Blue-Eyed Devil

47

FAT WILLIS MCDONOUGH, who had no bar to tend at the moment, walked down to Virgil’s house from the remains of the Boston House.

“Your friend Pony Flores is in some trouble up on Main Street,” Willis said.

“Girl with him?” Virgil said.

“Yep.”

Virgil stood.

“You fellas go ahead,” Fat Willis said. “Never much liked hurrying.”

“Not generally much need,” Virgil said.

We started up First Street. And when we reached Main, we turned left.

Pony was there, still mounted, with Laurel sitting behind him, her arms around his waist. Standing in front of them in a semicircle in the street were Callico and his four surviving cops.

“Managed to get two of them killed at the ford the other day,” Virgil said.

Standing on the street beside Pony, near his left stirrup, with his two ivory-handled Colts gleaming in the sunlight, was Chauncey Teagarden.

“Fellas want to arrest the hero of the great Apache war,” Teagarden said to us. “Don’t seem right to me.”

We paused so that Callico had Teagarden and Pony in front of him, and me and Virgil behind him. His uniformed officers may have lost some of their confidence in him at the river crossing. They looked at us a little uneasily.

“You are interfering with an officer in performance of his legal duties,” Callico said sternly.

Teagarden smiled.

“You bet your ass,” he said.

“We are five armed men,” Callico said.

“And we’re only four,” Teagarden said. “What a shame.”

Virgil said, “What you arresting him for, Amos?”

“I want to know what part he played in all of this,” Callico said. “I mean, his brother was the one burned the town. Why’d this man take that girl? How much did he help his brother with the burning and looting?”

I smiled to myself. They’d been too busy with the burning to do much looting. That would probably have come next day, along with raping, if Pony hadn’t cut the whole thing short.

“He helped save your town,” Virgil said.

“Got to find that out officially, Virg,” Callico said. “Got to take him in.”

“No,” Virgil said.

“Virg,” Callico said. “You gotta understand. We’ll turn him loose, soon’s we clear him.”

Virgil said nothing.

I said, “Callico, we all know that this is about looking like the man in charge at the battle of Appaloosa.”

“You’re planning to interfere?” Callico said.

“We are,” I said.

“All three of you?”

“Four,” Pony said.

Callico nodded forcefully.

“We’ll discuss this again,” he said.

“No,” Virgil said. “We won’t.”

The sound of hammers and saws filled the street. A big freight wagon hulked past, stacked with partially burned lumber, the massive draft horses leaning hard into their harness. Callico turned sharply, jerked his head at his policemen, and walked back down Main Street. We watched them go. Pony looked at Virgil and smiled.

“ ‘Virg’?” he said.

“My mother didn’t even call me that,” Virgil said.

“What did she call you?” I said.

“Don’t remember,” Virgil said.