The Bloody Spur

Chapter Four

Caleb York, after taking a late lunch alone at the hotel where he roomed, remained at his table by the window, reading this week’s edition of the Trinidad Enterprise in some borrowed sunshine.

He had slept in, having played poker at the Victory till the wee hours. Anyway, mornings were quiet enough that his deputy could handle things — and knew where to find him to rouse him if need be.

Again, he wore what was becoming his lawman’s allin-black uniform, but for the light gray, pearl-buttoned shirt. His Colt .44, not strapped down, pointed its holstered nose at the parquet floor.

The Trinidad House Hotel, the town’s only such establishment, was typical in that its rooms were merely serviceable, while its lobby and dining room promised much more.

Under a high ceiling with cut-glass chandeliers, York was surrounded by dark wood, fancy chairs, and linen tablecloths and was attended by a waiter in black livery, who kept the sheriff’s coffee cup brimming. The lunch had been typically good — an oyster omelet, a specialty of the house morning, noon, or night — and he sat digesting it as he read the front-page story of his near gunfight with that boy yesterday.

He had to give editor Penniman credit for getting the details right and only mildly exaggerating the jeopardy of the incident. The newspaperman hadn’t been a witness to the near shooting but had gathered accurate enough eyewitness accounts. While not relishing being badgered by the man, York knew Trinidad could do far worse than the Enterprise.

Every town could use a paper to record murders, street fights, dances, pack-trains, church affairs, and highway robberies — all the things that said civilization had come west.

“May I join you for a moment?”

York glanced to his right and — speak of the devil! — there stood Penniman himself.

“Please,” York said, gesturing to the empty chair across from him at this table for two.

The editor sat, removing his derby and placing it beside him at the table. The waiter came and delivered a cup of coffee without being asked. Penniman sugared it, sipped, then smiled, eyes wide and glittering.

“Well?” he asked, nodding to the paper that York was folding and placing to one side.

“I’m no expert on the art of writing,” York said, “but you know how to get things across, and what I read’s factual as far as it goes.”

“How far does it go?”

“Mite too far. You’re trying to make a hero of me.”

The editor shrugged. “Well, you are one. And you’re a boon to this community.”

“Like the spur?”

A smile flashed below the well-trimmed mustache. “The spur is just a possibility, Sheriff. You’re a reality. Someone famous among us. You make newcomers like me in Trinidad feel safe and at the same time... proud.”

York sipped coffee. “Why proud?”

The little man’s shrug was big. “You could wear a badge most anywhere. Las Vegas would hire you in a finger snap. Abilene. Dodge City. Tombstone. Of course, Tombstone did have a little trouble with having famous lawmen on the job a while back... but you take my meaning.”

York glanced out the window beside them. “I like it here. I might make too regular a target of myself in towns of that stripe.”

Now the eyes, sharp and dark, narrowed. “That so? Rumor is you’re thinking about going to the big city. San Diego, to be exact. Going back to detective work with the Pinks.”

“Not a rumor.” York sipped more coffee. “That’s been a plan of mine that keeps gettin’ derailed.”

“It will really get ‘derailed’ when that branchline comes in.” Penniman leaned forward. “I hear you’ve been offered a hefty raise and a rent-free house of your own if the spur comes to be. And, anyway, isn’t a man like you a target anywhere you go?”

“I intend to outlive that.”

The editor smiled now, surprised by the remark. “What, one shoot-out at a time?”

The waiter came to refill their cups, and York held up a hand. Penniman’s was refreshed; then York and the newsman were alone again.

“Times are changing,” York said. “The Wild West won’t be so wild before long. Just a bunch of towns, some big, some small, some in between. Like anyplace in America. But what happened in Tombstone with the Earps and the Clantons — people are already making it clear they won’t put up with that.”

Penniman wiggled a finger toward the sheriff’s folded paper. “Did you see my editorial?”

“Hard to miss on the front page.”

The newspaperman flashed a grin. “Right next to the story about Caleb York. And you’re in the editorial, too. I quoted you accurately, did I not?”

York nodded. “So... you’re in favor of the branchline.”

The editor’s wide smile challenged the narrow face. “Why, does that surprise you? Sheriff, I worked for fifteen years on the Rocky Mountain News, salting my money away, making my wife and children put up with second best. Took that long to save up for a small printing press. But I was determined to have my own paper. And now I have one.”

“So you do. And a whole new building to yourself, with living quarters above and so much room to expand. But how was it you chose Trinidad?”

Penniman frowned. “Well, uh... just looked around for a town that lacked a paper, and—”

“And you had a silent partner in the Santa Fe Railroad, who suggested it.”

Penniman flushed. “I didn’t say that.”

“I didn’t say I thought there was anything wrong in it. But keepin’ it to yourself does seem... What’s the legal phrase? A conflict of interest?”

Penniman straightened. “Don’t go spreading falsehoods, Sheriff!”

“I won’t if you won’t,” York said pleasantly.

A figure in the window caught the attention of both men, as suddenly Deputy Jonathan Tulley, just beyond the glass, was right there in all his skinny, white-bearded, baggy-pants glory, waving his arms like he wanted the attention of the world, shotgun in one hand, as if leading an Indian war party.

“I believe I’m bein’ paged,” York told the editor, gave him a smile and a nod, then headed out, leaving the slightly flummoxed little newspaperman to finish his coffee alone.

York plucked his hat from the hook just inside the connecting door with the lobby and moved through to step out onto the boardwalk, where Tulley was working up a lather.

“Sheriff! You know who just rode into town, big as life and twice as ugly?”

“No.”

“Alver Hollis! Hear me? Alver Hollis! The Preacherman hisself!”

York had never met Hollis but knew all too well of him. Hell, most people working on either side of a badge knew of Hollis, and plenty more besides. No warrants were out for the so-called Preacherman, though the supposed onetime reverend was said to be a hired gun, with a gift for making his murders look like fair fights.

Murders that were followed by Hollis kneeling over each corpse he created to send the departed off with a prayer.

“Okay, Tulley. Calm yourself. He causing trouble?”

“No! He just got here. He’s riding with a couple of saddle tramps I never seen before.”

“You’re sure it’s Hollis?”

“It’s Hollis, all right! I watched him one time over at Ellis. He goaded two men into drawin’ on him at the same time, and sent ’em both to their reward.”

“Pray over ’em both, did he?”

“Though it took two bullets, one prayer sufficed for both.”

“Where are the man of God and his ungodly companions now?”

The former desert rat pointed down the street. “Where d’you think? They headed into the Victory like they owned the place!”

York sighed. “Tulley, the Victory’s a business, open to the public, glad to have the likes of Hollis and his friends stop by. Those three are probably just passin’ through. No need for us to borrow trouble.”

The deputy squinted at his boss, as if trying to bring him into focus. “How do you know they ain’t in town to take on the great Caleb York?”

York shook his head slowly. “Everybody who rolls through Trinidad with a gun on his hip isn’t necessarily here to make a reputation takin’ on the ‘great’ yours truly.”

“The Preacherman ain’t ‘everybody’!”

York put a hand on Tulley’s bony shoulder.

“Now, here’s what I want you to do, Deputy. Go on down to the Victory, stake a claim on a table off to one side, and throw down as many sarsaparillas as you can stomach.”

Tulley had been on the wagon for some time — sobriety was a condition of his employment, drunkenness being a condition of getting fired.

“If Hollis and his friends ride out,” York told his deputy, “come find me and say so. And we’ll be happy they stopped by to spread around some money in our fair community.”

Tulley squinted again, this time more like he wasn’t sure he was hearing right. “And iffen they don’t ride out?”

“Keep an eye on them. See if they seem to be up to anything besides gambling and drinking at the Victory. Firing off their weapons, roughing up fellow customers, beating on the ladies, and such.”

The deputy gripped his shotgun in both hands. “And unload on ’em?”

“No, Tulley. Go out the back way and come find me.”

“Whereabouts?”

“Either at the jail, workin’ on tax matters, or here at the hotel. Comprende?”

“Comprende.”

“If they take their horses over to the livery stable and check into the hotel, let me know. That means they are in town for some reason or another.”

“Up to no good!”

“Good chance of that,” York admitted. “But, Tulley, you can’t run around like an Apache on firewater every time some rough character comes rollin’ into town. As an officer of the law, you have to keep a cool head and a steady hand.”

Still squinting, but nodding now, Tulley started down the boardwalk toward the Victory.

York called out to him. “Tulley!”

The deputy whirled, ready for anything, though he did trip over his own feet somewhat. “Yessir, Sheriff?”

“Take that coach gun back to the office and leave it there. Your badge, too. You’re going down to the Victory as a customer.”

A grin formed in the bristly beard. “Undercover like?”

York nodded and was able not to smile. “Yes. You’re my undercover agent on this one, Tulley.”

Tulley gave him a cautious salute, then headed back toward their office, leaving Caleb York trying to decide whether to laugh or cry.

York spent the afternoon filling out territorial tax documents and inventorying the $1,542.50 he’d collected last week from ranchers and farmers in Trinidad’s portion of San Miguel County. This he took from the jailhouse safe and walked over to the First Bank of Trinidad, now a holding of George Cullen’s friend Raymond Parker of Denver — after the previous owner had nearly bankrupted the institution. He deducted his 10 percent and deposited the rest in the city treasury account.

By this time, the western sky was striped with the red and purple of another fine New Mexico sunset, and two circumstances were presenting themselves: his stomach was again begging for attention and Tulley had not yet made a return trip from the Victory.

The latter could mean his deputy had fallen off the wagon, for which York would have to blame himself for sending the old reprobate into the arms of temptation. Both that and the former could be addressed by a sojourn to the Victory.

York tied his gun down and headed there.

Pushing through the batwing doors, York found a very lively crowd for a weeknight at the town’s only saloon. The clientele included menfolk of Trinidad, mostly merchants and clerks and those who cleaned up for them, and a good number of cowboys whose workdays this time of year were finished by late afternoon and who, unlike trail hands, drew regular pay.

The gambling hall that took up much of the big room was hopping, roulette, chuck-a-luck, wheel-of-fortune stations, faro, twenty-one, and poker. At the far end of the saloon, its gold brocade walls decorated with saddles, spurs, and steer horns, rose a small boxlike stage with a piano by a skimpy dance floor, where locals and cowboys approximated dancing with silk-and-satin saloon gals.

Between the casino and the little dance floor was another major draw of the Victory: free food at lunch and supper. Right now a long narrow table seemed to separate gambling from dancing. It was covered in linen to rival the hotel’s dining room and arrayed with cold cuts, yellow cheese, rye bread, celery stalks, pretzels, peanuts, smoked herring, and dill pickles. Such salty fare would lead inevitably to a thirst that needed quenching. And customers were drifting over to get plates of the stuff with beer steins in hand.

He found an opening at the bar, exchanging nods and greetings with his constituency, and ordered a beer, which hadn’t arrived yet when he heard a throaty purr of a female voice behind him.

“Don’t tell me they’re charging you to eat over at the hotel, Sheriff! A man of your standing shouldn’t have to go to a saloon to get a free meal.”

The beer came, and he sipped it, tossed the bartender a dime, then turned with a smile and asked, “How’s business, Rita?”

Dark-haired Rita, her slender, full-breasted frame well served by an emerald satin gown, said, “Middle of the week? Not bad. Not shabby at all.”

He never tired of looking at that heart-shaped face with its big brown eyes, turned-up nose, and lush, red-rouged lips. The young woman had inherited the Victory from her murdered sister, who had also been a beauty, though a hardened one. Rita still had life left in her, and ahead of her, with any luck.

Raising an eyebrow, she said, “You have your badge on, I see.”

He often played poker here and left his badge behind.

“Maybe I just forgot to take it off,” he said.

“Or maybe you’re here on business.”

She slipped her arm in his and walked him to a table for four and sat herself down beside him. Over by the wall, Tulley was sitting with a sarsaparilla, trying to get York’s attention with the subtlety of a mule-train driver whipping his team.

“I think your friend wants you,” Rita said with a mocking smile.

“I think that sugar juice has gone to his head.” He gave his deputy a sharp look, and the old boy settled down, looking a little hurt.

“He’s been here all afternoon,” she said.

“Maybe he likes the free lunch.”

“And the free supper?”

“Why not?”

“He’s had so much of that sarsaparilla,” she said, “he’s worn a path out to the privy.”

“As I recall, that was already a pretty well-worn path.”

She set her elbows on the table and folded her lace-gloved hands and rested her chin on them. Judging by her wicked little smile, she might have been propositioning him. But what she said was, “He’s been keeping an eye on Alver Hollis.”

“Has he now?”

“Ever meet the Preacherman?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“First for me, as well. Never saw those other two, neither, but it’s too soon.”

“Causing any trouble?”

She shrugged her satin-encased shoulders. “They’ve been drinking and playing cards all day — more or less behaving themselves.”

“More or less?”

“I had to step in when one of them, the one missing his two front teeth, tried to get Molly to go upstairs with him. He didn’t understand the new policy.”

Rita’s late sister, Lola, had run the upstairs as a brothel. Now the dance-hall girls were strictly that, and the upstairs had been transformed into fairly lavish living quarters for the young woman who owned the place. Her girls lived in a rooming house now, two to a room. If they wanted to see a man they met at work, they were free to. They could even charge those men for their favors. But not on these premises, and not at the rooming house, where she paid their rent.

York’s jaw clenched. “Did he get tough with you?”

She gave him half a smile. “No. He wanted to, but Hollis stepped in and shut it down. Apologized to me. Took off his hat to do it. Real gentleman, if not quite a preacher.”

“Interesting.”

“You make something of that?”

“Maybe he’s turned over a new leaf. Maybe he’s not the bad man his reputation says he is.”

“You mean, the way your reputation is undeserved? How you never hurt a soul? Never pulled that gun, never—”

“That’ll do.”

She leaned back. Folded her arms over the generous bosom. Cocked her head. Narrowed her eyes. “How many men have you killed, Caleb York?”

“I don’t exactly know. Lost count at some point.”

“How did you get that bad reputation?”

“I never killed for money, no matter what they ever said about me. I never killed a man who didn’t draw down on me first...” He knew that wasn’t quite true, and amended, “Or who didn’t need killing so’s somebody could be rescued, say.”

Hub Wainwright, the head bartender, came over to personally deliver a mixed drink to Rita. He was a big, skimpily mustached man who did his own bouncing. He leaned down for a private word.

“Miz Filley,” he said, “I’m keepin’ an eye out. No trouble so far.”

“Thank you, Hub.”

“I’ll wade right in, need be.”

“I know you will, Hub. Thanks.”

Hub went back to the bar, like a bear heading for its cave, but without hibernation in mind.

She sipped the drink — a Sazerac. One of the fancy drinks that were popular because their rotgut base was so unpalatable. “So... you never saw the Preacherman?”

“No.”

“Not even on a circular?”

York shook his head. “He’s never been wanted for anything. He’s careful about his kills.”

With just a tiny toss of her head, Rita indicated the poker table over by the stairs. “That’s him in the middle there, facing us. And on either side of him are his disciples.”

Moving his chair a little, York got a good view of the men, all of whom studied cards in hand. Two of the players were scruffy, like if you hit them with a carpet beater, dust clouds would rise; they sat on either side of the man York figured they’d ridden in with.

The wiry saddle tramp at left had the missing front teeth Rita had reported, a week’s growth of beard, and pop eyes that gave him a demented look. He wore a frayed work shirt, canvas pants, and a bandana that hadn’t been washed any more recently than he had.

Similarly garbed, the guy at right was stocky and rough bearded, with shaggy brown hair and a piggy look. His fingernails were black with dirt, though York couldn’t imagine this character ever working hard enough to get them that way. Digging somebody’s grave he robbed, maybe.

The man who had to be Alver Hollis was dressed in preacher black, not unlike York — a black suit and hat, white shirt with a loose ribbon-style bow tie. Of average size, Hollis had an oval face with hooded light blue eyes, a narrow hook nose, a well-trimmed black beard, and a somber expression.

York shifted his gaze back to the lovely saloon owner. “Doesn’t seem to be a need to make my presence felt. They’re not causing any ruckus that I can see.”

“So you’d be all right with them staying around town for a few days?”

He frowned at her. “What makes you think they’re not just passin’ through?”

“I spoke to Yancy when they took a break about an hour ago to help themselves to our grub.”

She meant Yancy Cole, the house dealer, who right now was tossing cards to the Preacherman and his two followers, as well as to a cowboy and clerk. His back to York and Rita, Cole was a self-styled Southern gentleman right off a riverboat — white round-brimmed, black-banded hat, gray suit, ruffled shirt.

She leaned close. “They made inquiries about the big game Friday night. That same one you’re signed up for.”

The house was putting on a draw-poker tournament, with a one-hundred-dollar buy-in — three tables, six players to a table, and, eventually, only one winner, who would take home two thousand dollars. Entrants from as far away as Las Vegas and Clovis were on board. York indeed had put his name on the list of players, intending to leave his badge and gun behind.

Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure about the latter.

“All three signed up for the game?” he asked her.

She nodded. “The one with the toothless grin is Lafe Trammel. The pudgy one is Wilbur Landrum. And Hollis signed in using his own name. Preacherman doesn’t seem to be playin’ any games in town except poker.”

“Better have a chat with the fellas,” York said as he rose easily from the table.

Rita, still seated, said, “Try not to shoot too many customers, will you?”

York ignored that and ambled over to the poker table. As he went, eyes from all around the room followed him. He positioned himself just behind Cole, who gave him a backward glance and a smile as he shuffled. The Preacherman and his mangy choirboys were frowning at the newcomer.

“I’ll just take a moment of your time, gents,” York said, “since you’re between hands.”

Staying seated, the rabble on either side of Hollis scooted their chairs back and glared up at the sheriff. The Preacherman, though, stayed calm, his sky-blue eyes blinking lazily, his big rough hands linked prayerfully before him on the green felt. Chips piled on either side of the folded hands said he was doing well tonight. The idiots riding with him had skimpy stacks.

York said conversationally, “I understand you fellas are in town for the big game Friday night.”

“What of it?” Trammel demanded, his upper lip folded up over the row of yellow teeth missing their central pair.

Somewhat belatedly, porky Landrum blurted, “Yeah, what the hell business is it of yours?”

Hollis, however, said nothing. Something like the start of a smile was forming, however, in that dark, well-trimmed beard.

York said, “Well, I’m the sheriff, and it’s my business to protect this community. Mr. Hollis here has a name associated with homicidal violence. You two fellas seem to be ridin’ with him. So I’m gonna have to insist that after that game — sometime Saturday? — you three ride on.”

Trammel jumped to his feet. He was taller than York, which was saying something, but skinny and narrow shouldered. His hand wasn’t near his holstered weapon, worn low because of his long arms, but he came over slowly to face York, eyes bulging, nostrils flaring.

“You got a hell of a nerve,” Trammel yelled in a thin, raspy voice, “roustin’ us for no damn reason, York!”

So they knew who he was. No surprise.

Trammel said, “We ain’t done nothin’ but ride in peaceable and drop some money in this goddamn slop chute!”

The skinny cowpoke was standing close enough that York could smell the nasty bouquet of beer and cold cuts on the man’s breath.

“We could start,” York said, his tone friendly, “with our town ordinance against public profanity. But more pertinent is, if you cannot show gainful employment or cannot show that you have some particular legal purpose to be in our town... you have to move on.”

Trammel took a swing at York, who ducked under it and swung back, burying his left fist in his attacker’s belly, doubling him over. York put his right fist so hard into the pop-eyed fool’s face that its features seemed to collapse. Trammel backpedaled, blinking, trying to keep his balance, then bumped into the staircase post behind him, which startled him and sent him forward reflexively and right into another right hand courtesy of Caleb York.

The taller man went down like a pile of kindling, and every bit as conscious.

The cowboy and clerk who’d been sharing the table with the Hollis party had disappeared like mist. The dealer was shuffling cards lazily, while the porky Landrum was on his feet, but not doing anything about anything. Meanwhile, the Preacherman sat, angled to take in the action, arms folded, his expression mildly amused.

Suddenly Tulley was there, scrambling around the fallen varmint, bending over to collect the man’s gun, a .45, grinning up at his boss like the two of them had just defeated Santa Anna.

“Hey!” Landrum shouted at Tulley. “Give him his gun back! What are you doin’ takin’ that, you old fool!”

“This is my deputy,” York said, “Jonathan Tulley. Tomorrow either he or I will be at our office, at the livery stable end of town, and Mr. Trammel can collect his weapon. He’s lucky not to be spending the night in jail. Now sit down, Mr. Landrum, and maybe you can still play some cards, if your pal wakes up in the mood.”

So far Hollis hadn’t said anything.

But now York addressed him. “Mr. Hollis, as I said, you and your friends are welcome in Trinidad as entrants in the poker tournament. If you don’t have business in town after, I will expect you to head somewhere that you do.”

Hollis counted a handful of chips. Then, finally, he spoke, in a deep, resonant voice worthy of the circuit preacher he was said once to have been. “You hit my friend Lafe here so hard,” he said, without apparent malice, “you might have knocked his front teeth out if somebody hadn’t already beat you to it.”

York glanced down to where the slumbering Trammel was on his side, with a pool of bloody spittle on the wood floor beside his lips, a small yellow object, like a kernel of corn, floating in it

“I believe this time he may have lost one of his lowers,” York said. “Mr. Hollis, you understand my terms? Welcome till Saturday morning, and then you face my displeasure.”

“I do, sir. But might I add, ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.’ Hebrews thirteen, two.”

“‘Woe to those who scheme iniquity,’” York said. “Somewhere in the Bible. Look it up.”

He tipped his hat to the Preacherman, then sent Tulley off to the jailhouse to lock up the confiscated handgun, after which he headed over to the table of free food.

Despite Trammel’s bad breath, York had built up an appetite.