The Big Showdown Page 9

  The cashier was nodding. “I did. As I say, he’s a fine man. He’s always taken care of me.”

  “How so?”

  Upton flicked a nervous smile. “Just . . . he pays well, and steady.”

  “Are you a married man, sir?”

  The close-set eyes blinked away sweat. “No. Uh, what does that have to do with the price of eggs?”

  “Well, I guess it would double the price, since you’d be buying for two.”

  “. . . I’m engaged.”

  “Congratulations. Who’s the lucky lady?”

  “Pearl Kenner.”

  “Over at the Victory?”

  “She used to work there. She quit two weeks ago.”

  York grinned, keeping it friendly. “Well, sounds like she’s getting ready to set up housekeeping. Are you thinking of buying a place?”

  Upton swallowed thickly. “Pearl will just be moving into my room at the boardinghouse, for now—why? Why is this your business, Sheriff? I thought you were questioning me about the robbery.”

  York answered that with his own question: “You didn’t happen to know Bill Johnson, did you, Mr. Upton? I’d imagine he frequented the Victory now and again.”

  “Never met the man.”

  “But maybe you knew him by sight or reputation.”

  “No.”

  York shrugged. “You’re bound to know some of the rough bunch that Harry Gauge brought in, to deputy for him and work his ranches . . . right? Between the bank and the Victory?”

  Upton shifted uncomfortably in his boss’s chair. “No, I didn’t know him by name or reputation, either. And, yes, like a lot of working people in this town, I go to the Victory for a drink in the evenings, sometimes. But when I know it’s going to be a night where those rowdy cowboys are on the prowl . . . you know, payday night? . . . I avoid that place like poison.”

  York gave him another friendly grin. “Well, Pearl’s a nice gal. Everybody likes Pearl.”

  Upton frowned. “Do you mean something by that, Sheriff?”

  “No. Good luck to you lovebirds.”

  Upton stared at York with open contempt. “Is that all, sir? I need to get back to my station.”

  The bank was open, but there were no customers at the moment.

  “Sure. Go send your boss over.”

  Upton frowned and went over to his window, where Carter was filling in for him. The clerk pointed toward the seated York, and employer and employee spoke for a while, in hushed tones, longer than it would seem necessary for him merely to dispatch his boss to rejoin the sheriff.

  Finally, Carter came over and sat heavily in his chair, looking across the desk at York with put-upon eyes. “You seem to have upset my chief cashier.”

  “Apparently doesn’t take much. I will want to speak with your janitor.”

  “Understood. His name’s Charley Morton.” The banker sat forward, his expression earnest now. “Sir, do you really hold out hope for recovering our funds?”

  “I do. I think that money is hidden somewhere in town or anyway near it. And I intend to investigate the friends and co-workers of the three dead bank robbers, to possibly get a line on where.”

  “I would think you would find that low-class breed,” the banker said with a half-sneer, “more suitable for suspicion than my loyal staff.”

  “You would think,” he said with a smile.

  York didn’t put his hat back on until he was outside. He was heading down the boardwalk toward his office, spurs singing, when he heard a familiar female voice call out to him, raised over approaching hoofbeats.

  “Caleb!”

  He glanced back as Willa—in a red-and-black plaid shirt, Levi’s, and boots (as was often the case), her blond hair ponytailed with a red ribbon—pulled back on the reins and brought Daisy, her calico, to a sudden stop. She had obviously ridden here fast, faster than prudent, judging by the lathered-up nature of the poor animal.

  She hopped down and tied the horse up at the nearest hitching post. He waited for her. She almost ran to him.

  “I hear Bill Johnson’s dead.”

  He nodded toward the funeral parlor. “You can see for yourself, if you like. Had breakfast yet?”

  “Just coffee at the ranch. Buy me some and tell me all about it.”

  They went to the café and took a table by the window. The bacon and scrambled eggs were always good here and that’s what they had.

  “I want to hear all about it,” she said, having more coffee. She took it black, which either was a sign of strength or wariness over the freshness of the cream.

  He drank coffee, too, as he told her about last night at the Cantina de Toro Rojo, leaving in all the excitement but not detailing the carnage. That was a wise choice, because breakfast arrived halfway through the telling.

  Her expression, as she bit at a strip of bacon and chewed, was a mixture of concern and excitement. He knew that she liked the part of him that stirred her love of adventure—she preferred The Three Musketeers to Wuthering Heights—but he also realized she feared for his life, having witnessed firsthand just how brutal and dangerous confrontations with outlaws could be.

  “With this Johnson character dead,” she said, “does that mean you’ll be leaving?”

  “No.”

  She smiled. Her eyes said, Good, but her mouth didn’t bother. She just bit off more bacon.

  “I want to stick,” he said, “until this thing is resolved.”

  She frowned. “Resolved? How so? In what way?”

  “The trail of the robber led right back to Trinidad. The trail of the money, too. Something’s wrong here, Willa. Really wrong.”

  “What is?”

  He didn’t want to say anything about the bank, and its defensive president and his sweating chief clerk. For one thing, he wasn’t sure exactly what he thought about Carter and his staff, though definitely Upton was worth looking at hard. For another, he didn’t want those suspicions getting around town. Willa was no gossip, but Levi’s or not, she was female.

  “It’s an itch that’s developing,” he told her. “Not to the scratchin’ stage just yet.”

  “You talked to Mr. Carter today?”

  “I did.”

  A smile flickered on pretty lips. “Did he . . . say anything about making you a better offer?”

  “A better offer for what?”

  The smile flickered out. “For staying. For staying on, after this is . . . resolved. Better money, matching Pinkerton or more. Providing you improved living quarters.”

  York shook his head. “No. Not a word. After our conversation, I’m not so sure Carter would want me around any longer than he feels he must.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  He waved off her question. “Never mind that. Doesn’t matter either way.”

  Now she was frowning. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, after I do resolve this mess, I’m still leaving.” He patted her hand. “Honey, nothing’s changed. But maybe if your father and your new friend Zachary Gauge go in business, you won’t need to hang around here, either. San Diego’s a real pretty place. Ocean’s way bigger than the Purgatory River.”

  She was only half-finished with breakfast. But the way she pushed it away, and stormed out without another word, York had to wonder if she was all the way finished with him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  On horseback, Willa stopped burning about halfway home and was overcome by a sadness that she refused to allow to turn into tears. What had begun as a mental diatribe, about what an impossible man Caleb York was, turned into a sense of loss at the reality of not having that impossible man in her life on a daily basis, as he’d been for over six months.

  Trying to make Caleb see that she could not leave the Bar-O as long as her father needed her wasn’t the issue; she knew he got that. What he did not understand was how important the Bar-O and cattle ranching were to her. That they were as much a part of her life as any man could ever be. That if she were to marry and bear children, to him or
to anyone else, the Bar-O was where she wanted that to happen.

  Riding up to the ranch only made her feel that all the more keenly as she approached the familiar log arch with the chain-hung plaque with the big carved O under a bold line, replicating the Bar-O brand. In early-afternoon sun, the assorted buildings had a soft-edged glow worthy of memory, the twin corrals at right and left, the pair of barns, the grain crib, log-cabin bunkhouse, cookhouse with its hand pump and long wooden bench. The house itself had, like Topsy, grown from its humble beginnings until now it was an impressive, often added-to sprawl of log-and-stone.

  Two horses stood at the hitch rail. One she recognized as foreman Whit Murphy’s cattle pony, a pinto; the other she’d never seen, and she would have remembered this distinctive snowflake Appaloosa with its silver-mounted Mexican saddle. She tied up Daisy—who she’d ridden not nearly so hard on the ride home—next to the dark, light-spotted animal, with its thin mane and tail. The animal gave her that unsettling, near-human look the breed was known for—as if to ask, Do you belong here?—and she climbed the broad wooden steps to the awning-shaded porch. The cut-glass and carved-wood door opened suddenly, giving her a small start, and Whit exited, looking unhappy.

  “Something wrong?” she asked the foreman.

  Whit Murphy was a weathered, lanky cowboy with a dark, droopy mustache. Seeing Willa, he removed his Texas-style Stetson. She was well aware Whit was sweet on her, but he’d never done anything about it and she’d never encouraged it, either.

  “Nothin’ wrong,” Whit said with a sigh that had a growl in it, “that me learnin’ to keep my place wouldn’t cure.”

  He was slipping past her and she stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “Whit—what is it?”

  He nodded to the Appaloosa at the hitch rail below. “The man that critter belongs to is sellin’ your papa a bill o’ goods, far as I’m concerned.”

  Whit started to go again and this time she stopped him with a sharp word: “Whit.”

  He was already at the bottom of the porch steps, but he halted and she came down again.

  “Spill it,” she said.

  He shook his head, dark tendrils of hair stuck to his forehead. “The old feller asks me to stick around and sit in on a meetin’ with this Zachary Gauge joker. I got work to do. Them new boys don’t know up from down without me to tell ’em. But I say, sure, I mean, your pop’s the boss. So I sit in.”

  “And?”

  He scowled. “And when that snake-oil salesman starts in on Mr. Cullen, I just got to askin’ questions. I mean, what does some Eastern dude know about ranchin’, anyhow?”

  She nodded toward the Appaloosa. “He’s got himself a nice horse.”

  “Yeah, and a nice saddle, because he’s the type that thinks money can buy anything. So I call him on some of what he’s puttin’ out there. But your papa acts like I’m bein’ disrespectful or rude or some damn thing . . . excuse the language.”

  “I’ll get over it, Whit.”

  He pointed toward the house with his Stetson. “You best go in there, Miss Cullen, before your papa makes a consarned fool of himself.”

  As the foreman rode off, a little harder than need be, Willa wasn’t sure whether to be amused or concerned. She went quickly inside to see which was warranted.

  Moving through the entry into the beam-ceilinged living room—where her father’s rough-hewn carpentry mingled surprisingly well with her late mother’s beautifully carved Spanish-style furniture—she found Papa and his guest seated in two Indian-blanket-covered, rough-wood chairs near the unlit stone fireplace at the far end of the room.

  The ranch house had a lodge feel to it—hides on the floor, deer heads on the walls, with deer-hoof gun racks on either side of the fireplace, at left holding a Sharps rifle and at right a Winchester. Both weapons were functional, but the Sharps carried special significance—Papa had come West with not much more than a horse and that rifle. Buffalo hunting had built the grubstake from which Papa’s first cattle herd came.

  “Ah!” Papa said, rising. “Here’s my daughter!”

  He knew her footfall.

  Zachary Gauge stood as well. He was again in black frock coat with fancy waistcoat and black silk tie. She couldn’t decide whether his apparel reminded her more of a preacher or a gambler. But she appreciated the warmth of his smile as she approached.

  She paused, the two men standing at the rough chairs, the backs of which were to her. “Has my father offered you anything to drink?”

  Zachary waved that off. “Oh, that’s kind, Miss Cullen, but not necessary.”

  She stood with her hands fig-leafed before her, a hostess in plaid shirt and jeans. “Nonsense. There’s some coffee left from this morning. I’ll heat it up. Might be strong enough to make your eyes water, at this point. But it should wet the whistle.”

  Her father said, “Please do that, Willa. It’s the simple, civilized niceties that a blind old man can’t offer properly.. . . Unless you’d like a glass of hard cider, Mr. Gauge?”

  Zachary raised his palms in surrender. “Coffee will be just fine. Perhaps some cream and sugar?”

  Her father asked for a cup, black, and she went off to fill the orders. She returned, set the cups on a silver tray on the small rustic table between the two big chairs, and—with her own cup of coffee—sat on the hearth facing the two men, but also between them.

  This was a most conscious choice, as a chair Whit had obviously vacated was over by her father.

  “It’s very neighborly of you,” she said to their guest, “dropping by to say hello like this.”

  A half-smile curled in the narrow oval of his face. Those cheekbones seemed borrowed from an Apache, and the wide-set dark eyes had an almost Oriental cast. And a better barber than their mayor had cut that hair and trimmed that mustache.

  No question about it, she thought. Zachary Gauge was a handsome devil.

  “This is not just a social call, Miss Cullen,” he said, in his smooth second tenor. “We’ve paid our mutual respects already, at the Grange Hall. I’m here taking your father up on his offer to talk business.”

  Willa smiled, but tightly. “Well, let’s not rush into things.” She turned toward her father. “Have I missed anything, Father? You haven’t sold Mr. Gauge my calico, have you? I’m fond of Daisy, and, anyway, our visitor already has a handsome horse.”

  Papa said, “We’re still getting to know each other, Daughter. Let’s stay hospitable.”

  She shifted her smiling but serious gaze to their guest. “Well, Mr. Gauge here seems to think the socializing is over and the business has begun. What business, exactly, is it we’re discussing?”

  “Miss Cullen,” Zachary said, sitting forward, hands clasped between his knees, “you are right to be cautious. Everything today that we discuss is . . . preliminary. Exploratory.”

  “That’s a relief. As I say, I’m fond of my calico.”

  He chuckled softly. “Your calico is quite removed from my evil designs.”

  “How wonderful to hear. What are your evil designs, now that you mention them?”

  Her father frowned at her. “Daughter . . .”

  But Zachary said, “As I said at the Grange, Miss Cullen, I’m cattle poor . . . at least for the moment. On the other hand, I have three times as much land as your father does.”

  “As my father and I do,” she corrected gently.

  “Forgive me. I am aware that you . . .” He seemed about to say “help your father,” but instead said, “. . . are a key part of what makes the Bar-O tick.”

  “She surely is,” Papa put in.

  “But consider,” Zachary said, leaning back and gesturing with a slender-fingered hand, one that she doubted had seen physical labor in some time if ever, “between us we could become a virtual cattle empire in this part of the world. Sir, you could be the next John Chisum. We would be second to none in the entire New Mexico territory.”

  “Us with all our cows,” she said, “you with all that l
and. Land, that is, with no cows on it.”

  Another smile. They came easily to him. “That can be remedied with money. And I have money. What I don’t have is experience in the cattle business, much less expertise. Now in business period, I have considerable experience and for that matter considerable expertise. I would pull my weight. I would add to the enterprise.”

  “What exactly are you suggesting?” she asked.

  “I’m suggesting you consider a proposal to merge our holdings, much as industries back East merge into more powerful, bigger industries.” Zachary looked toward the sightless man. “I’m not suggesting that you sell me a few cattle . . . a starter herd . . . no.”

  But Papa already knew that, and he said to her, “Zachary would like to use my know-how . . . our know-how. . . and connections in the cattle trade . . . to build a herd twice the size of what we now have.”

  “And that would only be the start,” Zachary said.

  “Partners,” she said.

  “Yes. Fifty-fifty. Really, I’ll be contributing more, because I have more land and my funds will purchase enough cattle to, as your father said, double the size of your herd.”

  “Why so generous?” she asked.

  He flipped a hand. “Because I am an infant in the cattle business. I want to partner with people who know what they’re doing. Who are respected, knowledgeable cattle ranchers.”

  She mulled it for a few moments. Then she said, “This is something Papa and I will need to discuss. At length.”

  “Of course it is. But with your permission, I will start some paperwork. Is there a reliable lawyer in town?”

  “Now, Mr. Gauge,” Willa said, cocking her head, “aren’t you jumping the gun a little?”

  “We need to move quickly,” Zachary said. “I know enough about the cattle business to understand that by spring we need to be a well-oiled machine. If we’re to take our combined herd to market in the most fruitful way.”

  “I don’t see any harm,” Papa said.

  Zachary, like any good salesman, knew enough to assume the sale. He got to his feet. “I understand there are two lawyers in Trinidad. Do you have a preference? Or should we go to Las Vegas or Albuquerque for counsel?”