“Sheriff ain’t planning to press matters on you boys about the killings in Beauville, even Russell.”
“You have anything to do with that?” Cole said.
“I tole the sheriff how things were.”
“Kind of you,” Cole said.
Stringer grinned again.
“I didn’t want to be the one had to bring you in,” he said.
“Wouldn’t be too hard right now,” Cole said.
“Well, it ain’t going to be necessary. You boys going to stick around here when you’re on your feet?”
I looked at Cole.
“Sure,” he said. “Got a house here.”
“Gonna move in with Allie?” Stringer said.
“I surely am,” Cole said.
After we healed up, and Cole’s house was finished, I went there to eat supper with him and Allie. It was Allie’s first time having somebody in to eat, and she had a tablecloth out and a full set of good china with only a couple of pieces that didn’t match. We had some soup and some sort of meat pie, and some wine. I didn’t like the wine much, but I drank some to be polite. For dessert, there was dried apple pie, which I liked.
“Everett,” Allie said. “I don’t think I’ve ever said enough to you about how you rescued me from everyone.”
“Virgil did most of that,” I said. “I just trailed along.”
“You did a lot. I’ll never forget you riding out all alone and that Indian coming and touching you and riding off.”
“It didn’t do me no harm,” I said. “And he got to count coup on me and be a hero.”
“I never did understand that,” Allie said. “What was all that about? Why didn’t he try to kill you? Why did they all ride off?”
“He gets close enough to his enemy to touch him, and then ride away, he’s a bigger hero than if he killed me,” I said. “And he didn’t just do it with a coup stick. He done it with his hand. And held it on me. And with the other braves watching. Man’s a great hero now.”
“And it let ’em off the hook,” Cole said. “They knew there was six men, with a lot of guns, dug in at a good place to defend, plenty of food and water.”
“So him counting coup on me let them ride off without dishonor,” I said.
“Oh, God,” Allie said. “Dishonor. Don’t seem to make much difference, Indian or white. Men are so silly.”
She shook her head.
“Dishonor!” she said again.
Cole was quiet, sipping his wine. I could tell he didn’t like it, either. I didn’t know enough about wine to say. But I was pretty sure it wasn’t very good wine.
“Well, I just wanted to be sure I said thank you proper.”
“No need,” I said.
“And,” she said. “I want you to know how embarrassed I am that you saw me… you know… with Ring Shelton.”
“You did what you had to do,” I said.
Cole seemed mildly interested.
“And I’m mortified,” she said, “that you saw me with no clothes on.”
I looked at Cole. He showed no change of expression.
“Allie,” I said. “It was a pleasure.”
“Oh, Everett,” she said, and blushed brightly.
Cole smiled a little.
“Well, you started talkin’ about it,” he said.
“I know,” Allie said. “It’s just that I’m so grateful. I know that you did it for me. Rode all that way. Went through all that danger. For me.”
“Well, you sure are worth it,” I said.
“Point of fact,” Cole said, “wasn’t just you. We was after Bragg, too.”
“Virgil, I know you killed those men because of me.”
Cole leaned back and looked at me, and then at Allie.
“We did what we needed to do,” he said finally.
“And Everett, too. I will always be grateful to you. You didn’t abandon me.”
“No, I didn’t,” I said. “But, you know, I am the deputy city marshal here, and it was sort of what I was hired to do, to find escaped prisoners, to save kidnapped women. That sort of thing.”
“Oh, go ahead,” Allie said, “the both of you. Be modest. Pretend you were just doing what any lawman would have done. In my heart I know it, and I treasure it. That you did what you did for me.”
Cole looked at me again. But he didn’t say anything more. I knew what was bothering him. It was bothering me, too. If Allie was right, and we tracked down the Sheltons and killed them because they had mistreated Cole’s girlfriend, then we might be good men. And we might have done the right thing. But we didn’t do it as lawmen. And we hadn’t done the legal thing.
And where did that leave us?
Two nights later, I lay in bed in my room at the Boston House with Katie Goode, after we’d done our business, and talked about Allie.
“Don’t you see what she’s doing?” Katie said.
“Being nice to her husband’s friend,” I said.
“Husband? They got married?”
“I don’t think so. But that’s what they call each other.”
Katie shrugged.
“What is it they call it in a war,” she said, “when a general doesn’t use all his troops but holds some out.”
“The troops are in reserve?”
“Yes. That’s what I was trying to say. Allie has you in reserve.”
“Reserve? Reserve for what?”
“In case Virgil gets killed.”
“She has me standing by to replace Virgil?”
“Virgil dies, you replace him. Then you’re the stud horse. That’s why she’s so nice to you. That’s why there’s no more talk of how you molested her that day, at the house before it was finished.”
“Praise be,” I said.
“And she reminded you how you saw her naked.”
“Yeah,” I said, “she did.”
“That was a kind of flirting, you dumb man.”
“Right in front of Virgil?”
Katie smiled. “He’s a dumb man, too.”
