The Bloody Spur

Chapter Five

After supper, Willa and George Cullen — their houseguest, Burt O’Malley, riding alongside the buckboard on a borrowed horse — headed into Trinidad to pick up some supplies.

Normally, this kind of thing was done by sunlight, and, in fact, the sun was still around, though dying brilliantly over the mountains in a blaze of purple and orange. But Newt Harris of the Mercantile had asked her father to come in early evening and load up their considerable order of supplies so he might have a private word.

On the way, Papa grumbled about the imposition, complaining that this would likely be another attempt to make him see eye to eye with the rest of the Citizens Committee on the subject of the Las Vegas spur. She kept her opinions to herself, not yet letting the old man know she was, for once in her life, not on his side.

She did say, “Well, Mr. Harris has been a good friend for as long as I can remember. You owe him the courtesy of a listen, no matter what the subject.”

Papa’s nonverbal response was somewhere between a growl and a groan.

Normally, Willa — in a blue-and-black plaid shirt and jeans and work boots, hair back in a ponytail — would have been prepared to pitch in on the loading. But she was glad Uncle Burt had volunteered to come along, because she wanted to be at her papa’s side when he and Mr. Harris spoke. She would not be excluded, because everyone in and around Trinidad knew that she ran the ranch as much as or more than her daddy these days.

Waiting on the boardwalk to one side of the entrance to Harris Mercantile were sacks of flour, sugar, beans, and rice, as well as small barrels of bacon packed inside bran, eggs packed in cornmeal, a tin of lard, a carton of Arbuckles’ coffee, and a jug of molasses. Overseeing these was Lem, Harris’s broad-shouldered, tow-haired, overalls-clad boy of twenty or so, whose greatest skill was fetching and carrying.

She parked the buckboard in front of the stairs up to the storefront and helped her father down. In his weather-beaten broad-brimmed tan hat, canvas jacket, gray flannel shirt, and Levi’s, Papa might have been there to help load, as well; but this apparel, so much like what most of his hands wore — if a mite more expensive — reflected his attitude that he was just another working man at the Bar-O.

O’Malley hitched his horse, then came over to Willa, Boss of the Plains hat in hand. Just before father and daughter started up the steps, Uncle Burt gave her a look that said he’d handle things out here. She nodded at the big man, whose rumpled smile was a comforting thing, and took her father’s arm and went up to the boardwalk, where Newt Harris was emerging from his store.

The heavyset, blond, mustached merchant was again in a medium-brown suit with a string tie, sending a message of serious business that would have clashed with her papa’s attire, if he could have seen it. With a smile that tried a little too hard, Harris held open one of the twin doors to the store for them to enter.

They did.

Their host closed the door behind them. A single hanging kerosene lamp gave the store an eerie feel, not that the light during the day in here was anything but dim, either, the lack of side windows contributing to a dark interior. Long, merchandise-cluttered counters — candy jars, tobacco, stacked clothing — were on either side, and the walls were lined with shelves of household items and bins of foodstuffs. Hanging from the ceiling were coiled ropes, buggy whips, horse harnesses, and pails, throwing odd shadows.

In the midst of this looming commerce, which, of course, her father could not see, Harris and his two guests stood rather awkwardly. From outside came the creaks, whumps, and squeaks of sacked goods being hauled down and loaded up into the waiting buckboard.

Harris reached his hand out and found her father’s and shook it a bit too eagerly; Papa released his grasp almost at once.

“I appreciate your business, George,” the merchant said with forced cheer, “and your willingness to stop by for a chat.”

“If this is about that goddamned spur,” her father said, in a rare instance of taking the Lord’s name in vain, “you are wastin’ your breath, Newt Harris. We have contrary opinions, and let us leave it at that.”

“George, please. Hear us out.”

“Us? Why, is there more than one of you?”

From the rear of the store came figures forming out of the darkness. It gave Willa a start, but she quickly felt foolish, realizing this was only the rest of the Citizens Committee — their barber/mayor Hardy, druggist Clem Davis, hardware-store owner Clarence Mathers, and undertaker Casper Perkins. The latter, a small bald man with a top hat for added height and a black frock coat for suitable dignity, hadn’t been present at yesterday’s more official and public meeting of the Citizens Committee. Perhaps he’d been busy with a client.

All the men, in a rehearsed manner that unnerved Willa almost as much as their appearance from the gloom, gave their names and said hello to her father, their fellow member. Each removed his hat as a symbol of respect, which, of course, Papa couldn’t see.

Then, perhaps because the premises were his, Harris took the lead, even though the mayor was present.

“George,” he said, his tone formal yet friendly, “we’ve gathered tonight to ask you, to beg you, to listen to reason. Trinidad needs the Santa Fe branchline. Needs it to grow. Needs it, frankly, not to die.”

Papa said nothing.

Harris had run out of words already, so the mayor stepped in. “George, if Ellis or one of these other nearby communities gets the Las Vegas spur, our businesses will suffer and maybe wither away. We will indeed die. Trinidad will be just another ghost town.”

Willa almost smiled at the word ghost, considering the strange angles and contours created on the faces of these businessmen thanks to that one hanging lantern. That the town undertaker was among them only added to the effect.

But her father, again, said nothing. His face, out of the kerosene-created shadows, was impassive, like something carved out of wood. Like the cigar-store Indian she’d once seen in a Denver hotel lobby.

The druggist spoke up. “You depend on my business when your cows and cowboys get sick, not to mention any family needs. George, if I’m out of business, think of the inconvenience to you! It’s miles to the nearest apothecary!”

Papa said nothing.

The hardware man gave it a try. “You count on me for supplies, from screws to clavos, from hinges to gate handles. If Trinidad dries up and blows away, you’ll be riding mile upon mile to fill them kind of needs!”

Papa said nothing.

She could hardly wait to hear what the undertaker had to offer, but he remained as silent as Papa. As silent as his customers.

Harris spoke again. “We hope to reason with you, George, to talk this out, talk it through... but so far you don’t seem to want to give our side of it a fair look. If we can’t appeal to your friendship, your sense of community, if not your own convenience, having a decent little town like Trinidad in your backyard, a town you helped establish, then maybe... just maybe... we can appeal to your pocketbook.”

And from the darkness at the rear of the store came one last materializing ghost: a distinguished, wide-shouldered one in big city togs, with the eyes and beak of a hawk, and a beard barbered better than their mayor could ever have managed — Grover Prescott of the Santa Fe Railroad.

The Citizens Committee members parted like the Red Sea for their financial Moses, who stood facing their one solemn, stone-faced, obstinate member.

“Mr. Cullen,” Prescott said in that politician’s deep timbre, “my apologies for organizing this meeting and bringing you into it in a somewhat deceptive fashion. But my entreaties to meet with you at your ranch have met with no response. So I have leaned upon these good men of your community, your friends, your fellow committee members, to provide me with an opportunity to make you an offer.”

Papa said nothing.

“Sir,” Prescott continued, “I have spoken with the independent ranchers, who, with their smaller spreads, do not approach the acreage you yourself control. But together they could provide the Santa Fe with the necessary right-of-way...” Prescott chuckled. “Granted, that passage will have rather more twists and turns than a branchline might ideally have.”

Papa said nothing.

“And that is why, Mr. Cullen,” Prescott said, undiscouraged, “we are prepared to pay you twice the collective sum we have offered those smaller ranchers.”

Papa said nothing.

“Furthermore,” Prescott said, ramping up his vocal delivery to where various objects in the storefront rattled and shook, “we would happily make a side arrangement with the Bar-O to purchase beef for our workers during the branchline’s construction. In addition, we would pay rent for the tent city that will follow the workers on their necessary course.”

Papa said nothing.

Prescott asked, “Would you like to know what that offer amounts to, sir? Or would you prefer to discuss it out of the earshot of others?”

Again, Papa said nothing.

But he did provide a response of sorts: he turned and headed out, with a confidence that a blind man ought not have, but his daughter was there to guide him when he slightly misjudged the door.

Outside, big Lem was loading up one last sack of flour, with O’Malley supervising, as Papa came down those steps with Willa on his arm, frightened her father might lose his step, driven by temper as he was, his face as red as the stubborn streaks of the dying sunlight.

Rattling down the stairs came their frustrated host, while the other committee members followed, pausing on various steps behind him. Grover Prescott was not among them — he’d disappeared like the ghost he’d first seemed to be.

Harris caught up with Papa and spun him around, shouting, spittle flying. “You muleheaded old fool! You’re going to ruin it for the rest of us! Now, come back inside and talk this out reasonable like!”

If any blind man ever threw a better punch, history had not recorded it — at least not that his shocked, and rather proud, daughter knew of.

While she was for her own reasons in agreement with these town fathers, their attempt to manipulate and pressure Papa, and even, in the case of Prescott, buy him off, enraged her.

The old man’s blow having landed right on the chin, Harris stumbled backward, only to get caught by Perkins, who had followed him down the steps.

And, of course, being in an undertaker’s arms could only be disconcerting, so the merchant got his footing back and was starting to form words with a bloodied mouth when a hulking form came between him and his blind attacker.

Lem bashed Papa in the face a good one, and Papa went down hard.

Willa knelt at her startled father’s fallen side and looked up at the lummox and snarled, “Get away from him, you blooming idiot!”

But the blooming idiot just stood there with his fists balled, looming over his sightless elderly opponent like he was ready to continue the fight, and he got his wish when big Burt O’Malley came out of somewhere to send a swift fist into the dolt’s breadbasket and another into his face.

Lem stumbled back, even as his father and the other committee members were scrambling out of the way, some almost scampering back up the steps to the boardwalk, as if seeking a better viewing position.

Like his father, the big kid in overalls had a bloodied face; but he was as tough a nut as O’Malley, which meant the fight was on.

Lem came at his father’s attacker fast, long arms windmilling, displaying no skill but plenty of power, forward movement that sent the older man backpedaling out into Main Street. Here a dust-reducing layer of sand from the nearby Purgatory River had been spread, which effectively slowed both men down. This was not good news for O’Malley, who might have benefited from fancy footwork and who, for all his size, was smaller than the younger man and now had to stay more or less in one place while trying to keep under those long, lashing arms with the rocklike fists on the ends of them. O’Malley did fine for a while, but finally one of those wild swings clipped him on the forehead and he went down on one knee.

Somebody must have taught Lem it wasn’t fair to keep hitting a man when he was down. Maybe Mr. Harris, knowing his boy’s power, had advised him of such in childhood to keep his son from killing somebody.

So Lem paused just long enough for O’Malley to scoop up a handful of sand and toss it in the big lug’s face. This sent Lem stumbling back, blinking, brushing his eyes with fingers too busy to be fists right now, and O’Malley came forward with a flurry of punches that were anything but windmilling, that were directed with precision, kidney punches alternating with a barrage of belly blows.

Clearly, the older man knew more about fisticuffs, so somehow the dim boy got bright enough just to tackle his opponent, and they rolled and wrestled and got in blows here and there, some glancing, some damaging, and it might have gone on a good deal longer if the gunshot hadn’t rung out.

All eyes, including the combatants’, flew down the street to the Victory on its corner perch, where standing just outside the batwing doors was the sheriff, all in black, his .44 aimed skyward and gun smoke trailing in that same direction. Just behind him, looking on with concern, a hand on his shoulder, was the dance-hall queen, Rita Filley, looking so lovely in that green satin gown that Willa couldn’t have hated her more.

“That’s enough!” Caleb York yelled toward them.

Then he strode their way, spurs jingling, and the older man and the younger one got off each other, as ashamed as a girl and a boy caught in a hayloft with their clothes askew.

O’Malley was brushing sand off his clothes, while Lem just stood there bleeding, as Caleb came up, then holstered his weapon when he saw the battle was over, at least for now.

“Is this about anything?” the sheriff demanded.

Nobody said it was. Willa had long since helped her father up, though he still looked dazed, even for a blind man.

“Find someplace else to be,” Caleb told them.

The merchants and the mayor all walked in their various directions, while O’Malley and Willa got her papa up into the buckboard.

Then she came over to Caleb and said, “Thanks for breaking that up.”

“What they pay me for.”

She gestured toward the committee members, who were fleeing toward their respective homes. “They were trying to pressure Papa into selling that right-of-way.”

“I gathered.”

Very quietly, after a glance back at her father, she whispered, “They’re makin’ it hard for me to agree with them.”

He grunted a laugh. “I know the feeling. But people can go about something the wrong way and still be right.”

He walked her to the buckboard, helped her up.

“You all right, sir?” Caleb asked, looking across Willa at her father.

The old man sat slump shouldered, as if he’d been defeated, even though she’d watched him spurn such heated attempts to make him knuckle under. All Caleb got out of her papa was a nod.

Then Caleb gave her a nod and said, “Willa.”

She nodded back, reins in hand. “Caleb.”

The sheriff touched his hat to O’Malley, already on horseback, and O’Malley did the same, wearing that easy smile. He didn’t look much the worse for wear. Just a bruise forming on his forehead, where Lem had clipped him.

Caleb said, “I take it you waded in to help Mr. Cullen.”

“Somethin’ like that.”

“Obliged.”

“Glad to help out. Nice to know I can still handle a jackass kid if need be.”

“Comes in handy,” Caleb said, though, of course, it had taken the sheriff’s gunshot to end the fight.

As they rolled out of town, with Willa at the reins and Uncle Burt riding alongside, she glanced back at Caleb, who was walking toward the Victory again.

Where Rita Filley waited on her doorstep.