The Big Showdown

Chapter Twelve

Around six o’clock, with the day’s sun still sliding into evening, a clerk from Harris Mercantile came by the jailhouse with word from Mr. Harris.

The towheaded youth — maybe sixteen — was the shop-owner’s middle boy. He’d never been in the sheriff’s office before and his eyes were big with the gun rack and wanted posters as he said, “Pa says the Citizens Committee is about to convene. They request you attend, with due respect.”

Caleb York — seated not at his desk but by the barred window onto the street, should the Rhomers make good time on their ride from Las Vegas — said to the boy, “That ‘due respect,’ son — are they giving it, or am I to bring it?”

“Sir, I don’t know, sir. I just know they want you.”

“I’ll be right down.”

The boy nodded, looking around all big-eyed, taking in the first of the cells before the others disappeared out of sight behind the far wall.

“Sheriff, how many cells you got back there?”

“How many do you need?”

The boy blinked at him.

York smiled. “Four cells. We accommodate four to a cell, if called for.”

“What if there was more bad people than sixteen?”

The boy had math skills.

“Well, then,” York said, “I guess I’d just have to shoot the excess.”

The boy’s eyes got even bigger, he swallowed, and scurried out.

York got up, tied his .44 down just in case, went out, and locked the door behind him. As he began to walk down to the mercantile, he nodded over to Tulley, out in front of the livery stable, leaning on a broom.

The deputy, who nodded back, would appear to anyone riding in — the Rhomers, for instance — just a harmless coot doing odd jobs at the livery. Few if any would notice the scattergun leaned up against, and mostly hidden, by the nearby blacksmith anvil.

The sign said CLOSED in the window of Harris Mercantile, but the door was unlocked. A meeting was already under way in back, past the front two-thirds of the store, and just beyond the wood-burning stove. Perhaps a dozen chairs were arranged in two semicircular rows, leaving an aisle between; the seating faced the same slightly raised table used on occasion by the circuit-court judge.

Is this a trial? York wondered. And am I the defendant?

At that table, in the judge’s chair, sat Jasper Hardy, the town’s fastidious little barber mayor, gavel in hand, with elaborately well-dressed banker Carter seated up there at His Honor’s left, their host Newt Harris to his right.

Curl-brimmed hat in hand, the black-clad sheriff moved down the aisle past the other city fathers — druggist Clem Davis, hardware man Clarence Mathers, telegraph manager Ralph Parsons, undertaker Perkins, among others — and took a seat right in front.

York knew he must be a topic of discussion here — perhaps the topic — because he normally wasn’t invited to these meetings. So he positioned himself where they could have at him. If they had the grit.

Too late he realized he was sitting right across from Willa, seated next to her father, with Zachary Gauge on the other side of the old man. She wore a blue-and-white calico dress and her hair was down, blue-ribboned back — she looked nothing like a tomboy this afternoon. They exchanged nods and polite, awkward smiles.

The smile the mayor gave to York was similarly polite and even more awkward. “Sheriff, we’re glad to see you here. Thank you, sir, for accepting our invitation.”

Why? he thought. Is it a dance?

The room was already pin-drop quiet when the mustached mayor pointlessly banged his gavel a couple of times, then contradicted the formality of that by addressing York again.

“Sheriff,” Hardy said, “please understand — this isn’t an official meeting.”

York said, “Could have fooled me.”

“The committee members did meet just half an hour ago,” the mayor went on, “and while no vote was taken on the subject, we were in general agreement that it would be best for Trinidad... and in your best interests, too... if you were to step down from your post.”

“That’s my intention,” York said, in a voice both quiet and strong, “when a certain matter is resolved.”

“If I might, Jasper,” Thomas Carter said to the mayor. Then the banker’s gaze went to those watching, though not landing on York. “I believe this concerns me as much, if not more, than anyone here.”

Then, with the kind of sincerity only a crooked bank president could muster, Carter smiled down at York and said, “We all appreciate everything you’ve done for Trinidad. Your quick response to the robbery of First Bank took down two of the scoundrels right at the scene, and, of course, you tracked down and shot and killed their ringleader. You even returned a portion of the stolen funds. A small portion, granted, but nonetheless a gesture appreciated by me... by all of us.”

“You’re welcome,” York said dryly.

“But it seems unlikely that you will be able to recover the rest of the stolen funds...”

“I have a pretty good idea where they are.”

The banker flinched, smiled nervously, and went on, “Be that as it may, the city of Trinidad no longer requires your services.”

“Oh,” York said, his surprise clearly feigned, “you want me to step down now? Not let the door hit me in the tail on the way out, you mean?”

A few chuckles came from those seated behind the sheriff.

“We do,” the banker said firmly. “Our, uh, relative haste has a practical basis, as you well know.”

You mean, York thought, the longer I stay, the more likely I’ll nab your well-dressed ass?

But York said, “I’m afraid I don’t know. You’ll have to educate me.”

The banker sighed and turned to the mayor with an exasperated expression. “Jasper? Please. Explain to the man.”

The little barber said, “We learned earlier today that five very dangerous men are riding from Las Vegas to Trinidad to... how best to put it? Do battle with you, Sheriff. To engage in the kind of shoot-out that gave Tombstone such a black eye.”

“Their names are Rhomer,” York said, in a clear, loud voice. “Brothers — very dangerous, yes. You’ll all recall our ex-sheriff Harry Gauge’s brutal deputy, Vint Rhomer. I shot him down like the animal he was at the relay station last April. Many of you here thanked me for that.”

Willa’s head was lowered.

“I can well understand,” York said, “that you don’t want Main Street turned into a shooting gallery. Neither do I. But I do have one question.”

Up on the raised table, the mayor, the banker, and the mercantile owner glanced at each other. Then Hardy asked York, “What question is that, Sheriff?”

York turned and looked at skinny, four-eyed Ralph Parsons. “Since when did Western Union start making the contents of their telegrams public?”

Parsons gulped and lowered his gaze; his derby was in his hands and he was turning it like a spigot he wanted to shut off.

“Those men,” York said, addressing them all, “could be here at any moment.”

The banker snapped, “That’s right! So you need to pack up your things and saddle your horse and go, while there’s still time.”

With a frustrated sigh, Harris said, “Sheriff, nobody appreciates what you’ve done for this town more than we do. But the last thing Trinidad needs is a big showdown like the one promised by these five notorious killers.”

The mayor said, “But if they come to town, and find you gone, they’ll move on. No harm done.”

Willa almost shouted: “They’ll move on, all right, and go after Caleb! What’s wrong with you people, anyway? Aren’t there any men in this room?”

A warm feeling for the girl flowed through York, but as if in answer to her question, Zachary Gauge sprang to his feet. He was in the black frock coat that made him look half preacher, half gambler.

“Miss Cullen’s words ring true,” the Easterner said. “We should be banding together to help the sheriff stave off these outlaws. They are five — we are a whole blasted town. If the Rhomers ride in, expecting to find one man and instead find themselves facing a well-armed community, why, they’ll scatter to the four winds like the cowards such men always are.”

A smattering of applause.

Old man Cullen shouted, “You people should be ashamed! Caleb York is the best damned thing that ever happened to this town.”

More applause, not just a smattering.

“I demand a vote on this issue!” the banker said, just shy of yelling, his fist raised like it was the gavel.

The mayor said, “We’ll take a vote... Sheriff, is there anything else you’d like to say before we do?”

“Only that while I appreciate my friend Zachary here, for expressing his sentiments, I am not asking you good people to stand behind me with anything but moral support. I’ll take your prayers but not your guns.”

Frowning, Zachary said, “But one man alone—”

“Sir, I’m not alone.”

The banker snorted. “What, that desert-rat deputy of yours? You must be joking.”

“I can handle this. There are only five of them.”

Harris said, “Five guns, Sheriff.”

“Five guns. In the hands of five louts.”

More chuckles, more scattered applause.

“Mr. Carter,” York said affably, “look at it this way — if they shoot me down, you won’t have to fire me. Hell, you won’t even have to pay me my last month’s salary.”

They voted.

The bank president’s was the only hand raised in favor of removing Caleb York from the office of sheriff.

As Carter was stepping down from the table, York was right there. “Mr. Carter, I have a comment.”

“I have no interest, sir, in hearing it.”

“Here it is, anyway. If one of us needs to leave town in a hurry, it isn’t me.”

York smiled pleasantly, put his hat on, tipped it to the banker, whose face had gone pale, and started out.

But then Zachary, in the aisle just ahead of York, turned, a big smile under the thin mustache in his narrow, well-carved face.

“If you handle the Rhomers,” Zachary said, in a near whisper, “half as well as you did that banker, none of us have anything to worry about.”

And Zachary extended a hand, which York shook.

“I appreciate you standin’ up for me,” York told the man.

Zachary’s smile disappeared and something thoughtful took its place. Something... troubled.

“Might we have a word in private?” Zachary asked.

“Sure.”

The two men walked away from where many of those in attendance were lingering, talking in smaller groups.

Over by a wall, Zachary said, “You once recommended I take the counsel of my Circle G foreman, Gil Willart.”

“Well, if I did, I shouldn’t have put it so strong. Willart was one of your cousin’s men, though he’s no outlaw. Strictly a cattleman. I just thought he might be useful in pointing out the bad apples still in your crop.”

“I’m afraid,” Zachary said, frowning, “Gil may be one of those apples. My understanding is that this Rhomer gang is coming in from Las Vegas.”

“Yes, sir. That’s been confirmed.”

“Well, Gil spent two days in Las Vegas this week, looking into buying cattle for me. Is that a coincidence?”

“Could be.”

“And I know he’s been thick with these roughnecks my cousin Harry brought in, may he not rest in peace.” Zachary shrugged. “Just thought you should know that this Willart may not be an ally.”

“Appreciate it,” York said with a nod.

Zachary nodded back, and went over to where Willa had been waiting. They spoke briefly and then she came over to York.

“Caleb,” she said, smiling, less awkwardly now, “while there’s part of me that does wish you would leave before these outlaws come to town... I am very happy that things this afternoon went the way you wanted.”

“Thank you, Willa. And thanks for sticking up for me.”

She swallowed. Nodded shyly. “You deserve no less. And I’m so pleased that you and Zachary are getting along so famously.”

“Seems to be a good man.”

“I’m glad you feel that way. Because... you have a right to know this... he and I are engaged to be married.”

York said nothing. It was tough to talk after a blow to the belly like that. But he did find a smile, and so did Willa, before she joined Zachary and exited with him, arm in arm, following her blind father out.

York walked up to the livery, where Tulley was sitting on the anvil, smoking a cheroot that smelled only a trifle worse than the crapped-on straw in the stable behind him.

“Seen all kinds of folks head in the mercantile,” Tulley remarked. “You was about the last of ’em. Am I wrong sayin’ it looked like an indoors hangin’ about to commence?”

“It almost was. Any doubt I had about that bank president killing his chief cashier? Just rolled out of town like a tumbleweed.”

York filled his deputy in on the meeting, including Willa’s surprise announcement of her engagement to Zachary Gauge.

“That feller moves faster than a Texas twister,” Tulley said. “You trust him?”

“He stood up for me.”

“Tryin’ to look good, y’think?”

“Mebbe. Tulley, when it gets along about midnight, there’s scant chance the Rhomers will ride in. And if they do, doubtful they’ll be lookin’ for trouble, at that hour.”

Tulley nodded emphatically. “Gunfights in the dark ain’t good for nobody. I don’t think we’ll see them sidewinders till after sunup.”

“ ‘Sidewinders’?”

“Sidewinders. Them’s rattlers, and a word suited for the likes of the Rhomers.”

“I know what a ‘sidewinder’ is, Tulley. I just want to make you know your job isn’t ‘town character’ anymore. You’re a deputy now.”

“Well, this deputy could use some shut-eye.”

“Come midnight, camp out under that window over there.” York pointed toward the livery stable. “You hear anybody ride into town, wake up like a real rattler crawled up your pant leg.”

Tulley nodded. “You sleepin’ in the jailhouse tonight?”

“No. I made arrangements to bunk in over there.” He pointed to the nearest shanty of a pueblo in the barrio. “So you know what to do?”

“I know.”

“Once you’ve done it, scramble back in that livery and take cover. They could come after you.”

“They do, and we’ll have ’em in a squeeze, won’t we?”

“That’s the idea. One of the ideas, anyway.”

A big toothy grin blossomed in the white beard. “People gonna write about this, ain’t they? Ned Buntline and them dime-novel authors.”

“Yep. The trick is to be alive to read ’em.”

Tulley closed one eye and jabbed a finger at him. “You stay alive, too, Caleb York. I needs somebody to read ’em to me.”

York walked down to the Victory Saloon, where business was a little better tonight but still nothing to get excited over, and found Rita at the bar in conversation with Hub.

“A word?” York said to her.

In a red-and-black satin number, she shrugged and led him to a table in an empty area of the saloon. They both sat.

She said, “I hear the Citizens Committee tried to give you the boot. And you talked them out of it. I never took you for the slick type, Sheriff.”

He ignored that. “How’s Pearl doing?”

“Better today. I’m backing her off on her bottle of happiness. She’s talking about going back to work.”

“What kind of work?”

Rita smirked. “The kind you think. If I can wean her off that laudanum, I might be able to keep her on here, after I shut the brothel down. She’d be a right pretty girl with some meat on her, and if those dark bags under her eyes would pack up and leave.”

Hub brought his boss a Mule Skinner and York a beer.

York sipped the warm brew, then asked, “She have other special male friends, besides that bank clerk?”

“None that want to marry her. Several that saw her regular.”

“Would one of them be Gil Willart? Foreman out at the Circle G?”

Her glass froze halfway to her lips. “Why do you ask that?”

“Playin’ a hunch. You know Willart? Never mind Pearl — is he a regular here?”

A tiny shrug. “He comes in, time to time.”

“You know, I believe I’ve seen him in here myself. I might even put it stronger than ‘time to time.’ ”

A bigger shrug. “Put it however you like it, Sheriff. It surprise you, we got cowboys around here who are regulars? Who else did you think we catered to?”

He sipped beer. “Gil Willart was in Las Vegas for a couple days this week, on Circle G business.”

“Fascinating, the information you lawmen pick up.”

“Speakin’ of that, I received a wire today from the sheriff in Las Vegas, warning me the Rhomers are heading to Trinidad. Packing five bullets with my name on ’em. Knowin’ the Rhomers, all misspelled.”

Her expression was bored, or pretended to be. “Should I stop you when this starts having anything to do with me or the Victory?”

“Don’t bother. We’re almost there. What the sheriff in Las Vegas didn’t tell me was that the Rhomers are hired guns in this. That somebody paid them to take their vengeance out on me. Oh, that’s right — you told me, Rita.”

“Did I? I forget. I run at the mouth sometimes. Bad habit.”

Another sip of beer. “You wouldn’t tell me who told you, as I recall. I’m guessing it was Willart.”

She said nothing.

He grinned at her. “Think we just got there, didn’t we? The place where this starts to have somethin’ to do with you, Rita, and this place.”

She said nothing.

“It was Gil Willart who told you the Rhomers were coming after me. Because it was Gil Willart who hired them to do it.”

She winced as if he were being so stupid, it hurt. “Why would Gil hire somebody to kill you?”

“Because somebody told him to. That bank president, maybe. Now tell me this — why didn’t you want to say Gil was who told you? You’re not a priest. What’s betraying that kind of confidence to you, anyway?”

“Sheriff... Caleb...” She sighed and touched his hand. My God, her eyes were wet! “There’s some things you shouldn’t ask me. There’s some things I shouldn’t tell you.”

“Let me tell you something then — no ‘ask’ about it. That bank president, or some accomplice of his, murdered Pearl’s intended. And that bank clerk could be just the first, should there be other loose ends that need snipping. Are you one, Rita? Is Pearl?”

She drew her hand back. “Caleb. Please don’t.”

“I want to put her in a jail cell.”

“Pearl didn’t do anything!”

“I know she didn’t. I want to protect her. You should be in the cell next to her, and whether you did or didn’t do anything, I want to protect you, too.”

Those dark eyes were wet. “Why do you want to protect me?”

“Because I’m the sheriff.”

“Not the man who saw me in the glow of lamplight?”

“I’m him, too. We both want to protect you.”

She swallowed thickly. Sighed deep. Her lashes fluttered like tired butterflies.

Then she said, “He’s here right now.”

York sat up. “Who’s here right now?”

“Gil Willart.”

“What the hell...?”

“He was worried about Pearl. He’s one of her regulars, I told you. One of her... special men.”

York looked at her, disgusted. “You mean, he’s up there right now, bouncin’ on the bedsprings with that sick kid?”

“No, no, no. He cares about her. Truly cares. He just wanted to check on her, talk to her...”

York was out of his chair and halfway across the room in seconds. He started up the stairs and then, heading down them, came a cowboy in dusty chaps and a green-striped silk shirt and a hat so battered its original shape was a mystery. He was of medium size with an oversized mustache, and his squashed oval face was home to leathery skin and green eyes.

Gil Willart.

For a moment, the two men froze, each with a hand hovering over a holstered six-gun.

York tried to calm the situation. “Just need a word, Gil. Just a word.”

Right hand still poised to draw, York gestured with his left for Willart to keep coming. When they were on the same step, the two men walked slowly down, side by side, and then over to an empty table toward the front.

York and Willart sat across from each other. The weathered foreman looked glum.

“How’s Pearl doing?” York asked.

“She’s gonna be okay. Purty blue right now. Been through plenty.”

“You like the girl.”

“I do.”

“Maybe you’d like to take her away from all this.”

“What d’you mean, Sheriff?”

“Maybe give her a better life.”

“I’m a damn cowboy.”

“So, you weren’t jealous? Of Upton?”

The green eyes in the leather mask flared. “That pip-squeak! Hell, no. If he wanted to marry her, that was jake with me. Pleased to see her catch a break.”

“You wouldn’t have minded that? Her going off and marrying somebody else?”

The cowboy shook his head. “No. Why, you think I belly-shot that clean-nails bastard? No, sir. I wasn’t even in town.”

“That’s right, Gil. You were in Las Vegas.”

Willart shifted casually. “I was at that. Lookin’ into buying some cattle for my new boss.”

“Didn’t happen to run into the Rhomer boys while you was there, did you?”

The foreman frowned. “What’s Rita been tellin’ you, anyways? You know you can’t believe nothin’ these whores come up with.”

“Call Rita a ‘whore’ again, Gil, and I’ll hand you your teeth.”

York waved Rita over.

“Yes?” she said.

“Check on Pearl,” York said. “If she’s up to comin’ down, put a robe on her and bring her. If not, tell her we’re comin’ up to talk.”

Rita shook her head. “Can’t you leave the poor kid alone?”

“No.”

She sighed and trudged off.

“Gil,” York said pleasantly, “if I find out you hired the Rhomers to come and kill me, I’ll consider that right unfriendly.”

Willart worked up a sneer. “And you’ll kill me like you killed so many?”

“Most likely, yes. Now my thinking is, you don’t have enough against me to hire those Rhomers yourself. You’d be doin’ it for somebody else. That banker maybe.”

“I’m listenin’.”

York shrugged. “Well, in that case, I’d be way madder at who give you that task than at you for carryin’ it out. I might even trade your worthless goddamn life for such information.”

Willart was thinking about that, green eyes moving, when the scream came from upstairs.

A woman’s scream, it ripped the quiet night at the Victory apart like a piece of cheap cloth. York and Willart both jumped to their feet, looking up in the direction of that terrified howl.

Rita was on the landing in front of the doors to the dance-hall girls’ cribs, leaning on the railing, her face white, her eyes huge, the red mouth in the pretty face distorted into something ugly.

“It’s Pearl!” she cried.

“Come with me,” York said to Willart, but he needn’t have bothered, because the cowboy was just behind him as they both bounded up the stairs.

The door to Pearl’s room stood open, the way Rita had left it.

The skinny brunette was sprawled on the bed, still half under a sheet, much of that sheet stained scarlet now, the girl’s head back too far, in a position made possible by whoever slashed her throat ear to ear, creating a gaping, grinning second mouth. The blood had run down the front of her white nightgown, like her body was crying for her, but she was dead, so it wasn’t flowing now.

York instinctively turned to Willart, whose horrified expression turned to fear as he shoved York, hard, and took off running.

York followed the cowboy out onto the corridor of the landing. Gasps and cries came up from the patrons below. Willart ran down the stairs so fast that he stumbled a third of the way from the bottom, somersaulting the rest of the distance, and when the cowboy got to his feet, he found himself facing Caleb York, halfway down the steps by now.

“Don’t!” York said, holding up his left palm, and stopping where he was.

But Willart went for his gun, and it hadn’t cleared its holster when York’s two .44 bullets ripped through him, shaking him, making him do the saddest little dance, as blood shot out his back in twin streams, before he crumpled on legs that, no matter how bowed, just couldn’t hold him up anymore.