“But is it true he was holding another young woman hostage when you dispatched him?”
“He resisted arrest, wielding a weapon. That’s enough for your purposes, Penniman.”
“Do you fear retribution from the Hammonds?”
He narrowed his eyes at the man. “That’s all I have to say on the matter. Be on your way.”
Penniman smiled and shrugged. “They’re a powerful family, Sheriff. The late Andrew was a terror, they say. Ruthless. And rumor is his widow is cut from the same cloth. How do you imagine she will take to you sending her youngest son to Kingdom Come?”
“My deputy wants to send you on your way with a kick in the backside. Should I summon him?”
Penniman raised a single hand of surrender and he and his notebook headed back into the night. As he did, he passed by another figure, headed York’s way, another small if stouter individual wearing a derby and cutaway jacket; about fifty, the man sported a graying handlebar mustache. He was no one York recognized.
“You’re Caleb York, I believe,” he said, approaching, doffing his hat.
“I can confirm that belief,” York said.
“I understand there’s been a shooting.”
“If that were the case, how would that be your concern?”
He half bowed. “Alfred Byers. I’m bookkeeper and general factotum out at the Circle G. I was bucking the tiger over at the Victory this evening.”
Poker was the preferred game at the Victory Saloon, but there was often a faro table going as well. Not York’s preference, which might be why he hadn’t encountered Byers yet, as “bucking the tiger” referred to faro, not poker.
The stout little bookkeeper was saying, “I hear there’s been a tragedy involving young Hammond. Is that truly the case?”
As if in answer to that question, the undertaker and his associate came out of the De Toro Rojo lugging the wicker coffin, excusing themselves, and York and Byers stepped aside.
“Hold up,” York said.
Perkins and his helper paused.
“Set it down,” York added.
They did.
Then to Byers, York said, “Would you mind formally identifying the deceased?”
Holding the derby to his belly, Byers nodded and the undertaker lifted the lid.
“That’s William Hammond,” the bookkeeper said. His voice betrayed nothing. Then to undertaker Perkins, he said, “Sir, I represent the Hammond interests. We will be in touch. Are you a purveyor of the embalming arts?”
Post-Civil War, many morticians were.
But Perkins said, “I am not, sir.”
Byers thought for a moment. “Do you have ice the young man can rest upon for the time being? We will want to arrange a service and the boy’s brothers will likely be coming from out of town.”
“Certainly. Perhaps you would like to have someone come around to select a casket?”
“Not necessary. Just make it the best you have.”
Perkins tipped his stovepipe and said, “The very best indeed, sir,” and then he and the boy in the undertaker’s cast-off clothes lugged the grisly remains in the picnic basket of a coffin down the street. Perkins was having difficulty curtailing a smile. William Hammond’s bad night had been a very good one for C. B. Perkins.
Soon William Hammond would have mahogany and brass fittings, York knew, not that it would matter to the boy.
Byers put his derby back on and, polite, even cordial, asked, “Might I know the circumstances of young Hammond’s passing?”
“He ravaged and beat a young woman senseless. When I requested he give himself up, he made a hostage of another girl and I shot him dead.”
The bookkeeper nodded, as if that were just so many more figures to record in his mental ledger. “The young man had his problems. No doubt he’d been imbibing.”
“No doubt. But I’d imagine you had a few tonight, playing faro, and managed not to ravage and batter any young women—at least none that have come to my attention.”
“True. True.”
York met the man’s eyes earnestly. “Is it too late for me to ride out to the Circle G to speak to the boy’s mother? It’s my responsibility to deliver the sad tidings.”
“I’m sure Mrs. Hammond will wish to speak to you about the matter.”
York thought, I bet she will.
Byers continued: “But the news will be better coming from me. I’ll convey the gist of tonight’s tragedy, and report the arrangements I’ve made with . . . what is the mortician’s name?”
“Perkins. The only one in town.”
“Not surprising. It’s a small town.”
“But lively,” York commented. “I’ll be out to the G midmorning, if that seems suitable.”
“That will be fine.”
“Do tell Mrs. Hammond that I regret this affair worked out in such a fashion. Assure her I did my best to bring her boy in alive.”
He sighed, nodded. “It’s not the first incident involving young William, I’m afraid,” the bookkeeper said.
And he tipped the derby and went off into the night.
But it will be the last, York thought. For William Hammond, anyway.
What steps his mother and brothers might take remained to be seen.
* * *
Under a sun still making its climb, Caleb York rode his black-maned, dappled gray gelding up the narrow rutted road that cut through the flat expanse beyond Trinidad. Here and there on either side shimmered occasional pools of fetid water, and even on the somewhat soft roadway itself a few puddles remained.
The aftermath of the brutally hard blizzards that had shown up like one unwanted guest after another further displayed itself in the leaning telegraph poles and battered-looking cacti, as well as squashed yucca and stripped pinyon pines. The occasional juniper tree, bereft of green, was left with its thick, gnarled branches reaching for the sky like the limbs of dying animals. On the nearby range, still-rotting corpses of cattle would have a similar look of terror and tragedy.
Five minutes or so from town, off to the right, came the inaccurately named Boot Hill—it was just as flat as any of the surrounding landscape—where wooden crosses and tombstones struck odd angles or had even fallen over, the mesquites that normally shaded the cemetery wearing many a partial, snapped-off branch. About the only unaffected aspect of the view was the shelf of distant burnt-red buttes with their weather-scarred cliff sides.
York faced a first-time duty this morning in this lawman’s job he’d held for going on a year. Oh, he had informed a parent here and a spouse there of the accidental death of a loved one—this one thrown from a horse, that one bit by a rattler. In the Southwest, the only thing cheaper than life was death. But never before had he had to face the mother of a man—a boy, in this case—whom he had killed.
He had killed too many men, and too many had been boys or nearly so, wanting to shoot him and stake a claim on his reputation. But this was a region and a time when men (and women, too) disappeared into the geography, changing names, inventing new personas, abandoning lives lived elsewhere, including crimes committed in those jettisoned years, even inventing lives never lived at all. The clerk in New Mexico might have been a murderer in New York. The housewife in Texas might have been a prostitute in Kansas. The deputy in Arizona may have robbed a stage in California.
Who was Billy the Kid, really? William Bonney? Or Henry McCarty? Maybe Kid Antrim? And that was just a single twenty-one-year life. Yet even with an infamous character like the Kid, no one really cared who he’d really once been.
The dead were as anonymous as the living.
That Byers character had done the sheriff a favor by taking the news to the Hammond woman. Breaking it to her himself was not something he’d have relished. Few things in life did Caleb York shy away from—no challenge, no responsibility, no danger . . . he could face just about anything. He took pride in that.
But the mother of a boy he’d killed, however much that terrible child deserved it? York
shivered, even as he tried to write it off to a chill morning. But it wasn’t that chill today, as he damn well knew.
For that reason—and this was another first—York was going out on official business unheeled, his Colt Single Action .44 and gun belt left behind at his jailhouse office. He could not bring himself to wear the weapon he’d used to kill the boy to a meeting with the mother. Not that he was unarmed—his double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun was in its saddle scabbard.
But it would stay outside and York would go in.
He wore black, though not in mourning—the cavalry pinch hat, coat, pants, boots, string tie, all black, his gray shirt an exception only by a shade. He was a professional man, in his view, as much so as a doctor or lawyer.
Beyond the boneyard, and before the Bar-O’s log arch announced the lane to the Cullen ranch, a trail veered off to the right, leading to the Circle G. Even before the hard winter, the going had been rough on this narrow lane, and anything but scenic—the bunch grass and spiny shrubs had a stomped-on, defeated look. Afterwhile, though, some green came in and soon ahead loomed the squared-off, fence-post archway with its circled G burned into a wooden overhang.
The array of frame buildings—water tower, barn, cookhouse, bunkhouse—was set in and around a backdrop of tall firs that had withstood the wintery onslaught. They were the towering beneficiaries of Sugar Creek, a nearby offshoot of the Purgatory River.
A single corral, absent of men and horses, indicated the Circle G was—although second only to the Bar-O of the ranches surrounding Trinidad—a modest affair. Yet the ranch house itself belied that, a sprawling one-story adobe structure with a half-story, sloping faded-green roof that gave it stature, with matching shutters and, beneath the overhang, a colonnade. York had been inside when others lived here, and knew a courtyard lent the place a real hacienda feel. He’d been told Casa Guerrero dated to the 1830s when a Mexican cattle rancher had built it before the latest corrupt government sold the place out from under him to Americanos.
As York rode in past a cottonwood that shaded the house and seemed none the worse for wear from the rough winter, Byers—who had obviously been keeping watch for him—emerged from the house, the bookkeeper’s expression pleasant, almost friendly. As York tied the gelding up at the hitching post, Byers approached, coming down the two steps from the low-slung porch.
“You’re a man of your word,” Byers said, extending his hand. “Not that I’m surprised.”
They shook.
York asked, “How did your mistress take it?”
“She doesn’t show much in any situation. Any crying was behind closed doors. If she has anger toward you, she hasn’t shown it.... Step inside, won’t you, Sheriff? Mrs. Hammond is waiting in the library.”
York followed the bookkeeper into a world of low open-beamed ceilings, white walls, archways, dark finely crafted furnishings, and colorful Mexican throw carpets on polished wood floors, all much as York remembered from previous visits, with the only change the removal of paintings and statues of the Catholic faith in favor of landscapes of the American West.
As they moved through a living room, with a fireplace and overstuffed seating, York said, “I understand you’ve acted as a sort of advance man for Mrs. Hammond.”
“Yes, I’ve been here for a month or so. Putting things in order. And in motion.”
“Buying up some of the smaller spreads, I understand.”
Byers paused at a closed windowless door, vertically paneled oak and heavy looking. “In the aftermath of any tragedy, there are . . . opportunities. People need to sell out and move on. Other more . . . hearty, resilient souls are left to . . .” Byers searched for the word.
York grinned and said, “Take advantage?”
Byers’s smile was honest, anyway. “It’s the way of the world, Sheriff. I would imagine a man who has lived your rather storied life has no illusions otherwise.... Excuse me.”
Byers opened the door just enough to squeeze through, leaving it ajar as he said, “Mrs. Hammond, the sheriff is here.”
The response came immediately, and the voice was a throaty purr. “Send him in please, Alfred.”
Byers emerged with a mild smile, gestured with an open hand, and opened the door. Hat in hand, York stepped in and Byers closed the door behind the caller.
York found himself in what had been described as a library but was more a den. Two facing bookcases each hugged a side wall, not the built-in expectation, with eight shelves between them. The volumes, at a glance, seemed largely business oriented, although York did catch the spines of two novels—Ben-Hur by the territory’s former governor, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both of which the sheriff (though not an avid reader) had made it through.
At the far end of the room hung a huge oil painting, a standing portrait that York recognized as the late Andrew Hammond, a tall, burly figure in muttonchops with a severe look and a firm jaw. He was dressed in a fine cutaway suit with cravat, but had been known to dress like a cowhand when among his men or out carousing.
York knew him only by reputation, though the stories and illustrations of him in the press were familiar to most in the West—certainly to every lawman, since Hammond’s sizable spread in Colorado was rumored—hell, was known—to have been built on stock rustled below the border by the Cowboys, the now-defunct criminal gang that the Earp brothers took on in Tombstone a few years before.
The white walls were otherwise taken up by even more Western landscapes, a few of which included Indian subjects; all had fancy gilded frames. An Oriental rug was flung on the polished wood floor at an odd angle, like a discarded flying carpet, but it managed to serve as a home for two comfortable black leather button-tufted chairs that faced a massive walnut desk with brass fittings, beautifully carved in the Spanish fashion.
The woman seated at the desk had features every bit as beautifully carved, her cheekbones high, her eyes large and so dark brown as to be almost black, her nose aquiline, her lips rather thin but with a lovely symmetry, the cleft between nose and upper lip well defined. The effect was that God had really taken His time designing this particular Eve.
Her native beauty was enhanced by a black lace dress with mantilla, under which her black hair was up; her black-gloved hands were folded before her, both businesslike and prayerful. She was in mourning, all right, but only some red filigree in the whites of her eyes suggested the sorrow she must have experienced through a long night.
“Mrs. Hammond, you have my sympathy for your loss, and my apologies for not coming personally last night. I am usually not prone to cowardice.”
She unfolded her hands just long enough to gesture to one of the chairs opposite. He settled into it, placing his hat on the desktop, which was otherwise bare.
“You were right not to come,” the low, throaty voice intoned. “Mr. Byers requested that you allow him to bring word, and that was proper. You are, after all, the person who . . . dealt with William last night.”
“I am.”
“For both of us to have to share the delivery of that news would have added mutual discomfort . . . don’t you think?”
“Yes. But it’s kind of you to have any thought for my feelings.”
A tiny, fleeting smile. “I admit to thinking more of myself in that regard.”
York shifted in the chair. He could smell her—or her perfume or maybe the aftermath of her bath . . . lilacs. She was lovely, this mother of the boy he killed last night.
He said, “If you wish the details, I will share them. I warn you they are unpleasant, but you have a right to hear of it from—”
She raised a silencing hand, a gentle gesture, yet firm. “That is not necessary. Mr. Byers has taken care of that.”
“Mr. Byers was not there.”
“No. But I feel he conveyed the facts adequately.” She leaned forward; the dark eyes behind the lace curtain of the mantilla were strangely warm. “You must understand, Caleb . . . may I call you ‘Caleb’? I have heard and read enough ab
out you that I feel I almost know you.”
“If you wish. Certainly.”
Perhaps tellingly, she did not ask him to call her Victoria.
“Caleb, I have three sons, or I should say, I had three, and now two remain—a pair of fine young men, each of whom runs a family business. My eldest son, Hugh, is the president of our bank in your sister city, in Colorado . . .”
Colorado had a Trinidad, too.
“. . . and my middle boy, Pierce, looks after our ranching interests in those same parts. I had hoped, one day, that William might gain the maturity to take over the management of this ranch. It was not to be.”
“I am sorry.” Not for what he’d done, but for having to do it.
Her head tilted to one side. “I fear William’s fate was inevitable. If not you, it would have been someone else. If I might be frank?”
“If you like.”
“There had been many difficulties with my youngest son. He was a smart, sweet boy, which you may find difficult to believe. But he bore the curse of drink, something his late father shared with the youth, although Andrew had tamed that beast. After many wild years that, frankly, took considerable forbearance from me, my late husband gave up drink. He had achieved a certain respectability that went with the wealth he accumulated and he wanted to maintain both.”
“I see.”
Her husband’s reputation had been for building and maintaining his cattle ranch with beef rustled from Mexico. But under the circumstances, York let that pass.
“Make no mistake,” she said, chin high, “I will mourn my son. I will cherish his memory and, as mothers do, sweep aside his failings into some untended, rarely visited corner of my memory. But I hold you in no way responsible.”
“Very gracious of you, ma’am.”
Her smile was sad but it was indeed a smile. “Am I so much older than you? Must it be ‘ma’am’? You haven’t seen forty yet, and if I have, it’s not yet retreated into the distance.”
“If I am not out of line saying so,” York said carefully, “in this hacienda you are the image of the graceful señoritas who must once have dwelled here.”
“You have a poetic way,” she said, “for a gunfighter.”
Shoot-Out at Sugar Creek (A Caleb York Western Book 6) Page 3
