Robert B. Parker's Bull River Read online

  “Where are Dalton’s hands now?” Shep said.

  “Still there, I reckon,” José said.

  “Dalton one of ’em?” Virgil said.

  “Don’t know,” Cliff said.

  “Where are the McGrew brothers?” Shep said.

  “They gone on,” José said.

  “But they told us there was six of them in there,” Cliff said. “Dalton McCord’s hands.”

  José nodded.

  “Said they were carrying on something fierce,” José said.

  “Where is the Last Chance, Shep?” I said.

  Shep pointed.

  “’Bout thirty or so minutes that way,” Shep said.

  “Amos rode on out to there, to the Last Chance,” José said.

  “What?” Shep said excitedly.

  “He said he’d keep a lookout in case they left,” Cliff said. “That’s all.”

  “Hellfire,” Shep said. “He better not by God try and go about showing his scrawny worth.”

  “He’s not, Shep,” Cliff said.

  “Said he’d stay off the road,” José said. “Shy of the place, till you come.”

  “Who’s Amos?” I said to Shep.

  “One of our deputies,” Shep said. “My son.”

  41

  We left the young deputies to carry on with their city deputy duties, and Virgil, Shep, Hawkins, and I rode south out of La Mesilla at a half past nine in the evening.

  The night was bright. It was almost a full moon, and we could see clearly as we rode. After about a thirty-minute ride we neared the Last Chance. We rounded a curve and came to a section of the road that looked to once be some kind of community, with broken-down buildings on each side of the road. Behind the last dilapidated building on the left we saw some movement, a horse and rider. We stopped and waited for a moment, then we heard Shep’s son speak up.

  “Daddy?”

  “Amos?”

  Amos moved out onto the road and edged his way toward us.

  “Hey, Daddy,” Amos said. “I ain’t done nothing but just sit here and wait.”

  “They still in there?” Shep said.

  “They are,” Amos said. “Likely drunker than waltzing pissants by now.”

  “Good, Amos,” Shep said.

  “What do you want me to do?” Amos said.

  “You go on back, Amos,” Shep said.

  “Aw, really?” Amos said.

  “Aw, really,” Shep said.

  “Okay,” Amos said dejectedly.

  “Go on, son,” Shep said. “We got these marshals here. They got me covered.”

  “Okay,” Amos said. “Be careful, Daddy.”

  “I will, son,” Shep said. “Go on.”

  Amos turned his horse and took off for town.

  We rode on up the road, and in a few minutes we arrived at the Last Chance.

  The place was a converted barn, and for being away from town, it was obviously a popular destination. There were twenty horses tied to trees and hitches. Inside, we could hear a piano clanking and people laughing and singing.

  Virgil took the lead. We followed him and rode around the backside of the Last Chance toward the remnants of an old corral. We dismounted. I pulled my eight-gauge from the scabbard, and we left our horses tied to a section of sturdy rail thirty feet behind the barn. We walked up a ways to the back side of the place. The rear door was open, and we could hear the people inside talking and laughing. The piano started up a new tune, “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” and a few people began to sing along.

  Virgil stopped in the shadows, avoiding the light that was spilling out of the rear door. From where we stood, we could see clearly the front entrance through the open rear door. Virgil turned back to the rest of us following him.

  “Shep,” Virgil said. “You will know these hands when you see them?”

  Shep nodded.

  “I will.”

  “And they will know you?”

  “Oh,” he said. “They will.”

  “You and Hawkins go around and enter from the front door. Everett and me will be able to see you, and we will come through the back, at the same time.”

  “Then what?” Hawkins said.

  “Walk in,” Virgil said.

  Hawkins looked to Shep.

  “We go in normal-like,” Virgil said.

  “No telling what they will do,” Shep said.

  “No telling,” Virgil said.

  “We’ll see firsthand what they are made of,” I said.

  “Will,” Virgil said.

  “All right, then,” Hawkins said.

  “Providing their balls are not too tight and they’re not jumpy, I’ll make the necessary introductions,” Virgil said. “Then, Shep, you can help me to know who is who. Call ’em out and cull ’em. See where we go from there.”

  “If they pull,” Hawkins said.

  “Shoot straight,” Virgil said.

  Shep and Hawkins nodded and started to move to the front.

  “One thing,” Virgil said, stopping Shep and Hawkins. “Make no mistake, this here is a see-to situation we’ll be stepping into. Though if the situation provides us the possibility, it be good if we could keep at least one of them alive.”

  Shep and Hawkins moved on around the building, and Virgil and I stepped closer toward the rear door.

  “I’ll come up this side,” Virgil said. “Out of the light. You come up the other.”

  Virgil crossed the path of the spilling light coming from the door. He remained in shadow as he moved up one side of the light and I moved up the other.

  When we got to the back of the barn we stayed out of the light of the open door. I had the better angle, looking at the front door, and could see when Hawkins and Shep entered. We waited, and after a short time I nodded to Virgil and we stepped into the rear door of the Last Chance.

  42

  Virgil and I slipped into the back door as Shep and Hawkins entered from the front. The interior of the barn had been constructed into a regular saloon. A wood floor had been installed and the barn loft was converted into a second-floor open mezzanine.

  To the left there was a long bar, and to the right was a set of stairs. Under the stairs sat the piano, and a small round woman with bright red hair was pounding on it like she was trying to hurt it.

  A few drunken fellas and another chubby gal wearing a dark pink saloon dress were doing the singing.

  Shep entered, followed by Hawkins. Shep’s appearance quieted the room some, but the pianist and the singers continued to disgrace what otherwise was a beautiful tune.

  At a table in the center of the room sat four men playing poker. One of them, a wiry fella wearing a flattop derby, had a small woman sitting on his lap. She fell to the floor when he stood up, seeing Shep. The other three men at the table followed suit.

  They were all up fast with their hands on their handles.

  “Don’t!” Virgil said.

  I cocked my eight-gauge. It had an effect on the room, and everyone turned, looking at Virgil and me, including the piano player and her chorus.

  The man with the flattop derby looked at Virgil, then back to Shep. His hand was still resting on the grip of his pistol.

  “Easy,” Virgil said. “Don’t do nothing stupid.”

  Virgil was relaxed, with his arms to his sides.

  “Who the hell are you?” the fella in the flattop said with a drunken smirk.

  “I’m Territorial Marshal Virgil Cole. This fella here next to me with the eight-gauge is Deputy Marshal Everett Hitch. Across the way there is La Mesilla deputy Shep Walker. Most of you likely know who he is. The big man next to him is Webb Hawkins, sheriff of San Cristóbal.”

  One of the men was a big bearded man with his hand on a Colt. He had a second Colt with a pearl han
dle tucked in his belt.

  “So what,” the bearded man said.

  “No reason for you boys to get riled up,” Virgil said. “Just here to conduct some business.”

  Two other men stepped away from the bar. They pulled back their jackets, showing us they were heeled. One of them, a mean-looking man with shifty dark eyes, spoke.

  “Yeah?” he said. “What kind of business?”

  “Official business,” Virgil said.

  The mean-looking fella with the dark eyes took a meaningful step toward Virgil.

  “What sort of official business?” he said.

  “I suspect by now you know the sheriff of La Mesilla, Vernon Talmadge, was murdered,” Virgil said.

  “What of it?” the dark-eyed man said.

  “Shep?” Virgil said, without taking his eyes off the dark-eyed man. “Any of these boys here with their hands on their handles at the pool hall the night Sheriff Talmadge was shot?”

  “They were,” Shep said. “The six of them.”

  “How about Dalton McCord?” Virgil said.

  “Don’t see him,” Shep said.

  “Any of you boys know where he is?” Virgil said.

  The big bearded man laughed, and the other men joined him.

  “What’s funny?” Virgil said.

  “You coming in here acting like you think we’d be scared of you. That’s what.”

  “We’re not acting,” Virgil said. “You being scared is another matter altogether.”

  “We ain’t scared,” he said defensively.

  The other men nodded.

  “Well, all right, then,” Virgil said. “Then I reckon it’s not going to be hard for you to tell me which one of you shot Sheriff Talmadge in the back?”

  The man with the shifty dark eyes took another step toward Virgil.

  “You got to be fucking kidding,” the dark-eyed man said.

  “Not,” Virgil said.

  “You know who I am?” the dark-eyed man said.

  “Don’t,” Virgil said.

  “I’m somebody you do not want to fuck with.”

  “Good,” Virgil said. “It was one shot. So there is only one of you who did the murdering. That means one of you that’s not scared can let me know which one of you did it, then you’ll be in good favor with the court.”

  “I’m Ozark Atkins,” the dark-eyed man said impatiently. “This is my brother Kale.”

  Kale squared himself some.

  Ozark looked at each of the other men in turn. It was the brazen look Virgil and I had seen many times. That telltale look when a man was about to plant his foot on the rail and go for it.

  “You don’t want to pull on me,” Virgil said.

  “Why?” Ozark said. “You think you’re faster than me?”

  “No,” Virgil said. “I know I am.”

  Ozark and Kale went for their pistols.

  43

  Virgil shot both Ozark and his brother Kale before they could clear leather and was aiming his Colt at the head of the bearded man who stood frozen with his hand on the grip of his Colt as gun smoke churned and drifted leisurely near the bar.

  Shep, Hawkins, and I had not pulled the trigger. The other men around the table held their hands away from their pistols, stunned.

  Virgil spoke softly, almost like he was talking to a child, as he coaxed the bearded man.

  “Just take your hand off that .44 and I won’t put lead in your head,” Virgil said. “Not tonight.”

  “Goddamn,” the bearded man said as he removed his hand from the grip of his Colt. “Goddamn.”

  “Shep, Webb,” Virgil said. “Let’s relieve these boys of some of their unnecessary equipment.”

  Shep and Hawkins moved to the men and took their pistols.

  Virgil walked over and looked down at Ozark and Kale. They’d both been shot in the head.

  Virgil opened the loading gate of his revolver and removed the two spent casings as he looked at Ozark and Kale.

  “You ever heard of this man, Everett?” Virgil said. “Ozark?”

  “Nope.”

  Virgil put two new rounds in the revolver’s chamber and snapped the loading gate closed.

  “Me, neither,” Virgil said.

  “He said his name like it was a name you should, or would, recognize,” I said.

  “He did.”

  “Ozark,” I said. “Seems like a name you’d remember.”

  “Does,” Virgil said.

  “Don’t ring a bell?” I said.

  “Don’t,” Virgil said.

  “Maybe he was thinking in the future?” I said.

  Virgil nodded.

  “Maybe.”

  Virgil looked over to the men at the poker table.

  “Boys,” Virgil said.

  He walked toward them.

  “Everett and me are gonna ask you a few questions.”

  “You ain’t getting shit outta me!” the fella with the flattop said with a steely-eyed slur.

  “Only two questions,” Virgil said, friendly-like.

  “You just shot Ozark and Kale,” Flattop said.

  “They had a chance,” Virgil said.

  “They was my friends,” Flattop said.

  “Everett, take those two boys there,” Virgil said with a point.

  He was pointing to the one with the flattop derby that was doing the talking and the big man with the beard.

  “You and Hawkins take them out back and ask them two questions,” Virgil said.

  “Who shot Sheriff Vernon Talmadge being one of the questions?” I said.

  “Yep,” Virgil said. “That be one question.”

  “The other being, where is Dalton McCord?”

  “That’d be the other,” Virgil said.

  Virgil looked to the other two men sitting at the table.

  “Shep, you and me will ask these two fellas here the same questions,” Virgil said.

  “Then,” I said, “we’ll compare their answers.”

  “We will,” Virgil said. “If they are not the same answers, then we’ll have a big problem.”

  “What kind of problem?” Flattop said with a frown.

  “If any of you lie to Everett or me,” Virgil said. “If your answers to the questions do not match the answers of your amigos here, you will be arrested for the murder of Sheriff Vernon Talmadge. You’ll get convicted, and you will hang for it.”

  “Don’t listen to this crap!” Flattop said to his buddies. “This is bullshit!”

  “No bullshit,” Virgil said.

  Virgil looked at all four men.

  “You tell me and Everett the truth, then you will only be an accessory to murder.”

  “A much lesser charge,” I said.

  “Providing you find yourself an attorney with some hooks,” Virgil said. “There’s a good chance you’d go free.”

  “Shit,” Flattop said.

  “Unless one of you pulled the trigger,” I said.

  The four men looked at one another. Flattop shook his head.

  Virgil looked to Shep.

  “That sound like the right call, Shep?”

  “It does,” Shep said.

  “Those will be the main questions,” Virgil said. “We’ll be asking some other questions while we are at it.”

  “What?” Flattop said.

  “Might be easier questions for you,” Virgil said. “See how you boys fare.”

  “Goddamn it!” Flattop said. “I don’t understand this shit.”

  “Think of it like a game of truth,” Virgil said. “Whoever don’t tell the truth is seriously fucked.”

  44

  Hawkins and I stepped outside with the fella wearing the flattop derby and the bearded man.

  “Have a seat
,” I said.

  They sat side by side on a hay bale near the back door.

  “What’s your names,” I said.

  The two men looked at each other.

  “This is not a trick question,” I said.

  “Be the easiest one you’ll have to answer,” Hawkins said.

  “I’m Chuck,” the bearded man said. “Chuck Page.”

  “You?” Hawkins said to the fella in the flattop derby.

  “Delbert Chastain,” he said.

  “Good,” I said.

  “That wasn’t too hard, was it?” Hawkins said.

  They shook their heads in tandem.

  “Where is Dalton McCord?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Chuck said.

  “Why,” I said. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “He took off,” Chuck said. “Left us. He didn’t say where he was going.”

  “When?”

  Chuck looked to Delbert.

  “Yesterday,” Chuck said.

  “You know where he is, Delbert?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Who did he leave with?”

  “Drummer and EG,” Chuck said.

  “Who is Drummer and EG?”

  “His close friends,” Delbert said. “They’re two big guys from Yuma Prison days.”

  “They been with Dalton awhile,” Chuck said.

  “Just the three of them?” Hawkins said.

  “Yep,” Chuck said.

  “What about a woman?” I said.

  “A woman?” Chuck said.

  “Yep. Was there a woman with Dalton?” I said. “A pretty young blond woman?”

  Chuck and Delbert looked at each other, then nodded.

  “There was a woman,” Chuck said.

  “So Dalton took off with Drummer, EG, and a woman?”

  They nodded.

  “So it was the four of them?” I said. “Not three that took off?”

  “Yes,” Chuck said.

  Hawkins looked at me.

  “What’s her name?” Hawkins said.

  Delbert looked to Chuck.

  “I don’t know,” Chuck said.

  “Me, neither,” Delbert said.