The Bridge

48

I shared Séraphine’s note with Virgil when we left Belle and the Back Door whoring establishment.

“By God,” is all Virgil said.

“Yep,” I said.

Virgil just shook his head a little as we walked.

I didn’t say anything as we trudged through the snow-covered street, back down into town.

Virgil didn’t say anything else, either, not for a while, anyway, as he thought about the single word Séraphine left me with.

Then he said, “Slaughterhouse.”

I nodded.

“Beats hell,” he said.

“Does,” I said.

We walked for a bit more without saying anything.

“What do you figure?” I said.

We walked for a bit more.

“Well, given the fact this hocus-pocus fortune-teller lady friend of yours has provided us some pertinent information in regard to the goddamn bridge business we’re dealing with,” Virgil said. “Pertinent information that has come to light, regardless of how she got it, it might be a good idea we pay heed to this, Everett.”

“That’d be my thinking, too,” I said.

“As much as I don’t like it,” Virgil said.

“I know.”

“Don’t got much more,” Virgil said.

“We don’t,” I said.

Virgil and I made our way back to the livery where we stabled our horses.

Salt was feeding the animals when we entered. He looked up at us when we walked in but said nothing as he went about his business.

By the time Virgil and I got our horses saddled Salt came over to us.

He watched us but said nothing.

“How much more of this shit are we going to see, Salt?” I said. “Got to give up sometime soon.”

Salt looked out the open door of the barn and shook his head a little, then looked back to us.

“Pigs are still gathering sticks,” Salt said.

Virgil looked at Salt.

Salt nodded a little, then turned and walked into the livery office.

Virgil and I mounted up and rode out of the livery and headed south.

It was cold. The temperature had dropped even more and it was foggy out.

It wasn’t snowing, but the powder was deep as we moved slowly through the fog.

The road south of Appaloosa cut through solid forest of aspen, spruce, and fir.

In the spring the sides of the road were nothing but riparian, chaparrals, and prickly poppy, but now everything was a powerful and foreboding sea of white.

Just as we did when we made the journey to the bridge with Cox, we rode the same path by the depot, crossed over the covered tracks, past the last few Appaloosa homesteads on the road, past the icehouse and the stockyards.

The landscape seemed like it was from another place in time. The fog hung heavy some twenty feet above the ground, making the woods feel like there was something in the forest waiting, something lurking and unsatisfied.

The only sound was that of our horses, the chomp-clink of bit metal, the leather creak of our saddles, and the breathing of our animals under us, as they moved us forward into what felt like a prehistoric place, void of civilization.

From someplace secluded in the woods a phantom great gray owl hooted his ominous call.

We came to a stop on the road next to the old abandoned slaughterhouse.

The slaughterhouse was a long, low-built post-and-lintel building that was no longer in use since the bigger, newer version had been built to handle the growing cattle business.

The snow-covered slaughterhouse had loading docks on one end and dilapidated corrals and chutes on the other.

We dismounted and tied our horses to a pair of fir saplings near the road and walked through the deep snow toward the building.

The snow was piled high around the structure, and there had been no sign of tracks other than those of deer and rabbits.

When we got to the door of the slaughterhouse we cleared the snow back so we could open the door.

Virgil pulled his Colt and I did the same. Virgil stepped back to one side of the door and I got to the other. Virgil nodded and I opened the door. Instantly we were hit with the smell of death. We waited for a moment, then Virgil peeked inside. He leaned back and looked to me, shaking his head.

“Goddamn, Everett,” he said.