64

WHEN PONY came back from Resolution with Cato and Rose, he brought them straight to the house. Virgil introduced Allie. She curtsied and went for the jug of corn whiskey.

“Pony tell you anything on the ride down?” Virgil said.

Rose laughed.

“Riding down here with Pony and Cato can be lonely business,” he said.

“Okay,” Virgil said. “What you see drinking whiskey at the table is what we go to war with.”

Cato and Rose both looked at Chauncey.

Rose said, “Frank Rose. This here’s Cato Tillson.”

“Chauncey Teagarden,” he said.

“Like your shirt,” Rose said.

Chauncey nodded.

“Like yours, too,” he said.

“Besides the six of us,” Virgil said, “there’s a general got to be in on it.”

“A general?” Rose said.

“From the Confederate states army.”

“Long-in-the-tooth general,” Rose said.

“Yes.”

“He think he’s in charge?”

“No,” Virgil said.

“He think you’re in charge?” Rose said.

“Yep.”

“No disrespect, Everett,” Rose said. “But Virgil ain’t in charge, me and Cato go back to Resolution.”

“I’m in charge,” Virgil said.

“Got a plan yet?” Cato said.

“We’re developing one,” Virgil said. “Tell ’em, Everett, if you would. You being a West Point graduate.”

“Allie here is a close friend of Callico’s wife, Amelia, the Countess of Storyville.”

“Storyville,” Rose said.

“Yep. But Allie don’t care-they are pals. So she lets it slide that we’re coming after Callico and tells her to warn Callico but not tell who we are.”

“And she thinks the Countess will do that?”

“No,” I said. “Allie’s playing dumb. We know Mrs. Callico will give us away.”

“But then,” Virgil said. “He got two choices: comes right after us or, two, he sets up for us to come after him.”

“Either way we’re setting ourselves up,” Rose said.

“’Cept they don’t know we know they know,” Virgil said. “So we watch them watching us.”

“You think they’ll come for us?” Cato said.

“No,” Virgil said. “Man wants to be president. Looks better if he defeats a bunch of ruffians who attacked him.”

“How ’bout the wife?” Rose said.

“Lady Macbeth,” Chauncey said.

“Who?” Rose said.

“Bad woman in a play,” I said. “She wants him to be president, too.”

“How good are his constables?” Cato said.

“Don’t know yet,” I said. “Pretty sure not as good as us.”

“But pretty sure twenty-five to six,” Rose said.

“Seven,” Virgil said.

“The general,” Rose said.

“Yeah.”

“Twenty-five to six, and a geezer,” Rose said.

“He’ll carry his weight,” Virgil said.

“He better,” Frank said.

“He will,” Chauncey said.

65

IT WAS LATE. Chauncey went back to the Lazy L. Cato and Rose went to sleep in Virgil’s shed. Allie was cleaning up, and Virgil and I sat on the porch and looked at the first clear sky we’d seen in two weeks. There were stars.

“Allie,” I said.

“Odd,” Virgil said. “Ain’t it.”

“She worships Amelia Callico,” I said. “She thinks Amelia Callico is the Queen of New Orleans.”

“She gets faint if the Countess looks at her,” Virgil said.

“And she don’t want this fight to happen,” I said.

“She don’t,” Virgil said.

“But she sets the trap on her ’cause you asked her to.”

“Allie loves me,” Virgil said.

“Except when she doesn’t,” I said.

Virgil sipped his whiskey.

“She always loves me,” he said. “Sometimes other stuff gets in the way.”

“She wants to be more than she is,” I said. “She cheats on you. She gets so sucked up into her self that she can’t see you for a while. She gets lost. You go find her. She strays off. You bring her back. You love her.”

“I do,” Virgil said.

“Why?”

“Don’t know,” Virgil said.

We poured ourselves more whiskey.

“But you do,” I said.

“Yep.”

“You ever spend time thinking about it?”

“Nope.”

I grinned.

“No,” I said. “You wouldn’t.”

“I like it,” Virgil said. “It works for me. Why fuck around with it.”

“Don’t spend much time figuring yourself out, either,” I said.

“Same thing,” Virgil said.

“You like yourself,” I said.

Virgil grinned.

“So, why fuck with it?” he said.

“You know why you’re getting into General Laird’s fight?” I said.

“Killed his kid,” Virgil said.

“Feel guilty ’bout that?”

“Nope,” Virgil said. “Kid gave me no choice. Don’t mean I can’t help his old man out.”

“And we don’t like Callico, do we?” I said.

“No,” Virgil said. “We don’t.”

“And we do kind of like putting together a little fire-fight like this.”

Virgil drank some corn whiskey and held it in his mouth and looked up at the stars. He nodded slowly.

“We do,” he said.

66

NEW MOON,” General Laird said. Six of us sat our horses back from the ridgeline in the near-perfect darkness above Appaloosa.

“Yep,” Virgil said.

“Knew that when you planned this,” the general said.

“Did,” Virgil said.

Almost noiselessly, Pony Flores guided his horses up from the right slope and in beside Virgil.

“How’s he do that?” Chauncey said to me. “I know he’s quiet, but how’s he make the horse quiet?”

Pony heard him.

“Chiricahua,” he murmured to Chauncey.

“Or Mex,” Chauncey said.

“Or both,” Pony said.

“How is it down there?” Virgil said.

He never got nervous, but he did focus sometimes, and this was one of those times.

“Done what you say he do, Jefe,” Pony said.

“Set up an ambush,” Virgil said.

“Sí.”

Downslope a ways five extra horses were tethered. They would blow softly now and then in the darkness.

“Where’s he got ’em?” Virgil said.

“I show,” Pony said.

We moved down slope a little and dismounted. I got a lantern going, and we crouched together, watching, while Pony scratched out a sort of map in the dirt.

“Have two on second floor, Boston House,” Pony said, and marked it.

“One on roof of Golden Palace.” He drew an X.

“Three in livery corral. Behind wagon.” He drew three X’s.

When Pony was finished Virgil counted the X’s.

“I get fifteen,” he said.

“Five alone,” I said.

“We can take them out?” Virgil said to Pony. “Quiet?”

“Sí,” Pony said. “The one’s alone. Maybe two on roof at jail.”

“You think you can take out two men in the dark without making any noise.”

“Chiricahua,” Pony said. “Kill many men on roof.”

“Chiricahua better not fuck this up,” Virgil said. “Blow the whole goddamned project if there’s noise.”

“Sí.”

“On the jail roof,” I said.

“Sí.”

“I won’t tell you how to do your work,” Virgil said.

“We pull it off, he’ll have a lot fewer men than he thinks he’s got,” I said.

“Where’s the rest?” Virgil said.

“Jail,” Pony said.

“Right below Pony,” I said.

“With Callico?” Virgil said.

“Sí.”

Virgil studied the sketch in the dirt for a bit. Then he stood and remounted and rode to a spot just below the ridgeline. It was too dark to be seen, but Virgil was always careful. He sat and looked down at Appaloosa for a while.

“We get the first part cleaned up and settle in,” Virgil said. “Then just before dawn the horses go in.”

“Somebody gotta drive them,” I said.

“I’ll do that,” General Laird said.

“Good chance you don’t survive,” Virgil said.

“No need,” the general said. “I’m seventy-seven years old. My son is dead. I’m the one you can spare for this. No need to survive.”

Nobody said anything.

“I’ll stick here with him,” Teagarden said.

“Okay,” Virgil said. “Just before dawn. We pull this off and we’re all in place. You bring the horses in, bunched up together so they can’t really tell if there are riders. When they start shooting, you get down in the saddle and get the hell out of there.”