The Legend of Caleb York

Chapter ten

Lola entered the hotel and was headed for the stairs to the second floor, where she kept a room, when she noticed the stranger leaving the check-in desk, about to start up himself. He saw her, too, smiled, took off his hat, and waited for her.

“Well, my silent stranger,” she said.

He leaned against the banister post. “Is that what I am?”

“I wouldn’t call you talkative. Finally getting a roof over your head, I see.”

“Finally.”

He gestured in an after-you manner and she went up, putting a little extra sway into it. She was still in her elaborate, low-cut dance-hall gown — the walk to the hotel from the Victory was a short one, so she didn’t bother changing before heading back.

Halfway up, she said, with an over-the-shoulder glance at him, “I’m a little surprised to see you back in town so soon.”

“Why’s that?”

“Oh, I suppose because Willa Cullen seems to hold a peculiar... fascination... for a certain kind of man.”

At the top of the stairs, he let his eyes drop briefly down to her décolletage and back again. “And you don’t?”

She gave him a coquettish look that didn’t pretend to be anything but joshing. “It would be immodest of me to say.”

“Walk you to your room?”

“Please.”

She led the way, stopping at room 6.

“Believe I’m next door,” he said, gesturing. “In number five.”

She smiled and it was anything but coquettish. “Well, perhaps that will prove convenient. For example, should you need a cup of sugar.”

He gave her another grin. “Very neighborly of you.”

The man didn’t seem to embarrass easily. She liked that.

She laid a lace-gloved hand on his cheek. “We might start with a nightcap. I have a bottle in my room? Bourbon. Straight from New Orleans.”

“Mighty tempting. Another time?”

“Another time.”

“Good night... ma’am.”

She watched him walk down to his nearby door, use his key, pause to smile and nod at her, then go in.

For a moment, she just stood there, thinking, Now this is a man.

Despite the dudish clothes on the one hand and his frightening abilities with a gun on the other, something decent managed to come through.

But not so decent that they hadn’t been able to enjoy an afternoon together...

She went into her room, which was no bigger or nicer than any other in the hotel, down to the same drab wallpaper. But she had dressed the space up with a few nice pieces of Victorian furniture brought here from Denver — hand-carved mirrored maple dresser with a floral-pattern toilet set, baroque walnut plush-upholstered armchair, a carved rosewood bed, and a few other things. She lived here, after all, and had a right to be comfortable.

If Gauge came through for her as promised, a fancy two-story Victorian house, furnished like this throughout, on its own nice piece of property, would be hers one day soon. Or she should say, theirs. These were nice-enough quarters for a dance-hall queen.

But the wife of a cattle baron would have it so very much better...

A sharp knock came at the door. She smiled proudly at herself in the mirror — the stranger had changed his mind! He’d gone to his lonely room and stared at the wall, driven mad by thoughts of the delights awaiting him on the other side. She laughed at herself, and him.

She was in her corset and silk stockings now, but found that perfectly acceptable apparel in which to greet him, to encourage her new friend to have that nightcap after all, and perhaps...?

She opened the door just a crack, but the face there did not belong to the stranger or Harry Gauge, either.

“Hi, Lola.”

Vint Rhomer pushed through, shutting the door behind him in a near slam. The red-haired, red-bearded deputy — in his usual gray shirt with sleeve garters, buckskin vest, dirty denims, and tied-down .44 — reeked of liquor. Reeked, period.

She glared at him. “Vint! What the hell are you doing here?”

He gave her a hooded-eyed grin, teeth like a rabbit’s poking through the red brush. “Just thought I’d stop by for a friendly little visit.”

Her hands went to her hips. She didn’t give a damn that he was seeing her like this; in her profession, modesty was not an issue.

With chin high, she said, “There are plenty of girls over at the Victory. Slow night like this, you’ll have your pick. Go visit one of them.”

He came over, stood close to her, arrogance and stupidity rising off him like two more foul smells. “Maybe I’d rather visit you, honey.”

She gave him a defiant smile, hands still on her hips. “You’re takin’ one hell of a risk... ‘honey.’ What if Harry Gauge came walking through that door?”

He shook his head. Tobacco was in there with all the other odors. “Harry’s busy. Got called away on a matter. He’s got way more to worry about than me makin’ time with his... whatever it is you are to him.”

She bared her teeth. “Lay one finger on me and I’ll tell him you ravaged me.”

The dark blue eyes narrowed and his upper lip curled back in its red nest. “You really think he’d give a damn?”

Her chin crinkled in anger, nostrils and eyes flaring like a rearing mare. “What the hell do you think you’re talking about, Rhomer?”

He chuckled and went over and sat in the fancy chair. Crossed his legs.

Casual, he said, “You really shot yourself in the foot, Lola, when you brought Harry into the picture. Oh, I know the whole story. How this town was gonna run you and your tramps out when you sent for Harry and his big gun. Paid his damn stage fare, then just handed him a half-interest in the Victory.”

She stood with her arms folded now, looking down at the seated intruder, but keeping a distance. “This is fascinating, hearing my life story told by an idiot.”

“You made a bad partnership, honey. Harry Gauge wants more from a woman than you could ever give him.”

Her chin came up again. “Harry’s got everything he ever wanted — the land, the cattle, the town... and he’s got me.”

Rhomer’s shrug was slow and his sneering expression nasty. “Yeah, only he don’t want you.”

“Is that right?”

“Dead right, baby. What he wants is sweet, little Willa Cullen.”

She scowled. “You’re as crazy as you are stupid, Rhomer. All he wants is her ranch.”

His eyes went huge. “And you call me stupid! She goes with the damn ranch. She is the damn ranch! You really think when Harry Gauge sets himself up as king of this part of the country, he’s gonna do it with a shopworn soiled dove like you at his side?”

She was trembling now, with rage, and... something else. Fear? Not of Rhomer, but that... that he might be right...?

She pointed at the door. “Get out! Get out of here now.”

Rhomer got to his feet, in no hurry. He came toward her in an easy lope. “Don’t cry, honey. No need to cry. Vint here still thinks you’re sweet. Hell, I don’t mind takin’ Harry’s sloppy seconds. He can have that sage hen Cullen gal.”

He undid his gun belt and tossed it on the chair he’d vacated near the window on the street. As he turned back to her, grinning horribly, she was right there to slap him, hard, and it rang out like a gunshot.

Rhomer grunted and returned the slap, but twice as hard, and she cried out. Then he slapped her again, even harder, and started in clawing at her, trying to rip off what little she wore, but dealing with a corset was beyond his intelligence and she pummeled his chest with hard, tiny fists and bit him on the ear, hard, tearing at his flesh, spitting out a bloody lobe.

He screamed and let go of her, scarlet trailing down one cheek, and yelled, “You witch!”

He pushed her onto the bed and was coming at her with grimacing hatred and his right fist was high when the door splintered open and someone came in fast.

The stranger.

Bareheaded, no sidearm, he grabbed Rhomer from behind, by the shoulders, and flung him across into the dresser, where the deputy hit hard, the mirror shaking, drawers rattling, pitcher in its basin careening.

She sat up on the bed, breathing hard, her mouth bleeding — the stranger must have heard the struggle! And came to help his neighbor out.

Rhomer’s right hand went to his side — forgetting for a moment that his gun in its belt was over on that chair — and then grabbed the pitcher from the dresser top and hurled it at the stranger, who ducked, and so did she, as it flew into the wall behind her and crashed into chunky fragments.

The deputy raised his fists and with a sneering smile came slowly toward the man who’d interrupted his fun.

“About time,” Rhomer said, “somebody taught you to mind your own damn business.”

The stranger, his own balled hands at the ready, was smiling, but his eyes weren’t. “Please try.”

In the cramped space of the hotel room, there was little for the two men to do but stand there and slug it out, though Rhomer landed few blows. The stranger kept rocking him back, taking only a handful of hits on his arms and his body, just glancing blows.

Then Rhomer brought around a looping right hand that could have done real damage, but the other man ducked it and brought up a right hand that caught the deputy on the chin, sending him, already bleeding from his ragged ear, stumbling back.

Not even breathing hard, the stranger said, “Maybe it’s time I taught you not to burden a lady with unwanted attentions.”

Lola felt tears come. The physical punishment Rhomer had dealt out to her hadn’t made her cry. She was used to that kind of thing, much as she hated it. But her unlikely savior’s oddly formal defense of her... her virtue... had sent tears streaming.

The stranger was delivering a flurry of punches to Rhomer’s body, his chest, his belly, his sides, and the deputy seemed to be staying on his feet only by the force of those blows, bloody spittle flying.

Then in one last desperate move, Rhomer shoved the stranger away, and scrambled after the gun belt on the chair near the window. As the deputy bent over for it, the stranger came up behind him and kicked him in the backside and through the glass shatteringly, shards flying, wooden pane frames cracking.

From below came a loud whump.

Lola rushed to her rescuer’s side as they both looked out the window.

Rhomer was plastered down there on the hotel’s wooden awning, on his belly, breathing hard, but out.

“Little boy’s had a busy day.” The stranger turned to her, touched her face gently near where her mouth bled. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. Something shaky in her voice, she said, “You really think saving my virtue was worth the risk?”

He grinned. The only blood on him was Rhomer’s. “Anytime. And I’m not about to stand by and see a woman get manhandled.”

“But you couldn’t see it.”

He shrugged, nodding toward the wall they shared. “I could hear it. Anyway, how’s a man to get any sleep with all that racket?”

“You joke.” She nodded toward the window. “Rhomer will kill you for sure now.”

“Well, he’ll try. Are you going to the sheriff about this? That deputy isn’t about to.”

She shook her head. “I’ll find Rhomer tomorrow, give him his gun, and tell him I’ll keep my mouth shut if he does the same.”

He jerked a thumb at the shattered window. “Why not let those two bums shoot it out?”

“I have my reasons. My secrets.”

He gave her half a grin this time. “Don’t we all? You better have that desk clerk give you another room for tonight.”

She put a hand in his hair, then brought it back. “We could always share yours.”

“Lovely thought. But this little man has had a busy day, too.”

He broke away from her to take another glance out the window, and she came along. Rhomer was still down on the awning, sleeping off his drunk and his beating. A plump, little man on a horse came riding along Main Street, in no hurry, a Gladstone bag tucked on the saddle before him.

“Isn’t that Doc Miller?” he asked her.

“That’s him. Why? You want to get Rhomer a doctor?”

“Not hardly.”

Then he kissed her on the forehead and left her there.

In the moonlight, the expanse of range looked like the aftermath of a terrible battle, the kind where there are few if any survivors, corpses strewn everywhere. Only this was a war where the casualties were cattle.

Harry Gauge and his grizzled foreman Gil Willart stood over one such victim, whose exposed fleshy underside bore telltale blisters.

“Cowpox, all right,” Gauge said with a sigh and a shake of the head. His hat was in his hand as if out of respect for the dead steer.

Willart shot a stream of tobacco sideways into the night. “What now, boss?”

The moon was painting the grotesque landscape an unreal off-white. It was cool out, almost cold, and a breeze made a hoarse, spooky whisper.

Gauge pointed to the east. “Drag these damn carcasses over to the ravine and start a slide and cover ’em up.”

“We can do that. But the men won’t take to handlin’ such dead critters as these.”

He frowned at the foreman. “They’re already wearin’ gloves, ain’t they? They’ll be fine. Tell ’em I’ll pay double wages.”

Willart nodded. “That should do it. What about the main herd?”

Gauge gestured toward the landscape of death. “These were too far gone to follow the graze. The others should last long enough to get themselves sold.”

The foreman nodded, then raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Even our survivors are pretty scrawny, up against the Bar-O herd. As it stands, boss, Cullen’s likely to get the lion’s share of buyer dollars.”

The sheriff gave his man a surly grin. “Not after tonight. Get started cleanin’ up this mess... Hey, Tenny!”

The foreman went off, just as Joe Tenny, a cowboy who had run with Gauge in outlaw days, ambled over. He had shaggy eyebrows that met in the middle and a lazy smile with a droopy, thick mustache shaped like the smile’s upside-down twin.

“Y’know,” Tenny said, “I was thinkin’ maybe we oughter have ourselves a bar-be-cue. Or maybe you got a better idea?”

“Funny feller.” Gauge nodded vaguely north. “Listen, you know those foothills near the Sangre de Cristo?”

That was the mountain range that expanded northward to become the Rockies.

“Ought to,” Tenny said with a nod. “We hid out there enough times.”

Gauge put a hand on his old accomplice’s shoulder. “I want the Bar-O cattle driven into those canyons. Every damn cow. Main herd’s in the valley now, and you can get them over the foothills before daylight.”

Tenny raised his shaggy eyebrows. “That’ll take a heap of men.”

“Not so many,” Gauge said, shaking his head. “Those Bar-O boys won’t be expectin’ us to hit their camp. Anyway, they’re spread thin over there. Hell, you won’t even have to waste bullets killin’ ’em.”

Tenny frowned. “You know, Harry, I ain’t real big on leavin’ witnesses...”

Gauge patted the man’s shoulder. “Joe, in this case it’ll be better if you do. Wear masks or somethin’. But leave them breathe so they can spread word that the Bar-O is finished. What hands Cullen does have left’ll leave like rats off a sinkin’ ship.”

Tenny was thinking that over, his battered hat pushed back on his head. “There’s no water in them draws, y’know.”

“Those cows’ll get by till I need ’em.”

“What do you need ’em for?”

Gauge gave his old friend a big, beautiful grin. “Why, Joe, we’re gonna kill off the rest of our sickly beeves and restock with Bar-O cows.”

Tenny gave up his lazy smile of approval. “I like it. Damn, if I don’t like it a bunch. Always figured offerin’ money to that blind old coot was a waste when we could just take what he had.”

Gauge glanced again at the moon-swept, remains-strewn terrain, where cowhands were dragging dead cattle off through grass riffling with the breeze. “All right, Joe. Get the men you need and move out.”

Tenny nodded and went off to do that while his boss stayed back to watch cowhands haul dead cattle by their hooves to the nearby ravine. It was a bizarre-looking process and it took a while. Gauge didn’t supervise — he left that to foreman Willart.

They were just starting to get a slide going, to cover up the dead cows, when Gauge collected his horse and started back to town, as his underlings continued his dirty work. He felt very much a cattle baron in the making.

Never realizing that even after all he’d accomplished, he was still no more than the leader of an outlaw gang.

On the Cullen range, a camp of sleeping cowhands were kicked awake by armed, masked gunmen. Without a word, in the glow of a small fire, the invaders gestured with weapons toward the small remuda, and without having to be told, the cowhands walked to their horses and rode off into night, heads hanging, while behind them the herd that had been their responsibility was being driven off by more armed men on horseback.

Two of the Cullen cowhands paused atop a bluff, reins pulled back, and looked down as their herd disappeared off toward Gauge range.

“I guess that’s the end of the Bar-O,” one said.

“I guess so,” the other said. “Never had a chance, did we?”

“Never a chance in hell.”

And they rode away — away from the herd, away from Cullen land, on their way to somewhere else.

Dr. Miller had his latest patient — the corpse of Cyrus Swenson — on his examination table in his simple surgery. His office and living quarters were on the second floor of the brick building that housed the bank.

The stubby, rotund physician — his rumpled suit looking as exhausted as he felt — had just gotten back to town after delivering the latest Haywood baby when rancher Burl Owen rolled up in a wagon with Swenson laid out in back of it.

Sometimes it seemed those were his only patients here in Trinidad — newborn babies and freshly-made corpses.

Burl had been irritable as hell, after being shuffled around from some deputies at the jailhouse who didn’t want anything to do with the corpse, and undertaker Perkins who had insisted that the first stop for the deceased be the doctor’s office for a death’s certificate.

Luckily, somebody had come along to help the doctor cart the body up to his office by way of the outside wooden stairway in the alley. The volunteer was, of all people, the stranger who’d shot four of his other most recent patients.

Now the late Swenson was on the table, on his side, so that the doctor could get a look at what appeared to be the fatal wound.

“You figure this is a murder,” the doc said to his new helper.

“That’s how I figure it.”

Everybody thought they knew better than their doctor.

“Mister,” Doc Miller said, “nobody in this town or anywhere else would be bothered murdering Old Swenson.”

“So I hear. But wasn’t there bad blood between him and the sheriff?”

The doctor nodded. “Bad blood that got resolved by Swenson selling Harry Gauge that little spread of his, finally.”

The doc leaned in for a closer look at the wound, black and clotted now. Deep. Oval-shaped. Hard damn blow.

The stranger said, “I imagine you’ve seen your share of wounds like that before.”

“Quite often. Some were caused accidentally.”

“Not most?”

The doc shrugged, raised both white eyebrows. “Most were from a gun-butt blow from behind.”

“This could be that?”

“That, or he fell on some farm implement.”

“Out by the relay station?”

“Or an odd-shaped rock. Still. That indentation does look like a gun butt...”

“Enough for you to change your diagnosis?”

“This could be murder, yes... but... hell.”

“What is it, Doctor?”

“Stand back a bit, would you, son?”

The corpse’s shirt had got untucked near the bottom, giving the doctor a troubling glimpse of something. He moved the body onto its back. Pulled up the shirt. Took a close look at the man’s belly, where it was broken out in red pustules.

The doc said, “Help me with his trousers... but don’t touch him.”

The stranger did as he was told.

The doctor had a look at the man’s legs, which bore the same red blisters. Quickly he took a sheet and covered up the body.

More to himself than his guest, the doc said, “This corpse needs to be buried immediately.” Then meeting the stranger’s eyes, he said, “Perhaps you might help. You’d be performing a service. You could help avoid a panic.”

“What kind of panic?”

“You ever see these signs before, son?” The doctor lifted the sheet, indicated the stomach. “Step closer. Don’t touch.”

“Don’t worry.” The stranger’s eyes widened. “My God — is that... cowpox?”

The doctor covered his patient up again. “Exactly right. And it can wipe out a town like this and leave nothing but the grass... and I’m guessing that’s why Old Swenson here got himself killed. Somebody didn’t want him spreading this foul thing.”

But the stranger was shaking his head. “That’s not why, Doc.”

Almost amused, the doctor said, “You have your own diagnosis, do you?”

“Not exactly. And my suggested treatment is the same as yours — bury him.”

“You’re willing to help? Not afraid of infection?”

“I’ll follow your lead, Doc, as to precautions.” The stranger’s expression was grave. “But the reason Old Swenson was killed is even worse than you think.”