“Virgil Cole.”
There was a long pause before Bob replied. His voice was low and quiet.
“Virgil Cole?” Bob grumbled.
“That’s right.”
There was another long pause.
“Bullshit.”
“No bullshit, Bob.”
Bob paused again, even longer than the time before. He had heard Virgil say his name out loud, and this gave him pause.
“Virgil Cole,” Bob said slowly. “I heard it was you. When I heard it was the great and mighty Virgil Cole, that you were the lawman aboard, I thought, well, if it ain’t my lucky day.”
“I wouldn’t be too reliant on luck, Bob,” Virgil said.
“Looked around for you for a spell, Cole, when I got out. Never laid eyes on ya,” Bob said, “and now this.”
“Now this,” Virgil replied.
“Now this,” Bob said again.
“Last I heard you was west in mining country, suckled up with some lilac whore.”
Virgil did not reply.
Bob laughed, a raspy, snarly laugh.
“I’ll be go to hell,” Bob said.
“I don’t believe you have a choice, Bob,” Virgil said.
Virgil stood center aisle with his shoulders facing squarely toward the door.
There was a long silence, and Bob said slowly, “Fuckin’ Virgil goddamn Cole.”
“That’s right,” Virgil said, “and Everett Hitch.”
Bob laughed again, this time a loud, booming, raspy laugh.
“What the fuck you two tamers doing?” Bob said. “I heard there was some law on this night train, but I’d’a never figured it’d be a couple a right-minded saddle tramps the likes of you two. But it goes to figure, lilac bubble-bath do-gooders would be sitting on velvet seats, ’specially you, Cole.”
Virgil whispered to me, “Any second now.”
37
Bob laughed loudly again. He was enjoying himself. I suppose this encounter had been a long time coming for Bob, considering Virgil was the one responsible for the lead in Bob’s throat and his however many years spent in Huntsville.
“Yeah, you got soft,” Bob said. “Probably eating cakes and candies, too.”
Just like Virgil said he would, Bob stepped out quick. He managed to get a shot off, but Virgil shot him, twice. Bob dropped his rifle in the aisle and staggered back to the platform rail. He leaned on the rail like he was bellying up to the bar.
“You fuck,” Bob said. “Aww...”
“Slow us down, Everett,” Virgil said.
The wind was moving through the coach, and we were rolling pretty fast now. I thought about what Whip had said, about going too fast. I stepped out onto the downhill platform and turned the brake wheel. The brakes engaged, making a screeching, grinding sound, and sparks shot out from the undercoach. I let up some, maintaining a pressure that was firm but not too hard. The last thing we needed was for the chain to break. I looked back through the coach. Virgil was standing square in the aisle, facing Bob. Bob was still standing next to the platform rail. After a moment, the coach started to slow.
Virgil took a few steps toward Bob and stopped.
“What are you doing on this train?” Virgil said.
“I ain’t on the train. Fact is, I’m in a goddamn coach with two holes in me ’cause you just shot me.”
“You shot first.”
“I did at that.”
“You had a choice.”
“I did at that,” Bob said, “and a goddamn good choice I made. If I knowed for a fact it was you, you lilac son of a bitch, and Hitch I was shootin’ at, I would’a took better aim! Fucking do-gooders, the both of ya.”
We were now traveling slowly, but the wind was whipping through the coach. I stepped into the coach just behind Virgil.
“Hell, fuck,” Bob said quietly. “Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch.”
Bob turned slightly, facing directly toward us. It looked as though he was shot high in the chest and high in the side. Which was consistent with Virgil’s style and pattern, tight and high. Virgil always shot high on the body. As long as I had been with Virgil, I never saw him put a bullet in a man’s gut.
Bob leaned over and spit. “Shit.”
He was holding his side with his left hand just under his armpit. His other hand held on to the platform rail, and his body moved ever so slightly with the rhythmic side-to-side motion of the coach as we continued rolling.
“Y’all,” Bob said, “are most likely teetotalers, too, I ’magine.”
Bob moaned and leaned back on the rail. A blast of wind whipped through the coach, and the door between Bob and us slammed shut, and the remaining glass in the door shattered. In an instant Bob was no longer standing there. Virgil and I moved quickly up the aisle with guns ready. We opened the door and stepped onto the platform, but Bob was gone.
“Stop us, Everett,” Virgil said. “Get us stopped.”
We were still rolling pretty fast. I turned the brake wheel some more, and we started to slow again, but I had to take it easy.
“What the hell was he doing?” I said. “Don’t make good sense, don’t seem practical, Bob coming up this track, Virgil.”
“Good sense ’n practical don’t have nothing to do with Bloody Bob Brandice.”
Virgil did not want to take any chances with Bloody Bob being on the loose. Since it was, in fact, Bloody Bob we’d encountered, Virgil didn’t want to leave him to do more of what Virgil knew firsthand Bob was capable of doing.
“I guess the fact we’d been identified as being on this train and the fact there was a lone coach drifting down the track was good enough for Bob to start shooting,” I said.
“That’s right,” Virgil said. “And if it just happened to be nuns or children he shot, so be it. Makes no difference to Bloody Bob who he shoots. If he didn’t get me and he killed somebody else, he’d just put ’em on a spit and have ’em for late supper.”
38
Virgil wanted Bob done. It seemed with the two high holes in his upper body Bob would not survive, but Virgil knew Bob was a tough man. Bob had survived more than a few deadly skirmishes, including a previous one with Virgil. Eleven years earlier outside of Amarillo, Virgil shot Bob in the neck.
“You think he was just coming after you, and that’s that?”
Virgil shook his head.
“Bob’s bloodthirsty,” Virgil said. “Like a mountain lion. He knew what was south was of no interest to him. North proposed promise, proposed possibilities.”
“Killing you being one of those posed possibilities.”
“The other, getting to the kingpin, staying on the trail of the one-armed preacher, the conductor culprit who most likely left him. But Bob’s a killer of the first order. He didn’t know it was me in this coach, too dark to determine that for sure, but he didn’t care.”
Virgil picked up the rifle Bob had dropped on the floor.
“He didn’t have a pistol. He’d have come at me with it if he did,” Virgil said. “He just had this Henry rifle he dropped. This Henry and a big-size bone-handled knife. He’s got his knife for sure.”
It started raining again, not hard rain, but it was coming down. By the time I got the coach stopped, we were at least a quarter of a mile away from where Bob had dropped over the rail. I secured the brake wheel with the foot latch, and we stepped off the platform and into the falling rain.
“You go up that side of the track, I’ll go up this side,” Virgil said. “And Everett? I don’t have to tell you, but I will anyway. With or without the Henry rifle, Bloody Bob Brandice is a slippery snake.”
The rain started to pick up some as Virgil and I took off, walking up the track. It was sure enough dark out, but Virgil and I had plenty of experience in the dark, and we both had good night vision. The peripheral vision being the key, looking at everything as opposed to looking at something, was the best method for getting around in the dark.