Brimstone

26

WHEN ALLIE BROUGHT OUR LUNCH, Virgil and I were sitting outside the sheriff’s office watching the last of the whiskey get packed onto a wagon, in front of the Bluebell Saloon.

“Isn’t that good?” Allie said.

“The Bluebell?” Virgil said.

“Yes, it’s closing. They’re going away.”

“Some saloons left,” Virgil said.

“Not so many,” Allie said. “Brother Percival says we’ve driven four of them out already.”

“Pike’s Palace still doing well, though,” Virgil said.

I knew why he said it. He was still thinking about Choctaw Brown being with Pike the night Pike killed three men. Virgil never forgot anything, and he never let anything go.

“Brother Percival says Mr. Pike is running a much more Christian enterprise than the others.”

Virgil said, “Uh-huh.”

“I think they’re actually kind of friends,” Allie said. “I see them together sometimes.”

Virgil nodded.

“What’s Pike do that the others don’t?” Virgil said.

“I don’t really know,” Allie said. “But I know Brother Percival sends some of the deacons over there regularly.”

“How ’bout Deacon Brown?” Virgil said.

“Yes, he goes over.”

“And they go there to make sure,” I said, “that he’s running a Christian saloon.”

Allie’s face sort of squeezed in on itself.

She said, “Being Christian doesn’t mean being foolish, Everett. We know men have their needs.”

She looked at the floor.

“Women, too, I guess,” she said. “And we don’t expect everyone to be perfect. So we are working to get rid of the worst kind of vice dens, and try to maintain a better option.”

“Why not let them decide for themselves,” I said.

Allie didn’t look at either of us. She stared down the street and watched the wagon pull away from the Bluebell.

“People can’t always decide for themselves. When they do, many times they decide the wrong thing.”

Neither Virgil nor I said anything.

“And they can’t ever make it up,” Allie said. “They try and try, but the thing they did was too wrong… and they can’t fix it.”

“Nothing can’t be fixed,” Virgil said.

Allie turned her head toward him. She didn’t speak for a time. Virgil didn’t say anything else.

“You really believe that, Virgil?”

“I do,” he said.

They looked silently at each other. Allie opened her mouth to speak and closed it without speaking. They looked some more.

Then Allie said, “Here’s your lunch. I got to go practice on the organ now.”

She handed the lunch basket to Virgil, who took it.

He said, “Thank you, Allie.”

She nodded and smiled sort of uncertainly, and then turned and headed south on Arrow Street toward the church. Virgil watched her go.

“Something up between Percival and Pike,” Virgil said.

“That what we was talking about?” I said.

“Partly,” Virgil said.