Ironhorse

61

“Where’d he go?” Virgil said to Hobbs.

“What?” Hobbs said, looking over his shoulder at Virgil as he pulled on his trousers. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Virgil looked at me.

“The woman in the room with Lassiter said he told her to stay put till he came back. Said he left as soon as they got upstairs, over an hour ago.”

Virgil looked back to Hobbs.

“Where did he go?”

“He left?” Hobbs said. “I don’t know. I have no idea. Why?”

Virgil stayed focused on Hobbs but spoke to Berkeley, who was standing behind him.

“Mr. Berkeley, I need you to get our horses out front. The chestnut and the roan; leave the other two.”

“Will do,” Berkeley said, and left the room quick.

Rose picked up the blanket and moved near to me as Virgil walked around the bed and faced Hobbs.

“Tell me about Wellington?”

“Who?”

“I don’t got time for you to dally with my demeanor.”

“Dally with your...”

Hobbs shook his head.

“I do not know what you are talking about.”

“Read the back end of that clippin’, Everett,” Virgil said without looking in my direction.

I pulled the article from my vest pocket, opened it, and read it out loud.

I looked up at Virgil. Virgil was looking at Hobbs.

“Lassiter and you are partners, law partners.”

“Our companies merged less than a year ago.”

“What about Wellington and the trial?”

“I was on a big case in New York during that brouhaha. By the time I had returned it was old news. Being an attorney is a nefarious business, and there is often a thin line between right and wrong, Mr. Cole. I never gave the banking trial involving this Wellington a thought. We firms are always caught in the middle between good and evil.”

“Stealing money ain’t in the middle.”

Hobbs stood up from the bed.

“I never knew this Wellington.”

Hobbs limped slightly to the corner and sat in a chair, where his shoes were on the floor in front of him.

“Wouldn’t know Wellington if he hit me in the face.”

“Who had the relationship with the governor?” Virgil asked.

“You mean who was the idiot who encouraged the governor to invest in the territorial lands, putting him and his family’s lives at stake?”

Hobbs shook his head as he picked up a sock from inside his shoe. He crossed his leg and put the sock on his foot.

“That would be me, Mr. Cole; that would be me.”

Hobbs picked up his other sock.

“I have known the governor for a long time. We went to college together. I introduced James and the territorial idea to him. That was me; hell, I introduced him to his wife.”

“Lassiter?” Virgil said. “How long you known him?”

Hobbs shook his other sock and put it on.

“Long time, not closely; however, not until our firms merged and we began working together did I get to know James intimately, evidently not intimately enough.”

Hobbs slowly turned his attention from Virgil to the floor.

“You believe this is James’ doing, I take it?”

“And yours,” Virgil said. “You’re his partner.”

Hobbs shook his head slowly, not so much as an answer to Virgil’s pointed inquiry but rather to the realization of something he had not suspected.

“It just can’t be...” Hobbs said.