“Tulley, how are you with a handgun?”
“Slow as molasses, Sheriff, but I know which end to point. Scattergun is more to my temperament.”
York waved a vague hand. “There are three in the gun rack. Pick any one you like.”
Tulley frowned in confusion. “Right generous, even for Caleb York. But it ain’t my birthday. Truth be told, I don’t even know when my birthday is.”
York shrugged. “Christmas is just a few months off. Call it an early present. Here’s another...”
He opened a desk drawer and fished around and came back with a badge that said DEPUTY. Like a bet he was making, he shoved it across the desk at the old boy, whose eyes widened. Tulley reached for it, but his fingers merely hovered, as if the badge were a hot stove.
“Merry Christmas, Tulley. Or would you rather keep shoveling horse manure over at the livery?”
“Oh, I had my fill of that, Sheriff. Even only workin’ them half days.”
Those added up to thirty hours a week.
“You’re making, what, Tulley? Three dollars a week?”
“In that there neighborhood.”
“I’ll tell the Citizens Committee I require a deputy and ask for forty a month. How does that neighborhood sound?”
Tulley was beaming. “Like I died and went to heaven. Only I don’t suppose you need a scattergun up there.” He reached for the badge and pinned it on the pink of his BVD top.
As he was doing that, though, his expression dropped.
“Are you sure about this, Sheriff? You know half of this town sees me as a joke, and the other don’t see me a’tall.”
“With that badge, Tulley — assuming you stay on the wagon — they’ll respect you, all right.”
“What if... what if they don’t?”
“That’s what the scattergun is for.”
York reached in his pocket and dug out a quarter eagle, then tossed it on the desk, where it rang and shuddered before settling down.
“Get yourself a real shirt or two, Tulley, over at the mercantile. You’ll get took more serious than in that underwear top.”
Tulley grinned and snatched up the coin. For a reformed desert rat, he had a surprising number of teeth. “When do I start?”
“Right now.”
York unlocked his right-hand bottom drawer and got out his gun belt. He stood and buckled it on, positioning the .44 butt at pants pocket level, then cinched the holster tie.
“You know that expression, Tulley — ‘hold down the fort’? Well, this is the fort. Hold it down till I get back.”
“Will do,” Tulley said, already on his feet and over at the weapons rack, selecting a shotgun.
At the door, York paused to look back and say, “Get some coffee going and unlock a cell door. Key ring’s on the wall, there.”
“We takin’ on some new lodgers?”
“Might.”
The night had grown cooler, and the street was empty, everybody home now after the gathering at the Grange. The only exceptions were the Victory, spilling its light and gaiety into the street some ways down, and of course the Cantina de Toro Rojo, over at the dead end of the ragtag collection of a dozen or so low-slung adobe-brick buildings opposite the sheriff’s office and jail.
During the day, the modest barrio was that peculiar south-of-the-border mix of sleepy and lively, people in loose clothing seeming in no hurry but always caught up in some activity, chickens wandering the dusty space between the facing adobes, dogs barking and scrounging. At night, the animals were sleeping, the fowls penned up, the dogs finding doorways to curl up in, the only human inhabitant in sight a drowsy old man skirting a broken-down cart to get to an outhouse.
Down at the end of this shabby lane of yellow hovels was a two-story exception, grand by way of comparison, windows glowing yellow on the first floor, flickering candlelight in some second-floor windows. Adobe, like its neighbors, but more sturdy-looking, its architecture not so haphazard, the structure might have been a castle with peasants at its feet, or the home of the only rich man in town, or perhaps a military fortress.
This was a fortress, all right, but a fortress of sin, with big faded-red lettering above an arched doorless door saying CANTINA DE TORO ROJO. Right now the town gunsmith, in the same suit he wore to church, was coming out beneath those weather-worn letters; he was on the arm of a slender señorita with enough paint on her almost-pretty face to make her look older than she was. Old as fourteen, maybe.
The pair went up an exposed wooden staircase along the right side of the building, to the second floor — there was no access from the restaurant and bar below. Laughter and talk leached out the place, accompanied by guitar. Half-a-dozen horses stood at the leather-glazed hitch rail, tails twitching away flies. York checked for a Morgan horse with a BC brand.
Nope.
He entered the cantina, boots crunching the straw on the floor. The joint was doing a pretty fair weeknight business. The smell of refried beans hung heavy, but nobody was eating. This time of evening, the Red Bull was all about drinking and maybe going outside and upstairs with a señorita. A little guy in a sombrero too big for him sat in a corner smoking an ill-made cigarette as he played an approximation of flamenco guitar on a cheap-looking instrument.
The bartender — who was also the owner — was fat and sweaty, his round head striped with thinning black hair, his eyes hooded, his mustache droopy, his white shirt damp, his black string tie limp, his unhappiness about this new arrival unmistakable; he was pouring somebody, maybe himself, a shot of tequila.
The walls had been painted a redundant yellow a long time ago, with touches of bright colors that had faded to pastels. One wall had a surprisingly well-done mural of a bullfight, also faded. No stools at the bar, just a scattering of mismatched tables and chairs, as if assembled from furnishings that fell off wagon trains rolling through.
A few areas were partitioned off with latticework, and a handful of gringo men from town were mixed in with Mexican cowboys who worked spreads in the area, including the Cullen ranch — such vaqueros were among the best hands in the territory.
Pruitt and Hoake, the cowboys with the stagecoach-robbery pedigree, were playing cards with two of the Mexican ranch hands. Stud poker. Coins and a few bills littered the table. Two señoritas in their twenties, with eyes in their forties, displayed a lot of dark hair, white teeth, and bosoms overflowing peasant blouses, their full black skirts with petticoats circled with occasional stripes of color — red, green, yellow, white.
The Mexicans were real cowboys, on the small side, which was the standard, since ranchers didn’t like putting a strain on their horses. Tow-haired Pruitt and especially dark-haired Hoake were wrong for the job, Pruitt tall and sturdy, Hoake just shy of fat.
Both men wore denims, knotted neck kerchiefs and work shirts, as if that would fool anybody. The Colt .45s in their oiled leather holsters, tie-downs loose, told a different story. The tall half of the pair had a goatee, while the almost fat one’s pie-pan face made a home for a mustache as droopy and black as the bartender’s.
York went to the bar where that shot of tequila was waiting for somebody to drink it. So he did. The stuff went down with a nice burn, but tasted like it came into the world this afternoon, all cactus and no wood.
“Sheriff,” the bartender said softly, “you know we like be your good neighbor.”