Hot Lead, Cold Justice Read online

  “Was there any trouble with these men, night before last?”

  “No.”

  “What did they do?”

  “Talk. Drink. Much talk. Little drink.”

  York stood. “Okay. Thanks, Cesar. I may ask you to identify the local.”

  Cesar, still seated, raised his hands, palms out, as if giving himself up to the law. “No quiero problemas!”

  “You won’t have any. And I may not need you to identify him.”

  Cesar liked hearing that. “Do not forget my hundred dollars!”

  “Why, would you let me?”

  Cesar grinned, then went back to counting his money.

  The saddle shop was next door to the office of the Trinidad Enterprise at the west end of Main, a wide, two-story, clapboard building of recent construction. York made his way there, down the boardwalk, the wind from the northwest held back some by the buildings. But the white stuff came down steady now, the flakes fat and wet and gathering.

  The sheriff stomped the snow from his boots before going in the door under the white-lettered sign—MAXWELL BOOTS, SADDLE, AND HARNESS DEPOT—and, not surprisingly, he found himself alone in the place with its proprietor. Immediately the musky scent of well-oiled leather tweaked York’s nostrils, and he didn’t mind a bit. It was one of those familiar, oddly comforting smells so evocative of the West. From the back, in the workshop, came the tapping of a mallet, likely Maxwell’s Mexican saddle maker at work.

  On counters left and right, within the rough-wood walls of the shop, were stacks of buckskin shirts and jackets, and an impressive array of varieties of rawhide, horsehair, and leather goods. Two beautifully hand-tooled saddles on furniture-quality stands were at left; another two strictly functional models were at right.

  Bliss Maxwell stood in back of a glass display case that showed off ornate spade bits, vaquero spurs, and various silver goods. Maxwell wore professional black, including a string tie with a silver horse-head clasp, his gray hair more suited to an older man, his blandly inoffensive features set off by sky-blue eyes.

  “You’re my first customer today, Sheriff,” Maxwell said. His voice was midrange; his tone struck York as friendlier than need be.

  “Not a customer,” York said. “I’m here on my business, not yours.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope. I, uh, heard about your deputy. Is he going to be all right?”

  “Time’ll tell. It was an accident, you know.”

  Maxwell frowned, confused. “Accident? I heard he was shot!”

  “He was shot wearing my coat.” York took a step back and turned to show the rear of the garment and its bullet holes and caked blood. Then he turned and said casually, “The accident was somebody taking him for me.”

  Maxwell might have come around to meet York halfway, but the shop owner stayed behind the display case, which made the lawman walk to him. It seemed to York that the merchant, despite his cheerful tone, liked having something between him and the law.

  “Those men you sat down to play poker with,” York said, leaning an elbow casually on the display case, “night before last? They friends of yours?”

  “No,” Maxwell said, shrugging, apparently bewildered that he was being asked such a thing.

  York cocked his head. “How did you happen to get into a game with them? They looked like fairly rough boys. Wore their irons gunfighter-style.”

  The shop owner shrugged again. “They struck up a conversation when I was ordering a beer. Somebody told them I ran this shop, and they had some interest in my saddles.”

  “So you socialized some, to smooth the way.”

  Maxwell smiled again. “That’s right.”

  “Did you end up doing business with them?”

  With a laugh, Maxwell said, “No. That’s the last I saw of ’em. I even lost a dollar and a half to the stoop-shouldered gent.”

  “You get their names?”

  Maxwell thought about that. “I, uh, think the stoop-shoulder was called Frank, and the slender fellow Ned Something. The other was Jake, I believe.”

  “You didn’t get their surnames?”

  Maxwell shook his head. “If any came up, I don’t recall. It was just Frank, Ned, and Jake. As in, Frank’s deal, Ned’s pot, Jake folds.”

  York withdrew the rolled-up wanted circular from the deep right pocket of his frock coat. He smoothed it out on the display-case counter. “Have you seen this man in town?”

  The shop owner studied the poster. No need to ask if he knew this outlaw’s name, because it was in big, bold letters, alongside various aliases. Maxwell’s eyes moved with thought.

  Bliss Maxwell was wondering whether he’d been seen with Burnham, or so the sheriff figured.

  “Yes,” Maxwell said finally, nodding, eyes still on the circular, “he was friendly with those other three. He wasn’t ever at the Victory that I know of. After the game broke up, the other three asked me along for a nightcap at the cantina. I sat with them and this wanted man, and we drank tequila and talked.”

  “About?”

  He shrugged yet again. “About nothing. About everything. They wanted to know if the girl dancing at the cantina was available. I told them I’d heard the girls at de Toro Rojo were, yes, very available, at cheap enough a price. Or so I understood.” His expression got serious and he looked down his nose at the sheriff. “I myself have never indulged.”

  “Did this one”—York tapped the face of the drawing of “Burn ’Em” Burnham—“ask about me?”

  “No! Why should he?”

  York offered a genial smile. “Because I sent him to Kansas State Penitentiary for ten years for armed robbery, and he served every day. And because he was in town the night before last, and then last night, as you’ll recall, my deputy—wearing this coat of mine? Was shot down in the street.”

  Maxwell’s complexion had turned damn near as white as his hair. “Sheriff, this wanted man was just someone I shared a drink with at the cantina! I never saw him before or since. They said they were leaving the next morning. If they were telling the truth, that bunch wasn’t even in town when Deputy Tulley was shot! Certainly I haven’t seen them.”

  “Well,” York said easily, wanting to settle the shop owner back down, “if you do happen to run into them, I’d be obliged if you say nothing of our conversation this morning. I would steer a wide berth of them, were I you.”

  Maxwell raised a palm, as if taking the oath in court. “Yes, Sheriff York. That’s good advice indeed. But should I see them, I will let you know. Straightaway.”

  York nodded. He glanced at the well-made objects in the display case. He looked around at the saddles and other merchandise.

  “You should do well here, Mr. Maxwell,” he said, nodding appreciatively. “Very well, when the Santa Fe spur comes in.” He smiled. “Love the smell of the place. Leather has such an unmistakable scent. Strong. Like the odor that rolls off an outlaw . . . only pleasant.”

  York tipped his hat to the merchant, who smiled again, but this smile was a kind of curdled thing.

  On the short walk to Doc Miller’s office, York found the snow deeper and the temperature lower. The citizens had overcome their fascination with the unusual weather and scurried inside to the nearest wood-burning stove. The only sign of activity was up the street, where people were going in and out of Harris Mercantile, stocking up on provisions.

  No one was in the doctor’s waiting room, nor was Miller attending a patient in the adjacent surgery. York called out and Doc yelled back to join him in his private quarters beyond. These consisted of a sitting room, a small kitchen, the physician’s bedroom, and a spare room that was spare in every sense, as there was nothing in it but a metal bed and a dresser with a basin and pitcher.

  Jonathan P. Tulley, in a white hospital-style gown, was under the covers, head on a fat feather pillow. He looked pale and weak, but was clearly alive.

  So much so that, seeing York enter with the doctor, Tulley got excited and started to sit up.

  �
��Stop that,” Miller ordered, and hustled over to hold the skinny patient down. This took not much effort.

  “Sheriff,” the deputy said, “ye must find and capture and hang him!”

  York came over and stood beside Tulley, who relaxed his body, though his white-bearded face remained a contorted mask. Still, the doctor was able to let loose of his charge.

  With half a smile, York said softly, “Anyone in particular I should find, capture and hang, Tulley?”

  “Why, the bastard what shot me!” Tulley frowned and shook his head—a little. More effort than that seemed unlikely. “But I don’t envy ye, Caleb York.”

  York sat on the edge of the bed and springs squeaked like tortured mice. “Why’s that, Tulley?”

  “Wal, sir, I made my share of enemies in my time. There’s a feller that accused me of jumpin’ his claim. There’s another that accused me of jumpin’ his woman. Why, there’s a whole passel of such wrong ’uns out there what wrongly think I wronged ’em.”

  York filled in the rest of the smile. “Hate to disappoint you, Deputy. But I believe I was the target.”

  Tulley managed to rear back. “Wal, that would mean this son of a bee is the worst danged shot in the Territory. You were inside the Victory, and I was out!”

  “Yes, you were outside”—York gestured to his black frock coat—“wearing this. Of mine.”

  “. . . Oh.”

  York nodded.

  “So ye have, over time,” Tulley said, reflectively, “gathered yore own passel of enemies, then.”

  “I have.”

  “Probably a mite more than I.”

  “A mite.”

  York filled his deputy in about Burnham and the three men who appeared to be riding with him, and that they had been in Bliss Maxwell’s company.

  Tulley began to sit up again, and Doc scolded him and eased him back down.

  But the patient said impatiently, “Make this sawbones let loose of me, Caleb York! You cain’t go gunnin’ for four men without me and my scattergun at yore side or behind ye or somewheres close and handy. . . . Say, uh . . . do I be dyin’?”

  This last was aimed at Doc Miller, who said, “No. You will be in this bed for a good week, however, and there will be no gallivanting after outlaws.”

  “But, Doc . . . I fear the end is near. . . . I am so dang cold. . . .”

  Miller pointed toward the window behind Tulley at his right—it was frosted over in a filigree design revealing the fine hand of Mother Nature. “There’s a blizzard going on out there, Mr. Tulley. I will find you some blankets.”

  Tulley smiled, displaying far more teeth than one might expect. “That is the best medicine ye could perspire.”

  And fell asleep.

  Miller came over and took York by the elbow and guided him through the apartment out into the office area. They faced each other.

  “He seems lucid enough,” York said.

  “That’s your idea of lucid?”

  “For Tulley it is. Will he be all right?”

  Doc nodded. “I believe so. But he’s weak. Lost some blood, as you well know. Those men you mentioned—this Burnham character? You feel sure they did this?”

  “Sure enough to look into it good and hard.”

  Doc shook his head. “You can’t think Bliss Maxwell is any part of it. He’s obviously a respectable citizen.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t always.”

  Miller put a hand on York’s shoulder. “Many a respectable man in the Southwest was a rogue elsewhere. That’s the good thing about this hard country—a body can start over.” He shrugged. “He may have known Burnham and those three in another life.”

  York buttoned his coat. “You’re probably right. And Burnham likely rode out before this snowstorm got a chance to build into a blizzard. I’ll check the livery and see.”

  York did that.

  Lem Hansen, the blacksmith who owned the stable, said the four men had kept their horses with him and stayed there themselves, sleeping on straw in a stall. They had ridden out last night, around eleven, and were long gone.

  Eleven p.m.—not long after Tulley was shot.

  At the Victory, York had a beer at a table where he sat with Rita and filled her in on his day since he’d last seen her.

  Her dark eyes had sparkle even when she frowned. “What do you make of it, Caleb?”

  “I would guess they were passing through,” he said. “Probably after pulling a job somewhere, on their way to Mexico. They made a stop here, Burnham saw me—or knew this was my town—and took the opportunity to settle a score.”

  She gestured with an open hand. “So Tulley took the bullets meant for you, and now you . . . what? Just write it off to bad luck?”

  York heaved a sigh. “For now it’s all I can do. If they did pull a job—robbed a stage, a bank, even a train—I’ll be able to confirm as much soon enough. Then when Tulley’s up and around, I’ll take a little time off.”

  Her smile was a wicked little thing making one dimple in a pretty cheek. “And take a little sojourn to Mexico?”

  He nodded. “And in the meantime, ride out this storm and see who among the citizenry of our fair little town might need help. It’s what they pay me for.”

  Getting even for what Burnham and his boys almost surely did to Tulley would be free of charge.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lucas Burnham admired Captain William Clarke Quantrill to this day. Never had he known a more natural leader of men. Never had he seen a warrior more fearless and willing to meet war on its own terrible terms.

  The stories about Quantrill that were still bandied about seemed, to Burnham, preposterous. That such a man had tortured animals as a boy, skinning cats and making pigs squeal by putting bullets in them?

  Twaddle.

  That the adult Quantrill’s idea of impressing women was to boast of hanging men from trees, several to a sturdy limb at one time?

  Nonsense.

  That the captain was nothing but a bloodthirsty fiend who killed and plundered for himself, not the Cause?

  Shameless exaggeration.

  Hadn’t William Quantrill been a beloved schoolteacher before the war? Hadn’t Quantrill gone on to lead many a Confederate officer who outranked him but were honored to serve under the great man on his now fabled raids?

  Yet there were those, even now, who said some among the captain’s men hated and feared him, and while the latter was true in its way, hadn’t Quantrill battled superior forces over which he won many celebrated victories?

  Burnham himself had been a Kansas farm boy whose father only dreamed of owning slaves, a dream the boy shared, fueled by thoughts of looting Yankees to make possible a prosperous postwar life awaiting him somewhere in a South that was but a fuzzy myth in his mind. He saw himself wearing a plantation hat and rocking on a porch with a mint julep while his chattel toiled in a field growing nothing specific.

  Quantrill was already making a name when sixteen-year-old Burnham joined the band of guerilla raiders, whose captain headed up what had been a ragtag band of a dozen men that had grown to a force of over one hundred. Their leader, frustrated by the Confederate military’s shameful hesitance to wage total war against Union forces, had taken it upon himself to raid Union camps, sack settlements, attack Yankee patrols, and even bring down boats on the Missouri River.

  Burnham was one of many civilians among the marauders, though regular soldiers rode with them, too. Not that those riding out of uniform were of a lesser breed. The young man rubbed shoulders with the likes of the James boys and the Younger brothers, all of whom honed their special skills under the captain’s leadership.

  Young Luke’s first taste of the Quantrill strategy of all-out war came with the raid on Shawnee, Kansas, where the boy participated in burning out the settlement. A dozen or so were slain in the attack, and Luke was responsible for two of those kills. He had felt nothing but exhilaration, that and a glow almost as warm as the orange-and-blue flames he’d helped light.

&n
bsp; When Captain Quantrill was denied a regular command, due to the traitorous talk of his supposed bloodthirsty ways, the Union struck out at him and his men by denying prisoner-of-war status to any raider who might be captured, labeling Quantrill’s men as self-serving thieves and cold-blooded killers. When had war become some kind of sissified gentlemen’s game?

  The captain had responded in kind, dealing death to any Unionites who surrendered, soldier or civilian alike. This raised the ire of a Yankee brigadier general, who announced that any person giving comfort and aid to the “bushwackers” would be imprisoned—women and children included. The general had figured this would drive the guerillas out of the Missouri-Kansas border area.

  Part of this anti-Quantrill effort included federal troops locking up Confederate-sympathizing families in a big, badly rundown building in Kansas City, Missouri, in an attempt to cut the Rebels off from food and shelter. Perhaps that might have paid off . . . if the three-story ramshackle structure hadn’t fallen down like London Bridge.

  Five women died in that collapsing building, and many others, children among them, were injured terribly. A good number of these innocents were relatives of Quantrill’s raiders, including the Younger brothers themselves.

  The captain’s vengeance came swift and unforgiving.

  Quantrill and his band, now numbering four-hundred-some—mounting a carefully planned military assault in the early morning hours—hit Lawrence, Kansas, rudely rousing its three thousand citizens from their slumber. Young Luke felt honored that he was appointed leader of the fire-setting brigade by the captain himself. And whenever anyone spoke of the so-called “Lawrence Massacre,” Burnham would inform them that Captain William Quantrill himself had stopped Luke from setting fire to the hotel until the guests were evacuated.

  Was that the act of a bloodthirsty killer?

  Far as that went, Luke didn’t kill many of the cowardly civilians that day, either—though he did do in one of the first to fall, a reverend out milking his cow behind his parsonage. Homes were pillaged and plundered, stores robbed, buildings torched, and the occasional “free” black man spotted and shot (most were cowering somewhere—to him, all these black vermin were yellow).