Robert B. Parker's Revelation

by Robert Knott

  One of the first people he saw was Margie. She was rushing down the street, hurrying—most likely—to Allie’s place. Driggs thought it interesting that she was one of the last people he’d seen the night before and now she was one of the first he’d laid eyes on. It must mean something.

  She was elegant in a form-fitting cream-colored dress with the high bustle that was the newest fashion. She was almost an aberration, a bright and shiny nymph with wings fluttering through the dark void. He thought about knocking on the window to get her attention but since it was so dark out and she was in a hurry, and he was naked and sporting his usual morning tumescence, he refrained.

  A rumbling thunder shook the glass of the window and reverberated through the floor of the hotel.

  He took one of his rolled cigarettes from the dresser, struck a match, and inhaled the first intoxicating cloud that instantly stimulated his sleepy head. He took a second shot of whiskey, and when he had the bottle tipped back something caught his eye out the window. He nonchalantly turned away from the window and moved back into the shadows of the room. Then he moved to the second window toward the foot of the bed. This window was covered with curtains. There was an opening between the curtains. When he peeked out, he was slightly surprised by what he saw.

  Down Main Street there was a two-story structure under construction. It was not one of the new brick buildings. It was a well-built wooden structure that had yet to be painted. Driggs thought it might be a small hotel or a boardinghouse. There were three windows on the second floor, and in the center window stood a man. He appeared to be looking out toward the Boston House. Driggs watched him for a moment. “I’ll be goddamned,” Driggs said.

  He knew he was not visible to the man, but he didn’t want to take a chance. Driggs was not completely certain the man he saw was actually even looking at him, not directly. But Driggs thought it odd a man sitting in the window, looking out like that, and above all, Driggs was cautious. He took a pull off his cigarette, then leaned in and looked out through the curtains again.

  “Good morning,” the princess said.

  Driggs turned from the window and looked to her.

  “What’s out there?” she said.

  “What’s not?”

  She giggled.

  “That’s what I adore about you.”

  “What’s that?” Driggs said.

  “Your outlook.”

  “The bright side,” he said with a smile.

  “But it’s so dark,” she said.

  “That it is,” he said.

  “Something interesting out there in the dark, I hope?”

  “The coming and going . . .”

  “Rain?”

  “Not yet.”

  “How glorious,” she said.

  She rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she sat up in bed.

  “What will the dark day bring?”

  “What would you like for it to bring?”

  “What I like is this right here,” she said, stretching out her body across the bed.

  “Good,” he said.

  “I don’t remember much of last night,” she said.

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t remember Allie putting you to bed?”

  She squinted her eyes some.

  “I do,” she said. “Oh . . . My gosh . . . She put me to bed.”

  “She did.”

  “She undressed me?”

  “She did.”

  “Goodness,” she said.

  “She enjoyed it.”

  “What?”

  “She did,” he said.

  “She’s lovely,” the princess said.

  “She is,” he said.

  The princess yawned and stretched her arms above her head.

  “Oh . . . my head hurts,” she said as she lay back.

  “I’ll dress and go out to the drugstore and get you something.”

  She looked down at his nakedness and smiled a coy, sleepy smile.

  “I’m looking at what I need,” she said, meeting his eyes.

  61

  After Driggs finished plowing and seeding, the princess fell instantly back into a deep sleep and he got dressed. The darkness looming out the window seemed even heavier now, but it had yet to produce any rain. As he slipped on his trousers he glanced out the open window toward the building down the way. He thought perhaps he saw the man in the second-story window again but was not certain. If in fact there was a man in the window looking at him, Driggs was careful not to look directly at him. He also made a point of displaying himself, moving by the open window as he put on his shirt and tucked it into his trousers. Then he peeked out the curtains of the other window and was pleased to see there was no one in the window of the building under construction down the way, and no one looking out toward the Boston House. Good, Driggs thought. Last thing he needed was to have someone on to him. When he turned to leave, Driggs looked back one last time and he saw the man move into the window again, looking toward the Boston House. “I’ll be damned. There he is again,” Driggs thought as he took a step back from the crack between the curtains. ”Can’t be looking at me.”

  Driggs leaned in and peeked back out. The man was right there, in the window, looking out. Then Driggs saw him raise a pair of binoculars. “Who the fuck is that?” he thought as he moved back away from the curtains. “Who could be on to me? The fucking law? How? If it is the law, why have they not come after me, tried to arrest me?” Driggs was not completely certain if he were the one that was being watched. Regardless, he needed to move now, make certain that if he was the one, the object of the surveillance, he could not let anything get in the way of what he needed to do, what he came to Appaloosa to accomplish. What was more than breath to him.

  Driggs displayed himself again in front of the open window as he put on his long frock coat and hat. Then he crossed to the door and left the room.

  He exited the Boston House and stood on the front steps looking out at the darkness. He casually lit a cigarette and spoke to a few folks on the hotel porch offering how-do-you-do’s, but did not look up to the building with the man in the window.

  He crossed the street and headed in the direction of the man in the window. He strolled leisurely, allowing the man to have a good view of him. Then he crossed the street directly in front of the building. Driggs had his hands on Colt revolvers in each pocket. He was, if anything, ready. He was looking at everything and nothing, casually. But he wondered: Are they coming for me? Are they surrounding me?

  When he got to the boardwalk on the opposite side, thunder rumbled loudly and it began to rain. Driggs stood under the boardwalk awning and watched it rain. He did not look in the direction of the man in the window. Instead he walked away, passing a few businesses before entering Dale’s Drugstore.

  He closed the door behind him and moved to the counter, positioning himself near the front window. He took a quick nonchalant glance up and out the front window of the shop to see if the man was looking down toward the drugstore—and he was. I’ll be goddamned, Driggs thought.

  “Coming down now,” Mr. Dale exclaimed as he stepped out from behind the counter.

  Driggs looked back to him.

  “Just a matter of time,” Driggs said.

  Mr. Dale moved toward the front of the store next to Driggs and looked out at the rain.

  “Felt this coming on all morning,” Mr. Dale said.

  “What have you got for a morning throb that has come about from an evening of a bit too much?”

  “I’ll fix you right up,” Mr. Dale said.

  Driggs moved back to the counter and Mr. Dale gathered up a small can of bicarbonate of soda and Dr. Corby’s Hangover Cure.

  “These should do the job,” Mr. Dale said.

  Driggs paid and they said their good-byes, then Driggs started to leave but stopped.

  “Say . . . would you mind if I left out the rear door, save me the headache of having to walk all the way around the block with th
e rain?”

  “By all means . . .” Mr. Dale said with a smile as he opened the back door. “Just take both of those, drink plenty of water, get a nap, and you’ll be good to go for tonight . . . hurry before this rain gets stronger or you’re gonna get yourself all wet.”

  “Thank you,” Driggs said, then stepped out the door and into the rain.

  Driggs moved at a quick pace down the alley. When he was certain he was out of sight of the building on the corner where the man spied from the upstairs window, he walked between two buildings and back up to the street. Then he crossed the street, went through a narrow opening between two dwellings, then moved back up the alley toward the building. The rain started to come down hard as Driggs walked toward the building where the spy was perched in the second-story window. He had no idea what to expect. Was there a goddamn posse there waiting for him? Regardless, this was it; he could not risk being the hunted. Not now, not after all he’d done and all he’d yet to do.

  When he came upon the back of the building, he stepped up out of the rain onto the building’s rear steps that were covered by a small overhang. The top half of the back door had a window and Driggs could see inside that the hall went straight through the structure all the way to the front door. Toward the end and before the front door there was a set of stairs.

  The door was yet fitted with hardware and was secured with only a rope. Driggs quickly pulled it loose and entered without hesitation. The noise of the rain provided him the cover to get inside quietly. Once inside he closed the door but remained still. Halfway down the hall there was what appeared to be a closet under the stairs, but was not fitted with a door. Driggs moved quietly the few steps up the hall and into the opening. He knew the man would not wait too much longer for him to walk out of the drugstore.

  Driggs knew human nature and he knew damn well the man would not be comfortable with losing Driggs that easy. Now Driggs knew for sure that it was indeed him that the man was interested in and Driggs was not going to have any of it.

  It was dark where Driggs was standing inside the little alcove closet off the hall, but a bright flash of lightning outside briefly made the dark interior light up and when it did Driggs spied some loose lumber leaning up against the closet wall. He picked up a solid piece of hardwood that was about three feet long and fit perfectly in his hand like a club.

  62

  Virgil and I circled, looking around the settlers’ campsite, until we picked up the tracks of Ed Degraw.

  “Looks like he took two horses,” I said.

  Virgil looked at the tracks on the ground, then looked up in the direction of where the tracks were headed.

  “He damn sure don’t think there is anyone left looking for him,” I said.

  “Don’t seem,” Virgil said.

  “Not just walking off like this,” I said. “Taking two animals, not moving too fast.”

  Degraw made no attempt to hide his direction. The tracks we discovered were on the road. It was a well-traveled, deep-rutted wagon road, and the only other fresh tracks were those the settlers had left coming from the opposite direction. Degraw stole just the one horse he was now riding and was traveling northeast toward dark clouds that covered the landscape before us.

  “That don’t look inviting,” I said.

  “Sure don’t,” Virgil said.

  Inside the dark there was a flash of silver.

  “Been a bunch of it of late,” I said.

  “More than,” Virgil said.

  “That time of year,” I said.

  “Is.”

  “Damn sure don’t feel like a bright and uplifting spring, though, does it?”

  “Damn sure don’t, Everett.”

  We rode silently for a moment.

  “Hard to believe all them got blown up like that,” I said.

  Virgil nodded but did not respond.

  “Stringer was a damn good hand,” I said.

  “He was,” Virgil said. ”And those boys of his, too.”

  “All them hands working with him damn sure looked up to him,” I said.

  “Just these two men to go, though.”

  “The worst two,” I said.

  “Ain’t that how it goes,” Virgil said.

  “I should have stepped back when I thought that was him,” I said. “When we saw him.”

  “That was then,” Virgil said.

  “Chastain not seeing Driggs yet there in Appaloosa might mean that the sonofabitch has more then likely moved on.”

  “Very well could be,” Virgil said.

  “Rolling stone,” I said.

  “He’s brazen,” Virgil said.

  “He is,” I said.

  “Smart,” Virgil said.

  “Sure wooed the woman,” I said. “Made it so he got out . . . took some conniving.”

  “And then some,” Virgil said.

  “Taking the warden’s money, horses, guns. Then Driggs outfitting himself in fancy clothes. The two of them acting like they are good to move about the country just as they please.”

  Virgil looked to me and shook his head.

  “They’re damn sure doing it,” he said.

  “The whole of the prison break leaves a lot to the unknowing,” I said.

  “He damn sure let out all the others so to make things easier on him,” Virgil said.

  “Why Degraw, I wonder?”

  Virgil shook his head a little.

  “Tillary said there was not any love lost between the two of them, Driggs and Degraw,” I said.

  “The fact that Degraw is one of the ones we are still chasing after is likely why Driggs made certain he was one of the ones that got let out,” Virgil said. “Knowing the bastard would be someone to reckon with.”

  “He is at that.”

  “I don’t know exactly just where we are,” I said. “But if we keep in this direction we should eventually get back to the Transcontinental line.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “We’ll have to contend with that though first,” I said, nodding to the dark clouds across the horizon in front of us.

  “Lookie here,” Virgil said, then stopped his horse.

  Ahead of us was a small cluster of buildings.

  Virgil turned off the road through some brush and I followed. Once we were off the road a ways we stopped and dismounted.

  We tied our horses, grabbed our Winchesters, and moved through the thickets toward the buildings. When we got to an opening where we had a good view of the buildings we saw clearly that it was a small supply store with a few outbuildings and corrals. There was a ridge beam that stuck out over the front porch of the store, where a man was hanging from a rope around his neck. There was blood caked around his crotch and his trousers were down around his ankles.

  63

  Driggs remained standing in the small closet under the stairs of the empty building. After a short time Driggs heard the distinct sound of chair legs scraping on the floor upstairs. Then he heard footsteps moving around and within a moment they came walking down the stairs. He waited as the footfalls got to the bottom of the steps then eased out of the closet and raised the piece of lumber, ready to strike.

  When the man took the last step from the stairs to the floor, he instantly sensed Driggs’s presence and went for his pistol, but Driggs struck first, swinging the hardwood like an ax, striking the man with a powerful blow to his throat. The man fell back on the steps. Driggs quickly put his boot to the man’s chest and pinned his head against the last step and the wall.

  It was just light enough for Driggs to make out the man’s face. He was the older fellow with the bowler hat who had been in Meserole’s the night his lanky partner was shot and killed.

  Driggs picked up the man’s pistol, tucked it under his belt, then grabbed the man by a fistful of shirt and jerked him up on his feet. Driggs pressed the hardwood to the man’s throat and stared at him.

  “Hello, Uncle Dave,” Driggs said with a smile.

  “Don’t . . . hurt . . . me.
”

  “Hurt you?”

  Driggs applied some pressure to the board he held across Dave’s throat.

  “Please,” Dave said, coughing. “Jesus . . . please.”

  “He’s not here,” Driggs said.

  “Stop,” Dave said. “My God . . .”

  “None of ’em are here, Uncle Dave. No Jesus, no God, no Holy Spirit. I’m the closest thing to God you will ever see, Uncle Dave.”

  Driggs backed off applying pressure. Dave’s eyes were wide with fear as he gasped and coughed.

  “Why did he put you to watching me?”

  “He don’t know you are here. Least if he does know he never let on to me. I just saw you, and I thought I’d seen a ghost . . . I just had to be sure that it was you.”

  “Don’t lie to me. You know I’m here, so he knows I’m here, doesn’t he?”

  “Look, I saw you last night. Walking up the stairs. I was in the saloon late and was at the bar and I turned and I saw you walk by the door and go upstairs, and I thought, My God, that looked like Augustus. Then I went out front and I saw you turn on the lamp in your room upstairs. I knew the room and I figured I’d come this morning and see if what I saw was right.”

  “You’re nothing but a lying fool.”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Truth? You know nothing of truth. You are just a lowlife peon, Uncle Dave. Why are you watching me, Uncle Dave?”

  “I . . . told you. I . . . just wanted to know for certain it was you . . .”

  “Stop,” Driggs said.

  “What?”

  “Why?”

  “Fucking truth. I thought, no way could it be you,” Dave said. “But then, I watched you . . . It’s you.”

  “Who do you think I am?”