Ironhorse

1

Virgil was sullen. Other than “yep” and “nope,” he hadn’t said much in the last few days. We crossed the Red River and entered the Indian Territories aboard the St. Louis & San Francisco Express out of Paris, Texas. At just past five o’clock in the afternoon, Virgil broke the silence.

“A good pointer don’t run through a covey,” Virgil said.

I tipped my hat back and looked at him. He was gazing out the window, watching a line of thunderclouds spreading across the western skies.

The St. Louis & San Fran Express was a new breed of train. It was the nicest we’d been on since we traveled up from Mexico, with automatic couplers, Westinghouse air brakes, and a powerful Baldwin ten-wheel engine capable of pulling twice as many cars as other locomotives. The fourth and fifth cars back were first-class Pullman sleepers with goose-down beds and leaded-glass transom windows. The coaches were fancy, too, with luminous pressure lamps, mahogany luggage racks, tufted seats, velvet curtains, and silver-plated ashtrays. Virgil and I sat at the back of the last passenger car. Behind us was a walk-through freight car followed by a stock car that carried livestock, including Virgil’s stud and my lazy roan.

After near twenty years doing law work with Virgil Cole, I knew well enough he wasn’t talking about hunting, but I obliged.

“No, a good pointer takes it slow. Moves steady,” I said.

Virgil continued looking out the window and nodded slowly.

“They do, don’t they,” he said.

“They do if they’re trained right.”

Virgil watched the clouds for a moment longer, then looked back to me.

“What was the name of the philosopher we were reading about in the Dallas newspaper the other day?” Virgil thought some, then answered his question: “Peirce?”

“Charles Peirce.”

“Charles. That’s right,” Virgil said. “What was it they called him the father of?”

“Pragmatism... He’s a pragmatist.”

“That’s right. Pragmatist... Hell, Everett, that’s you, too. You’re a pragmatist.”

“Charles Peirce is a pragmatist,” I said.

“You went to West Point, Everett. You’re educated.”

“About some things.”

Virgil glanced back out the window again.

“You never said nothing.”

“Said nothing about what?”

A dark thundercloud in the far distance flashed a hint of white and silver lightning, and for a brief moment, the western horizon lit up some.

“We’re talking about Allie; this is about Allie?”

“Of course it is.”

“What are you getting at?”

“What I’m getting at is, you might have apprised me not to run through it over a woman who’s got the disposition to do the things she does.”

“Could happen to any man.”

“Not Charlie Peirce.”

Virgil hadn’t talked about Allie since Appaloosa, and his comment took me by surprise. Not so much by the elapsed time since he’d last talked about her, but by the comment itself. Virgil never asked, needed, or took advice from anybody, including me.

“Better to pull up short than to run through it like a pup, you know that, Everett.”

“I do.”

“You never said anything.”

“I did not.”

“Why not?”

“Not my place.”

Virgil narrowed his eyes at me as if he’d eaten something that didn’t taste so good. He focused his attention back out the window.

Virgil Cole was always steady — never rattled, never bothered, and incapable of confusion — but at the moment, something was sitting sideways with him.

He shook his head a little.

“I love that woman,” Virgil said.