The Bridge
Number VII of
Virgil Cole & Everett Hitch
Knott, Robert
Penguin Group US (2014)
Tags: Virgil Cole & Everett Hitch
Virgil Cole & Everett Hitchttt
The next gritty, gun-slinging entry in the New York Times -bestselling series, featuring itinerant lawmen Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch.
Territorial Marshals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch are back in Appaloosa, where their work enforcing the law has been exceptionally quiet. All that is about to change. An ominous storm rolls in, and along with it a band of night riders with a devious scheme, who show up at the Rio Blanco camp, where a three-hundred-foot bridge is under construction.
Appaloosa's Sheriff Sledge Driskill and his deputies are the first to respond, but as the storm grows more threatening, news of troubles at the bridge escalate and the Sheriff and his deputies go missing.
THE SPENSER NOVELS
Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot (by Ace Atkins)
Silent Night (with Helen Brann)
Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland (by Ace Atkins)
Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby (by Ace Atkins)
Sixkill
Painted Ladies
The Professional
Rough Weather
Now & Then
Hundred-Dollar Baby
School Days
Cold Service
Bad Business
Back Story
Widow’s Walk
Potshot
Hugger Mugger
Hush Money
Sudden Mischief
Small Vices
Chance
Thin Air
Walking Shadow
Paper Doll
Double Deuce
Pastime
Stardust
Playmates
Crimson Joy
Pale Kings and Princes
Taming a Sea-Horse
A Catskill Eagle
Valediction
The Widening Gyre
Ceremony
A Savage Place
Early Autumn
Looking for Rachel Wallace
The Judas Goat
Promised Land
Mortal Stakes
God Save the Child
The Godwulf Manuscript
THE JESSE STONE NOVELS
Robert B. Parker’s Blind Spot (by Reed Farrel Coleman)
Robert B. Parker’s Damned If You Do (by Michael Brandman)
Robert B. Parker’s Fool Me Twice (by Michael Brandman)
Robert B. Parker’s Killing the Blues (by Michael Brandman)
Split Image
Night and Day
Stranger in Paradise
High Profile
Sea Change
Stone Cold
Death in Paradise
Trouble in Paradise
Night Passage
THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS
Spare Change
Blue Screen
Melancholy Baby
Shrink Rap
Perish Twice
Family Honor
THE VIRGIL COLE/EVERETT HITCH NOVELS
Robert B. Parker’s Bull River (by Robert Knott)
Robert B. Parker’s Ironhorse (by Robert Knott)
Blue-Eyed Devil
Brimstone
Resolution
Appaloosa
ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER
Double Play
Gunman’s Rhapsody
All Our Yesterdays
A Year at the Races (with Joan H. Parker)
Perchance to Dream
Poodle Springs (with Raymond Chandler)
Love and Glory
Wilderness
Three Weeks in Spring (with Joan H. Parker)
Training with Weights (with John R. Marsh)
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Copyright © 2014 by The Estate of Robert B. Parker
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Knott, Robert, date.
Robert B. Parker’s The bridge / Robert Knott.
p. cm.—(A Cole and Hitch novel ; 3)
ISBN 978-0-698-16409-3
1. Cole, Virgil (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Hitch, Everett (Fictitious character)—Fiction. I. Title. II. Title: Bridge.
PS3611.N685R64 2014b 2014040666
813'.6—dc23
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
For Julie
CONTENTS
Other Titles from Robert B. Parker
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Acknowledgments
Prologue
T he dense mass of stars was unusually ominous and threatening, as if the whole tangle of constellations was up to no damn good. The wide night sky pushed down hard on the four weary horsemen, appraising them, like a powerful and intolerant observer.
With their tilted brims and slouching shoulders, the mounted men rode single file and without word, as their horses carried them toward their destination. They were all fairly young. One was a hefty fellow with a large gut; the second was gangly with a narrow face and shoulders; the third was also skinny but was dark-skinned, maybe a half-breed; and the fourth was small and wiry.