Cole was a half hour off the night train ride back from Yaqui. Allie wasn’t home. He and I were eating a late breakfast at Cafe Paris. Actually, for Cole it was a late breakfast. For me it was a second. But that was okay. I liked breakfast.
“How’d you get into this work, Virgil?” I said.
“I was always good with a gun,” Cole said. “I guess I practiced some, but most of it sort of came natural.”
“You ever kill a man not legal?” I said.
“Meaning what?” Cole said.
“You ever shoot a man because he done you wrong? Or you didn’t like him? Or he made you mad?”
“Depends what you mean by legal,” Cole said. “First time was self-defense. Fella started up with me in a bar in Las Cruces. He wanted to take it outside, so we did, and I killed him.”
He smiled.
“It’s how I started,” he said. “Marshal offered me a job.”
“Did it bother you?”
“The first time,” Cole said. “No. You?”
“Nope,” I said. “Ever bother you since?”
“I knew right off, when I took to marshaling, that there needed to be rules. I never killed nobody outside the rules.”
“Never?”
“Nope. I would arrest anyone broke the law. If they wouldn’t submit to arrest, I’d kill them, but I never killed them first.”
“Sometimes,” I said, “you probably knew they wouldn’t submit.”
“That would be their choice,” Cole said.
“Even though you might have pushed them into a corner?”
“They always had the chance to be arrested and go to jail,” Cole said. “You know that, Everett. What the hell are we talking about?”
“Just thinking about it,” I said.
“Don’t think about it too much,” Cole said. “Keep it simple. You represent the law.”
“Even if it’s law you wrote up.”
“As long as it’s the law,” Cole said. “And you stand by it.”
I nodded.
“Otherwise, what the hell are you?” I said.
“Otherwise, you’re Ring Shelton,” Cole said.
“His word was good,” I said.
“It was,” Cole said. “And he wasn’t a back shooter. But he weren’t a lawman. He’d kill anybody, long as somebody hired him to do it.”
“Maybe that was his law,” I said.
Cole gestured the Chinaboy for more coffee.
“Ain’t enough,” Cole said.
“I always kind of figured boys like you and me, Virgil, we done gun work because we could. We was better at it than most, and we didn’t mind. It’s better than punching cows, or digging copper, or soldiering. And if you do it as a peace officer, you get paid regular, and you sort of know when to do it and how.”
“Sounds right,” Cole said.
“But I never took the legal stuff too serious. It was just a way to feel easier about being a gun man.”
“I take it serious,” Cole said. “Who the hell am I if I don’t?”
“What if you had to go against the law someday?” I said.
“Goddamn it, Everett,” Cole said. “Is this about something, or are you just trying to bore me to death?”
“Just musing,” I said.
“Well, muse about fucking or something,” Cole said.
“Sure,” I said.
Cole had the morning walk-around, and I had the afternoon. It was somewhere in midafternoon when I left my horse out front and went into the Boston House. As was usually the case these days, Allie was playing and Bragg was leaning on the piano. If Cole had ever noticed, he hadn’t said.
I took the deputy marshal star off my shirt and walked over to the bar with it.
“Willis,” I said to the bartender, “give this to Virgil Cole next time he’s in.”
McDonough looked at the star and at me and started to say something. I took a gun out of my side pocket and placed it on the bar.
“And give this to Bragg when he asks for it,” I said.
“Everett…”
“Just do it,” I said and turned away.
I walked across the room to the piano and said, “Bragg.” He turned and I hit him in the face and knocked him down. The room got quiet. Allie sucked in some air and stared at me with her eyes wide. But she didn’t say anything, and there was excitement in her face. On the floor, Bragg was trying to collect himself.
“What the hell are you doing?” he said.
“You are a lying, back-shooting, cowardly sonova bitch,” I said loud, so the whole room would hear me.
Bragg was scrambling to his feet.
“What is this, what is this?” he said.
“I’ll be out in the street,” I said. “You heeled?”
“I don’t have a gun,” Bragg said.
“Will has got one for you. I’ll be outside.”
“You can’t. Christ, you’re a deputy marshal. You can’t just call me out.”
I slapped him in the face.
“I’m going outside,” I said. “If you don’t come out with a gun, I’ll come back in and kill you here.”
Most men can’t take a slap in the face. Especially in front of people they want to impress. Especially when they’ve convinced themselves that they are the herd bull in town.
“You sonova bitch,” Bragg said. “You think you can pull on me without Cole to back you up. Get on out in the street, you bastard. I’ll be out.”
I turned and walked on out into the street. I took the gun out of my holster and held it at my side. Then I waited. To my left, I heard Cole’s voice.
“Everett,” he said.
I kept watching the saloon.
“Katie Goode run down and told me,” Cole said.
“Leave it be, Virgil,” I said.
Bragg came out of the saloon and looked uneasily at Cole.
“Cole’s not in this,” I said to Bragg.
“Just hold it,” Cole said. “What’s this about, Everett.”
“I ever ask you for anything, Virgil?”
“No.”
“This one time, leave it alone. It’s just Bragg and me.”
“Everett, I can’t…”
“This once, Virgil. This one favor.”
Cole was silent. Bragg stood on the boardwalk of the Boston House. He was all in black with a high, black hat. He carried the gun I’d left for him down by his side. It was so still, I could hear Cole breathing for a moment.
“Okay,” Cole said.
The silence got tighter. I looked at Bragg. It’s a trick that Cole had taught me. Look at the whole person, not his eyes, or his shoulder or his gun hand, all of him, so you can react to any movement. I waited. Nothing stirred. If there had been a breeze, it had died. I waited. I knew Bragg would break. And he did. In the slow, almost lyrical way catastrophe happens, he raised his gun hand, and I shot him in the middle, and he fell slowly, beginning to double over at the impact, trying to get off a shot and falling facedown, dead on the boardwalk in front of the saloon. I opened the cylinder, ejected the empty shell, put in a fresh round, snapped the cylinder shut, and put my gun back in the holster. Then I went and hugged Cole, got on my horse, and rode past the marshal’s office and on out of town.
In the hills beyond Bragg’s ranch, I saw the Appaloosa, nervously herding his mares along toward fresh pasture. He’s got the mares, I thought. But the mares got him, too.
Then I turned my horse straight into the afternoon sun and rode west at an easy pace. It was going to be a long ride, and there was no reason to hurry.
