Resolution (vcaeh-2) by Robert B. Parker

Author:Robert B. Parker [Parker, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adv_western
ISBN: 0-425-22799-5 / 978-0-425-22799-2
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2008-03-19T04:00:00+00:00

39.

Patrick brought the bottle over and poured us all another drink. Mrs. Redmond took a drink and stared into her glass. She had stopped crying. And she was a little drunk.

“He isn’t as bad a man as he seems,” she said.

“Hard to be worse,” I said.

“He is just so strained,” she said, “trying to support me and the kids, and trying to organize the ranchers, and trying to fight Mr. Wolfson.”

None of us said anything.

“He gets crazy mad, sometimes,” she said.

“At you,” I said.

She nodded.

“But he never hurts the kids,” she said.

“He ain’t supposed to,” Virgil said.

She stared at him. I knew she didn’t understand him. Most people didn’t. There was about him a flat deadliness that frightened people. And yet he had protected her from her husband and helped her get settled in the Blackfoot.

“He wasn’t always like this,” she said. “It’s just that all we got is that piece of land, and he’s terrified we’re going to lose it. That Mr. Wolfson will take it away from us.”

“Make him feel like a failure,” I said.

“Yes.”

“This ain’t gonna help him,” Virgil said. “Us taking his wife away from him.”

“You didn’t do that,” she said.

“He’ll see it that way,” Virgil said.

Virgil probably knew something about that feeling. Mrs. Redmond drank more whiskey and began to cry again. She talked haltingly while she cried.

“My children.” She gasped. “My children. He won’t let me see my children.”

“He might,” Virgil said.

She shook her head.

“His mind is set,” she said. “When he sets it, ain’t nothing will change it.”

“Couple of us could take you out for a visit,” Virgil said.

She shook her head.

“No,” she said. “There might be trouble. I wouldn’t want the children to see it.”

“Well, then,” Virgil said. “Maybe Everett and me can ride out tomorrow and talk with him about this.”

“Oh, God,” she said. “Not in front of the children.”

“They home all the time?”

“They go a couple hours in the afternoon to Ruth Anne Markey, Charlie Markey’s wife. She teaches some of the kids in her home. Mostly Bob needs them to help with the place.”

“We can do it then,” Virgil said.

She stared at him again.

“Don’t hurt him,” she said. “Please don’t hurt him.”

“’Course not,” Virgil said.

Mrs. Redmond was silent for a time, staring into her glass. Then she pushed the glass away, folded her arms on the tabletop, and put her head down on her arms. In a few moments she was snoring softly.

“Care to give me a hand, Everett,” Virgil said.

I nodded, and we stood, and each with a hand under her arm, we got her to her feet and steered her to her hotel room.

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