57

I HAD A BEER with Chauncey Teagarden in a small saloon called Rabbit’s, near the new red-light section of town.

“You’re from New Orleans,” I said.

“Ah surely am,” he said, broadening the accent.

“Did you know that Callico’s wife is from New Orleans?”

Chauncey grinned.

“Amelia,” he said.

“You do know her,” I said.

“Know her,” Chauncey said. “She don’t know me.”

“Tell me ’bout her,” I said.

“Queen of Storyville,” Chauncey said. “Worked three, four cribs there, ’fore she met Callico and gave up honest labor.”

“Ever go to one of her establishments?”

“Hell, when she was first starting out she used to work the bedrooms herself,” Chauncey said. “I been to her.”

“Callico know that?” I said.

“No, she don’t even know that. She was a busy girl when I was going to her. And I didn’t shave yet.”

“But he knew she was a whore?”

“Oh, sure,” Chauncey said. “He went to her, too. Called herself the Countess. That was her trick, always wore a fancy dress. Nothing under it.”

“How’d she meet Callico?”

“Don’t know,” Chauncey said. “Don’t know too much about Callico. For a while, I know, he was a trick shooter at a carnival, used to play around New Orleans. Saw him once. Man, could he shoot.”

“Clay pigeons?” I said.

“Yep. Fancy ones sometimes. Made of glass.”

“Pigeons ever shoot back?”

“Nope.”

“Unlikely to,” I said.

“God, he was fast, though. And accurate.”

“She work the carnival?” I said.

“Doubt it,” Teagarden said. “Mighta been a bouncer in one’a her joints and then something clicked and they went off together. ’Cept I heard she took up with a fella by that name, I never thought anything about either one of them until I got here. I recognized her. And when I seen him, I remember him shooting. Ain’t all so many fellas named Callico you’re gonna run into.”

The doors to the saloon were open, and outside the sky was low and dark and there was a sense of something coming. Most people were off the street.

“Something coming,” Chauncey said, looking out at the dark street.

“A lot of it,” I said.

We carried our beer glasses to the doorway and stood, looking out at the empty street where the wind was beginning to kick a little trash around.

“This thing between Callico and the general is going to turn into something bad,” Chauncey said.

“If it does, you’re with the general,” I said.

“I am,” he said.

“You and the general against Callico and his policemen,” I said. “He’s got a fair number of hands.”

“Yeah, but mostly cowhands,” Chauncey said.

“You’re not a cowhand,” I said.

“No,” Chauncey said. “I am not.”

“So, he needs you to run the tactical command, so to speak.”

“I’d say so.”

“You didn’t come here to fight a war,” I said.

“Things change,” Chauncey said.

“Forever?” I said.

“Till after the war.”

“Then?”

“I do what the general hired me to do, if he still wants it done.”

“He don’t seem like a man changes his mind much,” I said.

“No.”

“General’s kid required it of Virgil,” I said.

“I’m sure he did,” Chauncey said. “Virgil Cole don’t go around shooting people ’cause he can.”

The wind was picking up as we stood, watching in the doorway. It pushed tumbleweed up the street past us. Far to the west, lightning flashed, and in a moment the sound of thunder came to us. No rain yet, but the tension of its pending arrival filled the air.

“Soon,” I said.

“I have to go against Virgil,” Chauncey said. “I assume that includes you.”

“Does,” I said.

“Still got that eight-gauge?” Chauncey said.

I smiled.

“Do,” I said.

“Won’t make it easier,” Chauncey said.

“I’ll come straight at you,” I said. “I don’t back-shoot.”

“Well, never lost yet,” Chauncey said.

“Neither has Virgil,” I said.

A single raindrop splattered into the still-dusty street in front of us.

“I know,” Chauncey said. “Sorta what makes it worth trying.”

58

THE RAIN when it arrived was everything it promised to be. It came down, slanted by the wind, hard and cold and steady. The Callico election rally that had been scheduled for Main Street was moved inside the saloon at the Boston House, with Callico standing on a chair near the bar and half the Appaloosa police department ranged along the outside walls.

“I promise you safe streets in Appaloosa, and open saloons, and more of the same kind of money and development that has been flowing in through my efforts these last months.”

Wearing a slicker buttoned to his neck and a confederate cavalry hat pulled down over his eyes, General Laird pushed into the saloon. Chauncey Teagarden came behind wearing a slicker, too. He kept his unbuttoned, holding it closed with his left hand until he got out of the rain. The two men stood in the crowd toward the front of the room.

“My opponent, who, incidentally, has just arrived in the room,” Callico said, “will tell you he is qualified to lead because he has been a military man, a commander. Albeit of a rebel power? Don’t we then have the right to ask what he commanded his soldiers to do? Would that not tell us what kind of civic leader he might make? Recently some of my supporters spoke publicly of his pusillanimity at Ralesberg. Of his brutality toward woman and innocent children, as he fled the field of battle.”

Beside me, Virgil said, “‘Pusillanimity’?”

“Cowardice,” I said.

“My supporters,” Callico said, “decent, honest men, both of them, were confronted by General Laird’s hired gunman in an attempt to repress the truth.”

“Ain’t that ‘suppress’?” Virgil said.

“I’d use ‘suppress,’” I said.

“And you went to the U.S. Military Academy,” Virgil said.

“So I must be right,” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“But the truth will not be repressed,” Callico said. His voice was loud now, and up a pitch. His face was red.

“The commander was a coward at Ralesberg,” he shouted,

“and a coward at Tyler Creek. His victories were against unarmed women and children who had the misfortune to be in the path of his retreat.”

As Callico talked, the general worked his way through the crowd until he stood right in front of Callico. He’d taken off his gloves and held them in his right hand.

“You lie,” he said.

His voice sounded like the crack of a bullwhip.

He stepped one step closer and reached up and slapped Callico across the face with the gloves in his right hand. It almost knocked Callico off the chair he stood on. He made a move toward his shoulder holster and stopped himself and got stabilized on the chair.

“Mr. Teagarden is my second,” the general said. “I will meet you anywhere. Pistols or sword.”

“A duel?” Callico said. “You’re challenging me to a fucking duel?”

“I am,” the general said.

“A goddamned duel,” Virgil murmured to me. “The general’s got some sand.”

Callico glanced across the room.

“Sergeant Sullivan,” he said. “Take this man into custody. Use any requisite force.”

Virgil looked at me.

“ ‘Requisite’ means necessary,” I said. “Required.” Virgil nodded. Sergeant Sullivan and five policemen assembled in a small squad and pushed through the crowd to General Laird, standing in front of Callico. Chauncey Teagarden moved slightly to the side of the group and looked at General Laird.

“Chauncey takes them on,” I said. “We gonna help?”

Virgil stared at the scene silently.

Then he said, “Yes.”

I had begun to carry the eight-gauge again as tension had begun to develop in town. I nodded, picked up the eight-gauge from where it leaned against the wall, and moved slowly along the wall to get myself opposite Virgil, so we’d have a nice crossfire if we needed to shoot.