The Bridge

1

“Weather.”

“Is,” Virgil said.

“Don’t look good,” I said.

“No,” Virgil said. “It don’t.”

Virgil and I were watching a faraway line of darkness coming toward us from the north.

“Got this place shingled just in time,” I said.

Virgil glanced up, looking at the underside of the porch overhang we were sitting under.

“Know soon enough if we got any leaks,” I said.

“’Spect we will.”

“This’ll be the first sign of weather since we’ve been back here in Appaloosa,” I said.

“It is,” Virgil said, looking back to the clouds. “Ain’t it?”

“Been warm and dry,” I said. “Hot, even.”

“Has,” Virgil said.

Virgil put the heels of his boots on the porch rail and tipped his chair back a little. We sat quiet for a long moment as we watched the dark weather moving slowly in our direction.

“What is it,” Virgil said, tilting his head a little. “Where are we, Everett?”

“November, Virgil. Second day of.”

Virgil shook his head a little.

“What the hell happened to October?”

“You had those two German carpenters you hired working my backside off on this place, that’s what happened,” I said. “Good goings for you things have been quiet in the outlaw racket.”

“Temperate times,” he said.

Virgil rocked his chair a little as he looked at the clouds.

“Hope it’s not the calm before the storm,” I said.

“Never know,” Virgil said.

“No reason to think about outlawing that’s not yet happened,” I said. “Or be downright superstitious.”

“No,” Virgil said. “No reason.”

We sat quiet a moment, watching the faraway storm.

“Bad weather does make folks desperate,” I said. “People get out of sorts.”

“Been our experience,” Virgil said, “people get cold, desperate, and hungry.”

I leaned back in my chair and looked through the open doorway into the house.

“Speaking of it,” I said. “What do you think she’s cooking up in there?”

“Don’t know,” Virgil said. “Allie said she was making something special.”

“That don’t sound good.”

Virgil smiled a little.

“She’s trying,” he said.

“Maybe you ought to get her a cookbook,” I said. “With recipes. Where she learns how to measure stuff out and how long to cook it and what goes with what and so on.”

“I offered,” Virgil said. “She told me all good chefs cook by the seat of their pants.”

We both thought about that for a moment.

“You got some of that Kentucky?”

“I do,” Virgil said.

“Might as well have ourselves a nudge or two,” I said.

“No reason not to,” Virgil said.

Virgil removed his boots from the porch railing and lowered the front legs of the chair he’d been tilting back in. He got to his feet just as three men on horseback wearing oilcloth slickers rounded Second Street, riding directly toward us at a steady pace. It was Sheriff Sledge Driskill with two of his deputies, Chip Childers and Karl Worley.

“Got some intention,” I said.

“They do,” Virgil said.