The Bridge

74

We rushed past the startled butler, Jessup, who stumbled back onto the staircase as Virgil and I burst into the office where the three men, G. W. Cox, Ashley Epps, and Curtis Whittlesey, sat completely dumbfounded and looking at us with our Colts pointing at them.

Cox was sitting in his big chair behind his desk and Curtis and Ashley sat across from him.

On Cox’s desk were three stacks of cash.

“What?” Ashley said, wide-eyed. “What is happening?”

“You don’t really need to ask, do you?” Virgil said.

“I think there must be some kind of misunderstanding,” Ashley said nervously.

“Misunderstanding?” Virgil said.

“Yes,” Ashley said. “Of course.”

“No misunderstanding here,” Virgil said.

“But—” Ashley said.

“Ashley,” Cox interrupted, shaking his head a little as he leaned back in his chair with his hands on the arms of the chair. “Let these men do what they came here to do.”

“You three are under arrest,” Virgil said.

“Marshal,” Ashley said. “I can explain this...”

“Sheriff Sledge Driskill,” Virgil said, “and his deputies Chip Childers and Karl Worley are dead because of you. Chip and Karl were both just past twenty years of age.”

“I’m innocent,” Curtis blurted out as he got to his feet.

“No, Curtis, you’re not,” I said. “You even sicced me onto Cox at the pool hall, thinking maybe he’d get sorted out and you and the preacher here would have a bigger payday.”

“No...” Curtis said. “I...”

“Sit down, Curtis,” I said. “And shut your ass up.”

Curtis sat slowly back in his chair.

“You men have fucked up,” Virgil said.

“God knows,” Ashley said, shaking his head from side to side, “you are mistaken here.”

“Pretty sure God don’t got a goddamn thing to do with this murder and robbery you put together here,” Virgil said.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Ashley said.

“No?” Virgil said.

“What would you like us to do?” Cox said calmly.

“Don’t buy into this,” Ashley said. “They have nothing here that was not part of God’s plan.”

“You might not have intended to do what you did,” Virgil said. “But you did it, and three lawmen lost their lives over what the three of you have done here. You fucked up.”

Curtis started crying.

“No, no, no,” Curtis said hysterically. “This can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be...”

We heard two clicks behind us.

“Don’t turn around,” Jessup said.

I glanced back to see Jessup holding a side-by-side twelve-gauge shotgun pointed at our backs.

“Looks like it was you who fucked up,” Cox said, as he pulled a pistol.

“You don’t want to do this,” Virgil said over his shoulder.

“Oh, but I do,” Jessup said.

I saw out of the corner of my eye as Jessup moved the shotgun off us and onto Cox.

“No!” Cox shouted as he raised his pistol at Jessup, but Jessup let Cox have it with both barrels and Cox’s head exploded, drenching his diplomas and the placards of his achievements with his blood and the last thinking portion of his brain.

“Dear God,” Ashley cried.

“Virgil. Everett,” Chastain called from someplace toward the rear of the house.

Virgil turned to Jessup, who was holding the gun in the same position he’d shot Cox.

Jessup stood frozen, looking at the blood on the wall. He had a single tear running down his cheek.

“We’re here,” I called to Chastain. “Office.”

Sebastian and Chastain hurried from the back hall and into the office.

Virgil reached for Jessup’s shotgun.

“It’s over,” Virgil said to Jessup.

Jessup’s teary eyes slowly looked to Virgil.

“Over,” Virgil said.

Virgil pried the shotgun from Jessup’s hands and sat him down in a chair.

Jessup just stared at the floor.

“...it comin’,” Jessup said very quietly. “...He had it comin’.”

Virgil just looked at Jessup for a long moment. Then he looked to Curtis and Ashley, then looked slowly around the room, resting his eyes on the model of the bridge.

It was over.