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.