The Bridge

12

We entered Grove’s and the saloon was more spirited than usual with stockyard hands and cowboys off work because of the nasty conditions.

Virgil and I got us a beer and stood next to a tall table by the window and watched it rain.

“Calm’s over,” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“Outlaw racket come back in business today,” I said.

“Did,” Virgil said.

“Weather comes woes,” I said.

We sipped our beer and didn’t say anything for a while.

“This Ballard fella,” I said. “Sounds like he might have a bone or two to pick.”

“Does,” Virgil said. “Don’t seem like he’s going to appreciate you shooting his brother, Bolger, none.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t, either.”

“Might be a good idea if we locate him before he locates you,” Virgil said.

I nodded and we watched the rain for a bit as we sipped our beers.

“Damn monsoon,” I said.

“Happens once and a while,” Virgil said.

A group of young cowhands across the room burst into laughter after one of them told the punch line to a joke.

Virgil looked over to them and smiled a little.

“You notice when the Beauchamp group come into town,” I said, “the good-looking woman sitting in one of the trailers?”

Virgil shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Didn’t.”

“I met her,” I said. “She’s the fortune-teller.”

Virgil looked at me.

I sipped my beer for a moment before I said anything else.

“After I left your place last night, I stopped in and drank some whiskey with Wallis at the Boston House and in she walked.”

Virgil turned his head slightly and looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

“Goddamn good-looking lady,” I said.

“Good,” Virgil said.

“She told me my life was in danger.”

Virgil leaned his elbow on the tall table and smiled a bit.

“She know you’re a lawman?”

“Does,” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“That’d be like telling a farrier he’d get kicked,” Virgil said. “Or a banker would be receiving a large sum of money.”

“True,” I said.

“Same concerns Allie’s got for us,” Virgil said. “More bullets move around us than move around most people.”

“She calls herself Madame Leroux,” I said. “Funny thing was, some of Madame Leroux’s hocus-pocus foretold what I encountered today.”

Virgil looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

“She didn’t get all of it just right,” I said.

Virgil grinned.

“What’d she allow?” he said.

“Said she saw men running, scared,” I said. “That’s what happened when I left Hal’s, those two dandies, Grant and Elliott, came running right by me. Damn near run over me.”

Virgil grinned, wider this time.

“Hell,” Virgil said. “Most men are scared of their own shadow and they run all the time.”

“Something about her,” I said.

“Always something about a woman, Everett,” Virgil said. “Fortune-teller or not.”

“There is,” I said.

“What’d she not get right?” he said.

“She asked me if I knew someone or something of some such named Codder or Cotter.”

“Codder or Cotter?”

“None of those boys involved in the scuffle in front of Hal’s was named Codder or Cotter,” I said.

“Well,” Virgil said with a chuckle. “That’s a goddamn good thing, Everett.”

“It is,” I said. “Be a bit unsettling to think she really knew what she was talking about.”

“Reckon she can’t be right all the time,” Virgil said.

“No,” I said. “Reckon not.”

Virgil smiled again.

“Figure she weren’t completely shy on the hocus-pocus fiddle-faddle, neither,” Virgil said with a smile, “what with them two running an’ all?”

“No,” I said. “Not completely.”