York was heading toward the door. “You did good, Deputy. Hold down the fort.”
Tulley’s smile had a surprising number of teeth left in it. “Don’t I always? We ain’t been raided yet.”
Always a first time, York thought grimly. Especially if a range war is brewing . . .
The day was warm enough that York decided to leave his black frock coat behind, vest too, and left the office tugging his hat on and with his sheriff’s badge pinned to his gray shirt with the pearl buttons. The badge was something he wanted seen by the woman he was calling on, and by anybody working for her. Same went for his Colt revolver.
York rode the twenty minutes or so out to the Circle G, where he again found the corral empty and the handful of frame buildings showing no sign of life. The cowhands were somewhere—still out on the range dealing with stinking dead cattle and skinny live ones, maybe.
Or possibly beyond that stand of firs in back of the ranch house, on the banks of Sugar Creek, armed and ready....
As York tied the dappled gray gelding up at the hitching rail, the Hammond woman’s portly bookkeeper—his gray suit about the same color as his handlebar mustache—came down the two steps from the low-riding porch.
“Mr. Byers,” York said.
“Sheriff,” Byers said pleasantly, though his eyes crinkled suspiciously. “The mistress is out on the patio. If you’ll wait here, I’ll announce you.”
Seemed to be no question that he’d be received.
Soon York—hat in hand, .44 on his hip—was again being shown through the house, with its framed western landscapes, dark Spanish furnishings, and colorful Mexican carpets. French doors in the living room opened onto a flagstone courtyard with a small gurgling fountain at its center, potted plants hugging the walls on the periphery, and a eucalyptus tree providing shade in one corner.
Beneath that tree, in an oak and saddle-leather armchair with a footstool she wasn’t using, sat Victoria Hammond, reading a book, its cover the same brown as the chair, its title The Portrait of a Lady.
Byers deposited York there, then nodded and was gone.
As York approached, his hostess smiled, dog-eared the corner of the page she was on, and closed the volume. “Are you familiar with Henry James, Sheriff York?”
Victoria Hammond wore a white high-collar, button-down blouse and long black skirt—half of her, at least, was still in mourning.
“Never met the man,” York said.
“I refer to the author.” She put the book down on a small table at her right hand. “Perhaps you’re not a reader.”
She gestured to the footstool for him to sit, and he did, pulling it around to one side, though of course that still put her over him. The big dark eyes were trained down on him, as if the teacher were hoping against hope to get a good response from a slow student.
“Not a bookworm, no,” York admitted. “And I’m more an H. Rider Haggard man myself. Robert Louis Stevenson comes up with some good tales. You familiar with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”
She seemed amused. “I can’t say that I am.”
“Well, it’s a pretty good yarn. Don’t read it ’fore bedtime, though.”
Her eyebrows rose a bit. “Could I offer you something to drink?”
“Got a mite dry riding out here. Some water, maybe?”
“I’m partial to lemonade. Would you like a glass?”
His last glass of that stuff had been at Willa’s.
“Kind of you,” he said.
A pretty young Mexican señorita in red-trimmed white appeared magically and Victoria said, “Dos limonada,” and the serving girl nodded and disappeared.
Victoria Hammond’s luminous, almost ebony eyes were still appraising him, her arms folded beneath the generous shelf of her breasts. “What brings you by the Circle G this afternoon, Sheriff?”
He sat there awkwardly, knees in the air, hat between his legs. “Well, first, my apologies for not attending your son’s services. I thought under the circumstances, it . . . uh, wouldn’t be appropriate.”
She waved that off. “Nor are apologies necessary, Caleb. Instinctively, you knew that paying respects under, as you say, such circumstances might have provided more pain than succor. I appreciate your sensitivity.”
He risked only a corner of a smile. “That’s not something I’m often accused of, Mrs. Hammond.”
Her smile took no such precaution. “Please. I’ve taken the liberty of calling you by your Christian name. Mine is Victoria.”
The servant girl brought two clear glass cups with handles in which ice chips floated in pale yellow liquid. He thanked the girl, which the hostess did not, and sipped. Nicely tart. Like Willa’s.
Victoria’s chin lifted slightly. “So, Caleb—is this a social call? Are we to be friends now? I’m sure there are those who would find that unlikely. Or perhaps . . . as you say, not appropriate.”
On the footstool, he felt like a supplicant child. “I’m afraid it’s official, uh, Victoria. Or on the fringes of such, anyway.”
“How so?”
He jumped right in. “My deputy overheard some cowboys—not from the Circle G—saying both you and Willa Cullen have hired on men with guns.”
She sipped the cool liquid. Smiled. The smile was tart, too. “Don’t most men in this part of the world have guns? With so many dangerous . . . creatures afoot, even a female of the species might be well served to know her way around a firearm. Which, frankly, I do.”
“I’m not surprised. Nor do I think it unwise. But what I’m talking about, Victoria, are hired guns. Killers.”
She nodded toward the firearm at his side, which as he perched on the stool was only staying in its holster because the weapon was strapped in.
“You wear a gun, Caleb,” she said. “You have killed. In fact, you’re famous for it.”
“I’m not proud of the fact.” He shook his head. “But I’ve never been one of these shootists for hire.”
Both dark eyebrows went up. “Why, was it a hobby for you?”
He chuckled, knowing he was being mocked, if gently. “No, ma’am. I was paid by Wells Fargo. Now I’m paid by taxpayers like yourself. And the township of Trinidad.”
“Ah. Then, you are a hired gun.”
“But not a gun who hires out to just anyone.”
“I don’t care to think of myself as just anyone, Caleb. She sat forward, casting her dark gaze down on him as if lining up a shot. “But you are definitely . . . shall we say . . . on target? When you point out that I am a taxpayer, that is. And, of course, those taxes pay you to uphold the law. Am I not right?”
“That’s right.”
She gestured gracefully with an open hand. “And I have hired some men known for their skill and their daring with pistols and rifles. Many were once soldiers. As, I believe, you were, once upon a time.”
“I was, Victoria. But it was no fairy tale.”
Her tone was casual, though her expression was not. “You are, I believe, aware of the water rights disagreement between Miss Cullen and myself.”
“I am.”
“Miss Cullen feels, I understand, that certain agreements between neighboring ranchers, made long ago and never formalized, should be honored by the new owner of the Circle G, who happens to be me. Clean, clear water is at this moment a scarcity in these parts. At a premium, you might say. Sugar Creek runs through my land. It’s near her property, yes . . . but it cuts through mine alone.”
He raised palms of surrender. “This sounds like something you two should sit down and work out. Or law book men who represent you. It doesn’t have to come to guns.”
Her smile looked sad, or tried to. “Ah, but Caleb—you said it yourself. She has hired her own gunmen. Her own ‘soldiers.’ That is her prerogative, of course. Perhaps she wants such men merely to guard her land—to keep her scrawny, barely breathing livestock from being ‘rustled,’ as they say. Or perhaps she fears the Apaches will rise up again and her home must be protected.”
“
You and I both know neither is likely.”
The teacher lifted a scolding forefinger. “That, Caleb, is my point. The Cullen girl has assembled this little army solely to invade the Circle G.” She shrugged rather grandly. “So I have every right to assemble an army of my own. I have a right, a duty, to defend myself and my property. Stand your ground is a privilege, even a golden rule here in the Southwest. You know it, and I know it.”
What could he say to that?
He had another sip of the tart drink and stood. Deposited the glass on the little table. “Are you suggesting I stay out of this? Let the ‘armies’ fight it out?”
Now she was looking up at him. “Have you another suggestion?”
“I can’t say I do. I can only say I wish you two females would find some other way to work this thing out besides lettin’ bullets fly.”
He nodded to her and started out.
Then in a rustle of feminine fabric she was at his side and holding on to his arm. Under her long dress she may have been wearing boots that put her at his eye level like this, but there was no denying that, even so, for a female she was a tall drink of water.
Or maybe lemonade.
She said, “I have to disagree with you, Caleb. Because you’re clearly shirking your duty.”
Their eyes locked.
“My duty,” he said, “is to try and shut this powder-burning contest down before all of you wind up losers.”
Victoria shook her head gently, her eyes staying steady. She was near to him. “No. You were right first time.”
“Right how?”
“That I’m a taxpayer. Your side in this is with me.”
He frowned. “Willa Cullen is a taxpayer, too.”
“I don’t deny that. I’m sure she’s quite scrupulous in that regard. But if she crosses over into my property, and waters her cattle in my stream, without my say-so . . . without negotiating water rights, which I hold . . . your responsibility is to protect me and mine.”
The frown went deeper. “You expect me to back you up over Willa?”
“As long as you wear that badge I do, yes.” She came ever closer to him, face-to-face. She still smelled like lilacs, damn her. Her breasts were pressed against his chest and her nostrils flared and so did her eyes, like a horse rearing and begging to be broke.
“I would not insult you,” she said, “by offering you money. But I would be grateful. And I would find some way . . . to show it.”
Her face came up and her mouth found his. They were soft and supple, those full, sensual lips, and slowly moved with his, speaking to him silently, expressing an unmistakable yearning. His first reaction was surprise, and yet he didn’t draw away from her. He let her do what she wanted to, and then his arms went around her and held her even closer. When she drew away, just barely, he grabbed her and held her to him and kissed her again, harder. Almost savagely.
Then he pushed her away. “You don’t have to bribe me, woman. And I know just what I should do. What my responsibility is.”
Her head went back, her eyes looked down; even standing, she was somehow above him. “I’m within my rights, Caleb. I’m acting within the law.”
“I know.”
His heart was beating fast and he was offended and exhilarated, angry and delighted, and—as he left and moved through the house, past the servant girl—he was glad he hadn’t put his hat on, holding it before him just below the belt.
Outside, he leaned against his horse and considered what needed doing, and how. Byers came out after a while.
“Sheriff,” he said, approaching him. “Are you all right?”
York turned to the bookkeeper. “How far to where the Circle G men are camped?”
“Just through the stand of firs,” he said, gesturing that way. “About half a mile.”
“How far coming around along the creek, from the north?”
Byers shrugged. “Few miles.”
“And from the south?”
“Same.”
“Any idea how long it might take? I’m not that familiar with the lay of this land.”
The bookkeeper shook his head. “I’m no horseman. Be easier to walk it.”
“I’m going to leave my horse here.” York patted the animal and withdrew his Winchester 1873 from its saddle scabbard. “That acceptable, Mr. Byers?”
“I’m sure the mistress won’t mind. She’s a law-biding woman.”
That didn’t rate a response.
He walked around the hacienda-style ranch house and strode across the shallow backyard, the Winchester by its stock in his left hand, nose angled down. Then he was in the stand of firs, though it was more than just a stand really, more a patch of forest on gradually sloping ground.
Moving through, he had to step around one tall pine after another, as no path was there to help him. The process was serpentine, the journey a weaving one, but he felt a calm settle over him, after living so long in the midst of so much desert; it was soothing somehow to have his boots cracking dry brown needles and crunching fallen leaves, though the occasional outgrown root made the going bumpy.
Swords of sunlight cut through cool blue shadows, while birds called and pecked as smaller animals scurried and stopped and scurried some more. With the ground still damp from the winter, he could smell pine resin and leaves and loam and minty grass, as the rush of the stream up ahead made itself known and then became more and more dominant.
Then came the sound of men, and ruined it.
He paused where the pines gave way to a steeper grassy incline that fell a few feet to more green before the dramatic white of the sandy bank of Sugar Creek. Along the tree line, horses were tied up, their whinnies and neighing punctuating the flow of water. That bleached beach of perhaps five feet of width was despoiled by half a dozen cowboys milling, smoking, many with the heel of their hands on the butts of low-slung guns.
Closer to York, on the grass, were two campsites, separated by perhaps twelve feet, where wood was piled, awaiting a nighttime fire, not needed for many hours yet, the sun high and glinting off the nearby sand and shimmering on the gently rolling stream. Across the water was nothing but another ribbon of white with a rocky rise to scrubby trees. No one was over there, at the moment, not that could be seen anyway.
On this side, at least a dozen men were either sitting around the pair of cold campfires or just on their haunches on the grassy slope to the left and right of where York emerged. He’d seen plenty of them before, knew many by name. The Circle G, ever since the days when it was in the late Sheriff Harry Gauge’s hands, had been home to a rough damn bunch of cowhands—rabble and rustlers to a man.
Added in were the Arizona Cowboys who had been lately hired on—“cowboys” with a capital C, which might also have stood for Clanton. These survivors of the Tombstone ruckus had rustled and robbed and even now wore their trademark rattlesnake hatband—either a silver version some jeweler pounded out or an actual rattlesnake skin.
This bunch of dead-eyed, sneering back-shooters, added to the Gauge residue, constituted about the scruffiest collection of supposed ranch hands York had ever seen.
But then that was the West, wasn’t it? The Earps had been gamblers as well as guardians of the law, pimps and protectors of civilization, horse thieves and posse men after stagecoach robbers. Many considered Caleb York a killer as bad as any of the human flotsam and jetsam scattered about this white beach like the aftermath of a drunken bacchanal.
No, worse—York had killed more men in his time than any three of these lowlifes combined. Any four.
So who am I to talk? he thought.
With his Winchester gripped in his left hand, York stepped out from the trees and eased down the grassy slope, a couple dozen or so eyes fixing on him with the usual love bad men reserved for men wearing badges.
He nodded to a few, and they would pause but nod back, eyes narrow with suspicion, contempt, or both. A figure approached York, someone he did not recognize at first; then it came to him—Clay Colman, who
’d been suspected in a robbery that York investigated for Wells Fargo.
York had never quite got the goods on Colman, but had gunned down the other two suspects—a close shave, as they’d both pulled on him at the same time.
Colman was a good-looking, strapping son of a bitch, blond, blue-eyed, with sharp features and a black hat sporting, yes, a rattlesnake hatband. Genuine rattlesnake, at that.
“Mr. Colman,” York said. With a nod and a tight smile.
“Sheriff,” Colman said. With a nod and a tight smile.
Neither man even thought about shaking hands.
“I understand,” York said, “you’re the Circle G ramrod now.”
His smile was barely there. “I am. Miz Hammond is a hell of a boss, for a woman.”
York gave him a similar smile back. “From what I see, she’d make a hell of a boss for a man . . . though I don’t imagine anybody’d mistake her for one.”
“No. No indeed.” Colman pushed his hat back on his head, his hands going to his hips. “How can I help you, Sheriff?”
“Well, I see a few familiar faces among your crew. Some Arizona boys, from back in those days.”
“True enough.”
“And a couple that don’t strike me as your average cowpoke. Isn’t that Billy Bassett over there?”
York pointed off to the left to a skinny mustached character, a Remington revolver low on his hip.
“Yep,” Colman said.
Then the sheriff pointed off to the right, indicating a guy of medium height in a dark suit, training his close-set eyes across the glimmering stream. “That’s Dave Carson, right? He’s worked both sides of the law. But then many have.”
“Yep,” Colman said.
“And up ahead of us, that one’s pretty unmistakable—the Chiricahua Kid himself.” York nodded toward the muscular Indian in the army jacket and black sombrero, who—like the other two he’d pointed out—was staring across the strip of water like a hawk. A hungry one.
“Yep,” Colman said. “We don’t hold no grudge against the red man.”
“That particular one didn’t leave many alive to hold a grudge.”
Shoot-Out at Sugar Creek (A Caleb York Western Book 6) Page 10
