I got a bottle of beer and poured us each a glass.
“You are a gentleman, Everett Hitch.”
I handed Allie a glass.
“Look at the foam.”
“Cheers,” I said.
“Cheers to you,” Allie said.
We touched glasses and drank.
“Oh, my,” she said.
Allie licked the foam from her top lip.
“My goodness. Is that refreshing.”
“It is.”
“Thank you.”
We sat and sipped our beer, and for the moment we didn’t say anything. It was comfortable with Allie, and she was, after all we had been through, a friend and I had grown to enjoy her company.
We heard Virgil come through the gate, then open the front door.
“Back here, Virgil,” Allie said.
Virgil made his way down the hall and out the back door, and when he did Allie held up her beer.
“Look what Everett brought.”
Virgil looked back and forth between Allie and me.
“Sit, I’ll get you a glass.”
Allie was up and into the house before Virgil had a chance to take his hat off.
“See you got a saddle on that black.”
“Good to know he’s still out there.”
“He is.”
Virgil took off his hat and wiped his brow with a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket as Allie came back out the door with a glass. She poured Virgil a beer and handed it to him, then kissed him on the cheek.
“What have you been doing, Virgil Cole?”
Before Virgil answered he took a long pull of the beer, then held it up in the light and looked at its color.
“That’s damn good,” he said.
Allie smiled.
“S.Q. got that from Saint Louis,” I said.
“Glad for it,” Virgil said, then looked to Allie.
“I been over at the Western Union office.”
“What’s happening?” Allie said.
Virgil looked to me.
“Boston Bill Black has been caught.”
33
“Where?”
“El Paso.”
“Damn, Virgil,” Allie said.
“Yep,” Virgil said.
“No,” she said. “Is this necessary?”
“What?”
“You sure do know how to spoil a good time,” she said.
“How’s that?”
“Everett and I have been doing just fine, drinking this lovely beer that come all the way from Saint Louis, and now this business of being caught.”
“Hell, Allie,” Virgil said. “Everett and me spent a good goddamn amount of time searching for him, and the fact he has been caught has significant meaning here.”
“That does not mean we have to bring it up on a pleasant Wednesday afternoon, does it?”
“I know I don’t need to tell you this, Allie, but in the process of chasing that sonofabitch, we lost one of our friends, a friend of yours, too.”
“No, you do not need to tell me, I know,” she said. “I miss Skinny Jack, too, I do.”
“I know you do,” he said.
“But I still don’t think this is right,” Allie said.
“What?” Virgil said.
“That Boston Bill Black did this heinous crime he is accused of,” she said. “I told you that before.”
“And like I said before, Allie. That will be up to the judge to decide.”
“Oh, the judge. There is always a judge. I thought it was a foregone conclusion the other man, the fella from Denver, was the one that was the murderer.”
“There is still a warrant and a bounty on Black’s head, Allie.”
Allie got up out of her chair and filled her glass with beer.
“I’m gonna go make supper.”
She looked at me.
“Thank you, Everett,” she said. “It was so lovely to spend some pleasant time with you.”
“You too, Allie.”
“I’ll leave you two to it,” she said.
Then she went into the house. I watched after her as she walked back into the house and rounded the corner into the kitchen.
“Heard something from S.Q. just before I came over here today,” I said. “We know S.Q. is going around the bend, getting more forgetful and a bit slower every day, but he told me Messenger spoke to him the day he was shot and that Messenger told him in a sober moment that he had come to town to arrest the man that killed his wife.”
Virgil looked at me for a long bit, then shook his head a little.
“The Denver detective that come here, Banes. He thought differently,” Virgil said. “Thought it could have been Roger Messenger that murdered his wife.”
“I know,” I said.
“Guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Virgil said.
“Who caught Black?” I said.
“A bounty hunter,” Virgil said.
“They sure it’s him?”
“So it seems.”
“I’ll be damned,” I said.
“Yup.”
“When did this happen?”
“Today, I think,” Virgil said.
“Now what?”
“He’s being brought back here.”
“To Appaloosa?”
“Yep.”
“Not Denver?”
“No,” Virgil said. “He’s gonna be tried here.”
“But the murder was in Denver.”
“According to the Denver DA, Black was here, hired a gunman here, fled from here, and was involved in a crime here that left a Denver policeman dead.”
“He’s not charged with that shooting, Truitt is.”
Virgil shook his head.
“I know, but Denver DA said since Judge Callison is coming through, dealing with Truitt, and this crime happened here, they’d deal with Boston Bill then, too.”
“How will they do that, the fact that Ruth Ann Messenger’s murder happened in Denver and the potential witnesses and such are in Denver, you’d think they would want him, need him back there to stand trial?”
“Could be the profile of the case gives Denver an opportunity to get it out of their backyard. Maybe it has to do with the fact of what this is all about, the nature of it.”
“You mean, seeing how this has to do with the fact the son of the police chief was married to a woman running around flaunting her goods with an itinerant gambler, they don’t want to make this any more public than they have to?”
“Don’t know,” Virgil said, “but I would suspect that is right. They are taking this opportunity to keep Black out of the chief’s path... All this business was happening over the wire between El Paso, Appaloosa, and Denver these last few hours, and I think suppertime crept up and nipped it. Anyway, that was that.”
“I’ll be damned,” I said. “And if he’s convicted, what then?”
“Don’t know. Figured they’d let him get shipped here and go from there, let Black fend for himself,” Virgil said. “Last bit back from Denver said they are sending in a reception team to deal with this.”
“Another unit?”
“Sounds like it,” Virgil said. “Bounty hunter left a demand, too, that stated if the three thousand was not available with the return of Boston Bill Black, he would let Black go free.”
“When will Black get here?”
“According to the El Paso sheriff’s office, he would have already been here, but Mr. Black needed a day to heal up.”
“What happened?”
“Seems there was some altercation that happened and Black was knocked around a bit. Office said they’d be here within a few days.”
“Who’s bringing him in, who’s the bounty hunter?”
“Don’t know,” Virgil said.
34
After two days there was no sign yet of Boston Bill Black or the bounty hunter, but both the Denver authorities and Judge Callison had arrived and were awaiting Black’s arrival.
Early evening, as the sun was going down, Virgil and I walked over to the Colcord Hotel to have a talk with the Denver authorities.