Virgil stood steady, and for the moment the only thing in the room that moved was the lingering gun smoke.
Virgil nodded slightly.
“Anybody else?”
25
Nobody else dared to move.
“Where is he?” Virgil said.
“Hotel,” Truitt said, nodded in that direction. “Just across the square here.”
“Had to hear the shots,” I said.
We quickly disarmed Truitt, hustled him with us across the plaza to the hotel.
The hotel was a small two-story place with a narrow room on the first floor with a desk, a few dining tables, and a door to a back room.
A heavyset Mexican man was standing at the front window watching us, then looked over to us when we entered. He stared at us with a startled expression, then raised his arms a bit at the sight of my eight-gauge. He knew right away what we were doing there, even before Virgil showed his badge. He pointed out the rear door.
“He’s gone,” he said. “I come out when I heard the gunshots, and in a second he was down the steps here and gone.”
We moved quickly out the back side of the hotel and found nothing but a small empty corral with a feed shed and an open gate.
“Where to, Truitt?”
“How would I know?”
I grabbed a handful of Truitt’s collar and shoved him five full steps back until his head hit the adobe wall of the hotel.
“You remember Skinny Jack Newton don’t you?”
“What?”
I slapped him.
“You know him?”
“Newton? Fuck. Yeah, I know Skinny Jack. Not seen him, though, in years. Shit, why?”
I slammed his head again against the wall.
“He was shot and killed by Ricky Ravenfield is why.”
“What?”
I slammed him again.
“That’s right, Truitt, Ricky shot and killed him, and for that you are equally responsible.”
“Me?”
I slapped him hard a few times before Virgil got his hand on my shoulder and eased me back from Truitt.
Normally when push came to shove it was me that was the one who took the temper out of Virgil. The memory of Skinny Jack looking up at me as he took his last breath, however, was a memory that was not welcome, one I could not forget, and one that had left me boiling mad.
“Truitt,” Virgil said. “We been after you and Bill Black for a good while, you know that. And so far, besides the lawman you shot, you’ve got five men killed, so you better cooperate before we are forced to see you become the sixth.”
“I really don’t know where he went, or where he’s planning on going.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
He shook his head hard from side to side.
“I got no idea,” he said.
“You came here with intention,” Virgil said.
“Nothing other than I didn’t know where else to go.”
“And he just came with you?” Virgil said.
“He did.”
“Truitt,” Virgil said, “I’m gonna ask you a few simple questions and I want you to give me a few simple answers.”
He looked back and forth between us.
“How is it you was with Bill in the first place?”
“We been friends for a while and he hired me to work with him.”
“Friends from where?” Virgil said.
“New Mex,” he said. “Las Vegas.”
“What’s in Vegas?”
“What ain’t in Vegas?” he said. “I mean, I been there for a while, was living there, and I met him there at the Double Nickel next to the Harvey House. We played cards when he come through and, hell, I got to know him and, well, we was friends, that’s all.”
“But why Appaloosa?”
“I hadn’t seen him in a while and he came in and offered me a job, well, me and Ricky. He met Ricky and he said he could use a few hands.”
“When was this?”
“Three weeks back.”
“Why?”
“Well, shit, Bill was always normally in the money and I’m always normally in need of money, so I come along to Appaloosa.”
“With Ricky?” Virgil said.
“Yeah, Ricky was the reason he wanted to hire me in the first place.”
“Why’s that?”
“’Cause Ricky is... was... was a gun hand and Bill needed a gun hand.”
“What do you know about Black being a wanted man?”
“All he told me was there was a good chance someone would be looking for him and he was not about being caught.”
“So the two of you were Black’s bodyguards?” I said.
He nodded.
“From what?” I said.
“Black... got wind a bounty was on his head and that there would be bounty hunters coming.”
“How did he get wind there was a bounty on his head?”
“Don’t know.”
26
The two men that Virgil killed in the Socorro cantina were in fact the men Ricky had warned us about. That night we locked up Truitt in the Socorro jail and we spent the following morning seeing if we could get some kind of idea as to the whereabouts of Bill Black. But by noon we came up with nothing, so we collected Truitt from the jail and we set out for Appaloosa.
It was a three-day ride back. The journey was without incident or much in the way of conversation with Truitt. He was quiet and sullen, and damn sure not interested in being in the situation he was in.
We arrived just after midnight and I slept on the bunk in the cell next to Truitt. In the morning, as the sun was coming up, I found Virgil waiting on me to tell Chastain, Book, and the rest of the deputies the story of Skinny Jack’s murder.
“Not gonna be easy,” I said.
“No,” Virgil said, “it’s not.”
We sat quietly on the porch and drank coffee as Appaloosa started coming to life, and within an hour, Chastain, Book, and the remaining deputies had heard the story of Skinny Jack’s demise.
After Book and three deputies left Appaloosa with a buckboard to collect Skinny Jack from the shallow grave behind Ray Opelka’s place, Virgil and I sat on the porch with Chastain and he got us caught up on what had taken place since we’d been on the hunt.
“I’ll be damned,” I said. “Messenger is still with it?”
“Still hanging on, but he ain’t with it, not at all,” Chastain said.
“Figured he’d be dead,” I said.
“Doc said considering the amount of blood he’s lost that if he does come back he’s likely to not be right in the head.”
“What about the Denver police?”
Chastain nodded.
“Oh... they showed.”
“The unit,” I said.
“Two detectives. One older fella, Claude... Lieutenant Banes is his name. He’s a senior with the department, nice enough, but the one that did all the talking was a younger fella... A little smart kind of guy, his name is King, kind of full of shit. Made a point of introducing himself as a detective... Detective Sergeant King.”
“What’d they have to allow?” Virgil said.
“Questions about Roger Messenger.”
“Like what?” Virgil said.
“Wanted to know if we talked with him, how long he was here, if he was alone, who he came in contact with, what happened. The details ’bout the shooting and so on.
“When I started asking questions, the young fella said that this case, the details about it were... confidential.”
“Confidential?” Virgil said.
Chastain nodded.
“That’s what the smart-ass shit, the young detective told me... confidential.”
Virgil looked at me and shook his head.
“Maybe Messenger was acting on his own, without the department’s knowledge,” I said.
“Might be,” Virgil said.