Robert B. Parker's Blackjack (5 page)

T
he three of us galloped over to the road, stopping twenty yards shy so not to put our own tracks in the mix. We dismounted and walked up. It was a well-traveled road with fairly fresh wagon ruts.

“Here they are,” Skinny Jack said, pointing to the ground in front of him. “Tracks here.”

Virgil and I moved to Skinny Jack’s trail. The grass was bent and broken over from where the three horses made it up to the road. We followed the single-file path, and when we got on the road it was clear which way they were traveling.

“There they go,” Skinny Jack said. “South.”

“Pretty sure this is the stage route between Benson City and Lamar,” I said.

“I think that is right,” Skinny Jack said. “That way; would be Benson City. Not sure how far.”

“We’ll know when we get there,” I said.

“Four-way stage route,” Virgil said.

“Is,” I said.

“We been through there,” Virgil said. “Benson City?”

“We have,” I said. “More than once, but not from this road.”

“No,” Virgil said. “The other road through there. Goes to Clemmings west and Yaqui the other way.”

“That’s right,” I said.

Since Virgil and I had been living and working out of Appaloosa, we’d at one point or another visited every city within two days’ ride that was connected to Appaloosa by road and rail.

The dust was rolling in, so the three of us untied our slickers from our saddles and put them on. After Virgil got his buttoned he stepped up in the saddle, turned his horse, and moved off the road. He galloped north a ways, then turned and looked closely at the road as he walked his horse back in our direction.

“What now?” Skinny Jack said.

“Just making sure it is Benson City and they didn’t make some effort to double back on us,” I said.

“Think they know of us?” Skinny Jack said. “Know we are after them?”

“Got a suspicion, I’d say,” I said. “They damn sure got out of town and on the move.”

“Where do men run to, Everett?” Skinny Jack said.

I looked at Skinny Jack. He was looking at me with an expectant gaze, and his question had the same quality to it as if he were a little boy asking what’s above the sky or where do we go when we die and what’s Heaven like.

“Good question,” I said.

“I suppose to a better place,” Skinny Jack said. “A better place than where they would be if they were caught.”

“I suppose that’s right, Skinny Jack.”

Virgil walked his horse slowly, looking at the ground, and when he got back to us, he shook his head and pointed south.

“Benson City it is,” I said.

The wind and dust kept coming as we rode. It was not as heavy as I’d expected, but it was steady and it remained with us throughout the afternoon. We stopped a few times to rest our horses and have some hard tack, and by the time we got to Benson City the wind had lightened up as the sun was going down.

“Let’s move off,” Virgil said. “Come in from the back and see what we can see.”

Skinny Jack and I followed Virgil off the road. We circled around, came up on the back of the town, and dismounted behind some outlaying barns. We tied off behind one of the structures. Virgil and Skinny Jack got their Winchesters and I removed my eight-gauge from its scabbard.

We moved off on foot toward the main street. For the moment we saw no one moving about, and with the fading light we could walk about ourselves with a sense of ease that we were not being too obvious.

Benson City was not much of a city. It had a small population and a handful of businesses that catered to the four-way stage route. There were some barns and corrals scattered around the outskirts and a few houses sitting back from the road, but that was the sum of the place.

We came up behind a general store with a loading dock and crouched down behind a row of chicken coops. From where we were we could see a two-story hotel next to the store, with an open back door on the first floor. Next to that, about fifty yards away, was a stage stop building with a connecting corral. A group of mules and horses stood munching on hay that was being pitched to them from someone we could not see in the shadows under a lean-to.

Across from the stage stop was a small travelers’ café, and next to that was a tall windmill that was providing a squeaking cadence.

“Think this hotel here has the only saloon,” I said.

“Could be more, or another by now,” Virgil said.

“Let me walk over there to the other side of that store and have a look, see what I can see on the street, horsewise and whatnot.”

Virgil nodded.

I leaned my eight-gauge up against the coops and walked off through the opening between the store and saloon.

I came to the road between the buildings and eased out, looking up and down the short street. There were two horses in front of the hotel saloon, but there was nobody moving about. Down the road on the opposite side I could see two women wearing white sitting on the porch under the overhang of a small shack.

I returned between the buildings and walked back to Virgil and Skinny Jack. I picked up my eight-gauge and cradled it in the crook of my arm.

“There are two horses in front of the saloon here,” I said. “But that is it. Don’t see any other watering holes or anybody about. Across the road, down that way, there’s a whoring joint with couple of gals sitting on the porch out of work, but no horses.”

Virgil nodded a little, looking at the backside of the hotel saloon.

“Reckon we get in there and see what is what?” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“Why don’t Skinny Jack and me come in the back here,” he said. “We’ll give you a minute, Everett. Come in from the front.”

I cocked my eight-gauge and started off.

“See you in a minute,” I said.

I
walked around to the entrance. The horses out front were working cow ponies with well-used ropes and weathered saddles.

A sign above the door said
Hotel Revelation and Saloon
. I entered just as Virgil and Skinny Jack walked in from the back. We had our guns raised.

The bottom floor had a bar on my left, and at the far end of the room, a staircase. There were three men in the room, but they were not the three men we were looking for, and there was one woman. All of them turned to look at us. They first saw Virgil and Skinny Jack, and then me. One was clearly the bartender, a short fellow wearing a clean white shirt and standing behind the bar. He had his hands raised in the air and backed up until his butt hit the backside of the bar, making bottles rattle.

The woman looked to be about forty. She was attractive for her age, and though she was sitting down she looked to be very tall. She had broad shoulders, blue eyes, high cheekbones, and silver-blond hair. She wore a black dress and was sitting in a corner between the
bar and the staircase, with a collection of books and papers stacked in front of her. She was reading a newspaper that she lowered and peered over the top of when we walked in. The other two men were young, skinny cowhands that hadn’t yet had the opportunity or necessity to put a razor to their face. They were playing cards at a table up against the wall opposite the bar.

The woman calmly lowered the newspaper on the table and looked back and forth between Virgil and me.

“I’d say come on in and relax,” she said, “but I have a feeling that you gentlemen have something else on your minds.”

I was pretty sure her accent was German. There was a precise manner of her chosen words that suggested she was most likely an educated woman.

The bartender looked back and forth among Virgil, Skinny Jack, and me.

Virgil moved his lapel to the side.

“I’m Marshal Virgil Cole. These men here with me are also lawmen.”

“Well, if it is not my fortunate day,” she said. “There is nothing about the law that I do not appreciate, Marshal Cole.”

She swiveled in her chair, looking Virgil up and down, then turned her attention to me.

“He has already unfortunately left,” she said.

“Ma’am?” I said.

“There is no need to stand on ceremony here, gentlemen,” she said.

I didn’t say anything.

She stood slowly, then took a step to get a better look at us.

“The man you are looking for, of course,” she said. “He has unfortunately left.”

“When?”

She walked slowly around the table. Her tall figure was slender and her demeanor was elegant as she moved to the center of the room between Virgil and me.

“He has been gone for a while,” she said.

Virgil looked to the bartender.

“You,” he said.

“Marshal, sir?” he said.

“What do you know?”

The bartender looked to the woman, and she nodded, as if giving him permission to speak.

“There were three fellas here last night for a bit, but far as I know, they are long gone.”

The woman smiled and looked back and forth between Virgil and me.

“With that being said, what can I do for you gentlemen?” she said, directing the question to me. “If you are weary and in need of rest we have rooms, drinks, and food available.”

“How long has he been gone?” Virgil said.

She turned and looked to Virgil and crossed her arms.

“How long,” he said, “and where to?”

“No need to be insensitive, Marshal.”

Virgil moved a step but didn’t say anything. He looked to the two young cowboys sitting at the table by the wall.

“We ain’t seen nobody, don’t know nothin’,” one of the boys said, shaking his head. “We just got here, sir, Marshal, sir. We just come over after work for a drink or two.”

Virgil looked back to the woman.

“Where is he?” Virgil said.

She shook her head.

“You have plenty of time. He has a good day on you. So. Take a moment, why don’t you,” the woman said. “Please, and I will tell you what else comes to my mind. Some of which may surprise you.”

She looked to me, smiled, then looked back to Virgil. She was poised and gentle for such a tall woman.

“Perhaps have a drink or two yourself, why don’t you?” she said. “On me. I do not normally drink, especially in the transition of day to night, but today I have been rather fraught for one reason or another, so I will even join you.”

Virgil looked to me. He released the hammer on his Winchester and took a step into the room.

“I will tell you everything you want to know and then some,” she said. “I am in the mood, so you should take my offer before I decide to keep my thoughts to myself.”

Virgil looked around the room for a moment, then nodded slightly.

“Grand,” she said, then looked to the bartender. “Set them up, Timothy.”

“You bet,” he said. “Whiskey?”

Virgil nodded and moved toward the bar.

Skinny Jack followed him and I did the same.

Timothy got a bottle and four glasses and poured. The woman moved to the bar between Virgil and me. She turned around, facing away from the bar, and leaned back a little on the counter; the move made her seem even taller than she was.

Virgil handed one of the whiskeys to the woman.

“What’s your name?” Virgil said.

“Mike,” she said. “The proprietress.”

Virgil glanced to me, then looked at her, but said nothing.

“You own the place?” I said.

“As a matter of fact I do,” she said. “Lovely, don’t you think, Revelation Hotel?”

She held out her whiskey to toast. We toasted and she took a small sip.

“What can you tell us, Mike?” he said.

“I am not certain he killed her,” she said.

H
e may have,” she said. “I know he is capable.”

“Who are you talking about?” Virgil said.

“I thought it important to impart this to you before you unscrupulously hunt him down,” she said. “And unceremoniously kill him. But then again, he may have done it, he might deserve the medicine, I don’t know.”

“Who?” I said.

She looked back to me, then to Virgil.

“Bill, of course,” she said. “Boston Bill Black. The man you are looking for.”

“Who did he or didn’t he kill?” Virgil said.

“The woman in Denver,” she said.

Virgil looked to me, then back to her.

“What woman in Denver?” Virgil said.

“I didn’t get her name,” she said.

“No?” I said.

“No.”

She looked me in the eye, then looked to the two cowboys that
were gawking up at her like kids mesmerized watching a puppet show.

“You two,” she said. “Leave.”

The two cowhands looked at each other, wondering what they did wrong.

“Now,” she said, and clapped her hands. “Before I come over there and drag you out by your ears.”

They got up and walked out like they actually did do something wrong.

“Why don’t you tell us what you know,” Virgil said.

She looked back to Timothy and tipped her head to the door.

“You, too,” she said.

“Oh, you bet, Mike,” Timothy said.

Timothy moved from behind the bar and hurried out the front door. Then she took the bottle from the bar and moved to a close-by table.

“Please,” she said.

We sat with her at the table.

She looked back and forth between Virgil and me for a moment, never looking at Skinny Jack. He scooted away from the table a bit and slumped in his chair, doing his best to act like he wasn’t there.

“You may wonder what a woman of my stature is doing in a place like this,” she said.

Virgil solemnly gazed at her with his hands resting on the table.

“I am no whore,” she said.

“Didn’t say you were,” Virgil said.

“No, but you were thinking it.”

“Just tell us what you know.”

“You do not think he showed up here in beautiful Benson City by choice, do you?”

“You know him?” Virgil said.

She nodded. Virgil looked to me, then back to her.

“How?” Virgil said.

“He knew my husband . . .” she said. “And he . . . knew me, too, I suppose you can say.”

She looked at Virgil for a long moment, then nodded toward the front window.

“Out there, just over that rise beyond that noisy windmill,” she said. “There is a grave. And in the grave there is a man that at one point in time was my husband. Two winters ago, we came this way from Santa Fe, heading for Yaqui, where we were planning to catch the train that was meant to take us all the way to Philadelphia, where my husband, George, was hired as an engineer for a new steam company. He was determined to work hard and change his ways and I believed him, but he was shot and killed.”

She pointed to a spot on the floor.

“Shot and killed right here in this very saloon. He died right over there. That is what is left of him, his dried blood there. I keep thinking that one day, after enough traffic from sodbusters, drifters, cowboys, drunks, and weary travelers moves across that stain, that it will eventually disappear and I will forget about him. But of course forgetting is hard and, well, memory can sometimes be tricky business.”

“Was it Black?” Virgil said. “Black shoot him?”

She shook her head.

“No,” she said.

“Who?”

“It does not matter,” she said.

“No?” I said.

She shook her head.

“No,” she said. “Not anymore. It does not.”

“And you stayed here?” I said.

She nodded.

“The stage that brought me here left that day without me.”