Appaloosa

5

We had a jail, but when there was nobody in it, Cole liked to sit in the saloon and watch what was going on. He liked to nurse a glass of whiskey while he watched, and so did I. We’d sit together most of the time. But if there might be trouble, we sat on opposite sides of the room. It was Cole who decided. It was one of his rules. Today we were on opposite sides of the room. While we were sitting and nursing, inside on a hot, bright morning, Randall Bragg came to see us. He walked into the saloon with half a dozen men, and paused inside the door and looked around while he waited for his eyes to adjust. Then he nodded his men toward the bar, and walked over to where Cole was sitting. His spurs jangled loudly in the suddenly quiet saloon.

“My name’s Randall Bragg,” he said.

“Virgil Cole.”

“I know who you are,” Bragg said. “We need to talk.”

Cole nodded toward a chair. Along the bar, Bragg’s men had spread out, watching Cole. Bragg sat down.

“I see the big fella across the room with a shotgun,” Bragg said.

“Eight-gauge,” Cole said.

“Good idea, spreading out like that.”

“It is,” Cole said.

Bragg gestured toward the bar, and one of Bragg’s men brought him a bottle of whiskey and a glass. Bragg poured himself a shot and looked at it, like he was thinking about it. Then he drank the shot down and poured himself another one.

“You a drinking man?” he said to Cole.

“Not so much,” Cole said.

“And Mr. Eight-gauge over there?”

“Everett,” Cole said. “Everett Hitch.”

Without looking at me, Bragg said, “You a drinking man, Everett?”

“Not so much,” I said.

“Hard to like a man that don’t drink a little,” Bragg said.

His high, black hat was set square on his head. Even sitting, you could see that he was tall, and the hat made him look taller. He had on a starchy white shirt and black pants with a fine chalk stripe tucked into hand-tooled black boots. His spurs were silver. His gun belt was studded with silver conchos, and in his holster was a Colt with white pearl grips. Cole smiled.

“But not impossible,” Cole said.

“Well,” Bragg said, “we’ll see.”

He drank most of his second drink and wiped the corners of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger, pinching his lower lip in the process.

“You shot three of my hands,” Bragg said.

He wasn’t looking at Cole when he said it. He was carefully pouring more whiskey into his near-empty glass.

“Matter of fact,” Cole said, “I only shot two. Hitch shot the other one.”

I smiled and shrugged.

“Point is,” Bragg said, “I can’t keep having my hands come in here and you boys shooting them.”

“I can see how you’d feel that way,” Cole said.

“So we need to make an arrangement,” Bragg said.

“We do.”

Bragg smiled slightly and nodded. Everyone was looking at Cole and Bragg. While they were looking, I picked my shotgun up off the floor under my table and held it in my lap just below the tabletop.

“You have a suggestion, Marshal?”

“There’s a set of town bylaws posted right outside the door of this here very saloon,” Cole said. “Your boys do like the bylaws say, and everything will be muy bueno.”

Bragg’s face pinched a little.

“And if they don’t?” he said.

“Then I arrest them.”

“And if they don’t go along?”

“I shoot them.”

Cole smiled sort of happily at Bragg. He nodded toward me.

“Or Everett does.”

I had moved the shotgun onto the tabletop. As Bragg looked over at me, I cocked it.

“That’s your idea of an arrangement?” Bragg said after a moment.

“The law is all the arrangement there is,” Cole said.

“Your law,” Bragg said.

“Same thing,” Cole said.

The men along the bar were looking at Bragg and looking at the shotgun. Bragg sat silently for a moment, looking at Cole. Deep in thought, maybe.

Then he said, “This town belongs to me. I was here first.”

“Can’t file no claim on a town, Bragg.”

“I was here first.”

Cole didn’t say anything. He sat perfectly still with his hands relaxed on the top of the table.

Leaning forward toward him, Bragg said, “I got near thirty hands, Cole.”

“So far,” Cole said.

“You proposin’ to kill us all?”

“That’d be up to you boys,” Cole said.

“Maybe you ain’t good enough,” Bragg said.

I could see it in the way he sat, in the way he held his head and hands. He was trying to decide. Could he beat Cole? Should he try?

“Don’t be so sure you’re quicker than me,” Bragg said.

He was trying to talk himself into it.

“So far I been quick enough,” Cole said.

Bragg was silent for a moment. Then I could see him give up. He stood carefully with his hands apart and flat on the tabletop.

“This ain’t the time,” he said.

“Um-hm.”

“Don’t mean there won’t be a time,” Bragg said.

“I see you are heeled and your boys there are heeled. I know you haven’t had a chance to read the bylaws yet, so I’m gonna let it pass. But the bylaws say that it’s illegal to carry guns inside town limits, so next time I’ll have to disarm you and lock you up for a bit.”

Bragg’s body stiffened. His shoulders seemed to hunch. He opened his mouth and closed it and stood for another moment. Then he turned without a word and walked out of the saloon. His ranch hands straggled after him.