The Bridge

49

Dim shafts of light shined sideways through missing pieces of siding on the backside of the slaughterhouse.

The light revealed three hanging bodies.

They were clearly the bodies of Sheriff Sledge Driskill and his deputies Chip Childers and Karl Worley.

They were hanging side by side on meat hooks that had been gouged into the men, high on their backsides. Their shoulders and heads slumped forward and their hands were tied behind their backs.

“Oh, hell,” I said slowly. “...Oh, hell, Virgil.”

Virgil shook his head slowly.

Lying dead on the floor of the slaughterhouse were two mules and the lawman’s three horses. The buckboard sat behind the hanging men and the dead animals at the opposite end of the structure.

The horses and mules had been killed, their throats slashed.

The whole scene was as gruesome as any aftermath of attacks I had witnessed in my days fighting in the Indian Wars.

I went to the opposite end of the building and tried to open the barn doors so to clear the air from the stench, but they wouldn’t budge because of the snow.

I kicked out enough slats on the side so I could crawl through the opening. When I got out I used one of the slats as a shovel and went about clearing the snow from in front of the door. I worked at it awhile and eventually Virgil came out through the opening. He picked up a slat and we both worked at clearing the snow.

“Sonsabitches,” I said.

Virgil didn’t say anything for a moment as he moved snow with the board, then he said under his breath and almost to himself, “Bad hombres, Everett.”

“One thing to blow up a goddamn bridge and get paid for it,” I said. “But this is, this is, I don’t know, it’s...”

Virgil didn’t say anything, he just dug and scraped snow.

We kept at it until we got the snow cleared and the doors could open freely.

When we opened the barn doors we could see clothing lying inside the bed of the buckboard.

“Their discarded stuff,” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“Left when they donned the goddamn blues,” Virgil said.

Virgil picked up one of the pieces of clothing. A vest. He shook his head a little and dropped it.

We wasted no time getting the men down from the meat hooks and into the bed of the buckboard.

I thought about the face of the man with the beard I saw riding through town. I remembered his eyes. I thought about the fact he looked at me sitting by the window of Hal’s Café and gave me a slight wave as the men behind followed him, riding through the street.

I remembered talking with Hal about the look they had, and now, after seeing this brutal and evil dirty work, I knew why they looked the way they did. They had just done this deed. I added up the timing in my mind. When Driskill and his men left, and the timing when I witnessed the men ride by in front of Hal’s.

“When I saw the bastards riding through, it was about noon,” I said.

Virgil thought about that as we laid the body of young Chip in the bed of the buckboard.

“They stayed here through the night,” Virgil said, “looking about the slaughterhouse.”

“And took their damn time.”

“They did,” Virgil said.

Virgil and I covered the men with our slickers. We got our horses and hitched them to the buckboard. Then we drove the buckboard slowly back on the foggy road to Appaloosa.

When we arrived back in Appaloosa, we drove around the outside of town so not to draw attention. We cut through the alleys and stopped in behind the office of the undertaker.

I went through the back door and got the old undertaker, Joshua Ramos, and brought him out to the alley.

Ramos was a large, jovial man, always dressed in a tattered black suit and never without an unlit cigar wedged into the corner of his mouth.

“Hey, Virgil,” Joshua said.

“Joshua,” Virgil said.

When Joshua and I were close to the buckboard, Virgil pulled the slickers covering the dead men.

Joshua opened his mouth and his cigar dropped in the snow.

“Holy hell,” Joshua said. “That’s Sheriff Driskill?”

“It is,” Virgil said.

“And his deputies,” I said.

“Holy hell,” Joshua said.

“Don’t let no one know about this,” Virgil said.

“I won’t,” Joshua said, shaking his head. “I most certainly won’t.”

“Want to notify the next of kin,” Virgil said. “Post a town hall notice and let the mayor of Appaloosa make the proper announcement to the community.”