The Big Showdown

Chapter Sixteen

When Zachary Gauge went backward, taking his chair with him and breaking it into kindling, the noise was enough to summon Tulley from his perch on the porch.

The deputy and his scattergun came bursting in, like the fort was being attacked. He came to a sudden stop when he saw the blank-eyed Zachary Gauge staring up at a heaven surely denied him.

“Well, sir,” Tulley said, eyes wide, scratching the side of his head with his free hand, “that there’s one way to bust up an engagement.”

“Round up Miller and Perkins,” Caleb York said, “and get back here.”

“Them two’s shore doin’ land-office business,” Tulley said as he went out, shaking his shaggy head.

With just the barest glance at the dead swindler, York came out from around his desk and walked back into the cell block.

Rita was sitting on her cot, eyes wide, a hand over her mouth.

“You heard?” he asked.

She swallowed, nodded. “You... killed him? With... the knife he used... on Pearl...?”

York nodded. “It was a boot knife, and that’s where I had it. I thought he might try something, so I kept it near at hand.”

She didn’t come to him, just stayed right there on the cot, its wall-chains whining some. “How did you know I’d seen him leaving all bloody?”

“I didn’t.”

Her eyes were wide and pleading. “Caleb, the only thing I knew was that Zachary was in the area weeks ahead of when he pretended to get here. That’s how he made his deal with me. Not through the mails.”

“I never exactly believed that.”

“You didn’t challenge me.”

“Why call you a liar and get on your bad side? You make a better friend than enemy.”

She blinked at him. “Were you... using me?”

“Why, you never used anybody?”

Her eyes stared into nothing. “He... he would have killed me next.”

“That’s right. Right there in that cell, unless you got him with your derringer first.”

She swallowed; she looked very small. “What happens now?”

York shrugged. “Things take their due course, startin’, I’d imagine, with whatever’s in Zachary’s account at the bank being returned to the depositors. If the papers have been signed, the Cullens should wind up with the Gauge land... an unexpected result of his swindle.”

“He’d have killed Willa, too.”

York shrugged. “When he got around to it, maybe. Or maybe he hoped to change his ways, when things settled down. People do come West for a new life.”

Rita seemed to be studying him. “And people leave towns like Trinidad for a new life, too. Is that what you’ll do?”

“Not right away. I’m stayin’ awhile. I helped make this mess. Least I can do is help clean it up.”

“What about Willa? What about that girl of yours?”

His answer was a shrug. Then: “I’ll have Tulley let you out. Gather your things.”

She started doing that and York went out into the office where Tulley was coming in with the doc trailing behind him.

“Undertaker’ll be here shortly,” Tulley said. “Really keepin’ him hoppin’ today.”

Miller was looking down at the dead, staring Zachary, on his back on the busted chair. “This one’ll perk Perkins up. Just right for his window.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” York said, in no mood for banter. He felt all talked out, though there was still talking left to do and no way to avoid it.

Walking over to the livery, where his gelding waited in its stall, York knew that he had not yet faced the day’s biggest challenge.

He still had a difficult call to make out to the Cullen place.