The Big Showdown

Chapter Seven

On horseback, Willa stopped burning about halfway home and was overcome by a sadness that she refused to allow to turn into tears. What had begun as a mental diatribe, about what an impossible man Caleb York was, turned into a sense of loss at the reality of not having that impossible man in her life on a daily basis, as he’d been for over six months.

Trying to make Caleb see that she could not leave the Bar-O as long as her father needed her wasn’t the issue; she knew he got that. What he did not understand was how important the Bar-O and cattle ranching were to her. That they were as much a part of her life as any man could ever be. That if she were to marry and bear children, to him or to anyone else, the Bar-O was where she wanted that to happen.

Riding up to the ranch only made her feel that all the more keenly as she approached the familiar log arch with the chain-hung plaque with the big carved O under a bold line, replicating the Bar-O brand. In early-afternoon sun, the assorted buildings had a soft-edged glow worthy of memory, the twin corrals at right and left, the pair of barns, the grain crib, log-cabin bunkhouse, cookhouse with its hand pump and long wooden bench. The house itself had, like Topsy, grown from its humble beginnings until now it was an impressive, often added-to sprawl of log-and-stone.

Two horses stood at the hitch rail. One she recognized as foreman Whit Murphy’s cattle pony, a pinto; the other she’d never seen, and she would have remembered this distinctive snowflake Appaloosa with its silver-mounted Mexican saddle. She tied up Daisy — who she’d ridden not nearly so hard on the ride home — next to the dark, light-spotted animal, with its thin mane and tail. The animal gave her that unsettling, near-human look the breed was known for — as if to ask, Do you belong here? — and she climbed the broad wooden steps to the awning-shaded porch. The cut-glass and carved-wood door opened suddenly, giving her a small start, and Whit exited, looking unhappy.

“Something wrong?” she asked the foreman.

Whit Murphy was a weathered, lanky cowboy with a dark, droopy mustache. Seeing Willa, he removed his Texas-style Stetson. She was well aware Whit was sweet on her, but he’d never done anything about it and she’d never encouraged it, either.

“Nothin’ wrong,” Whit said with a sigh that had a growl in it, “that me learnin’ to keep my place wouldn’t cure.”

He was slipping past her and she stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Whit — what is it?”

He nodded to the Appaloosa at the hitch rail below. “The man that critter belongs to is sellin’ your papa a bill o’ goods, far as I’m concerned.”

Whit started to go again and this time she stopped him with a sharp word: “Whit.”

He was already at the bottom of the porch steps, but he halted and she came down again.

“Spill it,” she said.

He shook his head, dark tendrils of hair stuck to his forehead. “The old feller asks me to stick around and sit in on a meetin’ with this Zachary Gauge joker. I got work to do. Them new boys don’t know up from down without me to tell ’em. But I say, sure, I mean, your pop’s the boss. So I sit in.”

“And?”

He scowled. “And when that snake-oil salesman starts in on Mr. Cullen, I just got to askin’ questions. I mean, what does some Eastern dude know about ranchin’, anyhow?”

She nodded toward the Appaloosa. “He’s got himself a nice horse.”

“Yeah, and a nice saddle, because he’s the type that thinks money can buy anything. So I call him on some of what he’s puttin’ out there. But your papa acts like I’m bein’ disrespectful or rude or some damn thing... excuse the language.”

“I’ll get over it, Whit.”

He pointed toward the house with his Stetson. “You best go in there, Miss Cullen, before your papa makes a consarned fool of himself.”

As the foreman rode off, a little harder than need be, Willa wasn’t sure whether to be amused or concerned. She went quickly inside to see which was warranted.

Moving through the entry into the beam-ceilinged living room — where her father’s rough-hewn carpentry mingled surprisingly well with her late mother’s beautifully carved Spanish-style furniture — she found Papa and his guest seated in two Indian-blanket-covered, rough-wood chairs near the unlit stone fireplace at the far end of the room.

The ranch house had a lodge feel to it — hides on the floor, deer heads on the walls, with deer-hoof gun racks on either side of the fireplace, at left holding a Sharps rifle and at right a Winchester. Both weapons were functional, but the Sharps carried special significance — Papa had come West with not much more than a horse and that rifle. Buffalo hunting had built the grubstake from which Papa’s first cattle herd came.

“Ah!” Papa said, rising. “Here’s my daughter!”

He knew her footfall.

Zachary Gauge stood as well. He was again in black frock coat with fancy waistcoat and black silk tie. She couldn’t decide whether his apparel reminded her more of a preacher or a gambler. But she appreciated the warmth of his smile as she approached.

She paused, the two men standing at the rough chairs, the backs of which were to her. “Has my father offered you anything to drink?”

Zachary waved that off. “Oh, that’s kind, Miss Cullen, but not necessary.”

She stood with her hands fig-leafed before her, a hostess in plaid shirt and jeans. “Nonsense. There’s some coffee left from this morning. I’ll heat it up. Might be strong enough to make your eyes water, at this point. But it should wet the whistle.”

Her father said, “Please do that, Willa. It’s the simple, civilized niceties that a blind old man can’t offer properly... Unless you’d like a glass of hard cider, Mr. Gauge?”

Zachary raised his palms in surrender. “Coffee will be just fine. Perhaps some cream and sugar?”

Her father asked for a cup, black, and she went off to fill the orders. She returned, set the cups on a silver tray on the small rustic table between the two big chairs, and — with her own cup of coffee — sat on the hearth facing the two men, but also between them.

This was a most conscious choice, as a chair Whit had obviously vacated was over by her father.

“It’s very neighborly of you,” she said to their guest, “dropping by to say hello like this.”

A half-smile curled in the narrow oval of his face. Those cheekbones seemed borrowed from an Apache, and the wide-set dark eyes had an almost Oriental cast. And a better barber than their mayor had cut that hair and trimmed that mustache.

No question about it, she thought. Zachary Gauge was a handsome devil.

“This is not just a social call, Miss Cullen,” he said, in his smooth second tenor. “We’ve paid our mutual respects already, at the Grange Hall. I’m here taking your father up on his offer to talk business.”

Willa smiled, but tightly. “Well, let’s not rush into things.” She turned toward her father. “Have I missed anything, Father? You haven’t sold Mr. Gauge my calico, have you? I’m fond of Daisy, and, anyway, our visitor already has a handsome horse.”

Papa said, “We’re still getting to know each other, Daughter. Let’s stay hospitable.”

She shifted her smiling but serious gaze to their guest. “Well, Mr. Gauge here seems to think the socializing is over and the business has begun. What business, exactly, is it we’re discussing?”

“Miss Cullen,” Zachary said, sitting forward, hands clasped between his knees, “you are right to be cautious. Everything today that we discuss is... preliminary. Exploratory.”

“That’s a relief. As I say, I’m fond of my calico.”

He chuckled softly. “Your calico is quite removed from my evil designs.”

“How wonderful to hear. What are your evil designs, now that you mention them?”

Her father frowned at her. “Daughter...”

But Zachary said, “As I said at the Grange, Miss Cullen, I’m cattle poor... at least for the moment. On the other hand, I have three times as much land as your father does.”

“As my father and I do,” she corrected gently.

“Forgive me. I am aware that you...” He seemed about to say “help your father,” but instead said, “...are a key part of what makes the Bar-O tick.”

“She surely is,” Papa put in.

“But consider,” Zachary said, leaning back and gesturing with a slender-fingered hand, one that she doubted had seen physical labor in some time if ever, “between us we could become a virtual cattle empire in this part of the world. Sir, you could be the next John Chisum. We would be second to none in the entire New Mexico territory.”

“Us with all our cows,” she said, “you with all that land. Land, that is, with no cows on it.”

Another smile. They came easily to him. “That can be remedied with money. And I have money. What I don’t have is experience in the cattle business, much less expertise. Now in business period, I have considerable experience and for that matter considerable expertise. I would pull my weight. I would add to the enterprise.”

“What exactly are you suggesting?” she asked.

“I’m suggesting you consider a proposal to merge our holdings, much as industries back East merge into more powerful, bigger industries.” Zachary looked toward the sightless man. “I’m not suggesting that you sell me a few cattle... a starter herd... no.”

But Papa already knew that, and he said to her, “Zachary would like to use my know-how... our know-how... and connections in the cattle trade... to build a herd twice the size of what we now have.”

“And that would only be the start,” Zachary said.

“Partners,” she said.

“Yes. Fifty-fifty. Really, I’ll be contributing more, because I have more land and my funds will purchase enough cattle to, as your father said, double the size of your herd.”

“Why so generous?” she asked.

He flipped a hand. “Because I am an infant in the cattle business. I want to partner with people who know what they’re doing. Who are respected, knowledgeable cattle ranchers.”

She mulled it for a few moments. Then she said, “This is something Papa and I will need to discuss. At length.”

“Of course it is. But with your permission, I will start some paperwork. Is there a reliable lawyer in town?”

“Now, Mr. Gauge,” Willa said, cocking her head, “aren’t you jumping the gun a little?”

“We need to move quickly,” Zachary said. “I know enough about the cattle business to understand that by spring we need to be a well-oiled machine. If we’re to take our combined herd to market in the most fruitful way.”

“I don’t see any harm,” Papa said.

Zachary, like any good salesman, knew enough to assume the sale. He got to his feet. “I understand there are two lawyers in Trinidad. Do you have a preference? Or should we go to Las Vegas or Albuquerque for counsel?”

“Arlen Curtis is my legal man,” her father said.

“Then he’s good enough for me. I’ll have all the necessary documents for you to examine — deeds, land surveys, and so on.”

Her father was on his feet, beaming at the man, as if he could see him. “We look forward to receiving them, sir.”

Willa said, “I’ll walk you out, Mr. Gauge.”

She did that.

On the porch, with the door shut and her father well out of earshot, she said, “If you think I’m about to let you roll over us like a runaway stage—”

“I would be very foolish,” he said, a black Stetson in hand, “to even dream of putting anything shady past you. Your father is a good man, and I think in his day, he may have been a great one.”

“You’re not wrong.”

He gave her a smile with something puckish in it. “But I have no misconceptions about who runs this ranch, Miss Cullen.” His smile softened into the mere friendly. “I don’t suppose you’d allow me to call you ‘Willa’?”

“Please do. I would rather call you ‘Zachary’ than ‘Mr. Gauge,’ as you yourself already suggested.”

“I’m pleased to hear that.”

“Don’t be. I just don’t like the name ‘Gauge.’ Good afternoon, Zachary.”

And she went inside, leaving him to his Appaloosa.

Lem Rhomer was playing cards in the Silver Dollar Saloon in Las Vegas, New Mexico. In Las Vegas, with its population of four thousand, a man in search of gambling, drink, and trollops had half-a-dozen choices, and the Silver Dollar was the worst and roughest of these. Here was where you were the most likely to be cheated, served rotgut, or contract the French disease.

Last month the first two of these unfortunate results had been Lem’s fate at the Silver Dollar. As for the French disease, the elder Rhomer boy — Lem was a ripe old forty — did business with no loose women without the protection of a tight lambskin.

But the crooked dealer at the Dollar’s poker table had taken Lem for a hundred dollars, and the rotgut proved so bad, he’d wound up puking in an alley and woke up there hours later rolled of what bankroll the dealer had left him, and with a blinding headache that lasted for three days.

Redheaded, wiry-bearded Lem was a big man, the biggest of the Rhomer boys, six foot one and with a muscular frame developed on their daddy’s farm in Missouri. On his own and sometimes with his brothers, he’d worked a few cattle drives but mostly found better ways to make a living. Hiring out his gun and robbing people and places, mostly.

The dealer at the Dollar was small and bald and mild with babyish features and a pair of eyeglasses that had a barely noticeable pink tinge to them. His suit was tan and his shirt ruffled. Over the course of an evening, he always came out ahead.

Lem had never got wise — hell, the house always had the advantage, right? — but the middle Rhomer brother, Luke, had gone around to the Dollar to check up on things, after Lem’s bad night there.

“He’s usin’ readers,” Luke reported back to his older brother.

“Marked cards? I suspected as much, but I looked ’em over careful. Didn’t see no marks or nicks.”

Luke, like all the Rhomer boys, had their father’s red hair — also his foul temper and cruel streak. “You can’t see the markin’ without special glasses. That’s what them pink spectacles do. They show him patterns on the back of the cards that your eyes can’t see.”

“Cheatin’ bastard! You think he’s on his own, or is the house crooked?”

“Oh,” Luke said, “it’s the house. Roulette wheel’s rigged, too. There’s a toe brake under the table. Every damn game of chance in that hole has about as much chance to it as a two-headed coin in a toss.”

Lem got himself in a tizzy. “I’ll get even. I swear I’ll get even. I’ll rip them beady eyes out of his face and then see what good them glasses do him.”

That made Luke grin. “Why not take the whole house down? That crooked dealer is just a cog. Why not rattle the whole damn wheel?”

Luke always did have ambition.

Lem said, “You gonna help?”

“Sure I’ll help. We’ll get all the brothers to help.”

Of course, one brother couldn’t take part — Vint, the second-to-the-oldest, who’d been Harry Gauge’s deputy in Trinidad. Vint had been gunned down, and not by just anybody — Caleb York himself.

Vint had been one rough apple. It would take a Caleb York to take Vint Rhomer down. The Rhomer brothers were proud of that. Of course, one of these days they would have to blow Caleb York’s brains out. But with the brothers scattered to the four winds, doing this and that, thieving around the Southwest alone and in pairs, it would take a regular family reunion to make getting even with Caleb York come true. If Vint by himself couldn’t handle the legendary York, they would have to band together for it.

And it did sound like a good time.

Who’d have guessed that the Silver Dollar in Las Vegas would provide the spark? That the tiny revenge the Dollar was due would spark the bigger revenge that son of a bitch York had coming?

Anyway, with his brothers spread around the Dollar, playing crooked games, romancing the painted ladies, Lem sat for a good hour gambling reckless with the cheat in the cheaters, letting the little coyote think he was fleecing this lamb for a second time. If the S.O.B. even recognized Lem from a few months before.

It was very damn quiet. Middle of the afternoon. Lem, Sam, Luke, Les, Eph, were half the customers. Real slow time at the Dollar. Three girls. One bartender. A manager back in his office. A roulette table, a craps table, neither with suckers right now. Two other players at the poker table.

While the little dealer in the pink eyeglasses was shuffling the cards, a cowboy with a lot of mustache said, like he was just making conversation, “You’re Lem Rhomer, ain’t you?”

“Who’s askin’?”

“Just a feller from Trinidad doin’ some business in the big city.”

The little man in the pink shades started dealing stud, five-card. Lem held up a hand to stop him.

“Gimme a minute, friend,” Lem said to the cheating bastard.

“Glad to oblige,” the cheating bastard said.

The cowboy full of mustache said, “I knew your brother. Fine feller, Vint. Too bad that York buzzard took him out like that.”

“Yeah,” Lem said. “Goddamn shame. I loved him like a brother. Uh... of course he was one.”

“You know,” the cowboy said, checking the hole card that was as far as the deal had got before Lem put it on hold, “that York was supposed to leave Trinidad. But then the bank got stuck up and the sheriff what took York’s place got hisself killed.”

“That right.”

“And York’s gonna hang awhile, around Trinidad, till that’s all sorted out. He’s already killed the three robbers.”

“Then why’s he sticking?”

The cowboy shrugged. “Lookin’ for the money, I guess. Funny thing, though.”

“What’s funny about it?”

“I know a guy who would pay real money to get rid of that man.”

“What man?”

“What man you think? Caleb York.”

“Are you just talkin’ through that hat?”

“No. I’m prepared to do business.”

“...You know where the Plaza Hotel is?”

“I do.”

“After this hand, cash out, and meet me over there. In half a hour, say.”

“I can do that. Way things is going, I won’t have to cash out. I’ll lose the rest of these chips.”

That proved to be the case. The little cowboy tipped his hat and left. The other player did the same, after cashing out for less than five dollars.

The dealer said, “You wanna play two-handed, mister? Some folks don’t cotton to that.”

“I like two-handed fine. But give me them glasses first.”

“What?”

“My eyes is hurtin’ me. Must be the smoke. Let me borrow them glasses of yours.”

The derringer came out quick, but Lem’s .45 was already drawn under the table. He blew the dealer’s guts out. The smell of gunpowder and bowels vacating at dying filled the room along with the screams of trollops.

The bartender came up with a shotgun and brother Luke shot him in the face, decorating the mirror behind the dead man a dripping scarlet. The manager, a well-fed man in a fancy red vest, didn’t die, not right away, because Eph’s gun was all of a sudden in his neck. Eph and Les accompanied him into the office and after two minutes or so, and a gunshot, the redheaded brothers came out with a bag of money from the Dollar safe.

Lem had already emptied the dealer’s money box. The soiled doves in spangles and the men running the other games were hiding under tables, as were the couple of patrons, when the Rhomer brothers went out into the sunshine, two thousand and five hundred and fifty six dollars and fifty cents the better.

They got on their horses and rode across town to the hotel, where Lem would give them the good news about Caleb York and how they were going to get both revenge and more money out of it.

Much better than Lem’s previous visit to the Dollar.