“I do.”
“Have you ever gone into a game that you knew would last a while? Where players with bankrolls had come from far and wide, and the intention was to play through the night? Perhaps even to play till one winner was left standing? Or perhaps I should say sitting.”
“I have.”
“So a game like that has to be played one round at a time, carefully, skillfully, strategically. You have to read the other players. You have to know how they think. You have to know their ‘tells.’ ”
He grinned. “Miz Hammond . . . you never played poker in your life.”
“Oh but I did. In my father’s saloon on the Barbary Coast. He taught me well. He would bring me into a game when I was, oh, thirteen, fourteen? And some of the men would howl with laughter, and others would just howl, but it was my father’s joint and if they wanted to play, it was house rules. You know about house rules, Clay?”
“I do.”
“So it was a novelty, having a child playing poker in a den of iniquity. Just a young lass fiddling with those colored chips, merely another game like hopscotch or marbles. Only I would win. Win big. And the funny thing, Clay? Those men almost always loved it. Of course, I was a pretty thing. Charming. Innocent.”
“I bet you were.” He emphasized “were” perhaps a little too much for her liking.
“My point is,” Victoria said, “we will deal with Caleb York later. After he’s ceased to be of use to us.”
To me.
Colman asked, “How will he be of use to us?”
Victoria rose, curled a finger at him to follow her. They stood at the edge of the veranda by a low-slung white rail.
She spoke softly now. Not that she thought someone might overhear, but . . . still, she spoke softly. “You say you saw Willa Cullen in town? Did you ask around about her?”
“A little.”
They were standing close.
She asked, “What did you learn?”
“Cullen gal and York are friendly. Of course, he’s friendly with that fancy woman that runs the Victory, too.” He shook his head. “I don’t get what they see in him.”
She did.
Victoria said, “I’ve already asked Caleb to speak to Willa Cullen on my behalf.”
“ ‘Caleb,’ is it? Will he do that?”
She nodded confidently. “I believe so. At least he’ll tell her about my hope to buy her spread, and that should at least cause sparks. Willa Cullen may not like having her . . . beau . . . delivering a message from . . .”
“Another woman?”
She laughed a little. “Yes. And should he be successful in getting Miss Cullen to meet with me, and encourage her to hear my offer for the Bar-O? She might not then be so grateful to her precious Caleb York. Because I doubt she will appreciate the modest price I’m prepared to pay.”
“Because of Sugar Creek.”
“Because of Sugar Creek.” She smiled toward the trees. “The only stream from the Purgatory River that hasn’t been fouled by cattle dying in it. And I include the Purgatory itself.”
She could smell the stream from here. Fresh. Unspoiled.
The ramrod nodded toward those trees. “We’re already camped there. You know that. Ready to defend your property.”
“Yes, and your efforts are satisfactory thus far. But with a man like York around, we need some insurance. I know you’ve assembled some of your . . . compatriots from the old Arizona days. But rustlers . . . forgive my frankness . . . rustlers who can handle a firearm are not enough. Caleb York—you said it yourself—is a killer.”
“He’s that,” Colman admitted.
Her laugh was rueful. “They’re already writing dime novels about his ‘exploits’ in Trinidad. How he gunned down Harry Gauge, the crooked sheriff whose ranch this once was. How he massacred the Rhomer boys in the street, and sent the Preacherman to hell, and that ghost town with the hotel for outlaws? He shut it down and left nobody or anything standing. He’s a one-man army.”
Colman seemed to be working at being unimpressed. “Well, he does have a deputy.”
She laughed once. “My understanding is his deputy’s an old rummy.”
“An old rummy with a hair-trigger temper and the same kind of finger on a scattergun.” He looked at her with a nasty smile. “But even the great Caleb York lets his guard down now and again. They killed Wild Bill, didn’t they?”
“Oh, and how did you and your friends do with Wyatt Earp?”
His chin jutted. “His brother Morgan bought it.”
“Virgil Earp’s still a lawman, I understand. And Wyatt himself is alive and well. Now, now . . . I don’t mean to be hard on you, Claymore. You’re a good boy. A good man. But I would feel more secure if you took on some really bad men. Bravos, we called them in San Francisco. I mean outright shootists.”
He nodded. “Pistoleros can be found.”
She raised a hard, tiny fist. “Yes, yes, any one of whom could likely handle York head-on, or at least from ambush. . . but ambushes can fail, and we need more than one ace in our poker hand, don’t we? To bet with confidence?”
He frowned, almost as if he were holding back tears. “I can take him out, Miz Hammond. You can leave it to me. I could do it right now! Today!”
She held up a hand. “I know. I know. But this is a game that’s going to go for a while, remember? Into the night and on to the next day and . . . who can say? For now I want to see how thoroughly I can get Caleb York to do my bidding, as he tries to make up for the tragedy he visited upon me. Only when I have wrung every last drop of guilt and usefulness from him will I turn to you . . . my loyal ramrod . . . my strong, hard man . . . to take him out. To rid the world of the pestilence that is Caleb York.”
“Damn right,” he said.
“Then I’ll use my new influence in the county to put a sheriff in office who I can really control.”
He grinned. “Bought and paid for. The best kind.”
She was almost whispering. “Now. Here’s what I want you to do. Go to Las Vegas and find me some thoroughly reprehensible but highly skilled hired guns.”
“Happy to.”
Her lips neared his ear. “And tonight . . . well, why don’t you sleep in the guest room tonight?”
“Not on the banks by Sugar Creek with my boys?”
She shook her head and the thick hanging curls came along for the ride. “No. Your segundo, Luis, will come fetch you if you’re needed. The game is in early rounds yet, so nothing will likely happen. But, tonight, in your bed, see if you can come up with three ways to kill Caleb York. Three plans that you feel confident in executing. And bring them to me. And we’ll talk them over.”
“First thing tomorrow?”
She was looking right at him now; the firs seemed to be leaning a little, trying to hear. “No, no. Must I spell it out? Midnight?”
Byers and the help slept in the west wing of the house, and Victoria slept in the east wing. The guest room was just down the hall from her. The ramrod knew the way, but also knew he had to wait to be invited.
“Midnight . . . Victoria,” he said.
She rested a hand on his shoulder. “Three ways to kill Caleb York. Think of them as . . . sweet nothings.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The day after he and Willa Cullen enjoyed a wonderful afternoon together that had ended at an unfortunate impasse, Caleb York strolled into the hotel dining room, where he hung his hat on a wall peg and glanced around.
He’d been asked to meet with his friend and business partner, Raymond L. Parker, and Trinidad’s mayor, Jasper P. Hardy. They had requested the confab for what purpose York did not know. But the sheriff was first to arrive.
The dining room at the Trinidad House Hotel, where York kept a room at the city’s expense, had its usual noontime crowd of shop owners, businessmen traveling through, and a rancher or two. Clerks and other hired workers dined at the café, while ranch hands in town for whatever reason often partook of the Victory Saloon’s free lunch, wh
ere an array of salted items kept them thirsty. The hotel dining room’s patronage, on the other hand, was as close to elite as this town of three hundred or so in the middle of nowhere could manage.
While York did not regard himself as one of the prosperous class, he did view himself as a professional man. His black coat and trousers and string tie represented the unofficial uniform. Still, even after all these months, he did not feel at home in the Trinidad House dining room, with its dark wood, fancy chairs, linen tablecloths, fine place settings, and cut-glass chandeliers.
Nonetheless, he selected his regular table by the window. He told himself this was to enable him to keep an eye on things on the street; but he also meant to be seen by the successful men who dined here regularly. Since he’d had the surprise—a pleasant one, but a surprise just the same—of being handsomely remembered in George Cullen’s will, Caleb York had come to see Trinidad as more than just a bump in the road he’d stumbled over last year.
His sheriff post had been thrust upon him, after he somewhat inadvertently “cleaned up the town” of crooked Sheriff Harry Gauge and his bunch. In the process he’d got his head turned by Willa Cullen, and York and her father George became cronies. Suddenly the detective job waiting for him in San Diego with the Pinkertons seemed to recede in the distance, as if he were perhaps riding off in the wrong direction.
York had insisted that he was only filling the sheriff slot temporarily, but the town fathers had kept throwing money and perquisites at him. The Citizens Committee, who he worked for, seemed to view as a boon to the community the very reputation as a gunfighter that York himself considered a burden.
Coffee was delivered to him automatically, and he sipped the wonderful stuff—any opportunity to sample something other than the bilge his deputy concocted was seized upon. Shortly, Raymond Parker breezed through the handsome lobby into this impressive dining room in what was otherwise a very average hotel.
The tall, white-haired, white-mustached banker, in his early fifties, wore his prosperity as casually and confidently as York did his .44 (not strapped down at the moment, its holstered nose pointed at the parquet floor). Parker’s double-breasted gray trimmed-black Newmarket coat, lighter gray waistcoat, and darker gray trousers were set off by the almost absurdly Western touch of a broad-brimmed gray Stetson.
But Parker had a right to wear that hat. No Eastern dude, he had been George Cullen’s partner—they had established the Bar-O together—and sold out due to problems with their late third partner, Burt O’Malley, the “O” in Bar-O. Parker had yearned for the big city anyway, and the money he took out of the ranch soon found its way into budding businesses all across the Southwest. Today the man owned restaurants, hotels, and several banks, including Trinidad’s.
York rose. The two men shook hands, exchanged smiles and greetings. Parker had been in town a little over a week, but this was the first time the two had sat down together.
“The mayor will join us,” Parker said, “in a quarter of an hour. I thought, beforehand, it would be best if you and I took a few minutes alone.”
A waiter in black livery and an apron arrived just then and York told him to return when the third member of their party arrived.
York eyed his friend with care. “Raymond, is there a problem? With construction, perhaps?”
The banker’s smile was knowing. “No. Not in any major way. The winter has postponed things a bit, is all.”
He lighted up a plump cigar with a safety match, then waved it out. That was no nickel smoke, either—one of those Cubans that set you back two bits.
Parker went on: “The land is too damn soggy for proper building to begin—not a typical problem in this part of the world. But construction will start soon.”
“Good.”
George Cullen had left York half an acre of land at the east end of town, to the rear of the livery stable. Cullen had apparently left York the bequest out of appreciation for the stranger’s town taming. And perhaps also to encourage him to stay around Trinidad and marry daughter Willa.
Now Parker was funding a train station on that parcel, with a spur between Trinidad and Las Vegas, New Mexico, coming courtesy of the Santa Fe Railroad.
Parker leaned forward; he kept his voice down. “What I want to discuss, Caleb, briefly . . . is your options.”
“I’m listening,” York said.
The banker gestured with the cigar between his fingers. “You’re in an enviable position, my friend. I needn’t remind you that we are equal partners who will be receiving handsome monthly fees from both the Santa Fe and the city of Trinidad. And among your options . . . if I may delicately tread into your personal business . . .”
“Can I stop you?”
“You can. I do not mean to intrude in your . . . affairs.”
York didn’t like the sound of that, but he said, “Go on.”
“One option is to bolster that young woman of yours in rebuilding her father’s ranching business. You’ll have money to help her, after all.” He poked the air with the cigar. “You told me once that you came from farming stock, but also that you’d sooner be dead than plow. But you could plow money into her spread, and help run the place, without fixing a fence post or punching a cow or digging up a turnip out of the ground, for that matter.”
“Turn in my badge and gun for a ledger book.”
Parker tossed a hand in the air. “Frankly, yes. You’ll be in a position to invest in businesses here in town, and you’ll want to keep an eye on them. You’ll learn about every one of them and soon be advising the proprietors as to what they’re buying and what they’re selling.”
“Sounds like a dream. The kind you wake up from in a cold sweat.”
Parker shrugged. “Or . . . you can hang onto that badge and gun. I happen to know the mayor will be trying to convince you of doing just that. Now, times are changing. There’s no doubt of that. And in some respects, the Wild West will soon exist only in memory and in Buffalo Bill Cody’s circus.”
“Which is why,” York reminded the banker, “I was on my way to San Diego.”
“A big modern city, yes, where your detective skills would be needed no matter what changes God and Man might visit upon us. But you, Caleb, are in a unique situation.”
“Am I.” He had the distinct feeling he was being sold something—snake oil perhaps—though he wasn’t sure just what that something might be. But Parker had never been one to take advantage—even giving advice came rare from the man.
“In the next few years,” Parker said, glancing out the window between hazy curtains at a dusty street, “this town will be inundated not only with new business but the old businesses that come with it: saloons, brothels, thieving, killing. The Victory will have rivals, and Miss Rita Filley’s good efforts to drive prostitution out from under her roof will come up against the efforts of far less scrupulous entrepreneurs. Men with guns and badges will most definitely still be needed.”
“That’s more of the same, not changin’ times.”
Parker raised a palm, as if balancing some invisible object. “Times will change for the better and for the worse, Caleb. If you stay a lawman, in a town that booms, you’ll be more of a police chief than a sheriff or marshal, whatever term they may hang on you. And you’ll have a staff consisting of far more than the redoubtable Deputy Tulley.”
The waiter came over and refilled their coffee cups.
York drank from his. “If I am to keep at the lawing, Raymond, I mean to make of it a profession—like a doctor, a lawyer.”
“And well you should. After all, think of the business you bring to both!” A grin bristled the white mustache. “Caleb, I have no opinion in this other than a desire for what’s best for my business partner . . . my friend.”
“I appreciate that.”
Again the banker shrugged. “You will soon be a man of means. If you choose to join that sweet girl on her ranch with her dream of making her dead father happy, God bless you. If you choose to retire from enfor
cing the law and lean back and count the money coming in, there’s no shame in that either—it will bring its own responsibilities.”
Now Parker leaned in, eyes narrowing shrewdly.
“But if you stay a lawman, Caleb, in this part of the country? You may be able to practice your profession and even manage not to get killed doing it.”
“Doesn’t that sound promising.”
“You’ll have a staff of your own experienced men, probably in blue uniforms with nightsticks, to take the chances for you. You can sit at your desk. You can ride in parades and cut the ribbons on businesses, as the famous Southwestern lawman who helped tame the West.”
York frowned. “A tourist attraction.”
“Yes, and why not? It would be a small but important part of who you are. Who you’ll be. Bill Cody goes around playing himself in a show. That’s fine for him—he was always something of a fraud anyway. But Caleb York? People can point to him and say, ‘That’s him! That’s the legend!’ ”
“Do you really think I care about that?”
Parker shook his head soundly. “No. In New Orleans they call it a lagniappe. It’s just something you bring along, something extra—the way those who hire you throw in perquisites.”
In the double doorway between the lobby and the dining room, the mayor of Trinidad appeared. Jasper Hardy was also the town barber and York suspected the man’s good grooming had encouraged his appointment by the Citizens Committee—elections weren’t being held yet in Trinidad.
The mayor, perhaps forty, was small and slight but dignified in his gray frock coat, his black slicked-back hair and elaborate handlebar mustache a splendid advertisement for his tonsorial parlor. He hung up his derby on a wall peg and paused to nod at the rest of his already seated party at the table by the window.
They nodded back, and the mayor sat next to the banker. The waiter materialized and took their order—everyone had oyster stew, the specialty of the house.
“I have something for you, Sheriff,” the mayor said in his reedy tenor, “which I hope will please you. Which I hope you will accept.”
Shoot-Out at Sugar Creek (A Caleb York Western Book 6) Page 6
