The Bloody Spur

Chapter Three

The sun was well along on its western descent behind the Sangre de Cristo Mountains when Willa Cullen and her father rolled in under the rustic log arch with its chain-hung Bar-O plaque — a straight line above the B, imitating the Cullen brand.

Though their acreage had almost doubled in size, thanks to the Gauge holdings, which were now theirs, nothing about the ranch itself had changed a jot — corrals left and right, two barns, rat-proof grain crib, log bunkhouse, cookhouse with hand pump. The ranch building itself was mostly logs with some stone add-ons, the central wooden structure having been built by her father in the early days. Right now the cowpokes were still out with the beeves, the only sign of life a corkscrew of smoke emanating from the cookhouse chimney.

She brought the buckboard to a stop in front of the house, where her calico, Daisy, was tied at the hitch rail out front. Lou Morgan, the lanky old wrangler who looked after the barns, ambled up, spitting tobacco, as she was helping her father down. The crusty stockman took charge of the rig and began driving it over to the barn, where he’d unhitch the horses and guide them to their stalls.

Papa almost bounded up the steps he knew so well, propelled perhaps by his anger at the Santa Fe Railroad. She stopped to give Daisy a nuzzle, then went up the broad wooden steps to the plank porch to join Papa. That was when she noticed they had company.

Rising almost endlessly from one of the rough-wood chairs that graced the porch came a tall, sturdy-looking stranger who was perhaps fifty, with an easygoing smile that seemed to claim the right to do so. He wore a blue shirt and a brown vest with a red bandana at his neck; a dark brown Boss of the Plains hat was in his hand. He wore Levi’s, and no gun rode his hip.

The clothes looked new, but their guest seemed weathered. That friendly face was oblong, trimly salt-and-pepper bearded, and the eyes in it were a dark blue that caught the light and reflected it.

“Don’t you recognize me, you old reprobate?” their guest asked Papa in a voice both casual and rough edged. “Have I changed so doggone much?”

Her father froze at the front door, then wheeled toward the visitor, who was sauntering over to him with a jangle of spurs.

“Burt?” Papa said, his voice hushed, his eyebrows high. Then he said, “Burt!”

And lunged forward to thrust out a hand for the visitor to find, which he did, grasping it, shaking it. The man’s friendly expression vanished, and sadness took its place, as the blindness of his host became clear by way of those milky eyes.

“George,” the man said softly, “I hadn’t heard of your...”

“My affliction?” her father said, grinning, their hands still clasped. “Seems age finally caught up with me. Anyway, I seen enough in my lifetime to last me two. And leastways I don’t have to see what’s become of you.”

The easy grin broadened. “You’ll just have to believe me, old friend, when I say I still cut a mighty strikin’ figure.”

They shared laughter.

The man called Burt turned toward her, releasing Papa’s hand.

“You must be what become of that ornery tyke Willa,” he said and shook his head and made a “tch” in a cheek. “Now look at you, so much like your mother.”

“I’m Willa,” she admitted. Suddenly her plaid shirt and jeans didn’t seem feminine enough.

The visitor approached her and rather shyly said, “I’m Burt O’Malley. You wouldn’t remember me — you were just a slip of a thing when I, uh, left. But maybe your daddy mentioned me.”

She was lying, but it seemed right to say, “Oh, of course I remember you, Mr. O’Malley. And Papa has spoken of you often, and so fondly.”

The latter, at least, was true enough.

The visitor raised an almost benedictory palm. “There’ll be none of that ‘Mr. O’Malley’ nonsense. I’ll accept Burt or Uncle Burt, and general terms of endearment... but no ‘mister.’”

She took both of his hands in hers. “Uncle Burt it is. How did you get out here? I don’t see a horse.”

“I came by stage this morning to Trinidad and hired a man at the livery to drive me out in his buckboard. I’m afraid I’ve taken some liberties...”

He gestured over to where he’d been sitting — next to the wooden chair was a carpetbag.

O’Malley said, “I kind of assumed I’d have a place to stay out at the Bar-O, least till I got my feet under me.”

Papa was next to their guest now and slung an arm around the taller man’s shoulder. “Today, tomorrow, and always, you’re welcome here. Ain’t you the O in Bar-O?”

She opened the cut-glass and carved-wood front door for them, and Papa gently nudged his old friend to go in first. Both men hung their hats on the wall pegs just inside to the right, then the sightless host led his friend into the sprawling central area of the house.

Like that fancy front door from Mexico, the living room retained her mother’s touch, finely carved Spanish-style furniture mingling with her father’s hand-hewn, bark-and-all carpentry. This was more her papa’s domain than the late Kate Cullen’s, however, with its beam ceilings, hides on the floor, and mounted antler heads. A formidable stone fireplace seemed protected by a Sharps rifle at left and a Winchester at right, each supported by mounted upturned deer hooves.

Papa had come west with that Sharps, and buffalo hunting had provided the funds that built this ranch. The Winchester was the tool of the spread’s early days.

But George Cullen had not been alone in building the Bar-O. There had been Raymond Parker, who a decade and a half ago had sold out his share and was now a successful businessman in Denver. And there had been Burt O’Malley, as well, almost a legendary figure around here...

Willa played hostess and made tea for the two men, who soon were sitting, sipping at china cups, in the twin rough-wood chairs with Indian blankets serving as cushions. She got a fire going in the fireplace they were facing. Then, as she often did when inserting herself into the affairs of the men who dropped by to speak with her daddy, Willa perched on the stone lip of the hearth, positioned between the two men, with views of both.

They were reminiscing about buffalo-hunting days — that was when and where Papa, Parker, and O’Malley had met — when a lull came along, and she filled it, telling their guest that she had beef stew on the stove and that there was plenty enough for him.

“Very kind,” O’Malley told her, “but the kitchen smells waftin’ in done give you away. I’m happy to sit at your table, and I’m hopin’ you Cullens can put up with me for a day or two, till I can line up lodgings in town.”

“Nonsense,” her father said. “We’ve a guest bedroom that is yours as long as you want it.”

Sitting forward, Willa said, “And don’t be embarrassed about asking for a helping hand. I’m sure Papa will stake you to—”

But Papa raised a palm, like an Indian chief in greeting, only what he meant was, Silence.

“Daughter, there’s something I’ve kept from you,” Papa said. “It was wrong of me, particularly since you have grown into such a strong young woman and, I am embarrassed to say, the real rancher on this spread. But you were just a slip of a thing when I made this decision, and I assure you your mother approved.”

Willa leaned forward even farther, her brow creased with confusion. “Papa, whatever are you talking about?”

O’Malley was frowning, and he, too, sat forward. “George, are you saying your daughter has no idea what you’ve been doin’ for me all these years?”

Papa sighed deep and, as he exhaled, nodded. “I’m afraid so. So much time passed, and it was just a... well, kind of a routine business matter, in a way.”

“Papa!” Willa blurted, and if she’d leaned forward any more, she’d have been a pile of herself on the floor. “What in blazes are you talking about?”

Papa sat there, squinting at nothing, and licked his lips, mouth moving as if words were forming that refused to come out.

Finally, O’Malley spoke, his eyes on her steadily. “Willa, you know that Raymond Parker sold out his interest in this spread to your father years ago... He’s invested in businesses all around the Southwest. Denver, Kansas City, Omaha... owns hotels and restaurants, and, well, he’s a very successful individual.”

“That’s Mr. Parker,” she said, returning their guest’s gaze. “But there were three of you in the Bar-O. You, as my father says, are the O, Mr. O’Malley... Uncle Burt. But my understanding is that you... you killed a man and went to prison for it. Or do I misspeak?”

O’Malley shook his head gravely. “No, you are quite correct, young lady. I indeed shot and killed a man. But it wasn’t murder. Not in my view. They called it manslaughter, but in my mind, it was self-defense and somewhat of an accident. I can tell you about it, if you wish.”

Sitting back, she shook her head. “Not my business.”

He went on, anyway. Flames flickered reflectively on his lightly bearded face, and something distant came into his eyes and his voice.

“There was a woman we both loved. Or at least he thought he loved her — to me, it was something else. Something... base. Something animal. He was a rich man’s son and a far better catch than me, in some ways, anyhow. Still, she rejected his advances and chose me over all his money... and this creature expressed his disappointment by... by forcing himself on her.”

“Please...”

The flames reflected like flowing tears over the stony face. “Her name was Lisette. Pretty name, don’t you think? For a pretty girl. She hanged herself the night before we were to be wed.”

Though the fire was at her back, a chill went through Willa. Again, she said, “Please...”

“I confronted this vile excuse for a human in a Trinidad saloon, the Victory, which you must know of. His name was Leon Packett. Such a man’s name is not worth remembering, but when you kill a man, even a man such as this, it kind of... sticks. He was handsome enough, I suppose, to go along with that wealth, and I think he usually got what he wanted from women, one way or another.”

O’Malley sat forward, and his eyes looked past her into the flames; an intensity had him, and his words built, as if he were witnessing right now the past events he was reporting.

“He was at the bar, and I called him out. He turned toward me quick, and I drew and fired. But... he didn’t have a gun. I thought he did. But he did not. Will you think less of me, Willa, if I tell you, even so, I’m not sorry I did it? But if that was murder, it was an accidental one. Hence, manslaughter.”

“Thirty-year sentence,” Papa said, “and Burt served twenty. Harsh sentence, but the dead man’s family had money, as was said. Slice it any way you like, Burt O’Malley has paid his debt.”

Willa turned toward her sightless father. “Is this what you were hiding from me? The tragic circumstances of Mr. O’Malley’s imprisonment?”

O’Malley did not, at the moment, correct her into calling him Uncle Burt.

“No,” Papa said. “I never concealed from you that Burt here shot a man and went to prison. You knew that much, if not the particulars.”

O’Malley, his mouth smiling but his eyes unblinking, said to her, “The Kansas State Pen at Lansing, to be exact. Had to send me out of state. We still don’t have a prison in New Mexico territory. Mite backward of us, don’t you think?”

The story of how O’Malley came to go to prison had been a confession of sorts. Now it was her father’s turn.

“Daughter,” he said, and this time he was the one on the edge of his rough-hewn chair, the milky eyes on her, “when my good friend here was convicted of that crime, he signed over this ranch to me. Said he could no longer add to the Bar-O’s well-being. Though he asked nothing of me, I told him I would put twenty percent of all our profits away for him yearly. That money has been banked in Denver, under Raymond Parker’s supervision, and has grown to a considerable sum. Enough for Burt to start over and, despite the years stolen from him, still enjoy a share of success in this lifetime.”

Behind her, logs snapped and cracked with flames.

“That seems fair to me,” Willa said after a moment. She shrugged. “I have no argument with... with Uncle Burt receiving his fair share. You needn’t have kept that from me.”

O’Malley, settling back in his chair, flipped a hand. “I understand why your father was circumspect about sharin’ with you his generosity to me. Explaining to you why he was salting away a portion of his hard-earned money for a murderer wasting away in a prison cell...? Well, it would take a mature young woman to make sense of that.”

She nodded, realizing this was a compliment. “I might not have accepted this arrangement so readily in my teens. Certainly as a child, I’d have been bewildered. But I know something of the world now.”

Her father frowned, perhaps wondering whether she was referring to her kidnapping by the late, corrupt sheriff, Harry Gauge, or whether she’d possibly been thinking of the death by gunfire of her fiancé by the new, not at all corrupt sheriff, Caleb York. That she and Caleb had once been courting only made for salt in the wound.

But Willa referred to neither event, though both had certainly played a role in her new, more unsentimental view of things.

“I trust,” O’Malley said to her father, “I’m not overstepping when I say that my intention, or at least my hope, is to buy my way back into the Bar-O. To be your partner again, George.”

Her father said nothing, but his furrowed brow spoke volumes, which O’Malley had no trouble hearing.

“Is there something wrong?” their guest asked, obviously confused. “Considering your... condition, old friend, I would think having me around to help run things might be a boon. Even a blessing.”

Her father remained silent, though he was clearly searching for words.

“Or perhaps,” O’Malley said, eyebrows climbing, “I might suggest another path, considering your...”

He stopped here, but the word blindness was in the air between them.

Then O’Malley went on. “All that money you saved for me, George, has built up into a substantial sum. Perhaps we could reverse things, where I buy you out... including an ongoing, and most handsome, percentage of my profits.”

This line of talk had sat Willa up. Sell the Bar-O?

“I’m afraid, Burt,” her father said gently through a strained smile, “that’s in no way possible. Y’see, I signed the Bar-O over to my daughter a while back, and I doubt she would consider selling.”

Their guest gave her a lopsided smile. “So it’s you I should be doing business with.”

“This is still my father’s ranch,” she said, “in every sense but on paper. And the Bar-O is much larger now. When my fiancé died, I inherited a number of small spreads, all of which touch upon the existing Bar-O property.”

With half a smile, O’Malley said, “Sounds like I might not be able to afford buyin’ the Bar-O at that.”

“But,” Willa said, raising a gentle forefinger, “we might be willing to offer you one of those smaller spreads and to work together as the friendliest of neighbors. How does that sound?”

Nodding, O’Malley said, “Like a reasonable alternative, Willa. Did you have a certain ranch in mind?”

“There are several possibilities. We can ride out and have a look at them tomorrow. You can take your pick as it suits your pocketbook.”

That was fine with O’Malley.

Soon the little group repaired to the dining room and gathered at the heavy, decoratively carved dark-wood Spanish table with matching chairs that her late mother had bought across the border.

Willa played hostess, serving the beef stew and keeping coffee cups filled, while the men reminisced about the early days of the Bar-O, back when Ray Parker was still a roughneck, not a “duded-up Denverite,” as O’Malley put it. The sounds outside of the cowhands getting back and tying up their horses outside the bunkhouse and lining up at the cookhouse provided a muffled backdrop to the meal.

She had served the men and herself some apple cobbler when a knock came to the door, soft but audible. Wordlessly, she rose to answer it.

On the porch was foreman Whit Murphy, a lanky, bowlegged, droopily mustached cowboy of medium build in dusty attire — knotted yellow neck bandana, work shirt, Levi’s, and low-heeled boots. Seeing Willa, he removed his tan high-beamed Carlsbad hat and gave up a shy smile.

“Miz Cullen,” he said, “if I ain’t bargin’ in on supper, might I have a word with your daddy?”

“Of course.”

He nodded toward the horse barn. “Lou says you got company, so we could talk out here.”

“Nonsense. Come on in. Have you eaten?”

He stepped inside, spurs jangling. “No, but Cookie’s savin’ me some barbecue beef. Are you sure I ain’t intrudin’?”

“I’m sure,” she said and took him by the arm and guided him to the dining room, where O’Malley stood with a smile to greet the newcomer.

Willa said, “Burt O’Malley, Whit Murphy. Best ranch foreman you could hope to meet. Whit, Mr. O’Malley here is the O in Bar-O — used to be partners with Papa.”

Whit nodded as the two men shook hands. “I heard you spoke of,” he said to O’Malley, which struck Willa as about as ambiguous a greeting as she’d ever heard.

“Sit with us, Whit,” Papa said.

The foreman did.

Willa cleared the dessert dishes as Whit reported in on the day’s work: the bulls had been herded and placed in an isolated pasture for winter, and the calves born since the spring roundup had all been branded. She smiled to herself when Whit raised his voice so she could still hear him when she stepped into the kitchen — the foreman knew who the real boss around the Bar-O was these days.

Willa’s father asked her to fetch the brandy, and the three men enjoyed a drink and a cigar while she tended to the dishes. She was just putting things away when another knock came to the door, as loud and sure of itself as Whit’s had been tentative.

This time she found a taller man on the Bar-O doorstep, one as unsullied as Whit Murphy had been dusty, all in black but for his light gray shirt with its pearl buttons and the matching kerchief at his throat. The Colt .44 on his hip hung low, though its tie was loose for riding. Down at the hitching post, his dappled gray gelding was tied next to Daisy, the former shaking its black mane as if to attract the latter... as if that would do either of them any good.

The last time Caleb York had come around, months ago, had been to tell her he had shot and killed the man she was engaged to.

“I do apologize,” he’d said, hat in hand, “but he drew down on me. Just a pocket revolver, but I could’ve died of it.”

Only later did she hear that Caleb had killed her fiancé with a nasty little knife called a Smoky Mountain toothpick. Somehow that had added insult to injury.

Still, she had come to know that her fiancé indeed had earned his fate, that he was a dastard whose scheming might have intended her own death — though she still found that difficult to believe — and there were those who said Caleb York had done her a favor, even a service.

But when the ex-beau kills the current fiancé, things are bound to get a touch tense, and the two had spoken little since that day.

He removed his cavalry pinch hat and faced her with an embarrassed smile; he would have to be so damned handsome, all reddish-brown locks and high cheekbones and sky-blue eyes squinting out at her.

“Miss Cullen,” he said with a nod. “Might I have a word with your father?”

She stood framed in the doorway. “Whatever’s happened between us, Caleb York, you still have the right to call me Willa. In fact, it would annoy me greatly if you didn’t.”

“Annoying you is not my intention,” he said, risking another smile. “Is this a bad time? I know your father was worked up some after that Citizens Committee meeting.”

“You’ll find him in a much better mood now,” she said, stepping aside and gesturing for him to come in. “Ever hear of Burt O’Malley?”

He hung his hat next to several others, on a wall peg. “One of your father’s original partners, I believe? The O in—”

“Bar-O, yes. Just got out of prison. Killed a man. Some men have to pay for that, you know.”

Caleb, who wasn’t having any, said, “Not when they wear badges and who they killed drew down on them.”

He took her by the shoulders and straightened her around to face him. They were a few steps into the living room now but far away enough from the dining room to speak without being heard.

“That man was a damned scoundrel,” he said, “and I’m done apologizing for ridding the world, and you, of him. Now, if we’re going to be enemies over it, say so, and I’ll go back to ‘Miss Cullen’ and we will keep our distance.”

She drew breath in through her nostrils and scowled up at him. Then the scowl dissolved and she touched his face gently, “You’re forgiven, Caleb.”

“I don’t believe I require forgiving.”

“Well, you are, anyway.”

He swallowed thickly. “May I suggest something, Willa?”

“Suggest away.”

“Let’s start with friends and see how that goes.”

She nodded. “Fine idea.”

So in a very friendly way, she took him by the arm as she walked him to the dining room. If her daddy were sighted, she wasn’t sure she’d have done that. But he wasn’t.

At the big dining-room table, introductions were made, and Papa invited Caleb to take a seat, which he did, to the right of Whit, who sat next to Papa and just down and across from O’Malley.

Caleb was offered brandy, and he took it, and a cigar, which he declined. Wordlessly, Willa sat at the table, a few chairs down from the men. In most houses, a woman dared not join the men for such a session. This was not most houses, and Willa was not most women.

O’Malley had a lopsided smile going as he studied Caleb. “So you’re the sheriff of Trinidad.”

“I am for now.”

“Why just for now?”

“I have a job offer I’m considering, with the Pinkertons in San Diego.”

O’Malley whistled. “That has to pay better than a small-town badge.”

“They pay me well, and they’re trying to tempt me into staying.”

“Will that work, Mr. York?”

“It’s Caleb. May I call you Burt?”

“Wish you would. So, Caleb, will it? Work?”

“That may depend on our host.”

Papa, at the head of the table, almost choked on a sip of brandy. “Why would it depend on me, Caleb?”

“Well, sir, the local muckety-mucks, such as they are, are dangling a handsome raise and all sorts of extras before me — house of my own, among other things.”

Willa, her voice small but clear from her end of the table, asked, “On what conditions?”

“On the condition,” Caleb said to her, not quite smiling, “that I talk your stubborn old man here into selling the Santa Fe Railroad that right of passage they so crave.”

Papa’s face reddened.

O’Malley said, “Heard something about that in town. A spur, a branchline, is it? To Las Vegas?”

Caleb nodded, then added for her blind papa’s benefit, “That’s right, Burt. The city fathers see it as the future... and I agree with them.”

Astounded, Papa said, “Caleb! You challenged them at their meeting! Talked of outlaws and harlots — excuse me, my dear — and the riffraff that would follow!”

“When a bump in the road,” Caleb said, “turns into a railhead, many such bad things come, sure. But so do many good things. Saloons, yes... but also churches. Brothels, too... and schools.”

“Trinidad is not my concern,” Papa said, waving it off. “My only lookout is the Bar-O. Far as I see it, that town’s just a place to buy supplies and do banking. When I helped bring it into existence, it was for my own convenience. What advantage is it to me, turnin’ that ‘bump in the road’ into a railhead? A railhead that can serve my competitors.”

“Maybe nothing,” Caleb admitted. “But one way or the other, the railroad will find a way to build their branchline. Maybe they’ll cobble together passage from the independent small ranches. Or possibly they’ll take their branchline idea to Ellis or Roswell or maybe Clovis, and you’ll still lose your market advantage. If it’s coming, why not be a profitable part of it?”

Whit Murphy, sitting quietly and taking all of this in, said, “Sheriff, if it’s the small spreads that give up that right of way, it’ll be a higgedly-piggedly thing that the railroad won’t much cotton to.”

Caleb nodded. “You could be right, Whit.”

“And iffen that spur goes in at Ellis or Roswell or somewhere’s, it won’t hurt the Bar-O none. So why get involved with the railroad, anyhow? Bunches of men building the thing and spookin’ the herd, then trains rollin’ through, rilin’ ’em further.”

Caleb shrugged. “If it’s inevitable, and I think it is, why doesn’t the Bar-O benefit from that? Sell beef to the railroad workers. Sell that strip of land for a whole lot of dollars to the Santa Fe.”

Whit snorted. “Sounds to me like you just want that big raise and that house.”

Caleb grinned. “Well, of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

O’Malley, who’d been studying Caleb, said, “You might have to pay too high a price, Sheriff. A bigger town, a Las Vegas — size town? Might find yourself a target every day of the week. Oh, I heard about that boy whose hand you broke this morning in Trinidad. That was a nice stunt. But he may come back at you, and that’ll be nothin’ compared to the parade of gunnies that’ll come lookin’ to make themselves a reputation in a boomtown version of Trinidad.”

Caleb’s smile again was barely there. “I appreciate the concern, Burt. I guess you know how bad things can turn out in a gunfight.”

O’Malley’s smile in return was similarly faint. And neither man had a smile in his eyes.

“I do at that, Sheriff,” O’Malley said. “By the way, you wouldn’t have ridden out here just to check up on me, would you?”

And now Caleb’s smile blossomed. “Not just to check up on you, Burt. You stayin’ in town or...?”

“I’m staying here at the Bar-O, with these here gracious Cullen folks, for a short while. But after that, I’ll be stayin’ on in this part of the world. Might be I’ll go into the cattle business myself. Thinkin’ about buyin’ a spread.”

“I didn’t think being in prison paid all that well.”

O’Malley grinned. “Let’s just say I made some wise investments. And when I get a spread of my own, I won’t be selling no right of way to the railroad. No, sir. I’m with George on this.”

“Well,” Caleb said, making a sigh out of it, rising, “I’ve said my piece. I told the Citizens Committee I’d give it a try, and I have. That’s all you’ll hear from me on the matter... Burt, Whit, George. Have a pleasant evening... and thanks for the brandy.”

Willa took his arm again and walked him through the living room. Caleb plucked his hat from the wall peg, and she opened the door for him. He seemed a little surprised when she slipped out with him, then shut the door behind her, sharing the porch with him.

“Caleb,” she said, “I appreciate what you tried to do.”

He frowned at her. “How so?”

She was standing close to him. “I told you before. Daddy’s wrong about this! That branchline would be a real boon to Trinidad, and to the Bar-O. If... if you don’t meet the future, it’ll come looking for you!”

“That’s nicely put. But I don’t want to cross your father. Like I said, I’ve said my piece.”

She shook her head. “No, Caleb. Keep it up. I haven’t started working on him yet, not wanting to upset him... but when I do start in, I’ll need your help.”

She got on her toes and kissed him on the mouth, taking him by surprise, but the kiss lingered enough for him to get over the shock of it and enjoy it some.

And when he rode off, wearing the silliest smile she’d ever seen on him, Willa Cullen knew she had an ally.

At least.