Virgil and I started across the street. Choctaw stepped away from the door and in front of Brother Percival. He didn’t draw his gun, but his hand hovered over it. He said nothing. The man with the knife looked at Choctaw, and past him at Percival.
“Choctaw,” Virgil said.
Choctaw nodded faintly.
“Hold the knife,” Virgil said.
The man with the knife stopped and looked back at Virgil.
“Aw,” the man with the knife said. “Fuck it.”
He turned and walked away down the street, with the knife still in his hand, dangling by his side as he went. Virgil was still looking at Choctaw. Choctaw had no expression as he looked back at Virgil.
“Virgil,” Allie said. “Everything’s fine now.”
She stepped away from the group and put her hands on Virgil’s chest and looked up at him.
“Everything’s fine,” she said. “Please.”
Virgil was looking past her at Choctaw. Then he nodded.
“Sure,” he said.
He turned away from her and walked down the street in the same direction that the man with the knife had gone.
“Keep your hands off the civilians,” I said to Brother Percival.
“I answer to God,” Percival said. “Not to you.”
“Long as you are in this town,” I said, “you answer to me and Virgil.”
Choctaw Brown grunted.
“Don’t blaspheme,” Brother Percival said.
“Please, Everett,” Allie said. “We’re only trying to help people save their souls. I’m trying to save my soul.”
I looked down at her. She had her hands flat on my chest now, looking up at me, just as she had looked up at Virgil.
“Perhaps you should consider your own soul,” Brother Percival said.
I grinned at him.
“Too late,” I said. “Right, Choctaw?”
Choctaw made a small derisive sound. No one else said anything. I patted Allie on the cheek and left. As I walked down Arrow Street I heard Allie leading her colleagues in singing a hymn I didn’t recognize. I didn’t know whether I failed to recognize it because it was not a hymn I knew or because they sang it so badly it was unrecognizable.
I walked a little faster.
23
THE DROVERS WERE GONE. The cattle had been shipped. There wasn’t all that much for me and Virgil to do except sit in a couple of chairs, tilted back against the wall, outside the office, and watch what passed before us. It was a hot morning, with a high sky and an occasional white cloud. Freight wagons moved slowly up Arrow Street. The railroad surrey shuttled between the hotel and the railroad station. Women and children went in and out of shops. A few men, starting early, went in and out of the saloons.
“What do you think ’bout Allie,” Virgil said.
“She’s looking good again,” I said. “Filled out nice.”
Virgil nodded, looking at the street.
“You see her at the house,” Virgil said. “Cooks our supper, serves it, won’t sit down herself.”
“Yep.”
“Cleans up afterwards,” Virgil said. “Don’t say nothing.”
“True,” I said.
“Does the wash, irons, cleans…”
“I know,” I said.
“Like last night, she’s serving supper, and I say to her, ‘Why don’t you sit down and join us, Allie?’ And she don’t.”
“I know,” I said. “I was there, too.”
“When she ain’t cleaning and sewing and fucking up my shirts, and cooking bad,” Virgil said, “she’s reading the Bible, or she’s in church, or she’s sashaying down to the saloons to save souls with Brother Percival.”
“I know.”
“She was outside the Paiute Club yesterday evening, telling everybody she had defilled herself for money.”
“Defiled,” I said.
“Defiled.”
“Virgil,” I said. “Why you telling me all this. I know all this.”
“I ain’t telling you nothing,” Virgil said. “I’m discussing it with you.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Why don’t she settle down,” Virgil said. “Be like she used to be.”
“Maybe she don’t want to be like she used to be,” I said.
“Well, no,” Virgil said. “Maybe not the bad parts. But…” He shook his head. “You know, she used to be a lotta fun.”
“Sometimes,” I said. “You and she doing anything in bed?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to,” Virgil said.
“Ever?”
“Don’t know ’bout ever,” Virgil said. “Don’t want to right now.”
“She mind that?” I said.
“Don’t know,” Virgil said. “She don’t say nothing ’bout it.”
“The Allie I know would mind,” I said.
Virgil shook his head slightly.
“So, what’s she trying to be now,” he said, “if she don’t want to be what she was?”
“Maybe she’s trying to be a good woman.”
“She thinks this is what a good woman’s like?” Virgil said.
“Don’t know what she thinks,” I said. “She ain’t had much experience with good women, maybe.”
“And you have?”
“Hell, no,” I said. “I don’t know no good women.”
“Me either,” Virgil said.
“How about the lady in Resolution?” I said.
“Beth Redmond,” he said. “She was really a good woman, she wouldn’t have cheated on her husband.”
“With you,” I said.
“That’s right.”
“Maybe the husband was a bad man,” I said.
“He weren’t much,” Virgil said.
“She was a pretty nice woman,” I said.
“Yeah,” Virgil said. “She was.”
“Went back to her husband,” I said.
“She did.”
“Stood by him.”
Virgil nodded, still looking at the movement of life on Arrow Street.
