Cole tipped his chair back further and looked up at the sky with his head resting against the weathered exterior of the office wall.
“I won’t leave her,” he said.
It was midafternoon the second Monday in October. Cole had taken a prisoner to Yaqui and would be back Wednesday, which left the town for me to police.
It was brisk as I walked the town. When the sun went down, it would be cold. I went into the saloon at the Boston House to warm up and get some coffee. The room was quite noisy. Allie was playing the piano, adding to the noise. I got some coffee and stood at the bar to drink it. I saw Bragg come into the saloon through the lobby entrance. He bought a bottle of brandy at the far end of the bar, then walked to Allie and whispered to her. She put her head back and laughed. He whispered something else, and she nodded. Then he left and went back out through the lobby door.
Allie played two more songs, then stood, lowered the keyboard lid, and walked out toward the lobby. After a moment, I put my cup down and walked out after her. She wasn’t there.
“Mrs. French pass by here?” I said.
The clerk nodded toward the stairs.
“She went up,” he said.
I nodded.
“Bragg keep a room here?”
“I’m not supposed to tell, Everett.”
“Peter,” I said. “I am the damned law, remember?”
“Two-oh-five,” he said.
“Thank you.”
I went outside and stood on the porch for a time and breathed the clean, cold air. Then I turned back into the lobby and went past the clerk and up the stairs to the second floor. It was quiet. I walked the length of it without hearing anything interesting. So I settled my back against the wall beside the window at the far end of the hall and waited. The late-afternoon sun slanted past me down the hall. I could see the little dust particles floating in it.
I wasn’t happy. I knew what I was going to find out. I was there in part, I guess, because I kept hoping I wouldn’t find it out. That there’d be nothing to find out. I knew better, but knowing and wanting ain’t always the same. And when I found out, then what was I going to do? I didn’t have to decide that until I found it out. I tried to keep my mind blank as I stood and waited.
The sun was a lot lower when the door opened to room 205 and Allie walked out. Bragg stood behind her in the doorway and she turned to kiss him one more time. It was a hard, hot kiss, and it lasted awhile. I stood where I was, feeling sort of sick. When the kiss ended, she pulled away from him, and they both saw me standing down the hall. She flinched. Bragg stepped back into the room and closed the door. In the silent hall, I could hear the bolt slide. Allie stared at me. I looked back. Then she gave me an odd, nasty smile and tossed her head a little and flounced away. I stood for a time where I was in the empty hall. I could kick Bragg’s door in. But then what? I could confront Allie. But then what? Cole would be back from Yaqui in the morning. And, good Jesus Christ, then what?
Cole was a half hour off the night train ride back from Yaqui. Allie wasn’t home. He and I were eating a late breakfast at Café Paris. Actually, for Cole it was a late breakfast. For me it was a second. But that was okay. I liked breakfast.
“How’d you get into this work, Virgil?” I said.
“I was always good with a gun,” Cole said. “I guess I practiced some, but most of it sort of came natural.”
“You ever kill a man not legal?” I said.
“Meaning what?” Cole said.
“You ever shoot a man because he done you wrong? Or you didn’t like him? Or he made you mad?”
“Depends what you mean by legal,” Cole said. “First time was self-defense. Fella started up with me in a bar in Las Cruces. He wanted to take it outside, so we did, and I killed him.”
He smiled.
“It’s how I started,” he said. “Marshal offered me a job.”
“Did it bother you?”
“The first time,” Cole said. “No. You?”
“Nope,” I said. “Ever bother you since?”
“I knew right off, when I took to marshaling, that there needed to be rules. I never killed nobody outside the rules.”
“Never?”
“Nope. I would arrest anyone broke the law. If they wouldn’t submit to arrest, I’d kill them, but I never killed them first.”
“Sometimes,” I said, “you probably knew they wouldn’t submit.”
“That would be their choice,” Cole said.
“Even though you might have pushed them into a corner?”
“They always had the chance to be arrested and go to jail,” Cole said. “You know that, Everett. What the hell are we talking about?”
“Just thinking about it,” I said.
“Don’t think about it too much,” Cole said. “Keep it simple. You represent the law.”
“Even if it’s law you wrote up.”
“As long as it’s the law,” Cole said. “And you stand by it.”
I nodded.
“Otherwise, what the hell are you?” I said.
“Otherwise, you’re Ring Shelton,” Cole said.
“His word was good,” I said.
“It was,” Cole said. “And he wasn’t a back shooter. But he weren’t a lawman. He’d kill anybody, long as somebody hired him to do it.”
“Maybe that was his law,” I said.
Cole gestured the Chinaboy for more coffee.
“Ain’t enough,” Cole said.
“I always kind of figured boys like you and me, Virgil, we done gun work because we could. We was better at it than most, and we didn’t mind. It’s better than punching cows, or digging copper, or soldiering. And if you do it as a peace officer, you get paid regular, and you sort of know when to do it and how.”
“Sounds right,” Cole said.
“But I never took the legal stuff too serious. It was just a way to feel easier about being a gun man.”
“I take it serious,” Cole said. “Who the hell am I if I don’t?”
“What if you had to go against the law someday?” I said.
“Goddamn it, Everett,” Cole said. “Is this about something, or are you just trying to bore me to death?”
“Just musing,” I said.
“Well, muse about fucking or something,” Cole said.
“Sure,” I said.
