He had just finished the sandwich when Rita Filley appeared and sat beside him, delivering a glass of beer. She wore a green satin gown—even midday, she played her role to the hilt, her spilling décolletage a further inducement for male clientele.
She said with a lilt in her voice, “I see you’re still alive.”
He nodded, sipped the beer. “I see you’re no longer maintainin’ a hotel for stray cowhands.”
“No, all my little strays have wandered back to their ranches.”
“Probably in no hurry. Those boys do not have pleasant duty ahead.”
She frowned, shuddered a little. “So I’ve heard. I also hear you had quite the time filling the undertaker’s window so vividly. Some wild stories going around.”
“Like the one where I rode a wild bucking bronco to death, then bit him open stem to stern and slithered inside to get some rest?”
“I heard a version of that. I think it’s only going to get better.”
“Depends on what you consider ‘better.’ ” He gave her as warm a smile as he dared. “I wanted to tell you how much I admire what you did for those stranded cowboys. Housing, feeding them. If you want to tally up your expenses, I’ll take them to the Citizens Committee.”
She shook her head. “No thanks. Even a saloon owner has to pitch in her civic duty sometimes.”
“You’re a good man, woman.” He wiped his face with a napkin, pushed his empty plate away, finished the beer, then said, “Listen. Something you need to know.”
Her expression would have been unreadable, had her eyes not tightened a touch. “All right. I’m always ready to be better informed.”
“I, uh . . . things have turned serious with Miss Cullen and myself.”
She swallowed, twitched a smile, nodded. “I’m not surprised. I’ve noticed you’re fond of her.”
“By serious, I mean . . .”
“I know what you mean.”
His mouth smiled but his forehead frowned. “It’s just . . . Rita, I think the world of you. I don’t know that there’s anyone’s friendship I value more.”
She drew a breath. Let it out. Said, “Wonderful to hear.”
“I’m not a perfect man.”
“No, really?”
He smiled, shrugged. “I just mean . . . I have no intention of taking advantage of you. We need to keep this friendly, but, uh . . .”
“You won’t be going upstairs with me anymore.”
He said nothing for a while.
Then, quietly: “No.”
“Understood,” she said.
He gestured helplessly. “Could you respect a man who went back and forth between two women? Who played it fast and loose in such a way?”
“Of course not.” She smiled and there was warmth in it. Reached out and touched his hand. Warmth in that, too. “Don’t give it another thought.”
She squeezed his hand and took hers away.
“You know what they say,” she said, with a painted smile. “ ‘Woman’s work is never done.’ ” She and her smile rose. “Have to get to the bookkeeping, I’m afraid.”
And she went up the stairs.
Alone.
What she did up there, however, was not bookkeeping. And while the possibility did not occur to him, Rita was making the very point York had made to Willa, earlier.
Even a strong woman can cry.
A TIP OF THE STETSON
The very real blizzard that became known as the Big Die-Up (aka the Great Die-Up) serves as the historical backdrop of this novel. My approach to the Caleb York novels, however, is not generally that of the historical novelist.
I admit feeling a certain push/pull, because in my historical mystery and crime novels—in particular the Nathan Heller series—I often look at real mysteries and crimes, dropping a traditional private detective in the Philip Marlowe /Mike Hammer mode into an extensively researched examination of the subject at hand.
But in following the late Mickey Spillane’s lead, established in his various film script drafts and notes about the York character and his world, I have been more concerned with the mythic West than the real one.
The first book in the series, The Legend of Caleb York (2015), based on Mickey’s unproduced screenplay, clearly establishes an approach in the Hollywood tradition. Which is fine with me, as I grew up on John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, and Audie Murphy movies, as well as American television’s Western craze of the late fifties, with the Warner Bros. series Maverick a personal favorite.
My desire is to present the mythic West in a framework of the real one, to provide authentic underpinnings to my fanciful tales, much as a noir detective novel indulges in melodrama set against a gritty reality. This of course means that I am beholden to research, and while I am sure I have overlooked some of my sources, I wish at least to acknowledge the ones that were most helpful.
I would not be surprised to find that every one of my contemporaries in the Western fiction field uses the following two books: The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the Wild West from 1840–1900 (1999), Candy Moulton; and Everyday Life in the 1800s: A Guide for Writers, Students, and Historians (1993), Marc McCutcheon. Of the numerous books on firearms in my library, I chiefly use Guns of the American West (2009), Dennis Adler. The previous novels in this series all drew upon these invaluable sources.
For this novel in particular, with its emphasis on the blizzard of 1886 to 1887, I consulted Cattle Kingdom: The Hidden History of the Cowboy West (2017), Christopher Knowlton; Cowboys, Ranching & Cattle Trails: A New Mexico Federal Writers’ Project Book (2013), compiled and edited by Ann Lacy and Anne Valley-Fox; Cowboys: The Real Story of Cowboys and Cattlemen (1974), Royal B. Hassrick; Frontier Stories: A New Mexico Federal Writers’ Project Book (2010), compiled and edited by Ann Lacy and Anne Valley-Fox; The Real Wild West: The 101 Ranch and the Creation of the American West (1999), Michael Wallis; and Winning the Wild West: The Epic Saga of the American Frontier 1800–1899 (2002), Page Stegner.
I often wonder how I was able to write historical novels prior to Internet search engines, and yet most of the Nathan Heller novels and all of the Eliot Ness ones were written strictly using old-fashioned methods, such as newspaper, magazine, and book research, requiring countless trips to the local library and used bookstores. Now—as I imagine is the case for most writers of fiction working today but setting their stories in the past—I am able to do a lot of it on the fly. What did a hardware store look like in the 1880s? What brand names of whiskey were around? When was the snow globe invented? And on and on.
I will not include Web addresses, as those change and disappear from time to time, and will instead provide article names and authors (and sometimes Web sites), which Google and other search engines should find for you.
The following material directly relates to the Blizzard of 1886 to 1887: “The 1887 Blizzard That Changed the American Frontier Forever,” Laura Clark, Smithsonian; “The Great Die-Up,” Mark Boardman, Inside History; “The Blizzard of 1886: When the West Froze,” Ancestral Findings; “The Big Die-Up: The Death of the Old West,” Ron Soodalter, American Cowboy; “The Great Die Up,” M. Timothy Nolting, The Fence Post; and “The Winter That Changed Cattle Ranching Forever,” Caroline Clemmons, Sweethearts of the West.
I looked at half a dozen articles on bank robberies in the Old West, none better than “The Non-Existent Frontier Bank Robbery,” (if a somewhat overstated thesis) by Larry Schweikert, at the Foundation of Economic Education site. For saddle shop information I drew upon “Saddle-makers of the Old West,” Raymond L. Ledesma, at the Western Saddle Guide site, and “Silver & Saddles,” Jennifer Denison, Western Horseman magazine’s site.
Of a number of articles online that I utilized for the characterization of Lucas Burnham, perhaps the most helpful was “William Quantrill—Renegade Leader of the Missouri Border War,” Kathy Weiser, Legends of America site. Not every history buff agrees with the negative portrayal in this article and elsewhere of Quantrill. That same s
ite includes an interesting positive view of the notorious raider, by Paul R. Petersen, “William Quantrill—The Man, the Myth, the Soldier.” My apologies to Quantrill fans, and remind them that the fictional Burnham is the villain here, not his captain.
Also at the excellent Legends of America site is “Las Vegas, New Mexico—As Wicked as Dodge City,” Kathy Weiser. Also helpful was “Getting Lost in History in the Other Las Vegas,” Steven Talbot, The New York Times.
My thanks to the authors of these books and articles. Also, thank you to my supportive editor, Michaela Hamilton; my agent and friend, Dominick Abel; and my wife (and in-house editor), Barbara Collins.
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