
“I just always think of her as Allie, and fact is, until she come up with the name for the shop, I hadn’t really thought much of the name Mrs. French in a while.”
“Just a name,” Virgil said.
“Well, I think it’s a good one.”
“You think?”
“Do,” I said. “Fact that it’s European gives Allie’s new sophisticated establishment sort of a sophisticated quality.”
Virgil looked at me and cocked his head a little, like I was speaking a language he didn’t understand.
“Does,” I said.
“Hell, Everett, you might ought to be a salesman. I’m sure Allie would be thrilled to have you work with her.”
“I’d make a good one.”
Allie came out of the shop and stepped out into the street a bit and looked back to the sign.
“Why, that looks simply wonderful,” Allie said to the painter atop the ladder.
He looked down and smiled.
“I’m pleased you like it.”
“Oh, I do!”
“I should be done here in a few hours.”
“Please take your time, we have all the time in the world for you to get that to your perfection.”
“She has her way,” I said.
“She does.”
“Mrs. French,” I called to Allie.
Allie turned, shielding her eyes, and looked across the street to Virgil and me standing on the boardwalk.
“Does have a ring to it,” I said.
“What are you two doing over there?”
“Staying out of the line of fire,” Virgil said.
Allie checked to make sure she could cross safely and walked across to where we were standing.
“Do you like it?”
“I do.”
“Me, too,” Virgil said.
Allie stepped up on the boardwalk next to us and looked back to the shop.
“You like the colors?”
“I do,” I said.
“Virgil?”
“Sure, Allie.”
“Really?”
“Well, yeah. Don’t you?”
“I do,” she said.
“Well, that is all that matters,” he said.
“No, it’s not. I value your opinion.”
“Everett’s better at opinions than me, and he thinks the colors are just right.”
She smiled at me and said, “And the name?”
“He likes the name. Don’t you, Everett?”
“And you?”
“It’s your name.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Everett thinks it sounds sophisticated.”
“But you?”
“I told you when you decided on the name that I thought it was a good name.”
“Liking it and thinking it is good are two different things, Virgil.”
“Well, what do you want me to say?”
“If you don’t know the answer to that, I can’t help you, Virgil Cole,” she said.
An Appaloosa deputy came hurrying up the street riding a little roan and pulled to a hard stop in front of us, kicking up some dirt. It was Skeeter, a small Mexican fella with a bright smile and twinkling eyes who the other deputies called Skeeter on account of his size and pesky disposition.
“Hey, Marshal Cole,” Skeeter said in his heavy accent as his roan turned to the left and then, with Skeeter’s nudging, turned in the other direction. “You are wanted at the office of the Western Union, ahora.”
“What for?” Virgil said.
Skeeter shook his head as the roan shifted nervously underneath him.
“I don’t know, but Sheriff Chastain told us to find you, and I find you first.”
“Tell him we’re on our way,” Virgil said.
Skeeter turned the roan and galloped off up the street and Virgil looked to Allie.
“Allie,” he said. “I like the name.”
Allie smiled a little, the kind of smile that was more of a frown than a smile.
“Oh, Virgil,” she said. “You are impossible.”
“That better than possible?”
I looked across the street to see a young woman poke her head into Allie’s shop.
“Looks like you have a customer,” I said.
4
“Over here,” Allie said.
The woman turned and looked in our direction.
“Oh, hello,” she said and started walking toward us. She waited for some traffic to clear, then lifted the front of her dress and scampered swiftly to us.
“That’s Margie,” Allie said. “She’s a new friend. Mrs. Vandervoort introduced us.”
Margie was smiling as she approached. She had an enthusiastic and glowing exuberance about her. She was a petite blonde with delicate features and a smile that was as pretty as any smile I’d ever seen on a woman.
“I was just checking in on you,” she said.
“Well, I’m glad you did,” Allie said.
When she stepped up on the boardwalk she smiled with even greater warmth as she looked at Allie.
>
“Your shop, it looks to be coming along nicely,” she said.
“It is,” Allie said, beaming. “Look at the sign.”
Margie pirouetted with a bounce to look back to the sign.
“Oh,” she said with a slight squeal, “I love it.”
“You do?”
“I do,” she said, looking back to Allie. Then she looked to me and blushed a little.
“Oh, Margie, this is Everett Hitch and . . . Virgil Cole.”
“The Virgil?” she said.
“Yes,” Allie said with a smile. “The Virgil.”
“I have heard about you, Mr. Cole.”
Virgil nodded a bit.
“What’d she tell you?” he said.
“That you are a lawman,” she said. “A United States Territorial Marshal.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Virgil said with a tip of his hat. “Miss . . . ?”
“Witherspoon,” she said. “Margie Witherspoon.”
“Miss Witherspoon,” Virgil said with a nod.
“What about me?” I said. “Say anything about me?”
She laughed.
“I’m sorry . . . Mr. Hitch, is it?”
“Obviously she didn’t,” I said. “And it’s Everett. Everett Hitch.”
“Everett,” she said with a smile. “I am afraid Allie has not mentioned you, but we are new friends, so I’m certain in due time she would have expounded on you.”
I looked to Allie.
“Allie?”
“I certainly would have,” Allie said. “I always talk about Everett, don’t I, Virgil?”
“You do,” Virgil said.
“See, Everett,” Allie said. “Everett and Virgil work together, they are both lawmen.”
“Deputy Marshal Everett Hitch,” I said and removed my hat and bowed a little.
“Well, it is a pleasure,” she said.
I looked to Allie, then back to Margie.
“New friends, you say?”
“We are,” Allie said. “I told Margie that if my business got going good, maybe I could use some help running things.”
“My father was a tailor,” she said. “Runs in my family.”
“And just look at her,” Allie said. “She’s a young woman with style and sophistication.”
“Oh, Allie,” she said, blushing.
“You are,” Allie said. “Every time I’ve seen you, you look like one of the beauties from the catalogs.”
“You are too sweet,” she said.
“Where do you hail from, Miss Witherspoon?” I said.
“Margie,” she said. “Please.”
“Margie,” I said with my best smile.
“Nebraska,” she said. “Lincoln.”
“Oh . . . Lincoln,” I said.
“You say that like you know Lincoln.”
“I do,” I said. “I was stationed there for a short time during my time with the Army.”
“Everett’s traveled all over this country,” Allie said. “He knows more than any man I’ve ever met.”
“Not more than Virgil,” I said.
“Well,” Allie said affectionately as she looked to Virgil. “Virgil has his own particular smarts.”
“What brings you to Appaloosa?” I said.
“My uncle passed away here and I came to sort out his affairs.”
“Sorry to hear,” I said.
“Thank you. He’d been ill for a while, and though it was hard on the family, it was expected.”
“My condolences,” I said.
She smiled.
“Anyway,” she said. “I was saying to Allie that I like the place enough that I just might have to stay for a while. I have been enjoying my visit and it seems every day brings a new surprise.”
“That so?” I said with another one of my best smiles.
“She has money to invest,” Allie said.
“Oh,” Margie said. “My family’s money, not much, of course, but I thought it smart to be forward-thinking. Mrs. Vandervoort has been guiding me on what to do. Perhaps I will invest in her husband’s growing empire. He obviously knows what he is doing.”
“Yes,” Allie said. “And Mrs. Vandervoort comes from one of the finest bloodlines in all of New York City, and who better to get advice from?”
“Bloodlines?” Virgil said. “Hell, that’s sounds like horse talk, Allie.”
“It certainly is not, Virgil Cole,” said Allie. “And what would you know about it anyway?”
“Not much, I suppose,” said Virgil.
Margie laughed. Her laughter was light and funny and she made Allie laugh, and me, too.
“Isn’t she the cutest?” Allie said, looking at Margie.
“She is,” I said.
5
We said good-bye to the women and left them looking at Allie’s place: Mrs. French’s Fine Dresses, a yet-to-be-fully-realized establishment, and walked up Vandervoort Avenue toward the Western Union office.
“Think that young lady might have the sweets on you, Everett.”
“I’ll reciprocate in kind,” I said.
Virgil looked at me as we walked.
“Give back,” I said.
We walked for a bit, looking at all the brick structures.
“Vandervoort is the only road called an avenue in the whole of Appaloosa, ain’t it?” Virgil said.
“Is,” I said. “The newest, extra-fancy addition.”
“Yep,” Virgil said, shaking his head. “To a town that is getting too big for its breeches.”
“Allie is right in the middle of it,” I said.
“Damn sure is,” Virgil said.
“When we first showed up here there was but a few streets,” I said. “Now there is more than you can count.”
“Not hard to get lost,” Virgil said.
I laughed. “Damn sure is not,” I said.
When the Vandervoort Brick Factory opened in Appaloosa, it changed the face of the town almost overnight, and the change was most obvious here on Vandervoort Avenue.
Where wood and adobe had been the main construction material for growth and maintenance of Appaloosa, everything was now mostly being constructed of brick. Many of the wooden structures were transforming their tired and weathered storefronts to brick. The growing town was rapidly changing into a city, and the central figure that was bringing about that change was Vernon Vandervoort, a Dutch businessman from St. Paul.
Vernon Vandervoort was a colorfully debonair character in his mid-sixties with a slender but strong physique, and was always polite whenever we’d met. His face was healthy and handsome, his expressive blue eyes and gold-colored skin framed by a thick head of longish and unruly gray-blond hair that was always a messy contrast to his impeccable attire. Vandervoort always wore an elegant dark blue gold-buttoned coat over a leather vest. It was a look that suggested military, but Vandervoort was a civilian through and through.
He fashioned himself as a full-service building enterprise that not only offered the physical location for new businesses and institutions wishing to move to a better, more refined destination, but also provided loans for new ventures.
He was instantly an accepted and respected addition to the prominent members of Appaloosa’s growing number of do-gooders, too. They liked the fact that Vandervoort brought in money and jobs, and that his plan was to create an infrastructure that grows from within. Wealth begets wealth was Vandervoort’s motto.
Vandervoort, the brick factory, and his whole organization were a huge success.
“I reckon you could even call his endeavor here a damn near empire,” I said.
“In less than three years, Vandervoort built his own goddamn avenue thoroughfare,” Virgil said.
Allie’s shop was on his own stretch of road with multiple business spaces—some of the spaces he owned personally and had employees operate, some spaces he rented, and others he outright sold. One of the businesses that Vandervoort owned and operated was a theater with booths and balconies where different kinds o
f entertainment was taking place most every night.
The fancy theater, town hall, and the impressive wide street all sported his namesake, the Vandervoort Theater, the Vandervoort Town Hall, and Vandervoort Avenue. Between the Town Hall and the theater, Vandervoort had his own stately offices and the sign above the door was simply chiseled VANDERVOORT in large block letters.
As Virgil and I strolled down Vandervoort Avenue, we noticed that almost every dwelling he’d had for sale or lease was now occupied.
“He damn sure knows how to do it,” I said.
“Seems so,” Virgil said.
“Good you was able to get a shop on this street for Allie,” I said.
“You think?”
“I do.”
“Well, she’s happy,” Virgil said.
“Think you being a U.S. Marshal had anything to do with it?”
“Likely didn’t hurt,” he said.
“No telling what might come of this,” I said.
“Ain’t that how it always is?”
We walked for a moment without saying anything, observing all the people supporting and managing the various businesses on Vandervoort Avenue. When we got to the end of the brick structures, Virgil stopped and looked up to the street sign.
“What’s the difference between a street and an avenue, Everett?” Virgil said.
I shook my head and looked at him.
“Well, hell, you got me there, Virgil.”
6
When we got to the Western Union office, Sheriff Chastain and Deputy Book were standing on the porch, waiting on us.
“Received a wire from Yaqui,” Chastain said as we walked up.
“Whatcha got?” Virgil said.
Chastain shook his head.
“Been an escape . . . at Cibola.”
“When?”
“Not sure exactly. Wire came in from Sheriff Stringer there in Yaqui. Said be on the lookout for escapees.”