The Legend of Caleb York Read online

  Well, York thought, one knife per one man has been working just fine....

  But the bug-eyed gunman didn’t notice, moving quickly, heading through the batwing doors, single-minded in pursuit of that drink.

  York went back to where the other shoveler, Colton, was still at work, his sombrero off now. The man was muttering to himself, pausing to wipe sweat from his brow with the back of a hand. Then he got back to digging.

  Knife in hand, York slipped up behind the digger, who was still down in the hole—maybe three feet deep now—but Colton, pausing in his work, sensed something and whipped around, swinging the shovel. York jumped back, dirt flying, the shovel missing him but knocking into the blade and jarring the Bowie from his grasp. The big knife tumbled away and the man swung the shovel again.

  But York caught it by the handle, jerked it from the man’s grasp, and swung it himself, like a bat, with the back of the shovel smashing the man’s face in, snapping teeth like brittle twigs and jamming the bones of the digger’s nose up into his brain. The little man’s close-set eyes rolled up with mostly white showing as two blood trails trickled out and curved left and right, making his mustache red, and he flopped backward into the hole he’d dug.

  A perfect fit.

  York leaned in to make sure the digger wasn’t breathing—he wasn’t—then dumped the shovel in with the more recent corpse before tossing the sombrero over the hideous crushed-in thing that had been a face.

  Clovis Maxwell came in through the batwing doors and what he saw tightened his belly. He had seen much and laughed at things that sickened most men. Yet this turned his stomach.

  The dance-hall woman, Lola, was on the floor, sobbing, her clothing torn, tattered, bloody. Her face was a mess, bruised and bleeding, eyes swollen, hair an awful witch’s tangle.

  Breathing hard, Rhomer was standing over her, tucking his shirt into his pants. She was crawling away from him, apparently trying to get to the end of the bar, maybe so she could get back behind there like the wounded animal she was and die in peace.

  Rhomer, a cheek scratched and trickling red, grinned over at him. “You did miss a good show, Clovis boy.”

  Maxwell made a face. “I wasn’t invited, remember? Hell, looks like you didn’t leave much for me.”

  He barked a laugh. “That’s more than what’s gonna be left of Cullen here, if he don’t come to his senses.”

  Rhomer stepped over the broken, crawling creature that Lola had become and approached Cullen, slumped on the floor, the dead ranch hand’s head still in his lap. The old man looked dazed, his unseeing face masked in horror.

  Rhomer said, “Too bad you can’t see the lovely Lola, Cullen. Then you’d know for sure what’ll happen to you unless you sign them cows over to us.”

  The blind man tried to talk, but it took several tries before he got out, “It . . . it wouldn’t do you a damn bit of good, anyway.”

  Frowning, Maxwell asked, “What’s the old man mean by that, Rhomer?”

  “No idea,” Rhomer admitted. The front of his gray shirt was splotched with the woman’s blood.

  From the floor, Cullen said in defiance, “Every one of my stock, every inch of my land, is in my daughter’s name. You lousy, filthy piece of scum . . . you and Harry Gauge and the rest won’t get one damn head of it.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on that, old man.”

  From the batwing doors came: “What odds would you give me, Rhomer?”

  York pushed through, shotgun barrels first—weapon on loan from the late corral guard.

  Rhomer lurched toward his holstered gun where it, in its belt, lay on the bar. Maxwell, standing near York’s end of the bar, had his hand on his gun, half-drawing it, when the man with the shotgun again spoke.

  “Got a barrel for each of you fellas,” he said, “and I won’t even have to aim much.”

  Both men turned into statues, then each man’s eyes went to the other’s, and instinctively both sent their gaze past York to the world outside.

  York shook his head, letting them stare into the twin black eyes of the shotgun—eyes that stared right back at them. “Nobody out there to come to your rescue, boys. Just a whole lot of dead men. You’re gonna want to put ’em up now.”

  Rhomer, scratched face still bleeding, let out a deep sigh and his eyelids went to half-mast as his hands went up all the way. Maxwell already had hands raised.

  Keeping his eyes on both men, York angled over to Cullen sitting on the floor, cradling the head of a dead friend in his lap. The old man’s upper leg was soaked red.

  “How bad?” York asked him, half-kneeling.

  “Not bad. Think the bleeding’s stopped.” The sightless man stroked the dead man’s hair. “Lou caught a bad one, though.” Then the milky eyes widened. “What about my daughter . . . ? Is Willa all right?”

  “Should be fine,” York said. “She’s with your men out looking for the herd.”

  Cullen sighed in relief. Then he nodded toward something he couldn’t see, but where his blind man’s well-tuned hearing told him it was.

  “You need to help her,” the rancher said, pointing.

  Back there, tucked between the end of the bar and the wall, lay what had once been a beautiful woman. She was breathing, heavy and irregular, but nothing else indicated she might be alive. Her clothing was torn, ripped to tatters, and her flesh was patched purple with bruising, her face a mass of welts and cuts and swollen tissue, her eyes all but disappearing into puffy bulges slitted only ever so slightly. Her right arm hung at an impossible angle, loose as a broken shutter.

  He went to her.

  In his concern, he did not see Rhomer and Maxwell exchange glances, getting ready to find their moment....

  He asked, “Rhomer do this to you?”

  She managed a nod.

  York stood, startling the two men, ending whatever impromptu move they might have been planning. He pointed the shotgun at Rhomer, who stood perhaps eight feet away. Maxwell was several feet beyond and to Rhomer’s left. Not far from the doors.

  Gesturing with the shotgun, York indicated the gun belt on the bar. Rhomer narrowed his eyes, as if to say, You mean . . . get it? Put it on?

  And York nodded.

  The deputy had to think about that for a moment, but then, very slowly, he did it. Right down to strapping down the holster to his leg.

  “Back up a little,” York said casually, still training the shotgun on him.

  Rhomer did so, hand hovering over the holstered .44.

  York bent at the knees, set the shotgun down, and rose, his hand above the butt of his .44. He and Rhomer were now facing each other in classic showdown stance.

  Drunk enough not to be afraid, Rhomer grinned and said, “Before we end this, mister . . . who the hell are you, anyway?”

  “The man who’s going to kill you,” York said.

  Rhomer’s hand was on the butt of the .44, but the weapon was only an inch out of its holster when the sound of another .44 filled the small room like cannon fire, shaking glass, rattling chairs.

  The deputy rocked on his feet, trying to maintain his balance, then glanced down and looked at the hole in his badge and the stream of red trickling out and down.

  “Hell,” he said.

  Then he collapsed in a pile.

  “And welcome to it,” York said.

  Maxwell had his hands up. “Don’t shoot! I didn’t touch her! I swear!”

  “Toss the gun to one side—gentle. Don’t want it going off.”

  Maxwell complied.

  “Now get on the floor. Like you’re taking a nap. Do it.”

  Maxwell did it.

  “Stay right there.”

  Cowering, Maxwell nodded his head.

  Gun in hand, York returned to Lola, knelt near her. “How bad is it?”

  Her mouth made something awful that might be a smile. “Can’t . . . can’t you see?”

  “What I see might could heal. How bad?”

  Tiny head shake. “All bad, stranger.
He’s killed me. I’m torn up inside.”

  He started to rise. “I’ll get the doctor.”

  She reached for his arm, gripped as best she could, bringing him back down. “Don’t . . . don’t bother. It’s too late. I . . . I can feel it.”

  That was when Harry Gauge burst in, grinning big, the barrel of his .44 dimpling the neck of a terrified Willa Cullen.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  York, kneeling at the side of the battered Lola, looked up at the crazed, grinning face of the big blond sheriff, who stood poised just inside the doors with a squirming Willa blocking much of him, his left hand holding on to a shoulder of hers, his right pressing the snout of that . 44 into the side of her throat.

  York’s eyes went to Willa’s.

  She was terrified, breathing hard, but she did not look otherwise harmed—her straw-yellow hair, in a ponytail earlier, was disarrayed and down brushing her shoulders now, and there was a smudge or bruise on a cheek. So Gauge hadn’t roughed her up much.

  York would kill him, anyway.

  The bug-eyed Maxwell was getting up, retrieving his gun, saying, “That’s what I call the nick of time, Harry.” Then he positioned himself near the end of the bar and trained his revolver on York, who was still bending down near the shattered dance-hall queen.

  The blind old man on the floor had finally abandoned his dead helper, pushing the corpse off to one side; though with his shot-up leg, Cullen himself wasn’t going anywhere.

  Rather pitifully, the old man demanded, “What the hell is going on, Gauge? What the hell are you up to?”

  York said, in a near-soothing voice, “He’s got your daughter, Mr. Cullen. She’s his prisoner. Try to stay calm. I’ll handle it.”

  That made Gauge laugh. “Will you now? Big words.”

  “Papa,” Willa called, “I’m all right!”

  Of course, she sounded anything but.

  Moving her a few steps into the dreary space, Gauge glanced at his dead deputy and said, “I see you took care of Rhomer for me, stranger. Well, poor Vint was what you call a weak link—probably best I’m rid of the fool.”

  “You’re welcome,” York said.

  Gauge grunted a laugh. “All right, stranger . . . just toss that gun away from you—easy does it. If it hits the floor and fires, I’ll fire, too.”

  York did as he was told, the weapon skittering past chairs under a table, well out of reach now.

  Gauge nodded toward the twelve-gauge on the floor. “Now that shotgun? Kick it over that way, too, gentle. Where nobody can get hurt with it. No tricks, now.”

  This York also did, though the bigger weapon went a shorter distance, maybe four feet.

  Then he began to get to his feet.

  But Gauge shook his head and said, “No, no, no, stay right down there. You’re just fine right where you are.” He gave Maxwell a quick look. “Go over and search him. Careful—he’s got a knife on him. Slit a bunch of throats outside.” He laughed again. “Didn’t know you had it in you, dude.”

  “I’d rather it was in you,” York said pleasantly.

  Maxwell went over and patted York down, finding the Bowie knife in a sheath stuck into his pants in back. The big-bladed weapon got tossed off under the tables, as well. Gauge’s man found shotgun shells in York’s pockets, and these Maxwell also tossed.

  The flunky glanced back to Gauge for further orders.

  Gauge—holding on to the girl, who was squirming even more now, or, anyway, as much as she dared with the cold nose of a gun in her neck—said, “Good job, Maxwell. Now soften him up some. Just for fun. Maybe start by showin’ him how you took care of ol’ Swenson.”

  Maxwell grinned and pistol-whipped York, who fell onto his side, the inside of his head exploding with pain, eyes squeezed shut so as not to miss any of the Fourth of July fireworks in his skull.

  But he wasn’t unconscious, and was all too aware that Willa was pulling forward and screaming, “No! . . . Please don’t! Leave him alone!”

  Above him, Maxwell was saying, “This S.O.B.’s got a harder head than old Swenson.”

  York’s eyes made themselves open and he saw Willa really fighting now, much more than squirming, really pulling away from Gauge, who finally just shoved her off him.

  “Shut up!” Gauge growled at her. “Get over there!”

  She fell, sliding on the floor and almost bumping into her father, who sensed her presence, reaching for her, taking her in his arms.

  But she was looking toward the groggy York, hair at the back of his head damp with blood, and started scrambling toward him.

  “Willa,” her father said, grabbing her by an arm, stopping her with considerable force for his age and condition, saying, “stay away from him!”

  “Let me go, Papa! Let me go!”

  But he didn’t, and York lifted his head—a feat no harder than clearing a boulder from a mountain path—and managed to raise a hand and weakly gesture for her to stay back. Stay back.

  She did, chin crinkling, trembling all over, but not crying. Not letting herself do it. Warmth for her spread through York, part of it pride, part something else.

  With another awful grin splitting his face, Gauge said to Cullen, “You are showin’ some damn good sense, old man. Might be that we can do some business, after all.”

  Maxwell was working York over, fists to the body, occasional kicks to the side and legs—more of that “softening up” his boss had requested.

  York’s head would not stop spinning. He was fighting to retain consciousness.

  “That’s enough!” Gauge yelled. “Hell, man! Leave somethin’ for me.”

  His head throbbing with pain, his breath ragged and heavy, York sat on the floor, in loose Indian style, Lola behind him a ways and to his right. He could hear her harsh, irregular breathing, whimpering mixed in.

  Maxwell, spurs jangling, grinned cockily as he went over to Gauge’s side. Then his expression turned curious. “Boss, what about that stage? I thought you went off to catch up with it.”

  Gauge waved that off. “It’ll be here in half an hour or so. Gives us time to get things ready.”

  “Get ready how, boss?”

  Gauge ignored the question, instead nodding over to where the old man and his daughter sat side by side on the floor, the corpse of their fallen ranch hand just behind them now.

  “Before I could get to the stage,” Gauge said, gesturing, “I ran into this little lady. Figured bringin’ her back here was the thing to do.”

  “It surely was, Harry. And are you damn lucky you did!”

  “Yeah?”

  Maxwell nodded vigorously. “Turns out her old man over there signed the herd, hell, the whole damn spread over to this little girl of his. That’s why.” He pointed toward Willa. “She’s the only one you can get a signed paper from. All the old man’s good for is convincin’ her to sign.”

  Gauge was grinning down at the Cullens. “Maxwell, where brains is concerned, you are a real step up from our late compadre Vint.”

  Pleased with himself, Maxwell stroked his droopy, dark mustache. “Mighty nice of you to say, boss. Think maybe with Rhomer gone, you might consider takin’ on a new partner . . . ?”

  “Well, you’re my number two man today.”

  That put a big smile on Maxwell’s face, the man not putting together that only the two of them were still standing.

  Gun in hand, Gauge ambled nearer to Willa and her father, who remained huddled on the floor against the shoved-askew table and chairs. He loomed over them.

  “Of course, when it comes to partners,” Gauge said, with a little smile, “I think Miss Cullen here knows who I really have in mind.”

  Chin up, eyes cold, she said, “I won’t sign a thing over to you. Not a damned thing.”

  “Such foul language from so sweet a girl. Sure about that, sugar?” He aimed his .44 past her, at her papa’s head. “I suppose, in a way, it’s kind of a blessin’ that your daddy won’t be able to see it comin’. . . .”

&nbs
p; She hugged her father protectively, trying to shield his body with hers.

  Gauge chuckled, then sat down at the table that father and daughter were leaned against. He set down his

  . 44 close to him and, from an inside pocket of his vest, brought out a paper and a pencil.

  “I’d prefer ink,” Gauge said, slightly disappointed. “And eventually we’ll go to the bank and put together some real pretty documents. For now, though, this’ll just have to do.... Come on, honey. Sit with me.”

  He gestured to the chair beside him.

  Willa scowled up at him, but her father nodded to her and, her face ashen, she rose and took the chair at the table. Gauge pushed the document and the writing implement toward her.

  “Go ahead,” he said, friendly, reasonable. “Read it over. You’ll see I’ve arranged for you to keep the house. I won’t move in there till you ask me to.”

  She looked at him, agape. “And you really think I will?”

  “That blind old man on the floor? He was a real man, once upon a time. The kind of hard, ruthless frontier sort that can carve something out of nothing.” Gauge shrugged. “Not too many of ’em left these days, and, well, hell, he’s well past it.”

  Her eyes were wild. “If you think after forcing me to sign this, I would ever—”

  “I think when this husk of a man that your father has turned into finally dies . . . and I won’t harm a white hair on his head, if you sign this . . . you’ll look around and see what I’ve done. What I’ve accomplished. You’ll want your land back. Your life back. And I will be waitin’, Willa . . . to give it to you.”

  She shook her head, astounded by him. “You really think anybody would believe I signed this of my own free will?”

  “Well, first of all, you won’t say otherwise. Because if you do, this old man will die hard and long and slow. I would imagine, in his time, he’s done things to deserve that kind of death. So I won’t feel too bad about it.”

  Her eyebrows climbed. “Can you really believe what you’re saying?”

  His manner became matter-of-fact. “Everyone’s gonna believe what I’m sayin’. Look around, Miss Willa. See poor old Deputy Rhomer over there? He’s gonna take the blame for all the bad things that happened today. He done me a favor, really, ’cause it’s gonna look better this way.”