The Big Showdown Read online

  “Arlen Curtis is my legal man,” her father said.

  “Then he’s good enough for me. I’ll have all the necessary documents for you to examine—deeds, land surveys, and so on.”

  Her father was on his feet, beaming at the man, as if he could see him. “We look forward to receiving them, sir.”

  Willa said, “I’ll walk you out, Mr. Gauge.”

  She did that.

  On the porch, with the door shut and her father well out of earshot, she said, “If you think I’m about to let you roll over us like a runaway stage—”

  “I would be very foolish,” he said, a black Stetson in hand, “to even dream of putting anything shady past you. Your father is a good man, and I think in his day, he may have been a great one.”

  “You’re not wrong.”

  He gave her a smile with something puckish in it. “But I have no misconceptions about who runs this ranch, Miss Cullen.” His smile softened into the mere friendly. “I don’t suppose you’d allow me to call you ‘Willa’?”

  “Please do. I would rather call you ‘Zachary’ than ‘Mr. Gauge,’ as you yourself already suggested.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that.”

  “Don’t be. I just don’t like the name ‘Gauge.’ Good afternoon, Zachary.”

  And she went inside, leaving him to his Appaloosa.

  Lem Rhomer was playing cards in the Silver Dollar Saloon in Las Vegas, New Mexico. In Las Vegas, with its population of four thousand, a man in search of gambling, drink, and trollops had half-a-dozen choices, and the Silver Dollar was the worst and roughest of these. Here was where you were the most likely to be cheated, served rotgut, or contract the French disease.

  Last month the first two of these unfortunate results had been Lem’s fate at the Silver Dollar. As for the French disease, the elder Rhomer boy—Lem was a ripe old forty— did business with no loose women without the protection of a tight lambskin.

  But the crooked dealer at the Dollar’s poker table had taken Lem for a hundred dollars, and the rotgut proved so bad, he’d wound up puking in an alley and woke up there hours later rolled of what bankroll the dealer had left him, and with a blinding headache that lasted for three days.

  Redheaded, wiry-bearded Lem was a big man, the biggest of the Rhomer boys, six foot one and with a muscular frame developed on their daddy’s farm in Missouri. On his own and sometimes with his brothers, he’d worked a few cattle drives but mostly found better ways to make a living. Hiring out his gun and robbing people and places, mostly.

  The dealer at the Dollar was small and bald and mild with babyish features and a pair of eyeglasses that had a barely noticeable pink tinge to them. His suit was tan and his shirt ruffled. Over the course of an evening, he always came out ahead.

  Lem had never got wise—hell, the house always had the advantage, right?—but the middle Rhomer brother, Luke, had gone around to the Dollar to check up on things, after Lem’s bad night there.

  “He’s usin’ readers,” Luke reported back to his older brother.

  “Marked cards? I suspected as much, but I looked ’em over careful. Didn’t see no marks or nicks.”

  Luke, like all the Rhomer boys, had their father’s red hair—also his foul temper and cruel streak. “You can’t see the markin’ without special glasses. That’s what them pink spectacles do. They show him patterns on the back of the cards that your eyes can’t see.”

  “Cheatin’ bastard! You think he’s on his own, or is the house crooked?”

  “Oh,” Luke said, “it’s the house. Roulette wheel’s rigged, too. There’s a toe brake under the table. Every damn game of chance in that hole has about as much chance to it as a two-headed coin in a toss.”

  Lem got himself in a tizzy. “I’ll get even. I swear I’ll get even. I’ll rip them beady eyes out of his face and then see what good them glasses do him.”

  That made Luke grin. “Why not take the whole house down? That crooked dealer is just a cog. Why not rattle the whole damn wheel?”

  Luke always did have ambition.

  Lem said, “You gonna help?”

  “Sure I’ll help. We’ll get all the brothers to help.”

  Of course, one brother couldn’t take part—Vint, the second-to-the-oldest, who’d been Harry Gauge’s deputy in Trinidad. Vint had been gunned down, and not by just anybody—Caleb York himself.

  Vint had been one rough apple. It would take a Caleb York to take Vint Rhomer down. The Rhomer brothers were proud of that. Of course, one of these days they would have to blow Caleb York’s brains out. But with the brothers scattered to the four winds, doing this and that, thieving around the Southwest alone and in pairs, it would take a regular family reunion to make getting even with Caleb York come true. If Vint by himself couldn’t handle the legendary York, they would have to band together for it.

  And it did sound like a good time.

  Who’d have guessed that the Silver Dollar in Las Vegas would provide the spark? That the tiny revenge the Dollar was due would spark the bigger revenge that son of a bitch York had coming?

  Anyway, with his brothers spread around the Dollar, playing crooked games, romancing the painted ladies, Lem sat for a good hour gambling reckless with the cheat in the cheaters, letting the little coyote think he was fleecing this lamb for a second time. If the S.O.B. even recognized Lem from a few months before.

  It was very damn quiet. Middle of the afternoon. Lem, Sam, Luke, Les, Eph, were half the customers. Real slow time at the Dollar. Three girls. One bartender. A manager back in his office. A roulette table, a craps table, neither with suckers right now. Two other players at the poker table.

  While the little dealer in the pink eyeglasses was shuffling the cards, a cowboy with a lot of mustache said, like he was just making conversation, “You’re Lem Rhomer, ain’t you?”

  “Who’s askin’?”

  “Just a feller from Trinidad doin’ some business in the big city.”

  The little man in the pink shades started dealing stud, five-card. Lem held up a hand to stop him.

  “Gimme a minute, friend,” Lem said to the cheating bastard.

  “Glad to oblige,” the cheating bastard said.

  The cowboy full of mustache said, “I knew your brother. Fine feller, Vint. Too bad that York buzzard took him out like that.”

  “Yeah,” Lem said. “Goddamn shame. I loved him like a brother. Uh . . . of course he was one.”

  “You know,” the cowboy said, checking the hole card that was as far as the deal had got before Lem put it on hold, “that York was supposed to leave Trinidad. But then the bank got stuck up and the sheriff what took York’s place got hisself killed.”

  “That right.”

  “And York’s gonna hang awhile, around Trinidad, till that’s all sorted out. He’s already killed the three robbers.”

  “Then why’s he sticking?”

  The cowboy shrugged. “Lookin’ for the money, I guess. Funny thing, though.”

  “What’s funny about it?”

  “I know a guy who would pay real money to get rid of that man.”

  “What man?”

  “What man you think? Caleb York.”

  “Are you just talkin’ through that hat?”

  “No. I’m prepared to do business.”

  “. . . You know where the Plaza Hotel is?”

  “I do.”

  “After this hand, cash out, and meet me over there. In half a hour, say.”

  “I can do that. Way things is going, I won’t have to cash out. I’ll lose the rest of these chips.”

  That proved to be the case. The little cowboy tipped his hat and left. The other player did the same, after cashing out for less than five dollars.

  The dealer said, “You wanna play two-handed, mister? Some folks don’t cotton to that.”

  “I like two-handed fine. But give me them glasses first.”

  “What?”

  “My eyes is hurtin’ me. Must be the smoke. Let me borrow them
glasses of yours.”

  The derringer came out quick, but Lem’s .45 was already drawn under the table. He blew the dealer’s guts out. The smell of gunpowder and bowels vacating at dying filled the room along with the screams of trollops.

  The bartender came up with a shotgun and brother Luke shot him in the face, decorating the mirror behind the dead man a dripping scarlet. The manager, a well-fed man in a fancy red vest, didn’t die, not right away, because Eph’s gun was all of a sudden in his neck. Eph and Les accompanied him into the office and after two minutes or so, and a gunshot, the redheaded brothers came out with a bag of money from the Dollar safe.

  Lem had already emptied the dealer’s money box. The soiled doves in spangles and the men running the other games were hiding under tables, as were the couple of patrons, when the Rhomer brothers went out into the sunshine, two thousand and five hundred and fifty six dollars and fifty cents the better.

  They got on their horses and rode across town to the hotel, where Lem would give them the good news about Caleb York and how they were going to get both revenge and more money out of it.

  Much better than Lem’s previous visit to the Dollar.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Caleb York peered over the batwing doors of the Victory Saloon and saw what he hoped he would: a quiet night.

  Weeknights often were less than hopping at Trinidad’s only, if imposing watering hole. Payday weekends were wild—many of the merchants boarded up their windows—and really any weekend could be a ripsnorter. But right now the Victory was in the midst of a lull.

  He pushed through the swinging doors and glanced around. The Victory always looked big, but seemed mammoth when it wasn’t doing much business, its ornate tin ceiling like an endless sky lit by the suns of gas-lamp chandeliers, its fancy gold-and-black brocade wallpaper everywhere. The long, highly polished oak bar over at left seemed to go on forever, mirrors and bottles of bourbon and rye, towels dangling for fastidious types to wipe foam from their mustaches, a shiny brass foot rail with frequent spittoons. Behind the bar, on a busy night, as many as five bow-tied, white-shirted bartenders might be at work, serving the thirsty horde. Tonight, only one, and the customers were mostly townsfolk.

  The casino section of the place was a ghost town, no one working the various stations, from roulette to wheel-of-fortune. One faro table, one poker table, were all that were going. Two bored-looking satin-clad darlings sat at a table challenging the established mores by smoking cheroots as one helped the other play solitaire. At the far end of the big room, the little stage was empty and so was the bench at the upright piano.

  York went to the bar, which he had to himself, like one religious man at an immense altar. The bartender, whose name was Hub Wainwright—a big man with thinning brown hair and a round face and the kind of shoulders that said he could do his own bouncing—knew to give the sheriff a beer. Hub also knew not to refuse the sheriff’s dime.

  York sipped the warm beer. “Slow night.”

  “I heard you was a detective.”

  York smiled, rather liking Hub’s dry sense of humor. “Is the boss lady in?”

  “Look to your right.”

  Rita Filley, who had inherited the Victory from her murdered sister, might have been Lola’s ghost. Though he would never ask a female such a thing, he felt sure the dark-haired Rita, whose slender, full-breasted shape so recalled Lola’s, had assumed not only her late sister’s business but her wardrobe as well.

  He would swear he had seen Lola in that same blue-and-gray satin gown, its black lace cupping the sister’s bosom lovingly, the dress parted in front like curtains on a stage to show off fishnet silk stockings and laced-up high-heel shoes.

  This young woman had near the same oval face with big brown eyes, turned-up nose, and full, red-rouged lips. There were differences, though—Lola’s beauty mark near that sensual mouth had been real, and those big eyes weren’t as widely set. Rita here was new to the saloon trade and hadn’t lost all the softness in her pretty face. Yet.

  “Good evening, Sheriff,” she said, depositing herself before him. Her voice was higher than Lola’s had been, though some of the sister’s throaty purr lurked in there, too. “You might as well take that badge off—there’s no trouble here tonight.”

  “I’ll leave it on just the same,” he said, though he’d already removed his hat in her presence. “You never can tell.”

  She gave him half a smile, though the dark eyes were completely amused. “You’re a poker player, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “There’s a chair open. Several of Trinidad’s most distinguished bad card players are seated there. Could be a golden opportunity.”

  “I’d rather seize a different opportunity, Miss Filley.”

  “Oh?”

  He nodded. “I’d like to finally have a chat with you. We’ve never really talked.”

  “I had the feeling you didn’t see the need—since you were leaving town and all.”

  With a shrug, he said, “Well, I’m still here. Why don’t we take a table?”

  All of the tables, opposite the bar, were empty.

  “I think we can squeeze in,” she said, and looped her arm in his.

  He walked her over. Pulled a chair out for her.

  She sat and looked up at him with an expression that already conveyed some fondness, or pretended to. “You’re a rarity in these parts, Sheriff.”

  “My name is Caleb.”

  She gestured to the chair next to her. “Sit down, Caleb. And I’ll tell you why you’re such a rare breed.”

  He sat.

  She did: “You take your hat off in a lady’s presence. You pull out a lady’s chair. You call me ‘Miss Filley.’ If you’re trying to get on my good side, you’re doing a very nice job of it.”

  He sipped the warm beer, then said, “I think I just stumbled.”

  “Did you?”

  “I should have asked if you wanted something to drink.”

  “Sheriff . . . Caleb? I own the place. And men don’t buy me drinks. They buy my girls drinks. Is that why you’re here?”

  “Pardon?”

  “To talk to me about my girls? Sheriff . . . and right now I am speaking to the sheriff . . . I want you to know that I intend to make some changes here. Some of these girls are going to be going.”

  “Going where?”

  She batted the air with a lacy-gloved hand. “Anywhere but here. I assume you were planning to get around to making me divest myself of my fallen angels, so I’ll ask for your patience. Give me a few months.”

  “A few months for what?”

  She gestured with the other lace-gloved hand. “To make this place more respectable. I have no need and no interest in running a house of ill repute. The more respectable drinking and gambling emporiums have girls who dance with the male customers, who let those customers buy them drinks, and encourage gambling. Sing, dance, talk, flirt.”

  They paused in conversation as bartender Hub brought her a drink. “Your Mule Skinner, madam.”

  Whiskey and blackberry liqueur.

  “Thank you, Mr. Wainwright,” she said.

  He disappeared.

  York asked her, “What are you going to do with all those rooms upstairs?”

  She sipped her drink, shrugged with her eyebrows. “I’m going to live in them, after some fix-up and new furnishings. I’ll have an office up there, too. Little rathole downstairs doesn’t suit me. I know you have a reputation as a . . . a . . .”

  “Prude? Prig?”

  She frowned, shook her head. “No. I know that’s not the case. My sister wrote me letters. She wrote me one shortly before she passed that was very . . . complimentary about you. Reading between the lines, I gathered . . . well, that’s neither here nor there.”

  He shifted in his chair. “Isn’t it? I was sheriff here for six months. I didn’t try to shoo the soiled doves from their cages during that time. Why do you assume I would now?�
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  The dark eyes widened. “Because, as you say, you’re still here. Before, you were just holding down the office till the town found somebody to fill it, and when they didn’t, you went out and got poor Ben Wade. Now that you’re staying—”

  “You’ve been misinformed. I’m only staying until this bank robbery is cleared up.”

  Her smile seemed faintly mocking. “You killed the robbers and yet here you sit. No, I have a feeling you may be here awhile longer. Maybe a lot longer. I’m aware of Miss Willa Cullen, and how you two . . . well. Again. Neither here nor there.”

  He frowned at her. “Your sister wrote you about that, did she?”

  “She did. But I have eyes. I’ve only been here two weeks, but I have eyes.” She drew in breath and let it out, then sat forward slightly. “Listen, Sheriff . . . Caleb . . . I want to thank you. You deserve my thanks.”

  “Why is that?”

  She waved a hand around her. “You allowed the Victory to stay open until everything was settled and I was able to move to Trinidad. To decide to move to Trinidad, I should say.”

  “You might have just sold the place.”

  “The legalities took a while. But I liked having this opportunity. My sister fared well here.”

  “Right up to when she was killed.”

  That blunt remark didn’t faze her. “Very gallant of you, to try to dissuade me from this life. But as I think, I hope, I’ve made clear—the Victory will be more respectable under my sway. Lola had a partner in that other sheriff, the crooked one—Harry Gauge? She was no brothel madam. He made her one.”

  “May I ask what you were doing, Miss Filley, before you took on your sister’s business?”

  “It’s Rita. By ‘doing,’ you mean—for a living? I’ve been one of those dance-hall girls we were discussing—the ones who make a man feel good without going upstairs. I’m not new to this kind of place.”

  He was looking her over, realizing that behind the lip rouge and dance-hall gown, someone young was on view. “How old are you, anyway?”

  “You would ask a female such a question? So much for gallantry, Caleb. I am twenty-four.”