The next morning Whitfield came into the marshal’s office looking bad.
“I slept in the feed loft,” he said, “at the livery stable.”
“Well,” Cole said, “you come back.”
“I can’t face up to guns no more,” Whitfield said.
“But you’ll testify,” Cole said.
“I will.”
“That’s fine,” Cole said. “Everett and me will face up to the guns.”
Bragg, leaning against the bars of his cell, said, “You gonna get your chance, too, Whitfield.”
It was like I could see the skin tighten on Whitfield’s face, and the fear come in. Cole took his feet off the tabletop and stood and walked over to the cell. He stood close to the bars, an inch or so away from Bragg.
“We been treating you kindly,” Cole said to Bragg. “In return for that, we expect you to speak when spoken to and otherwise stay quiet.”
“I can talk if I want to,” Bragg said.
“And me and Everett can come into that cell and lock the door behind us and beat the sweet Jesus hell right out of you every morning instead of breakfast.”
“You wouldn’t talk that way if I had a gun,” Bragg said.
“Don’t matter if I would or wouldn’t,” Cole said, “fact is you don’t, and I do, so the point appears mute.”
Bragg met Cole’s look for a bit and then couldn’t hold it, and turned away and sat on his bunk. Cole walked back and sat at his desk and put his feet up.
“Don’t pay him too much mind,” he said to Whitfield.
“He’s right, though,” Whitfield said. “What about after the trial?”
“After the trial, Bragg goes to prison, and Everett and me escort you to a faraway place of your choosing,” Cole said.
“And before the trial.”
“You stay right here with us,” Cole said.
“And him,” Whitfield said, and nodded at Bragg.
“He ain’t pleasant,” Cole said. “But he can’t do you no harm.”
“What if his men come back?”
“They won’t come back,” Cole said.
People believed Cole when he talked. He was always clear on what he knew. He never claimed anything he didn’t know, and he always meant what he said.
“Could I maybe stay in the hotel?”
Cole shook his head.
“That splits us up,” he said. “Means one of us got to go with you and the other one got to stay here with Bragg.”
“But if they won’t come back?”
“Maybe somebody else,” Cole said.
“You think they’ll send somebody?”
“Don’t matter what I think. You ever hear of this fella Clausewitz?”
“Who?”
“Clausewitz, German fella, wrote a book about war. This Clausewitz says you got to prepare for what your enemy can do, not what you think he might do.”
“Clausewitz?”
“What I’m saying is splitting our forces ain’t to our advantage.”
“You been reading Clausewitz on war?” I said.
“Certainly. You ever read it?”
“I read it at West Point,” I said.
“Good book,” Cole said.
I nodded. Whitfield looked lost.
“Virgil,” I said, “you are a surprising man.”