Tulley had started nodding in the middle of that, seeing the wisdom of the sheriff’s words. Soon he was putting on the gun belt that had once belonged to the dead lunger.
York explained to his deputy that Burnham might be holed up in one of the shops, and—if so—had likely broken in, in back.
“So you go behind the shops on the south side of Main,” York said, “and I’ll take the north side, in back, looking for signs of a break-in. Tulley, if you see such signs, don’t go . . .” He almost said “blundering,” but instead said, “roaring in. Come find me and we’ll handle it together.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll end up at the jail. If there’s been no sign of Burnham breaking in anywhere, we check the livery stable.”
Tulley nodded again. “Ye figure he mighta took a horse from the livery.”
“Yes. But it does seem a bit unlikely, since he was closer to the horses at Maxwell’s. A wounded man beating a path to the livery, all the way to the west end of Main, when he had a better option? Well, that doesn’t make much sense to me.”
“I guess. Iffen he weren’t a military man.”
York frowned. “What’s that, Deputy?”
Tulley shrugged. “This Burn ’Em feller, he ran with Quantrill. He thinks half sojer, half raider. I think first he saw that you was ’tween him and them horses at Maxwell’s. Now, I know he wants a crack at ye, Caleb York, for past indignities . . . but not when ye got the advantage! Not when this feller is shot to hell and just wants to live through it.”
“In which case,” York said, heading over to the boardwalk, Tulley working to keep up, “he would make straight for the livery.”
They were walking side by side now, and the boardwalk was cleared enough, if spottily, to make the going better than in the drifted street. Also, the overhang lessened the falling snow.
“And this Burn ’Em feller,” Tulley said, “he knows how you think, Caleb York. He knows you ain’t no military man. Ye be Wells Fargo, a detective, and you’d search the town one end to the tother. Might even be smart enough to figger you might rule out him a-fleein’ on horseback, since he didn’t go back for an animal at Maxwell’s. Might figger you’d think him wantin’ revenge so dang bad would keep him in town. So, meanin’ no awful fence, this here feller may have out-thunk you, Sheriff. Like I say, meanin’ no awful fence.”
“Tulley,” York said, walking as quick as the snow on the boardwalk would allow, “when did you get so damn smart? ”
“I was always this smart,” he said. “I went purt’ near to the end of third grade. My maw said I was the smartest of us boys.”
“How many of you boys were there?”
“Two.”
They made the trek to the east end of Main Street in not much more time than it would have taken in normal weather. They paused on the porch outside the jailhouse office. Off to their right, at the dead end of Main, was the livery stable. Directly across from them was the little barrio, which the sheriff nodded toward.
“If Burnham hasn’t left town,” York said, “he very well could be dug in over there. Wouldn’t be hard for him to take over one of those huts from a family and wait for me to walk by or stick my head in.”
“The cantina,” Tulley said, gesturing in that direction, “with them rooms up top for the angels what fell up there? That be a fine place to relax while waitin’ to kill some feller.”
York smiled at that, but he didn’t dispute it. Then he said, “Go in and get another scattergun for yourself. Bring plenty of shells.”
“Yes, sir,” Tulley said, and did that.
On his deputy’s return, York said, “I’ll take the livery in front and you take the back.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t do anything unless you hear a gunshot or till I call for you. You hear a shot, then bust in and, if I’m not standing, take the son of a bitch down.”
Tulley’s nod was firm. “I’ll take the damn head right offen him.”
York nodded. “Seems to be your style.”
Tulley grinned. Apparently this was the first he’d heard he had a style.
Double doors for riding a horse in or out were on either side of the barnlike building, but at the right of them, both front and back, was a regular door. Normally the double doors in front stood open, but they were shut in this unfriendly weather. The building itself, a weathered gray wooden structure that looked like this wind might take it down, wore a snowy hat on its gabled roof.
York, .44 Colt in hand, approached slowly as Tulley headed around to the other side. Pausing at the double doors, which would open outward, he considered using the normal-size entry.
Then he reconsidered.
He yanked open the big door at right, not all the way, just enough for him to dive in and to the left, which he did, landing on straw. On his back, looking up, he fanned the .44 around, but no one was standing except the many horses, some of whom whinnied at his entrance. He waited to see if Burnham would pop up from among the horses, and his eyes searched through their skinny legs for any trousers among them.
No.
Then, as he got to his feet, York saw him.
Not Burnham, but Lem Hansen, the bulky blacksmith, sprawled on the floor just outside an improbably empty stall. York went to him quickly, while looking all around to see if Burnham was lying in wait. A killer might be ready to ambush the sheriff, if York were distracted by the fallen stable man, who was not dead; Hansen was not even unconscious, simply moaning and bloodied along the back of his head.
No sign of Burnham, though, and after several moments, York helped Hansen up into a sitting position. The blacksmith sat with his hands limp in the lap of his leather apron.
“What happened here, Lem?”
Hansen, groggy, his eyes half-lidded, said, “He . . . he been shot. Had a gun in his hand. Wanted the bes’ horse.”
“Sure he did,” York said. “He wanted the most rested, fastest horse stabled here.”
“He did,” the blacksmith confirmed.
And the place was jammed with horseflesh, the heating stove putting out nicely. York was relieved his gelding was still in its stall.
York said, “Did he offer to pay?”
“He . . . he offered to trade . . . two horses. For one. Said they was in the workshop, ’hind the saddle shop. I said . . . said, I can’t trade you or sell you a horse that ain’t mine. Most of these is just kept here for the storm.”
York nodded toward the nearby empty stall. “So he stuck that gun in your ribs and made you show him to the best horse.”
The blacksmith started to shake his head, then thought better of it. “Happened jus’ ’bout like that. I give him Mr. Mathers’s bes’ horse . . . personal mount. And he give me . . . give me . . .”
“Gave you that clout on the head, didn’t he, Lem?”
“He did. He did at that. Seen him afore . . . slept here few nights back.”
“Had a milky eye, didn’t he?”
“He did! Scar runnin’ through it. Smiled some but weren’t nothin’ about smilin’ in that there smile.”
“Understood.”
“He was weavin’ some . . . wounded how bad, I can’t say. Me, I don’t feel so good myself.”
“I’ll get you some help.... Tulley!”
Tulley came in, loaded for bear, scattergun sweeping all around. Then he came over, threading through the milling horses, getting some neighs but no yays. The old boy crouched next to the blacksmith, who sat on the hay with his legs straight out like a child playing jacks, the sheriff kneeling nearby.
“Deputy,” York said, “fetch Doc Miller. He may be busy with the undertaker or he might be visiting Mr. Godfrey. But find him and tell him we have a live patient for him for a change.”
“Yes, sir,” Tulley said with a nod, and went off, finding his way through the cluster of horses.
As the deputy was going, York called, “If I’m not here when you get back, I’m out after Burnham!”
“Ye
s, sir!”
“You watch the town for me!”
“Like a gol’ dang hawk!”
Tulley slipped out the front double doors, closed them behind him.
York said, “Any other talk between you and the milky-eyed man?”
“S-some. He wanted to know where the nearest shelter was. I said, north or south? He said north. I said, probably the Brentwood Junction relay station. I said he could eat there, mos’ likely, even though the stagecoaches ain’t runnin’. He wanted to know how far, and I said normal weather, half hour. He asked if there was any place closer. I said, not open to the public. He said, what about not open to the public. I said, just the Bar-O.”
York frowned. “You mentioned the Bar-O?”
“Afraid so. He said, ain’t that the Cullen place? I said it was. He said, ain’t that run by a girl? I said that was so. He said, ain’t she suppose to be sweet on Caleb York? And I said, such things ain’t my business.”
The hair on the back of York’s neck was standing up. “And what did he say next?”
“Nothing. He just whacked me on the head with the butt of his pistol.”
The blacksmith’s eyes were drooping. York had questioned him hard, probably too hard. He moved the man just a shade, to where he could lean back against the wooden side of a stall.
York stood. “Thank you, Lem. You rest. Doc’ll be here soon.”
“S-sorry, Sheriff.”
“No need.”
“Shouldn’t have tol’ him of the Bar-O.”
“No. You shouldn’t have.”
But the blacksmith was asleep, and York was getting his dappled gelding out of its stall and saddled up. He had to ride out into this storm one last time.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Willa Cullen sat on the hearth of the stone fireplace beside a snapping, crackling fire in the living room of the ranch house, feeling very alone. Though lamps on small tables glowed yellow in two windows, the long, rather narrow room with its mix of her mother’s fine furnishings and her father’s rustic creations was mostly unlighted.
The fire threw flickering reflections on the young woman, who—in her red-and-black plaid shirt and jeans and boots—felt not at all feminine right now. She had no idea how lovely she looked, half-turned toward the warmth and flames in a pensive posture, highlighted in shimmering soft orange and deep blue shadows.
Her sense of aloneness was more a literal feeling than an emotional one, as everyone else on the ranch house grounds was out dealing with the realities of this stubborn storm—even plump Harmon had traded his cookhouse for a saddle. The bunkhouse was empty and stable man Lou Morgan had been recruited into the small army on horseback to help deal with scattered, stranded cattle and cowhands who were out there somewhere in the drifting snow and hadn’t been heard from for too long.
“I’ll keep an eye on the horse barn,” she assured Lou, before he joined the effort.
“Much obliged, Miz Cullen. Keep that heat stove stoked. Critters’ll ketch their death if you don’t.”
“I will, and they’ll get plenty of oats and hay, too.”
She’d watched them ride off and disappear into the wall of white. Willa only hoped the undertaking would help, and wouldn’t just add more names to the list of the missing.
Icy flakes pelted the windows and whipping wind shook the porch beams and rails in an unrelenting reminder that the blizzard still ruled the land. Despite the warmth of the fire, she hugged her arms to herself, fighting a chill that was more mental than physical. She wondered if the Bar-O would survive this onslaught by Nature.
Had she done everything she could?
Willa tried to imagine what her father might have done differently, knowing too well that George Cullen would have preferred a son, though both her late parents had encouraged her to be feminine and strong.
When she turned away from the fire, she could just see Papa seated there in the nearby rough-hewn chair he’d fashioned himself—though carpentry had been a necessity not a passion of his, a skill learned by doing. The Papa her memory summoned had eyes bright and seeing. Not the blind old man whose orbs were a spooky white. Smoking a pipe, his expression peaceful, not judgmental at all, this Papa seemed to reassure her without a word, his expression saying, Man can only do so much, daughter. God will have His way.
Not “a man,” but “man”—the human race. That she was female had never been something Papa had held over her. However much he might have liked to have a son.
She thought, too, of Caleb York. Though she felt no guilt for taking him into her bed, she wondered if this man—a man she seemed unable to stop loving—would ever be able to bring himself to join her here at the Bar-O. If not, could she go with him, wherever he led her? Whither though goest, the Bible said, I will go. But that was a woman talking to another woman, wasn’t it?
Living in a town like Trinidad, or a city like San Diego, seemed a foreign concept to her. She liked Denver, adored Denver really, but to visit—for the fine hotels and restaurants and the amusements. Living day to day in such a place as a married woman . . . raising children, cooking meals for the family, mending and sewing, doing the housework? None of these things had she ever seriously considered. True, she did some of these things here, but also, so much more....
Now, if Caleb were willing to live out here, and help her run the Bar-O, with enough money rolling in to hire help for cooking and cleaning and maybe a governess for the kids . . .
What kids?
And for that matter, after the blizzard, what Bar-O?
A knocking at the door startled her out of solitude. Might be her foreman, Earl Colson, with a report. Could even be Caleb, making a return visit. The latter made her smile, then frown, then smile again. Still, it seemed somehow a surprise that anyone else could even exist out here.
When she opened the door, the figure standing before her was neither her foreman nor Caleb, but a duster-garbed stranger. Broad-shouldered, as big as the sheriff, and just as impressive, even if he seemed barely able to keep on his feet—he even had to lean a gloved hand against the door frame for support. His battered black hat hung heavy with snow, and tiny icicles clung to his bearded face, his eyes all but closed. His duster wore a coating of white, giving him a ghostly look, disrupted only by an iced-over patch of scarlet on his chest near his shoulder, which spoke of a bullet wound.
“Ma’am,” he said, in a voice touched by the South, “I am a weary traveler in trouble. Might I impose upon your kindness?”
She did not reply, just put her arm around his shoulder—the one not close to the probable wound—and walked him inside. She closed the door and he leaned against it as she took his hat and helped him out of the duster, then hung them on the wall hooks.
Oddly, he wore an ancient Confederate officer’s jacket, the black blood-crusted hole in which confirmed he’d suffered a bullet wound. He wore a gun belt, which he started to take off, perhaps to show he was no threat to her; but when he seemed about to lose his balance, she helped him with it, and hung it on a hook, too.
Willa guided him through the living room, leaving behind him a melting trail of winter weather. Getting to the pair of rough-wood chairs near the fireplace and its warmth took a while, though he did not stumble. He grimaced yet neither moaned nor groaned when she settled him down.
“You’ve been shot,” she said.
For the first time he opened his eyes, and she saw that he had a scar that ran vertically through the center of his left eye, which was now a milky white. She almost gasped—not because it was disturbing, but because it brought her own father’s sightless eyes back to mind.
“We need,” she said, “to get you out of that jacket.”
He nodded and extended his arms crucifixion-style, grimacing again but making no sound. She slipped the garment off him and folded it, then set it aside on the floor.
He rasped, “I . . . I’ll want that back.”
She smiled. “I have no use for it. Sit forward. Just enough for me to get
a look at the back of you.”
He did, and she had her look and said, “Appears to be an exit wound. Bullet went through you. You’re lucky.”
“Am I?”
She gave him a smile. “Some stupid physician won’t be sticking his dirty fingers in your wound, and then trying to dig out the bullet with some unsterilized thingamajig. When this storm subsides, we’ll get Dr. Miller out here from town—you may not realize it, but you’re near Trinidad—to have a look at you.”
He seemed to be struggling to stay conscious. “I . . . I was heading there. I put up at that way station when the storm got bad. Comin’ from Las Vegas.”
“Don’t talk. Can you get out of that shirt, while I gather some things?”
He swallowed, nodded. The fire was reflecting off his face, the snow and ice that had encrusted his beard starting to melt into what might be mistaken for tears.
When she came back his shirt was off, and tossed onto the jacket. He had a decent, sinewy build, but much bullet scarred. From the war that his jacket spoke of, she wondered? Otherwise, what kind of life was her guest leading, to come to a strange house seeking shelter with a bullet wound?
No time for questions or answers now.
The bullet had gone in small but came out bigger; however, the cold had helped clot both entry and exit. When the warmth of the house and this fireplace thawed him, maybe the clotting would go, which wouldn’t help matters.
Willa warmed water on the kitchen stove and gathered towels, bandages, and a bottle of her father’s Old Crow whiskey from a cupboard shelf. Soon she had cleaned up her patient and given him a drink from the bottle before applying the alcohol to the wounds, fore and aft. This time he did make a little noise. She could not blame him.
In perhaps ten minutes, she had him bandaged, wrapping the gauze around his torso, then helped her patient back into the shirt. He was studying her; that one milky eye did not bother her as it would have some people. She had sympathy for him, left over from her father.
“You are . . . you’re a kind woman,” he said, as if he’d just spotted some rare species in the wild.
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