The doctor’s nod was barely discernible, but it was there. “Can I . . . can I go now? Why . . . why don’t we . . . all agree that . . . that I’ll forget about this little incident . . . and you won’t tell anybody . . . what your man saw me do.”
“Guess that’s against medical ethics or some such, right, Doc? Not to worry—we don’t tell tales out of school here at the sheriff’s office. Though . . . we are about to move on to my next question.”
Miller’s swollen eyes closed in anticipation of what pain and indignities were yet to come.
But Gauge merely leaned back against the edge of his desk, arms folded, casual, friendly, implying that no more punishment was coming, as long as the doctor continued to cooperate.
“Tell me, Doc—why did you sneak off and bury Old Swenson?”
Miller shook his head, an effort that clearly had a cost.
Gauge lurched forward and slammed a fist into the side of the doctor’s head. The doc’s mouth went slack and pink saliva drooled from pulverized lips barely recognizable as lips at all.
The doctor began to cry.
To sob.
At the little table, Maxwell was grinning like a kid at the circus while Colton started in with a high-pitched laugh, saying, “He’s bawlin’ like a little girl! Like a damn girl!”
Gauge frowned over at his deputies, shaking his head a tad.
Then he resumed his questioning. “Doc, we got us a problem. Good as I am at this, when we get past a certain point? You’re gonna be the next one buried out there in the brush somewheres. You do follow?”
The doc swallowed thickly. Nodded sluggishly.
“Okay, then. Why the fuss over Swenson’s body?”
“I . . . I think you know why.”
“Let’s say I don’t.”
Again the doc swallowed, and he lifted his chin, as if inviting yet another blow. His speech became less halting as he summoned strength from somewhere.
“All right . . . I’ll tell you why . . . though as I say . . . you likely . . . likely know already.” He sighed, tremblingly. “Swenson came down with the pox not long before he died.”
The deputies at the table weren’t smiling now.
The doctor nodded his head back, indicating the two spectators. His mouth was trying to form something that might have been a smile.
“Your men handled the body, didn’t they, Sheriff? Was it these two? . . . I hope all of you know that you can get this unforgiving thing, too. Maybe . . . maybe it’s not such a good time to be murdering your town doctor.”
Maxwell and Colton were on their feet, wild-eyed, the latter reaching for his pistol.
But Gauge waved at them to sit back down, giving them a few shakes of the head and a skeptical expression that seemed to tell them not to worry about what the doctor had said.
Bending over, hands on his knees, the sheriff stared into the grotesque mask he’d created where the doc’s face used to be.
“Don’t try to rattle us, Doc. We’ve been around cows too long. We’ve seen the pox before.”
“Then . . . then you must’ve seen people die from it. And maybe . . . maybe this is your turn. At least, if that is the case? You fools won’t spread the infection any further.”
Gauge scowled and drew back his hand to slap the doc.
But their guest’s chin had dropped to his chest, the man finally unconscious. Not dead, still breathing. But out.
The door half-opened and Rhomer stuck his head in. “Harry . . . better step outside here a second.”
Gauge told the two deputies to leave the doc be, then stepped out.
On the porch, hands on hips, Gauge asked, “What’s going on?”
The deputy gestured all around. “See for yourself—not a damn thing is goin’ on, and that’s the point.”
Main Street did look strangely deserted.
Rhomer went on: “We got a stage due through here this afternoon, right? Stage comin’, every merchant in town is standin’ outside of his place of business with a big welcomin’ smile plastered on his puss, and the ladies’re all dressed up and lined along the boardwalk rails to see who new’s comin’ into town. Now . . . what do you see this mornin’, boss?”
“Not a damn thing,” Gauge admitted. “All we lack is tumbleweed rollin’ down Main.”
That stage would be carrying the first round of cattle buyers. Gauge had already decided to do business with them. With the clock ticking on the cowpox infestation, doing that was critical. No time for competitive bids.
“Stores all closed,” Rhomer was saying, shaking his head, gazing down the street.
“Is the café open?”
The proprietor, Lucas Jones, used to ride with Gauge, who was co-owner.
“He is, and Luke says he sold more than a few cups of coffee, first thing. Right around when men started in just sort of driftin’ out of town, not long after sunup. You know what else he says?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
The deputy’s eyes narrowed meaningfully. “Thought he might’ve saw the stranger goin’ into the hardware store, right after it opened . . . but ain’t sure.”
Gauge looked up and down the empty street.
Rhomer was saying, “Seems like all that’s left in town is women and kids, and they’re mostly keepin’ inside. What the hell’s goin’ on, Harry?”
He shook his head, disgusted. “It’s that stranger’s work. Has to be. Somehow he convinced these lily livers to go out and help Cullen in his time of need.”
The redheaded deputy tugged gently at his bandaged ear, making a sour face. “You should’ve killed that S.O.B. when you had the chance, Harry.”
“Well, Vint,” came a familiar female voice from behind them, “why didn’t you?”
They turned to see Lola—ready for riding—in a blue-and-white shirt and navy split-skirt with matching gloves and boots—smirking at them sassily.
Gauge frowned. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Lola shrugged. Her eyes met Rhomer’s and he glanced away. “Nothing. Just an observation, posed as a question.”
“Well, keep your damn observations to yourself,” Gauge said irritably. “Questions too.”
She tossed her head. Her hair was up as usual, but she wore only light face paint. “All right. If you think Deputy Rhomer here is the kind of . . . advisor you prefer.”
Rhomer gave her a hard-eyed, nasty look, just before Gauge shoved his face at hers, taking her aback some.
He said, “How about you just keep that pretty mouth shut? I just about had it with you lipping off all the time.”
“Harry, I was only . . .”
“Lola, I killed men for less than I put up with out of you lately. Bear that in mind.”
Rhomer had a goofy smile going that Gauge picked up on. “What you grinning about, Vint?”
“Nothin’, Harry! I . . .”
He nodded behind him. “Go in and get that doctor out of sight.”
Rhomer frowned, cocked his head like a dog trying to understand its master’s words. “You mean . . . six feet under, out of sight?”
Gauge touched his chin, thought momentarily. “No. Not yet, anyway. If there’s trouble, we may need that quack.”
“Then . . . what . . . ?”
The sheriff jerked a thumb toward the office. “Stick the doc in the back cell and keep somebody on guard. When this thing is over, if nobody needs patchin’ up . . . or, anyway, after they been patched up sufficient . . . then we’ll dig Miller a new surgery out on Boot Hill. About time this town had a new doctor, anyway.”
Rhomer, liking the sound of that, was just about to head back inside when Lola asked, “Say, Vint, what happened to your ear? Cut yourself shaving?”
The smile in his nest of beard oozed menace, but the deputy was turned away from Gauge, who didn’t tumble to it.
Rhomer said, “Naw, thought you knew, Lola—one of your girls did this to me. I got a little . . . rambunctious, I guess.”
“B
oys will be boys,” she said.
“Well, she better look out. Might get what she deserves.”
He went in.
Then Lola was at Gauge’s side, saying, “So you’ve got the elderly doctor handled. Congratulations. Now, what about Banion? What are you going to do about him?”
Gauge chuckled, stepping away from her. “Banion? Why, I’m not going to do a damn thing about Banion.”
Relishing his secret joke, he got the wire out, reading it to himself yet another time, savoring the words that spoke of Banion’s death two months before. Then he wadded up the slip of paper and tossed it into the street.
After watching this curious conduct with some confusion, Lola reared her head back and smiled at him . . . but her eyes were hateful, and this he caught.
“Why not go after him, Harry? Or has Banion got you scared?”
He backhanded her and she went down on the porch like a bundle of kindling, the plank flooring groaning though she herself made not a sound. She stayed down there awhile, her back arching like an animal about to strike.
Then she had that derringer in her hand, courtesy of the gambler’s holdout rig up her sleeve.
As she started up, Gauge kicked the little gun out of her gloved fingers, as easy as swatting a fly. The toe of his boot caught her hand enough to make her yowl.
She was still down there, a wounded, cornered animal, breathing hard, looking up at him with eyes showing white all around, nostrils flared, teeth showing, leaning one hand against the planking, the other touching the redness of her cheek.
Her breath regular now, her voice seemed surprisingly soft and almost uninflected—no anger apparent, only hurt, and not the hurt of flesh, but something deeper.
“Why do you keep doing that, Harry? How many times have I told you never to hit me? How can you treat me like this after all we’ve been to each other?”
He grabbed her by an arm and hauled her up, and it took her a while to get her footing, brushing off her split-skirt as she did.
“You’re right, Lola. We have . . . been . . . something to each other. ‘Been,’ as in ‘we ain’t anymore.’ ”
She stared at him as if he were a stranger now. “What are you . . . ?”
He took her by both arms and squeezed, not enough to hurt, but to demonstrate control.
“I just don’t need you anymore, kid. Oh, I’m not throwin’ you out—not exactly. You do what I tell you to, and maybe I’ll let you stay on in Trinidad. Misbehave, and maybe I won’t.”
She swallowed hard, her chin quivering, small, trembling fists held waist-high. “I brought you to Trinidad, Harry. Never forget that. I made you. You started with my money.”
“That’s right,” he said. “You made me. But how many times did I make you?” He laughed lightly and shrugged. “It all worked out real nice, didn’t it? Well, it’ll work out even better now.”
She stood very close to him, gazing up at him, and there was something fearless about it that impressed him some.
She said, “You really think that Cullen girl is woman enough for you? Not that she’d ever have you. She’d kill herself before letting you touch her.”
“Maybe I don’t mean to ask,” he said, and he shoved her away and went back into his office, slamming the door on her.
Gauge didn’t see Lola—going out in the street to retrieve the derringer—notice the wad of paper he had tossed there. And bend down in the street to pick it up. . . .
Nor did he see her come back up on the porch, intending to confront him again, but stopping as voices from inside came through the open shutters.
“Vint, that stage stops at the relay station to make its change of horses before comin’ into town.”
“That’s right, Harry, same as always. And the passengers can have a drink or two while they’s waitin’. So what?”
“So we’ll meet those cattle buyers out there, before they even get to town. Old Man Cullen won’t think of that, and even if he does . . . we’ll be waiting.”
Lola tucked the derringer back in its sleeve rig and the wrinkled slip of paper into a pocket, then walked quickly to the livery stable, where she got her horse and rode off to deliver her own message.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
From her saddle atop Daisy, Willa—in red-and-black plaid shirt, red neck-knotted scarf, denims, and stirrup-friendly boots—shielded her eyes from the sun and let them roam over the endless, slightly rolling grassy expanse before her. She and a dozen other riders were paused at a slight rise in their search for dead cattle that didn’t seem to want to be found.
They had been at it since shortly after dawn, and—after meeting up with the stranger and thirty-some other men on horseback whom he’d managed to enlist from Trinidad—they’d put in another two fruitless hours. The volunteers from town, shopkeepers and clerks, looked almost comically out of place on the range in their suits and ties and bowlers. They had split up into three groups, the men from town joining cowhands from the Cullen spread and the other independents, a rancher leading each contingent.
Willa’s group consisted of foreman Whit Murphy, several Cullen hands, half-a-dozen Trinidad men, and herself. And, of course, the stranger, whose tenderfoot-worthy apparel was looking considerably less fancy after the dust, sweat, and riding of the morning.
Right now they were looking at a whole lot of nothing under a sun that was almost directly above them, and growing ever hotter.
Whit, his expression foul, said, “This is loco—we ain’t found any sign of dead cows.”
The foreman sat on horseback on one side of her and the stranger on the other.
The man in black on his dappled gelding said, “They’re around.”
“Really?” Whit snapped. He threw an open hand out. “Where?”
“That’s the question.”
A rider came up quickly—Matt Gerrity, the small, tough owner of another of the few remaining independent spreads. In his forties, with sharp cheekbones, untrimmed reddish brown mustache, and cleft chin, the grizzled Gerrity was otherwise indistinguishable from any of the hard-riding cowhands who worked for him, half a dozen of whom—supplanted by the fish-out-of-water townsmen—arrived moments after their boss.
The rancher pointed and said, “We covered all that end, Miss Cullen, Whit. No sign of nothin’ bein’ buried there.”
The stranger asked, “No sick cattle?”
Gerrity shook his head. “We swung all through that herd Gauge’s got staked out for delivery. Checked all around.” He shrugged, shook his head again. “No sign of the pox.”
The third group of riders came up and their leader—Charley Mathis, another independent rancher—drew up beside Gerrity. Nobody looked happy.
Whit said, “How about it, Charley? Find anything?”
Mathis was in his fifties, weathered, white-haired with matching handlebar mustache and small, shrewd eyes that crowded a hooked nose.
He said, “Not a damn thing, Whit. The south range looks clean as a whistle.”
Whit said nothing, or at least he spoke no words—his darkening expression was eloquent enough without them.
With a weight-of-the-world sigh, the foreman climbed down off his horse, and when he came around in front, he had his .45 in hand, aimed the stranger’s way.
“Keep away from those guns, mister,” Whit said. “Sidearm and shotgun both. Hands up, shoulder-high.”
“Whit!” Willa said, stunned.
The man under the gun followed instructions. “Well, Whit. You seem to have somethin’ on your mind.”
The menacing figure was sneering up at the stranger. “You could say that. Like thinkin’ how things are startin’ to make sense, about now.”
Her forehead tense, Willa said, “Whit, what in God’s name do you think you’re—”
“All due respect, Miss Cullen,” he said, cutting her off, “this is between one man and another one.”
“You work for me!”
“No. I work for your father.”
The
others on horseback were watching, some with interest, others in confusion. Perhaps half the men wore a glowering cast and appeared to share Whit’s sentiment.
“We’re on the same side,” the stranger observed. “Squabbling gets us nowhere.”
Gun thrust up at the man, Whit said, “Really? Well, you never even said which side you was on, stranger! Hell, you never even gave us a name. Could be you’re workin’ for Harry Gauge.”
Willa, head spinning, said, “Why would you say such a thing, Whit?”
With his free hand, the foreman gestured to the vastness of range around them. “Gauge rustled our herd, all right, and moved ’em toward the foothills. No question about that. And what with all these men we put together for this dead-cow hunt, we damn well might’ve located them beeves by now.”
“Possibly,” the stranger allowed.
Now Whit spoke to the other men on horseback who were looking on, while never taking his eyes—much less his .45—off the stranger. The one thing they all knew about this man in a pearl-buttoned black shirt was that he was dangerous, and deadly with a gun.
Whit continued, “Only, we didn’t go lookin’ for Mr. Cullen’s herd, no. Instead, we spend all our time lookin’ for dead cattle that ain’t here—that ain’t nowhere.”
“Whit,” the stranger said quietly, with the tiniest nod, “you’re going to want to put that gun away.”
The foreman just grinned up at him. “You and Gauge hatched yourselves one hell of a scheme. Put on quite a show. But when we send you back to him, across your saddle? He’s gonna know things ain’t worked out exactly as planned.”
Willa said, “Whit—are you listening to yourself? He killed four of Gauge’s deputies.”
“Small sacrifice for Gauge to make out of his numbers,” Whit said, with a downturned smile, “if him and his helper here could put this over.”
“Whit Murphy,” Willa said, pointedly, “you’re not making sense. . . .”
“Miss Cullen, you need to stay quiet now.”
A faint smile traced the stranger’s lips. “Not very smart, are you, Whit? A good man and loyal. Just not too smart.”
“Keep ’em up!” Whit blinked away the insult. “Now, we can hang you or shoot you. Any preference, stranger? We’re civilized people, around these parts. . . .”
The Legend of Caleb York Page 15