Shoot-Out at Sugar Creek (A Caleb York Western Book 6)

by Mickey Spillane

Parker was watching the barber with faint amusement; clearly he knew what was coming.

  Hardy dipped his hand into a coat pocket and placed what he’d withdrawn on the linen tablecloth, near York—a shield-type badge.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” York said, tapping the tin star on his gray shirt, “but what I have will do.”

  “I’m not suggesting a trade,” the mayor said, a lilt in his already high voice. “This is an addition.”

  A lagniappe?

  The mayor was saying, “You need not wear it, or you may choose to instead . . . swap them out, depending on the occasion. The situation.”

  Parker’s amusement had faded. “Let’s not be coy, Jasper. Tell Caleb what you have in mind. Share what it is that you have in mind for him.”

  The little mayor folded his hands. “As you may know, I have a certain . . . influence with the Territorial government in Santa Fe.”

  Parker said to York, “Jasper’s sister is married to the governor’s brother.”

  York grinned at this revelation, which had somehow been kept from him. He’d often wondered how it was the undersized barber had come to hold the political reins in Trinidad. It couldn’t be good grooming entirely.

  “Our Citizens Committee,” the mayor said, “will henceforth be known as the City Council. I have been appointed mayor for a five-year term, after which we will have our first elections.”

  That was a savvy play for both the mayor and the governor—Trinidad would have its growth spurt in the next five years. Fortunes could be made. A little man could be a king, at least for five years.

  “That badge,” the mayor said, pointing to the silver shield, “identifies you as marshal of Trinidad.”

  Indeed it was engraved MARSHAL.

  “I prefer,” Caleb said, openly skeptical, “being county sheriff.”

  With the tax collecting, it paid better.

  “You will still be sheriff, with a five-year term like mine,” Hardy said, his smile lifting the elaborate mustache, like curtains rising. “With a second paycheck, equal to the one you’re already receiving, and will continue to receive.”

  York squinted suspiciously at the diminutive politician. “What new responsibilities does this entail?”

  The mayor shrugged. “None. It’s the same job you’ve been doing. Of course, as Trinidad grows with the spur, and becomes a railhead for cattle—surely that industry will rebound, at least to a respectable degree—the scope of your responsibilities will grow.”

  That small army of men in blue with nightsticks of Parker’s marched into York’s mind. “I would need more staff.”

  “Certainly. Deputy Tulley has exceeded all of our expectations, but you will need good men. Officers. I assure you that the City Council will approve reasonable requests for additional personnel.”

  Their oyster stew arrived.

  They ate in relative silence, with occasional chitchat ensuing, but between the mayor and the banker only. York just put the food away at an easy pace, but his mind was galloping. The badge caught light from the high noon sun, glinting, winking, like the facets of a cut diamond.

  When their plates had been cleared, and the coffee cups refilled, York said, “I would want Tulley’s salary doubled, as well.”

  “Done,” the mayor said. “And then there’s the matter of the house here in town, construction of which was already under way when the blizzards struck.”

  “The use of which is mine while I’m in office.”

  Hardy shook his head. “No, Sheriff. It will be yours free and clear. The deed will be signed over to you. We ask only one thing.”

  “And what is that?”

  “No further talk from you of San Diego and the Pinks. You will sign a contract and make a commitment to Trinidad.” The mayor pushed away from the table. “Well, I have to get back to my customers. Time and tonsorial needs wait for no man.” He stood—not tall, but stood. “May I leave the badge?”

  York nodded.

  The mayor rushed over for his hat and went quickly out, leaving no time for the expression of second thoughts.

  Parker finished his coffee. His cigar had long since gone out and resided rather sadly in a Trinidad House glass ash tray.

  “Well,” the banker said. “You seem to have selected your option.”

  “I seem to.”

  “No doubt Miss Cullen will be pleased. She’s gone to some lengths to keep you away from that position with the Pinkertons in San Diego.” The mayor pushed away and rose. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some legal matters to discuss with Mr. Curtis.”

  Arlen Curtis was the attorney who represented both York and Parker in the various train station dealings.

  “Give him my regards,” York said reflexively.

  The banker nodded, signed the check to his room, and left.

  A few minutes later, shaded by wooden awnings, York was heading up the boardwalk to the jailhouse. The street no longer wore its usual layer of sand, brought in from the nearby Purgatory River, to keep the dust down; the snow had swallowed up, and carried off, much of that sand, and the damp ground it left behind turned hard and rutted, not yet given to dust.

  A handful of women in gingham and calico were out strolling along shopping, and men in work attire whether farm or town were occasionally going in and coming out of businesses. This small-town world—with its hardware store, apothecary, mercantile store, bank, telegraph office, saddle shop, and single saloon—had been easy enough to supervise where keeping the peace went. But as Trinidad grew, so would his obligations.

  Of course, so would his paycheck—paychecks—and his staff would consist of more than one eccentric, reformed desert rat. He shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, not that he was inclined to look any horse in the mouth. Something was unsettling him, though.

  Maybe it was just change.

  And change was coming. It was something you couldn’t ride around, and you couldn’t jump over it, either. Maybe . . . maybe . . . you could tame it, the way the right lawman could an unruly town.

  Someone was sitting on the bench out front of the jail—Bill Jackson, the cowhand born a Mississippi slave who Willa hired on as her foreman. York had spoken to him a few times, just in passing, and knew he had a reputation among his men as hard but fair.

  Jackson got to his feet as York approached, and doffed his sombrero. He was near tall as York, his hair cropped short, his features finely carved, set off by a horseshoe mustache; he wore a faded blue army shirt, a bright red-and-white bandanna knotted at his neck, chaps over denim pants, boots with spurs, and a waist-slung bandolier with a .38 Colt Lightning revolver.

  Holding his sombrero in both hands, a frowning Jackson asked, “Might I have a word, sir?” It was “suh,” as the black man had brought his Mississippi accent along when he came West.

  “Certainly, Mr. Jackson. Have you a problem?”

  Dark eyes in deep sockets went tight. “It’s Miz Cullen has the problem. They’s some rough fellers gathered at Sugar Creek. They is heeled to the hilt, Sheriff.”

  “The creek runs through Circle G land.”

  “That it does. But they’s always been an understandin’ that the river and the creek was fair game for any herd.”

  “That was the understanding with the previous owners.”

  Jackson nodded, but his frown remained. “That understandin’ went two ways. If the creek was dry any given year, they was welcome to water their cows in the Purgatory, where it run through Bar-O range.”

  “Right. But the creek isn’t dry this year. And the Purgatory’s fouled.”

  Jackson let out a grunt of a sigh. “Nobody knows that better than I, Sheriff. We’ve maybe a third of our boys draggin’ dead stinkin’ steers outta that river. Pilin’ ’em, burnin’ ’em. Jobs don’t come much worse. We’re doin’ our best to clear the Purg, and by next season those waters should be runnin’ nice and clean and clear again. But that’s a long ways off.”

  York pushed his hat back. “That underst
anding you spoke of, Mr. Jackson—as far as I know, there’s nothing on paper. I would like to help, but the law seems to be with Victoria Hammond.”

  Eyebrows rose. “A thing like this can get out of hand, Sheriff. I was in the thick of things down Lincoln County way, some while back. Shootin’ lasted for years and many a life was lost.”

  The Lincoln County War between rival cattle barons raged from ’78 through ’81. Among other things, it had made a name for both Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett.

  “The best solution,” York said, “is for Miss Cullen and Mrs. Hammond to come to mutually agreeable terms.”

  Hell, York thought. I’m already sounding like a citified official.

  Jackson said acidly, “The only terms that female hell spawn might agree to is Miz Cullen sellin’ out. Sheriff . . . you and Miz Cullen have friendly relations.”

  York decided the man meant nothing scurrilous about that.

  The foreman’s earnestness was almost painful to hear. “Could you tell the Hammond woman that if her rough boys go shootin’ freely at the Cullen cowhands . . . or shoot their steers if they start to watering ’em . . . that you’ll throw their backsides behind bars?” He jerked a thumb at the jailhouse. “Or send them straight to hell, with that storied pistol of yorn, which is fine with me.”

  “I thought you wanted to avoid trouble. Or are you just fine with me having trouble?”

  “Meaning no disrespect, it’s what you’re paid for, Sheriff. These ain’t cowpunchers of the normal variety. These is that rabble what wears the rattlesnake hatband.”

  The riffraff remainder of the Arizona rustlers, the Cowboys.

  Jackson was frowning again, desperation coming into his voice . . . and an edge. “Talk sense with that witch out to the Circle G, Sheriff. Elseways, I will have to enlist gunhands myself to match them bastards bullet for bullet.”

  York raised a cautionary palm. “Easy now, Mr. Jackson. This jail can hold all sorts.”

  “Oh, we won’t draw first blood, Sheriff. We won’t have to.” He slammed the sombrero on. It drooped in front, from being tugged to keep out the sun riding herd. “I hoped you was good enough friends with Miz Cullen to try and head this thing off. Don’t look that way.”

  And the foreman strode off, steaming, spurs jangling.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Several days later, two sessions of highly unusual job interviews were held in the same meeting room at the rear of the Imperial Saloon in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Unbeknownst to the two men considering candidates for their respective female boss’s employ, the first session was conducted at ten in the morning, the other at two in the afternoon, for the convenience of their host, Vicente Silva.

  In Las Vegas, pop. 4000, men desiring entertainment in the form of gambling, drinking, and painted ladies had numerous choices; but the Imperial on the plaza limited itself to the first two of those options—men desiring loose women would have to look elsewhere.

  Owner Silva was, after all, a well-respected, upright entrepreneur who gave to his church and to charity, and a gracious, impressive presence at the Imperial. His attire impeccable, his beard well trimmed, this handsome, mannerly, intelligent man welcomed silver and copper miners, cattle and sheep ranchers, beef and wool buyers, merchants, and bankers to the most popular drinking establishment in San Miguel County.

  From the endless mahogany bar in the saloon itself to the second-floor casino, the Imperial was both well appointed and accommodating, the tall, solidly built host as affable as he was prosperous. What the respectable citizens of Las Vegas did not know (but which certain less respectable ones did) was that Silva was the head of the Forty Bandits, who specialized in murder, thievery, and rustling, as well as driving out settlers through arson, violence, and fence cutting, in an effort to restore common pastures.

  But even members of his gang were unaware that their imposing boss had been a criminal since he was twenty; that back in Wyoming, he had run off with a railroad laborer’s wife, leaving in his wake her murdered husband, buried with chest slashed and head cut off.

  So Silva was neither offended nor surprised when Clay Colman ambled into the Imperial to ask the proprietor if he could spare some top gunhands from the White Caps, as Silva’s gang was also known—men with nerve and killing ways.

  Colman had ridden with the Bandits himself for a while, a few years back. Now the sometime rustler was ramrod at the Circle G, which was honest work of a sort, keeping in mind the dishonest reputation of the new owner, the widow Hammond, said to be as beautiful as she was relentless.

  The two men stood at one end of the bar with no one—not even the bartender who’d served the blond cowboy a beer—within earshot.

  His silver-rattlesnake-banded black hat pushed back cockily on his head, Colman said, “Miz Hammond will pay top dollar.”

  “Spell it out.”

  “Twenty-five a week.” He paused for a gulp of beer. Swallowed, and said, “Bonus money if things get dicey.”

  Twenty-five a month was decent cowboy money. Forty, if the kind of work the Bandits did was involved.

  Silva asked, seeming unimpressed, “How long?”

  “One month’s work anyways, Mr. Silva. More maybe, but not less.”

  “Ten percent of each man’s pay,” Silva said. “On top of that twenty-five. First month’s worth in advance.”

  Colman shrugged. “Fair enough.”

  Silva would take another ten from the men, as well; but Colman didn’t need to know that.

  The ramrod raised a forefinger. “I’ll want to talk to each, Mr. Silva. Size ’em up.”

  “My opinion’s not good enough for you, Clay?”

  He grinned. “Your opinion’s what makes ’em worth considerin’. But I don’t buy a horse without a look at the teeth.”

  “So then you want candidates. Prospects.”

  “I want guns, Mr. Silva. I want bad men I can trust.”

  Silva smiled, not broadly but meaningfully. “A scarce commodity. But I can deliver. Take a room at the Plaza Hotel. I’ll have applicants for you here at ten tomorrow morning.”

  Not long after Clay Colman had gone out, another familiar face from the past presented itself, that of a striking black cowpoke in an oversize sombrero, its brim pushed up in front. The newcomer came directly over to where Silva was still at the unpopulated end of the bar. The cowboy offered his hand and the two men shook.

  Silva had tried to enlist Bill Jackson for the Bandits several years ago and got nowhere—this was a tough, skilled cattleman, hampered by an honest streak.

  “Nice to see you, Bill,” Silva said. “That job offer is still open, if that’s what brings you by.”

  “Thank you, no, señor,” the black cowhand said. “I’m foreman down at the Bar-O now.”

  Two Trinidad ramrods in one afternoon?

  “Reason I’m here,” Jackson said, “is to line up some pistoleros. Three, maybe four.”

  And all at once it made sense to Silva—he’d got word that the Hammond woman was buying up smaller spreads south of Las Vegas, and naturally she would turn her greedy eyes on the Cullen place. Perhaps a cattle war was brewing, although Colman had spoken of something short term.

  Wishful thinking?

  Silva ordered up a beer for Jackson, nothing for himself.

  “I might be able to spare some talent from my stable,” Silva said, as Jackson sipped the cold brew. “For the right price.”

  “Cullen gal pays good,” Jackson said. “She’s got her late daddy’s blood runnin’ in her. You name a fair rate and she’ll bite.”

  “A hundred a month, plus ten percent surcharge for my trouble.”

  Jackson’s eyebrows went up. “Might be more than a month.”

  “Twenty-five a week’s the rate, hundred-dollar minimum. You want me to pick ’em?”

  “Meanin’ no offense, Mr. Silva, I’d like a look at the cut of their jib myself. Like to talk to each man on his lonesome.”

  “You don’t find shootists among the Su
nday school crowd.”

  “I know. Make ’em hard, but men I can trust.”

  “You may depend on it.” Silva gestured toward the street. “Galinas Hotel over in the settlement takes your kind, Mr. Jackson. Be here tomorrow afternoon, 2 p.m. I’ll have potential recruits available.”

  * * *

  The meeting room at the rear of the Imperial Saloon was, unlike the saloon itself and its gambling rooms, nothing fancy. Banquet tables were pushed back against the walls and, in the middle of the otherwise naked room, a wooden card table with one chair, facing the door, had been provided for the interview process.

  Colman took the chair.

  Silva sent in a man Colman recognized.

  Dave Carson was of average size, a little bigger than most cowboys, a breed that ran runty, since ranchers hired on smaller hands to make it easier on the horses.

  Carson stood on the other side of the card table. He wore a nice if frayed dark suit with a vest and no tie with a collarless shirt, his pale yellow hat worn with the brim up. His eyes were dark and close-set and he wore a mustache on an otherwise boyish face. A Colt revolver rode high on his right hip—looked like a Thunderer .41 to Colman.

  Dave took off his hat and smiled shyly. “How you been, Colman? Hear you’re ramrod down Circle G way.”

  “I am.”

  “And Mr. Silva says you’re hirin’. But I ain’t that big on cowboyin’ no more.”

  “Not lookin’ for that. I got plenty of cowpunchers. I need fellas handy with a six-gun. Boys not fearful of bullets flyin’ in either direction.”

  Dave made a face and shrugged. “I kilt four one night.”

  “In one night? Do tell.”

  The boyish killer nodded. “I was a deputy marshal in Dodge at the time. Dance hall there, some of the Henry cowpokes was scarin’ the women and roughin’ up the men. I come in with my boss and one of them Henry boys shot the marshal, dead as yesterday. I start in shootin’ them. Didn’t last long. But the town fired me. Wouldn’t you know it?”

  “Why did they fire you?”

  He made another face. “One of the four I kilt weren’t one of the Henry boys. Just some fool who ran for the back door when the shootin’ started and I miscalculated.”