by Robert Knott
I looked to Virgil but didn’t say anything.
“He look familiar to you?” Virgil said.
“No,” I said. “Look familiar to you?”
“Something about him seemed kind of familiar.”
“Always something about everybody, isn’t there?”
“’Spect there is, Everett,” Virgil said, then bit the cigar tip and spit it over the porch rail. “’Spect there is.”
He fished a match from his pocket, dragged the tip across the grain on the porch post, and lit the cigar. He puffed on the cigar and got it going good.
“Allie sure seems to think he’s special,” Virgil said.
“Does.”
“Thinks he’s talented,” Virgil said.
“And renowned,” I said.
Virgil looked at me and discharged a sliver of tobacco from his lips with a spit.
“And glorious,” he said.
“That, too,” I said.
—6—
I played some lengthy games of Dark Lady with Allie and Virgil, and the three of us drank more of the Kentucky than we should have. Allie went on and on about Beauregard and how special he was. She said he held court in the town hall that night and how wonderful it was for her and the ladies’ social to welcome him and the troupe to Appaloosa.
Allie told us Beauregard introduced some of the Beauchamp players and his wife of three years. She was a blond actress, the leading lady, named Nell from San Francisco. Allie went on and on about how smart and beautiful she was and how in love they were and what a splendid couple they made.
I left Virgil and Allie’s place at about half past midnight. There was a light rain falling over Appaloosa and the temperature had dropped significantly.
I crossed Main Street by the Boston House Hotel saloon and saw Fat Wallis McDonough through the open saloon doors. He was closing up, putting chairs on the tables. When I stepped onto the boardwalk, Wallis looked up and saw me. He stood upright and put his large hands out wide like a welcoming kinfolk.
“Well, Everett Hitch,” he said warmly.
“Evening, Wallis.”
“How goes it?” Wallis said.
“Goes and goes.”
“Whiskey?” he said.
“Looks like you’re closing up.”
“Always open for you, Everett,” Wallis said. “Always open for you.”
He removed two upside-down chairs from a table and set them upright on the floor.
“Sit yourself down,” Wallis said.
“All right,” I said. “Just a smidgen, though.”
Wallis moved his big body behind the bar. He didn’t glide as swift and easy as he used to when Virgil and I first met him.
“I got some special stuff,” Wallis said.
Wallis was the time-honored chief barman at the Boston House Hotel saloon. Virgil and I had plenty of history with the Boston House, some good and some not so good.
I looked about the room. It hadn’t changed too much. I walked between the tables. I looked through the doors into the lobby and thought about the day Virgil and I first arrived in Appaloosa and signed up as peacekeepers on the landing by the front windows. I turned back, remembering how within minutes of assuming our roles we had walked into this room and Virgil shot two of Randall Bragg’s hands right where I was standing.
Bragg, I thought. That sonofabitch. I hadn’t thought about Randall Bragg in a long while. I turned and looked to the piano in the corner. I walked over to it and pressed a key.
Bragg. I slapped him down right here, called him out after the no-good sonofabitch lured Allie and had his way with her. Good riddance. I gave the sonofabitch a chance. I gave him a gun, told him to come out and face me or I’d come back in there and kill him. I gave the sonofabitch an opening. At least that’s how I summed it up, anyway, how I tallied it, how I put it together.
For whatever reason the Boston House Hotel saloon seemed to have a dark cloud hanging over it.
“Not seen much of you since you and Virgil have been back in town,” Wallis said, carrying a tray with two glasses and a bottle of whiskey with a fancy label. “Where you been keeping yourself?”
“Virgil’s had me busy working on his new house.”
“I’ve not seen him in here since you been back this time.”
“He’s had his hands full.”
“I’ll leave it at that,” Wallis said. “I saw the house. It’s looking good.”
“It is,” I said.
I took a seat. Wallis set the two glasses on the table and poured us each a few fingers and took a seat next to me.
“Lot of building going on everywhere these days,” Wallis said. “That train keeps a’comin’ and more people keep getting off of it, and as far as I can tell nobody’s getting on. Town’s getting bigger every goddamn day.”
“Damn sure is,” I said.
“Hell, in the last few years you and Virgil have been away doing your territory marshaling, this place has grown from a small chickenshit town to a burgeoning goddamn city.”
“Little too big for my liking, Wallis,” I said. “I kind of liked it the way it was.”
Wallis nodded.
“Business is good, though,” he said. “Hell, it’s tripled with all the mining expansion north of town and the upstart of cow-calf outfits. Place is six square blocks now, can you believe that?”
“I don’t have a choice,” I said.
“Street lamps, boardinghouses, support businesses on every damn street,” Wallis said. “Mining, construction, cattle. Means employment, though. City’s now chock-full of goddamn cowboys, miners, and migrants from every damn where seeking goddamn promise. Damn near two thousand people now, two thousand. Can you believe that?”
Silently, almost ghostlike, a lovely woman appeared in the doorway.
“Excuse me,” she said.
Her accent was foreign. French, maybe.
Wallis looked at me, then back to the woman.
“Yes?” Wallis said.
She was strikingly beautiful. I knew this must be Madame Leroux, the woman with the ivory complexion I saw looking out the window of the fortune-teller’s trailer when the troupe rode into town.
She stood still with her shoulders relaxed and her chin held high. She glanced around, looking at the room some. She took a sure step forward. Her movement was graceful and self-assured, like that of a poised dancer.
She was willowy and her eyes were bright blue. Her dark hair was wavy, parted in the middle and so long it likely had never been cut. She wore bohemian jewelry and clothing. Long strands of colorful beads and shells draped around her slender neck and large gold hoops dangled from her ears. Her dress was black velvet with lace, and hanging on the edge of her sharp bare shoulders was a long tasseled shawl that glimmered in the dim saloon light.
“I need something strong,” she said.
—7—
Wallis looked to me, then back to her.
“I’m sorry?” Wallis said.
“Something intoxicating?” she said.
Wallis glanced at me with a slight frown, then got his heavy body up from the chair and moved to her. He looked out the door past her to the boardwalk as if he were looking for someone else.
“Are you by yourself, ma’am?” Wallis said.
She followed his look behind her.
“As is everyone.”
I don’t think Wallis understood her philosophy, and if he did he didn’t particularly appreciate it.
“Well, it’s late and women moving around this time of night by themselves ain’t normal.”
“Well, I don’t suppose I am particularly normal,” she said coyly as she took a step forward past Wallis and looked about the saloon. “At least as is what has been divulged to me on occasion.”
She had not looked at me, not directly. I watched her and she knew I watched her. She was an assured performer, doing what she did best, and she was good. Aside from the fact she was eccentric and beautiful there was something else arrestin
g about her presence. She possessed a strong self-sureness unseen in most women.
“History,” she said, glancing back to Wallis.
“What?” Wallis said.
“Your saloon,” she said, “has history.”
“Yes, well,” Wallis said, “the saloon is kind of closed up here at the moment.”
“I see. Am I interrupting?”
“Just having a nightcap with my old pal,” Wallis said, nodding to me.
She turned her head slowly and leveled her dancing blue eyes on me for the first time. Her look was penetrating. She was looking into me as if she was seeing inside me three long blocks and to the left.
“Bon ami du soir,” she said.
“Give the lady a drink, Wallis,” I said.
“Oh,” Wallis said. “Certainly. What can I get for you?”
“Would you have anything perhaps curative or therapeutic?”
Wallis put his big fists on his hips.
“Therapeutic?” Wallis said. “Well, I don’t have anything to cure what ails ya and I got no absinthe, if that’s what you’re looking for. I’ve got rum, rye, whiskey, beer, brandy, and—”
“Brandy,” she said.
Wallis looked at me. He nodded and moved off to the bar.
I removed a chair from atop the table and placed it upright.
“Here ya go.”
“Merci,” she said.
I caught a drift of her sweet scent as I held out her chair.
She sat and I sat next to her.
She remained looking in my eyes. Her dark eyelashes were thick and long and her eyes were penetrating. They were lively, mysterious, haunting, and extremely curious.
“You’re with the troupe,” I said.
“No.”
“I saw you.”
“I saw you, too,” she said.
Her eyes stayed aimed directly at me like she was trying to shoot her thoughts through me. She placed her hands shoulder length apart on the table.
“I’m not with them,” she said.
“You’re new?”
She nodded, smiling wryly.
“I’m temporary,” she said.
“Seems like the wrong time of year to be traipsing around putting on a show.”
She didn’t say anything.
I just looked at her.
She was staring at me.
I stared back at her and I think she smiled.
“Deputy Marshal Everett Hitch,” I said.
“Oui,” she said. “I know who you are, Deputy Marshal.”
“You do?”
“We’ve met.”
I shook my head.
“We’ve not met,” I said.
“On the contrary,” she said.
“Don’t believe so.”
“Now that I’m seeing you close and clearly, I’m certain,” she said. “It was a long time ago.”
“Where, a long time ago?”
“Bien,” she said with a shrug. “Perhaps I am mistaken.”
“Madame Leroux?” I said.
“You must have read that somewhere,” she said with a smile.
“Hard to miss,” I said.
She smiled, nodding slightly.
“Futures told,” I said. “Legendary afterlife adventures revealed.”
“Not all are so lucky,” she said. “I’m afraid.”
“Hocus-pocus,” I said.
“Ah,” she said. “A naysayer?”
“Just my perspective,” I said.
“Oui,” she said. “Something everyone is entitled to.”
Wallis came back from the bar with the brandy.
“On the house,” he said.
She tossed one side of her long hair behind her shoulder.
“Merci,” she said to Wallis, but remained looking directly at me.
Wallis looked back and forth between us, and like the amenable barkeep he was, he excused himself.
“I’m going to just finish up with a few things,” Wallis said.
He rapped his knuckles on the table.
“Enjoy,” he said.
She watched Wallis as he walked off into the back room, then looked at me.
“I needed to speak to you, Deputy.”
“Everett,” I said.
“Oui, Everett.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” I said.
“I needed to be sure,” she said.
“About what?”
“About . . . something I saw.”
“And now you’re sure?”
“Oui.”
“What?”
“It’s rather private.”
I looked to the back room. Wallis was nowhere in sight.
“Just you, me, and the narrow space between us.”
“You are in danger,” she said.
—8—
I smiled. I don’t think she was accepting or appreciative of my smile, but I couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the whiskey I drank while playing cards with Virgil and Allie. Maybe it was her strange beauty. Regardless, the thought of her telling me I was in danger made me smile.
“Well, no offense,” I said. “But in my line of work, danger is always present.”
“No offense taken,” she said. “I understand your skepticism, but in my line of work danger never lies.”
I smiled.
“What kind of danger are we talking about here?”
“I’m not sure,” she said.
“You’re not sure?”
She shook her head.
“Not completely, and what I see, what I know, can only provide you awareness, I’m afraid . . . Fait accompli.”
“So, what did you see? What do you know?”
“No need to be patronizing,” she said.
“I’m not. I’m listening.”
She looked around the room for a moment.
“Can we walk?”
“Don’t you want to finish that brandy?”
“Not much of a drinker, I’m afraid,” she said. “Perhaps you could walk me.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Merci,” she said.
I let Wallis know we were leaving. He stepped out from the back room, drying his big hands with a small towel.
“Good night,” he said.
“Au revoir,” Madame Leroux said, and I escorted her out of the Boston House saloon.
The rain seemed to be coming down harder now. They weren’t big drops, but the rain was massive and solid, like it was falling from thick, dense clouds.
We walked for a ways under the awnings of the boardwalk before she spoke.
“When I saw you, I saw something,” she said. “Something not good.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“Normally, I keep others’ événements, um . . . visions of misfortune to myself,” she said. “I remove myself. It is a code of ethics in my line of business.”
“But you feel an ethical need to share something not good with me?”
“Oui,” she said. “You see, you being an officer of the law as you are, I felt it was my obligation, my responsabilité, to share this information with you.”
“By all means,” I said. “Go right ahead.”
“I saw men,” she said. “Young men, running.”
I laughed.
She stopped.
I stopped and looked back to her.
“You must believe me,” she said.
“Men?” I said. “Running?”
She nodded and we continued walking.
“What men?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “They were scared . . . I saw them again, tonight. That’s why I needed to see you. They’ve returned.”
“Where did you see these men?”
“I do not know exactly who they were or where they are,” she said. “That is why I needed to see you. To see if I might have something clearer, stronger.”
I began to feel unusually comfortable with this odd woman I’d just met and this strange unfolding she was sharing with me.
Not for a minute did I take to heart her nonsensical bullshit or her vocation, for that matter, but I obliged.
“What makes you think I’m in danger?”
“I understand your doubt,” she said, picking up on my skepticism. “But I know what I see, what I feel.”
She pulled her shawl up to cover her head and we walked past a storefront without an overhang. We felt the steady rain until we were back under an awning over the boardwalk.
“How did you know where to find me?” I said.
“Hocus-pocus, Everett.”
“Because you’ve seen these men and how they felt to you,” I said. “You feel I’m in danger?”
“Yes,” she said.
She lowered her shawl.
“What do your friends call you?” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “You have none?”
“Oh,” she said, “on the contrary, I most certainly do.”
She tapped her temple and said, “I have plenty of friends with me, at all times.”
“What do they call you?” I said. “What is your given name?”
“Séraphine,” she said. “My name is Séraphine.”
We stayed under the awnings as we walked and were exposed to the rain only when there was a break overhead between structures. We turned and walked past a few boardinghouses.
Beneath a canvas cover on the opposite side of the street, three skinny young fellas sat under a lamp, playing cards on a whiskey barrel. They watched us as we passed.
We walked on for a ways, then Séraphine stopped.
“There it is,” she said.
I stopped and turned back to her.
“What?”
She was looking down like she was looking for something on the ground. She turned and looked back to the men playing cards.
“Something has happened,” she said.
I looked back to the men. They weren’t looking in our direction. They were doing just what they were doing, playing cards. One of them laughed. I looked back to her. She looked at me with a troubled look on her face.
“What?” I said.
She looked downward again.
“You okay?”
She shook her head.
“What is it?” I said.
“It’s not good,” she said.
“Your friends talking to you?”
“No,” she said. “Your friends.”