The Legend of Caleb York

Chapter fifteen

York, kneeling at the side of the battered Lola, looked up at the crazed, grinning face of the big blond sheriff, who stood poised just inside the doors with a squirming Willa blocking much of him, his left hand holding on to a shoulder of hers, his right pressing the snout of that. 44 into the side of her throat.

York’s eyes went to Willa’s.

She was terrified, breathing hard, but she did not look otherwise harmed — her straw-yellow hair, in a ponytail earlier, was disarrayed and down brushing her shoulders now, and there was a smudge or bruise on a cheek. So Gauge hadn’t roughed her up much.

York would kill him, anyway.

The bug-eyed Maxwell was getting up, retrieving his gun, saying, “That’s what I call the nick of time, Harry.” Then he positioned himself near the end of the bar and trained his revolver on York, who was still bending down near the shattered dance-hall queen.

The blind old man on the floor had finally abandoned his dead helper, pushing the corpse off to one side; though with his shot-up leg, Cullen himself wasn’t going anywhere.

Rather pitifully, the old man demanded, “What the hell is going on, Gauge? What the hell are you up to?”

York said, in a near-soothing voice, “He’s got your daughter, Mr. Cullen. She’s his prisoner. Try to stay calm. I’ll handle it.”

That made Gauge laugh. “Will you now? Big words.”

“Papa,” Willa called, “I’m all right!”

Of course, she sounded anything but.

Moving her a few steps into the dreary space, Gauge glanced at his dead deputy and said, “I see you took care of Rhomer for me, stranger. Well, poor Vint was what you call a weak link — probably best I’m rid of the fool.”

“You’re welcome,” York said.

Gauge grunted a laugh. “All right, stranger... just toss that gun away from you — easy does it. If it hits the floor and fires, I’ll fire, too.”

York did as he was told, the weapon skittering past chairs under a table, well out of reach now.

Gauge nodded toward the twelve-gauge on the floor. “Now that shotgun? Kick it over that way, too, gentle. Where nobody can get hurt with it. No tricks, now.”

This York also did, though the bigger weapon went a shorter distance, maybe four feet.

Then he began to get to his feet.

But Gauge shook his head and said, “No, no, no, stay right down there. You’re just fine right where you are.” He gave Maxwell a quick look. “Go over and search him. Careful — he’s got a knife on him. Slit a bunch of throats outside.” He laughed again. “Didn’t know you had it in you, dude.”

“I’d rather it was in you,” York said pleasantly.

Maxwell went over and patted York down, finding the Bowie knife in a sheath stuck into his pants in back. The big-bladed weapon got tossed off under the tables, as well. Gauge’s man found shotgun shells in York’s pockets, and these Maxwell also tossed.

The flunky glanced back to Gauge for further orders.

Gauge — holding on to the girl, who was squirming even more now, or, anyway, as much as she dared with the cold nose of a gun in her neck — said, “Good job, Maxwell. Now soften him up some. Just for fun. Maybe start by showin’ him how you took care of ol’ Swenson.”

Maxwell grinned and pistol-whipped York, who fell onto his side, the inside of his head exploding with pain, eyes squeezed shut so as not to miss any of the Fourth of July fireworks in his skull.

But he wasn’t unconscious, and was all too aware that Willa was pulling forward and screaming, “No!... Please don’t! Leave him alone!”

Above him, Maxwell was saying, “This S.O.B.’s got a harder head than old Swenson.”

York’s eyes made themselves open and he saw Willa really fighting now, much more than squirming, really pulling away from Gauge, who finally just shoved her off him.

“Shut up!” Gauge growled at her. “Get over there!”

She fell, sliding on the floor and almost bumping into her father, who sensed her presence, reaching for her, taking her in his arms.

But she was looking toward the groggy York, hair at the back of his head damp with blood, and started scrambling toward him.

“Willa,” her father said, grabbing her by an arm, stopping her with considerable force for his age and condition, saying, “stay away from him!”

“Let me go, Papa! Let me go!”

But he didn’t, and York lifted his head — a feat no harder than clearing a boulder from a mountain path — and managed to raise a hand and weakly gesture for her to stay back. Stay back.

She did, chin crinkling, trembling all over, but not crying. Not letting herself do it. Warmth for her spread through York, part of it pride, part something else.

With another awful grin splitting his face, Gauge said to Cullen, “You are showin’ some damn good sense, old man. Might be that we can do some business, after all.”

Maxwell was working York over, fists to the body, occasional kicks to the side and legs — more of that “softening up” his boss had requested.

York’s head would not stop spinning. He was fighting to retain consciousness.

“That’s enough!” Gauge yelled. “Hell, man! Leave somethin’ for me.”

His head throbbing with pain, his breath ragged and heavy, York sat on the floor, in loose Indian style, Lola behind him a ways and to his right. He could hear her harsh, irregular breathing, whimpering mixed in.

Maxwell, spurs jangling, grinned cockily as he went over to Gauge’s side. Then his expression turned curious. “Boss, what about that stage? I thought you went off to catch up with it.”

Gauge waved that off. “It’ll be here in half an hour or so. Gives us time to get things ready.”

“Get ready how, boss?”

Gauge ignored the question, instead nodding over to where the old man and his daughter sat side by side on the floor, the corpse of their fallen ranch hand just behind them now.

“Before I could get to the stage,” Gauge said, gesturing, “I ran into this little lady. Figured bringin’ her back here was the thing to do.”

“It surely was, Harry. And are you damn lucky you did!”

“Yeah?”

Maxwell nodded vigorously. “Turns out her old man over there signed the herd, hell, the whole damn spread over to this little girl of his. That’s why.” He pointed toward Willa. “She’s the only one you can get a signed paper from. All the old man’s good for is convincin’ her to sign.”

Gauge was grinning down at the Cullens. “Maxwell, where brains is concerned, you are a real step up from our late compadre Vint.”

Pleased with himself, Maxwell stroked his droopy, dark mustache. “Mighty nice of you to say, boss. Think maybe with Rhomer gone, you might consider takin’ on a new partner...?”

“Well, you’re my number two man today.”

That put a big smile on Maxwell’s face, the man not putting together that only the two of them were still standing.

Gun in hand, Gauge ambled nearer to Willa and her father, who remained huddled on the floor against the shoved-askew table and chairs. He loomed over them.

“Of course, when it comes to partners,” Gauge said, with a little smile, “I think Miss Cullen here knows who I really have in mind.”

Chin up, eyes cold, she said, “I won’t sign a thing over to you. Not a damned thing.”

“Such foul language from so sweet a girl. Sure about that, sugar?” He aimed his .44 past her, at her papa’s head. “I suppose, in a way, it’s kind of a blessin’ that your daddy won’t be able to see it comin’...”

She hugged her father protectively, trying to shield his body with hers.

Gauge chuckled, then sat down at the table that father and daughter were leaned against. He set down his. 44 close to him and, from an inside pocket of his vest, brought out a paper and a pencil.

“I’d prefer ink,” Gauge said, slightly disappointed. “And eventually we’ll go to the bank and put together some real pretty documents. For now, though, this’ll just have to do... Come on, honey. Sit with me.”

He gestured to the chair beside him.

Willa scowled up at him, but her father nodded to her and, her face ashen, she rose and took the chair at the table. Gauge pushed the document and the writing implement toward her.

“Go ahead,” he said, friendly, reasonable. “Read it over. You’ll see I’ve arranged for you to keep the house. I won’t move in there till you ask me to.”

She looked at him, agape. “And you really think I will?”

“That blind old man on the floor? He was a real man, once upon a time. The kind of hard, ruthless frontier sort that can carve something out of nothing.” Gauge shrugged. “Not too many of ’em left these days, and, well, hell, he’s well past it.”

Her eyes were wild. “If you think after forcing me to sign this, I would ever—”

“I think when this husk of a man that your father has turned into finally dies... and I won’t harm a white hair on his head, if you sign this... you’ll look around and see what I’ve done. What I’ve accomplished. You’ll want your land back. Your life back. And I will be waitin’, Willa... to give it to you.”

She shook her head, astounded by him. “You really think anybody would believe I signed this of my own free will?”

“Well, first of all, you won’t say otherwise. Because if you do, this old man will die hard and long and slow. I would imagine, in his time, he’s done things to deserve that kind of death. So I won’t feel too bad about it.”

Her eyebrows climbed. “Can you really believe what you’re saying?”

His manner became matter-of-fact. “Everyone’s gonna believe what I’m sayin’. Look around, Miss Willa. See poor old Deputy Rhomer over there? He’s gonna take the blame for all the bad things that happened today. He done me a favor, really, ’cause it’s gonna look better this way.”

“Better.”

“Oh yes. See, he tried to take it all, take your herd and everything... even Lola over there. Look at her. She used to be a real beauty. An animal, that Rhomer.”

Maxwell said, “I can be a witness, boss. I’ll say it any way you want it.”

The mustached gunhand was over by the bar, where he was training a revolver on the groggy man down at the other end. York remained slumped and reeling on the floor with Lola’s barely conscious form not far away.

Gauge said, “I appreciate that, Maxwell. May come in handy. You could say how I arrived just in time to save the necks of our good friends, the Cullens here. I mean, after all — I am the sheriff.”

Willa was shaking her head, amazed at Gauge’s audacity. “And you think I will back up your story?”

“I would prefer it that you did.” He picked up the .44 and aimed it down at her father on the floor. “But if need be, I will tell a sadder story — how I didn’t get here till after Rhomer killed your daddy, and you.”

“You... you wouldn’t have your signature.”

“Well, that’s right. You’d both be dead. I’d have to go ridin’ over to your ranch and find some examples of how you sign your name, and put somethin’ like it on this document. You think I can’t convince the Trinidad bank to back me up?”

She sat, frowned, mulling it.

Then she said, “And you’ll let us go? You’ll leave my father and me be? We’ll have our house?”

He was nodding. “You got Harry Gauge’s word on that. All I want is that herd. And I need it now. Right now.”

She grabbed the pencil and signed the paper, and pushed them both back at him.

York was sitting up.

He said, “You shouldn’t have done that, Willa.”

Gauge, still seated, swung the .44 and its long barrel his prisoner’s way.

Over by the bar, Maxwell, eyes glittering, said, “Go on and kill him, Harry! Blow his brains and then it’ll be just you and me.”

Gauge thought about that, then glanced at his new number two. “You know, I don’t think so. I think I have all the partners I need right now.”

The bug eyes widened even more. “Well, I just thought...”

“See, really, that’s what I liked about Rhomer. He didn’t think. He left me to do the thinkin’. And what I think right now is, you and Rhomer and all these other former outlaws scattered around these premises, dead, mostly thanks to our friend over here, well... With where I plan to go in my life, havin’ such unsavory associates don’t put me in an at all favorable light.”

“Boss...”

“And I don’t really need any witnesses to back me up, since who’s to say somebody’s story might not change, if it was to that witness’s advantage? You follow me, Maxwell? Thinker that you are?”

“What are you sayin’, Harry?”

“I’m sayin’ goodbye, Maxwell.”

And he shot him in the head.

The man was dead before his surprised expression could change. Gun tumbling from dead fingers, he slid down the side of the bar and sat on the floor, head hanging.

The room reverberated with the blast of the .44, gunsmoke drifting, leaving its scorched scent behind.

“You’re out of your mind,” Willa said to Gauge, horrified. “You said you’d let us go!”

“Hell, that didn’t apply to him.” Gauge pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “Mister! Can you stand? I want you standing. Because I want to see you fall.”

York struggled to his feet. When he got to them, he felt unsteady, and fought to maintain his balance, still woozy from the pistol-whipping.

“She’s right, Gauge,” York said.

“Is she? About what?”

“You are out of your mind.”

Gauge ambled from the table to a position more directly facing the prisoner.

“Maybe I am,” Gauge said. “Maybe not. Matter of opinion. But what are you besides mad, mister, comin’ to Trinidad, tryin’ to buck Harry Gauge?”

“I told you. I was just passing through.”

“Sure you were.” He used the gun for a pointing finger. “Listen, before I kill you, just answer me this... I know you’re not Banion. Banion’s dead, that’s a fact. So since you’re not Banion... just who the hell are you?”

“Caleb York.”

Willa’s eyes widened, then immediately narrowed, as if she weren’t sure she heard right. Just beside her on the floor, her father was straightening, saying, “What... what did he say?”

She whispered, “I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing, Papa.”

“You’re Caleb York,” Gauge said.

“That’s right.”

“No, no — you’re the crazy one. Banion killed Caleb York. It’s well-known. Established.”

York shook his head, just a little — more would have hurt too much. “Banion killed the wrong man,” he said. “And he used a shotgun, and that... confused the issue.”

Gauge thought about it. “All right... so you’re Caleb York. Say I buy that. Why play dead?”

York sighed. “Because I got tired of shooting kids trying to take me. Trying to be me. Because...” He gestured to the carnage. “Because I wanted to be finished with this kind of thing.”

Gauge grinned and laughed. “Oh, well, Caleb — mind I call you ‘Caleb’? Caleb, you’ll be gettin’ your wish soon enough.”

Cullen was muttering to himself, “Caleb York... all this time... Caleb York...”

Willa spoke up, saying, “Gauge, you wouldn’t have the guts to face Caleb York down if you both had guns.”

Without looking at her, Gauge said, “It’s not a question of guts, Miss Willa. It’s a matter of brains. You don’t want a stupid fool like Rhomer over there as your partner, do you?”

York said, “Sorry, Willa. He’s just fine with shooting me down in cold blood.”

Gauge nodded slowly. “You understand me, at least, Caleb. Killers under the skin that we are.”

“Harry...”

The ragged, harsh, pain-racked voice belonged to Lola, from the floor where she looked almost as much a corpse as Rhomer and Maxwell. Worse than them, really, beaten and battered.

It was as if a ghost had spoken.

“Are you still alive?” he asked her coldly.

“We... we were something once, Harry,” she said.

“Your opinion in this don’t interest me, Lola. Stay out of it.”

“Harry!” It was a desperate cry. “This man... this Caleb York... he was good to me. Like you never were.”

Gauge grunted a laugh. Gun still pointed at York, he said, “You know, I’ll give you this much, Caleb. You sure do make an impression on the ladies. They all go for you, in a big way... even when they’re dyin’.”

“Harry,” she said. “Let me kiss him goodbye... Would that kill you?... Let me die... with a kiss from somebody... who’s a real man.”

Gauge started to laugh. “Like anybody would want to kiss a face like that! Lips swelled like those! Go ahead, Caleb York. Have a ball!”

He gestured toward the broken woman, in an archly magnanimous fashion.

“You heard the lady, Caleb!” Gauge raved. “Give her a kiss goodbye. It’ll be the last thing either of you do on this earth.”

York looked at Gauge, cocked his head.

“I mean it! Go ahead, I said. My treat!”

York went to her, slowly, and knelt to her, putting his back to Gauge, who stood in the middle of the dingy room with the .44 waiting to fire in his hand.

Lola’s eyes seized York’s, then led him to her right wrist, and limp fingers that hung loose on her right arm, which itself hung loose, as it had been broken early in her humiliation. The cloth on her blouse was ripped, torn, and next to the flesh were exposed two narrow shafts of metal.

Parts of the gambler’s trick sleeve rig that held the derringer that Lola, injured badly right away, had never been able to get to.

He leaned in to kiss her puffy lips, which he did ever so gently.

Then she smiled, life leaping in her eyes, as she whispered, “Hurry. I want to see it.”

Impatient now, Gauge said, “That’s enough! That’s enough. You’re makin’ me sick.”

York, the little gun palmed in his right hand, stood.

“Thanks for that, Harry,” he said.

“My pleasure, Caleb.”

York fired two .22 slugs into Gauge’s chest.

The big man staggered, as if suddenly drunk, the .44 tumbling from his fingers.

“Those were for Lola,” York said.

Then he went over and picked up the shotgun and aimed its barrels at Gauge.

“And these,” he said, “are for me.”

He emptied both into Gauge, who was blown back through the batwing doors and outside, his sudden exit leaving the doors swinging.

“Goodbye, Harry,” Lola said.

York looked over at her. A mess of a woman. So beautiful.

“Goodbye, Caleb York.”

Her eyes closed and breath left her.

Then Willa was there and they embraced.

In a few moments, York picked up the piece of paper Willa had signed, gave it to her, and they went out, his arm around her shoulders, her arm around his waist.

Harry Gauge was on his back with two overlapping bloody black steaming holes in his belly, as he stared up at the sky with an expression as stupid as anything Vint Rhomer ever mustered.

Willa tore up the signed paper and let the pieces drift like snow down onto the dead sheriff of Trinidad County.

“I told you I was just passing through,” York said, smiling down at her.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

He had no answer. Just looked up at the sky.

Mid-afternoon now. Something drew his attention to a dust cloud in the distance.

He said, “Stage is coming. You’ll be all right now.”

Inside the drab way station, on a floor that had been squalid even before corpses cluttered it, sat an old man, no longer slouching, smiling now. He could see nothing, but he missed no sound — not the roll and rattle of an approaching stage, not the words exchanged between his daughter and a real man.

To nobody but himself, George Cullen said, “Everything’s going to be all right now.”