“Can I finish my coffee first?”
“You surely may,” Cole said.
Cole and I fell in on each side of one of the ridge riders. The sun was behind us and made our three shadows stretch out long on the shaley trail.
“Howdy,” Cole said to the rider.
Without looking at either of us, the rider said, “The town don’t come out this far, Marshal.”
“By God,” Cole said, “I believe you’re right. I believe it ends just down there at the foot of the hill where that little wash runs.”
“So up here,” the rider said, “you’re just another cowboy with a gun.”
“You think that’s right, Everett,” Cole said.
“I think no matter where you are, Cole, that you ain’t just another cowboy with a gun.”
“That’d be my thought,” Cole said. “So what are you doing riding round and round up here.”
“We ain’t doing nothing wrong,” the rider said. “And you ain’t got no jurdiction up here.”
“ ‘Jurdiction’?” Cole said and looked at me.
“I believe he means jurisdiction,” I said.
“I believe he does. And he’s, by God, right about it.”
Cole smiled at the rider.
“So what are you doing riding round and round up here?”
The rider smirked a little.
“Just keepin’ an eye on things.”
“On the town?” Cole said.
“Yeah.”
“For who?”
The rider shrugged. With an easy movement, Cole pulled the big Colt from its holster and hit the rider in the face with it. It knocked the rider out of his saddle, and by the time he hit the ground, the gun was back in its holster and Cole was leaning easily with his forearms resting on the horn of his saddle.
“You fucking broke my teeth,” the rider said, his hands to his face.
“Colt makes a heavy firearm,” Cole said. “That’s a fact. Who you riding for?”
The rider’s nose was bleeding, and there was blood on his mouth.
“Bragg,” he said.
“And why’s he want you riding round and round?”
“I don’t know. He just told me to do it. Mr. Bragg don’t tell you why.”
“Think Bragg’s attempting to frighten us, Everett?” Cole said.
“Be my guess,” I said.
“What’s your name?” Cole said to the rider.
“Dean.”
“Well, Dean, you may as well head back to Mr. Bragg and report that we ain’t too frightened.”
“Mr. Bragg ain’t gonna like it that you hit me,” Dean said.
“I don’t guess that you liked it all that much, yourself, Dean,” Cole said.
“That’s right.”
“So you and Mr. Bragg can, ah, co-… Everett, what word am I trying for?”
“Commiserate,” I said.
“Commiserate,” Cole said. “That’s the word. You and Bragg can commiserate each other.”
Riding downhill toward town, I said to Cole, “That fella wasn’t actually doing nothing illegal.”
“He was annoying the hell out me,” Cole said.
“That’s not illegal, Virgil.”
“No,” Cole said. “It’s personal.”
When it was possible, Cole would sit with his one glass of whiskey and nurse it and watch Mrs. French play the piano. She played with both hands, raising them high and bringing them down firmly with no difference that I could hear between the two. When she was through playing, she would come and sit with him. Cole wasn’t expecting trouble today. I sat with them, too.
“So, tell me, Mr. Cole,” she said. “How long you been killing people for a living.”
“Call me Virgil,” he said.
He always said that and, to tease him, she always started out calling him Mr. Cole.
“Of course, Virgil. How long?”
“I don’t kill people for a living,” Virgil said. “I enforce the law. Killing’s sometimes a sorta side thing of that… That ain’t what I want to say. What am I aiming at, Everett?”
“By-product,” I said.
“Killing’s sometimes a by-product,” Cole said.
“And you’ve never killed anybody except as a lawman?”
“Never,” Cole said. “You gonna be killing people, you got to do it by the rules. Every man has his chance to surrender peaceable.”
“Is he telling me the truth, Everett?”
“Virgil always tells the truth,” I said.
“Nobody always tells the truth,” she said.
“Why not?” Cole said.
“Well,” Mrs. French said, “they, well, for heaven’s sake, Virgil, they just don’t.”
“Always thought the truth was simpler. Tell a man what you mean.”
“And a woman?” she said.
“A woman?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Allie, I don’t really remember telling a woman anything.”
“Virgil Cole,” she said. “Are you telling me you’ve never had a woman?”
Cole’s face got a little red.
“Well, hell, Allie, I don’t think that’s a thing I should be discussing with you.”
“But have you?” Allie said.
“Well, a’ course,” he said. “Assuredly, I have.”
“And did you never tell them anything?”
“Mostly I just did what we were there to do,” Virgil said.
His face was definitely red. She smiled at him, her head half turned away, looking at him sideways.
“And what was that?” she said.
It was like watching a cat play with prey.
There was a moment when nothing happened. Then Virgil’s face closed. It was over. He wasn’t prey anymore. She had inched across the line. It wasn’t smart to cross a line on Virgil. The problem was, it was never clear where the line was. Men had died making that mistake.
“We won’t talk about this anymore,” he said.
He spoke softly, and his expression didn’t change. But the redness left his face and something happened in his voice and in his eyes. It scared her.
“Virgil,” she said. “I was just funning you.”
