Resolution

75.

We had a pack mule for supplies, and were saying good-bye to Cato and Rose, when Beth Redmond came out of the hotel that used to belong to Wolfson.

“You’re really going,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“I’ll miss you.”

“We’ll miss you, too, ma’am,” I said. “Won’t we, Virgil.”

“We will,” Virgil said.

“You know, the men got together and elected Mr. Stark mayor of Resolution,” she said.

“Yep,” Virgil said.

“He’s going to run the bank and the store and everything that poor Mr. Wolfson, ah, left behind.”

“Stark knows how to run things,” I said.

“Everybody wanted both of you to stay on, too,” she said.

“These boys’ll make a fine pair of marshals,” Virgil said.

Rose grinned at her.

“Like my new badge?” he said.

“You and Mr. Tillson look very nice,” she said.

No one mentioned that the badges were lifted from the dead bodies of Lujack and Swann.

“You have any problems,” Virgil said, “with anybody, you understand? You see Cato or Rose, they’ll straighten it out.”

She nodded.

“Will you be coming back this way anytime?” she said.

“Never know,” Virgil said. “Right now I got to go to Texas.”

She stood in front of him, looking at him for a moment, then she put her arms around him and kissed him hard on the mouth.

“You’re a good man, Virgil Cole,” she said when she was through. “Thank you.”

Virgil grinned at her.

“You’re welcome,” he said, and patted her on the backside, and swung up onto his horse.

She gave me a little hug, too, and a kiss on the cheek, but with less enthusiasm. I hugged her back gently.

“Good-bye, Beth,” I said, and got on the horse.

Virgil looked down at Beth.

“Remember, he gives you any trouble…”

“Come see us,” Rose said.

“He’s changed,” Beth said. “But thank you.”

Beth turned and went back into the hotel. Virgil and I looked at Cato and Rose.

“Never got to fight you,” Virgil said.

“Not this time,” Rose said.

“Probably just as well,” Virgil said.

“Probably,” Cato said.

We nodded. They nodded. Then we started the horses and headed south out of Resolution.

Virgil didn’t say anything the whole day. We were in open country when we camped that night. I took a bottle of whiskey out of my saddlebag, and we had some while we made a fire and cooked some sowbelly and beans under the big, dark sky.

“You think he’ll leave her alone?” Virgil said.

“Redmond?” I said. “Probably not.”

“Be all right for a while,” Virgil said. “Then something’ll go wrong and he’ll be under pressure…”

“And he won’t be man enough to handle it,” I said. “So he’ll convince himself it’s her fault and smack her couple times to make himself feel better.”

“He hurts her,” Virgil said, “Cato will kill him.”

“I know,” I said.

“And it’ll break her heart,” he said.

“Yep.”

“But she’ll be better off,” Virgil said.

“She won’t think so for a while,” I said.

Virgil leaned back against his saddle and drank from the bottle and looked up at the infinite scatter of stars.

“She was a nice clean woman,” he said. “Always took a bath ’fore we done anything.”

I didn’t comment. He handed me the bottle. I had some.

“Smart,” he said. “Good lookin’, good hearted. Hard to figure why she’d love a jackass like Redmond.”

I said, “Uh-huh.”

“But she does,” Virgil said.

“Uh-huh.”

Virgil took another turn on the bottle, then he looked at me and grinned.

“She’s such a dope,” he said. “He ran off to Texas with somebody else, she’d go on down there looking for him.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

I put my hand out for the bottle and Virgil passed it to me.

“And her friend would go with her,” he said.

I drank some whiskey.

“Uh-huh,” I said.